Slavey Jargon (also ''Broken Slavey'', ''Broken Slavé, Broken Slave, Broken Slavee,'' and ''le Jargon esclave'') was a
trade language
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
used by Indigenous peoples and newcomers in the
Yukon
Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...
area (for example, in around
Liard River
The Liard River of the North American boreal forest flows through Yukon, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories, Canada. Rising in the Saint Cyr Range of the Pelly Mountains in southeastern Yukon, it flows southeast through British Co ...
Slavey language
Slavey (; also Slave, Slavé) is a group of Athabaskan languages and a dialect continuum spoken amongst the Dene peoples of Canada in the Northwest Territories – or central Denendeh – where it also has official status.French,
Cree
The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...
, with minimal aspects of
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
, however, there is some disagreement among sources. Petitot (1889) states that Slavey Jargon lacks English, as well as
Dene Suline
Chipewyan or Denesuline (ethnonym: ), often simply called Dene, is the language spoken by the Chipewyan people of northwestern Canada. It is categorized as part of the Northern Athabaskan languages, Northern Athabaskan language family. Dënës ...
(Chipewyan), or Gwich'in (Kutchin) elements, which is in contrast to the neighbouring Loucheux Pidgin (or Loucheux Jargon). On the other hand, Dall (1870) states that Slavey Jargon includes English elements and McClellan (1981) states that the language also contained Dene Suline influences. Later sources have ignored the earlier accounts and assumed that Slavey Jargon is merely French vocabulary (
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
s) used in northern
Athabascan languages
Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific C ...
.Michael Krauss has suggested that French loanwords in Athabascan languages may have been borrowed via Broken Slavey.
Where Spoken
Broken Slavey was spoken along the Athabasca River, Mackenzie River, and sections of the Yukon River. It is a different trade language than the one that was spoken along the Peel (a
tributary
A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage ...
of the Mackenzie) and
Yukon
Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...
rivers; this other trade language in the region was called Loucheux Pidgin. Other contemporary sources as well as later sources do not make a distinction between Broken Slavey and Loucheux Pidgin, which may explain their inclusion of English, Dene Suline, and Gwich'in as influences on Broken Slavey.
Documentation
Broken Slavey has recently been documented with a few vocabulary items and phrases and only a little of its grammar and lexicon. However, more information may yet be discovered in archives through missionary records and traders' journals.
Speakers
The native languages of speakers who used Slavey Jargon were Dene Suline, French, Gwich'in,
Inuktitut
Inuktitut (; , syllabics ; from , "person" + , "like", "in the manner of"), also Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces o ...
, and Slavey. One notable speaker of Slavey Jargon was Antoine Hoole, a Hudson's Bay Company translator at Fort Yukon. Documentation has also shown that the language was spoken by a range of fur traders, postmasters, and their wives, sisters, and daughters, who were often of Métis descent.
The Gwich'in apparently stopped speaking the jargon in the early 20th century. The massive influx of English, brought in by the gold rush in 1886, was a "deathblow" for the language and it was no longer in common use by the 1930s. One speaker, Malcolm Sandy Roberts of Circle, Alaska, continued to use it in a diminished form until his death in 1983.
Use
The best written historical documentation of Slavey jargon shows its actual use was for preaching the gospel and for teasing and harassing clergymen, and for interpersonal relationships. The use of Slavey Jargon can be characterized as an innovation employed by speakers in order to meet several linguistic goals, such as introductions, advice, and disputes. Mishler specified, "For all these reasons, Slavey Jargon seems inaccurate to characterize it strictly as a trade jargon" (p. 277).
Structure
The nouns in the language generally consist of English, Chipewyan, and Slavey, whereas the verbs and pronouns are derived from French. Adverbs are typically pulled from Chipewyan and Gwich’in. There is, however, a lot of variation in Slavey Jargon. Gwich’in verbs can be mixed with French nouns or phonemically modified French sentences exist.
References
Bibliography
* Bakker, Peter. (1996). Broken Slavey and Jargon Loucheux: A first exploration. In I. Broch & E. H. Jahr (Eds.), ''Language contact in the Arctic: Northern pidgins and contact languages'' (pp. 317–320). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
* Bakker, Peter; & Grant, Anthony P. (1996). Interethnic communication in Canada, Alaska, and adjacent areas. In S. A. Wurm. P. Mühlhäuser, & D. H. Tryon (Eds.), ''Atlas of languages of intercultural communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas'' (Vol. II.2, pp. ). Trends in linguistics: Documentation (No. 13). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
* Campbell, Lyle. (1997). ''American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America''. New York: Oxford University Press. .
* Dall, William H. (1870). ''Alaska and its resources''. Boston: Lee and Shepard.
*Krauss, Michael. (1983). Slavey Jargon: Diffusion of French in Northern Athabaskan. anuscript Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center.
* McClellan, Catharine. (1981). Intercultural relations and cultural exchange in the Cordillera. In J. Helm (Ed.), ''Handbook of North American Indians: Subarctic'' (Vol. 6, pp. 387–401). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
* Mishler, Craig. (2008). 'That's a Rubbaboo': Slavey Jargon in a Nineteenth Century Subarctic Speech Community. Journal of Creole and Pidgin Languages 23(2): 264-287.
* Petitot, Émile. (1889). ''Quinze ans sous le Cercle Polaire: Mackenzie, Anderson, Youkon''. Paris: E. Dentu.
* Slobodin, Richard. (1981). Kutchin. In J. Helm (Ed.), ''Handbook of North American Indians: Subarctic'' (Vol. 6, pp. 514–532). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
{{Languages of Canada
North America Native-based pidgins and creolesLanguages of CanadaIndigenous languages of the North American SubarcticCulture of YukonLanguages attested from the 19th centuryLanguages extinct in the 19th century