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Handsaw or Harlot? Some problem etymologies in the lexicon of Chinook Jargon*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Barbara P. Harris
Barbara P. Harris*
Affiliation:
University of Victoria
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Extract

Like all pidgins, the lexicon of Chinook Jargon has a number of sources; although the core vocabulary is chiefly of Chinookan and Nootkan origin, English and French have also made large contributions, the percentage of each varying from time to time and from place to place. As Sankoff (1980: 145) points out, “Chinook Jargon remained highly variable throughout its history. Its vocabulary changed radically over time depending on the locus and proportions of its various groups of speakers, and because of the increasing dominance of English over time.” While most of the lexical items in the Jargon have been more or less satisfactorily accounted for, especially those of French and English origin, there remain a score or so of words for which an etymology either is not recorded or is of dubious accuracy. For some time, I have been attempting to track down the origins of as many of these ‘mystery words’ as possible, or to offer more probable sources than those usually cited. In this paper, I deal only with those items whose origin is apparently in or through French.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , Spring 1983 , pp. 25 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1983

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Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper appeared in Working Papers of the Linguistics Circle of the University of Victoria I:2 (June 1981) 218-32. For further suggestions and comments incorporated herein, I should like to thank John Hewson of Memorial University, and two graduate students in Linguistics here in Victoria, Marie-Lucie Tarpent and Emmanuel Hérique.

References

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