1897: Inuit pidgin?
A Klondike-era news report, in trying to illustrate “Eskimo” language, unwittingly seems to add to the small known stock of data on Inuit pidgin!
Interesting that hand gestures are mentioned, as they sometimes were in conjunction with Chinook Jargon use.
I figured you folks might take some interest in these occasional snapshots of “other” pidgins of NW North America…
The seal blood, which is the best heat
producer when taken for food, will, of
course, not be used by white men, but it
is the best ‘kow-kow’ the natives have,
and what they prize the most in winter.
“‘Kow kow’ is the generic term for all
food with the Eskimo, and drink as well.
All sorts of white men’s food is in de-
mand among the Eskimos, and they will
trade for limited quantities of it. Their
demand for. and ability to consume
whisky kow-kow is unlimited, and there
is nothing they will not trade for it.
Men, women and children all seem to
have an innate taste for whisky and to-
bacco.“There are no rules for writing or
speaking the dialect of the Eskimo, and
it is very difficult for a white man to ac-
quire much of it. I’ll give you a speci-
men or two, phonetically. ‘Chenook-
took’ means to sleep,the same word long
drawn out and placing the left hand to
the side of the head, with the back of
the hand out, means to die. ‘Shinakook-
took’ means to travel. ‘Moot’ or ‘mute’
means man, as ‘malong mute’ (white
man). ‘Chowick’ means iron, or any im-
plement or thing made of iron. And
now I must say puckmummie chenook
took’ (I go to sleep now.)”
— from “Beyond the Yukon”, in the Grants Pass (OR) Rogue River Courier of December 23, 1897, page 2, columns 4-6
As far as I’m aware, this moot or mute for ‘man’ is actually a suffix, not a word, in Inuit language(s). This is one reason I think we have pidgin Inuit here, not the real McCoy.
Another indicator of pidgin-ness here is the word kow-kow, which experts say originated from the Hawai’ian language, which ultimately got it from Chinese Pidgin English (!), and is known to have been used in “Eskimo pidgin”.
I’m a long way from being an expert in Inuit languages, so I’m hoping that some reader of mine will add, in the Comments below, some evaluation of the other reported expressions.
Some of us do indeed “take interest in these other pidgins” (as well as in CJ, of course).
I checked these vocabulary items with Stefánsson’s record of Herschel Island Pidgin Eskimo. Apart from ‘food/to eat’, ‘iron’, ‘now’ and ‘to sleep/to die’ have matches there.
I couldn’t find ‘man/person’ in my notes, and for ‘1s’ (if that’s indeed what is intended by ), ‘to travel’ and ‘white man’, Stefánsson gives completely different words.
Geographically, this is (if we’re talking about the northernmost parts of Yukon) apparently straddling the boundary between two different Eskimoan languages, so maybe that’s the reason. Or maybe the 1897 observer encountered the other pidgin – there were supposedly two different ones, one for overland contacts with Amerindians, and another maritime one used with Euramericans.
Or else, of course, this isn’t a pidgin at all, but just some ad hoc simplification.
Whatever the case, I really appreciate your sharing these snippets with us.
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I appreciate your reading, checking, and commenting here, Mikael; it’s a mitzvah.
Dave Robertson
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“if that’s indeed what is intended by” was intended to be followed by “took” in angled brackets (maybe those are interpreted as something else by the machinery involved).
But I afterwards realised that “took” was of course explained upstream. The hyphen in one occurrence but not in the other had me fooled.
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