Eskimo Trade Jargon was an

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...

used by the

Mackenzie River The Mackenzie River (French: ; Slavey language, Slavey: ' èh tʃʰò literally ''big river''; Inuvialuktun: ' uːkpɑk literally ''great river'') is a river in the Canadian Canadian boreal forest, boreal forest and tundra. It forms, ...

Inuit as a trade language with the Athabaskan peoples to their south, such as the Gwich'in (Loucheux). It was reported by Stefánsson (1909), and was apparently distinct from the Athabaskan-based Loucheux Jargon of the same general area. A reduced form of the pidgin was used for ships' trade at Herschel Island off the Arctic coast near Alaska.

History

Eskimo Trade Jargon formed as European whalers interacted with the local Inuit peoples during the 19th century, likely helped by the difficulty europeans had learning Inuit languages. The pidgin went extinct sometime in the 20th century.

Dialects

As Eskimo Trade Pidgin emerged in several locations simultaneously the various areas it emerged in had different dialects of the pidgin. These dialects included: Herschel Island Pidgin, Point Barrow Pidgin, Kotzebue Pidgin, and Point Hope pidgin. While Eskimo Trade Jargon was similar to Slavey Jargon it was different enough that there wasn't enough mutual intelligibility to allow for communication between the two pidgins.

Phonology

Lexicon

The Lexicon of ETJ is very diverse, while most words are from either an Inuit language or English words from other languages are found. Of all the Inuit languages the one with the most vocabulary in ETJ is North Slope dialect of Iñupiaq. Other contributing languages include Hawaiian Pidgin,

Chinook Jargon Chinook Jargon (' or ', also known simply as ''Chinook'' or ''Jargon'') is a language originating as a pidgin language, pidgin trade language in the Pacific Northwest. It spread during the 19th century from the lower Columbia River, first to othe ...

, Danish, Portuguese, and possibly Old Icelandic. Words would often undergo significant changes after being loaned into Eskimo Trade Jargon, making them unrecognizable from their original forms. Examples being the words ''u' ra'' and ''pau from the English words Rice and powder respectively.

Sample Text

References

North America Native-based pidgins and creoles Inuit culture {{pidgincreole-lang-stub Pidgin and creole language stubs Inuit languages Languages of Alaska Languages of the Arctic Languages attested from the 1870s Languages attested from the 19th century Languages extinct in the 20th century Exploration of the Arctic