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, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a language systematically used to make communication possib ...

used by Indigenous peoples and newcomers in the

Yukon Yukon () is a Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada, bordering British Columbia to the south, the Northwest Territories to the east, the Beaufort Sea to the north, and the U.S. state of Alaska to the west. It is Canada’s we ...

area (for example, in around

Liard River The Liard River of the Boreal forest of Canada, 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 sout ...

and in 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, ...

district) in the 19th century.

History

Input languages

Broken Slavey is based primarily on the

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, or nehinaw (, ), are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada, First Nations. They live prim ...

, with minimal aspects of English, however, there is some disagreement among sources. Petitot (1889) states that Slavey Jargon lacks English, as well as Dene Suline (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 a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

s) used in northern

Athabascan languages Athabaskan ( ; also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large branch of the Na-Dene language family of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, ...

. Michael Krauss has suggested that French loanwords in Athabascan languages may have been borrowed via Broken Slavey.

Location

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 Peel or Peeling may refer to: Places Australia * Peel (Western Australia) * Peel, New South Wales * Peel River (New South Wales) Canada * Peel Parish, New Brunswick * Peel, New Brunswick, an unincorporated community in Peel Parish * Pee ...

tributary A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''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 into which they ...

of the Mackenzie) and

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 ( ; , Inuktitut syllabics, syllabics ), also known as Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the North American tree line, including parts of the provinces of ...

, 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. {{Athabaskan languages North America Native-based pidgins and creoles Languages of Canada Indigenous languages of the North American Subarctic Culture of Yukon Languages attested from the 19th century Languages extinct in the 19th century