‘That’s a Rubbaboo’

• Published in: Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages
• Main Author: Mishler, Craig
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: John Benjamins Publishing Company 2008
• Subjects: Fort McPherson; Yukon; Chipewyan; Gwich’in; South Slavey; Subarctic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.23.2.04mis; http://www.jbe-platform.com/deliver/fulltext/jpcl.23.2.04mis.pdf

A contact language called Broken Slavey or Slavey Jargon flourished among the Gwich’in in the nineteenth century. Slavey Jargon absorbed elements of at least five source languages: French, Gwich’in, South Slavey (Dene-Tha’), Chipewyan, and English. Analyzing historical sources and recorded ethnographic texts from fluent speakers of Gwich’in, I offer an explanation of how the lexicon and grammar of this kaleidoscopic language converged regionally in the small subarctic communities of Fort McPherson, La Pierre’s House, and Fort Yukon. I also conclude that there is no internal textual evidence that Slavey Jargon was used as a trading pidgin. The polyglot form of most Slavey Jargon texts represents a curious inseam of linguistic democracy, suggesting that a measure of social equality was negotiated between the speakers of its diverse component tongues.