CHILENO: A MARITIME PIDGIN AMONG CALIFORNIA INDIANS

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CHILENO A MARITIME PIDGIN AMONG CALIFORNIA
INDIANS

• Jeff Stevenson and James Lowry

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Sociolinguistic origins

• Typical Spanish contact vernacular which could
  have used in multilingual mission contexts?

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Sociolinguistic origins

• A maritime source that spread pidgin only to
  coastal areas in California?

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Maps
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Sociolinguistic systems

• Early missions influence?
• Timing of contact 19th century Pacific maritime
  traffic second half of 19th century
• Population sizes at time of contact?
• Setting for formation Unclear maritime South
  American sailors and Miwok

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Grammatical features

• Basic word order SVO
• Reduced morphology in the areas of gender
  agreement and personal forms of verbs

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Grammatical features 3rd Pers./Sing

• Third person singular indicative was applied to
  all persons in all tenses and moods

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Grammatical features cont

• Exceptions
• Possible beginning of decreolization?
• Learned as unanalyzed chunks?

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Grammatical features Past tense

• Past tense can be marked by AUX (dar here)
• However, imperfect forms are recorded

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Grammatical features Gender

• Masc is default for all adjectives
• No marking on Adj for gender

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Phonological features

• Segmental inventories glottal stops and long
  vowels.
• Absence of Spanish trills

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Phonological features cont

• Bodega Miwok loan of Spanish phonemes /b, d, f,
  g, r, s/
• Rephonologized Spanish lexical items word
  initial st.

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Composition of the lexicon

• Borrowings from Mexican Spanish (via contact with
  mission culture)
• (Coast) Bodega Miwok indigenous matrix
• Miwok morphology is applied to Spanish lexical
  items (Span trabajar gt táwhal)

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Lexicon cont

• Some lexical items from Mexican Spanish
• Continued use between speakers of different
  native languages for at least two generations

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Conclusion maritime source

• Survival of the pidgin well into the twentieth
  century, long after the collapse of the mission
  system following Mexican independence