Papers of the Fortieth Algonquian Conference: Actes du Congrès des Algonquinistes

Algonquian Trade Languages Revisited

Algonquian Trade Languages Revisited RichaRd a. Rhodes University of California, Berkeley The long-standing conventional wisdom regarding the languages of huntergatherers was that their societies have so little sociological differentiation that there are no grounds for particular hunter-gatherer languages or particular varieties of hunter-gatherer languages to have sufficient prestige to function as trade languages. However, in Rhodes (1982) it was shown that the Algonquian languages around the Great Lakes have been in a sociolinguistic hierarchy with respect to one another for at least the last two centuries. In that hierarchy Cree has the highest status, followed by Ojibwe and Menomini, with Potawatomi as the lowest status language. Based on the evidence of the late twentieth century it was proposed in that paper that the Ottawa dialect of Ojibwe was the trade language in the lower peninsula of Michigan and adjacent regions of southern Ontario since at least the beginning of the nineteenth century. This was shown on the map in Figure 1. However, over the last few years, more documents have come to light which require us to revise some assumptions and enable us to sharpen that view. That there existed an intertribal communication system involving the use of trade languages is indisputable. But there are two points of inaccuracy regarding the identity of the trade languages in use. First, the lingua franca in use in Michigan territory and the adjacent parts of Ontario was not Ottawa and, second, there was more than one trade language in use west of Lake Michigan. On the question of which variety of Ojibwe served as the trade language in the Michigan territory it turns out that the assertion in Rhodes (1982) that it was Ottawa was mistaken. That assertion was made on indirect evidence, but we now have direct historical evidence that the dialect we now call Southwestern Ojibwe was the trade language in Michigan and southern Ontario early in the nineteenth century. The most crucial document attesting this was written in January of 1837 by the Rev. Simon Saenderl, the Redemptorist priest who was successor to Frederic Baraga at L’Arbre 358 359 algonquian TRade languages RevisiTed Croche, to the Rt. Rev. Frederick Rese, the Bishop of Detroit. That letter includes the following: I am at great pains to learn Chippewa, as this is the official and diplomatic language of all Indians and the medium of communication between the various tribes. An educated Indian must speak Chippewa the way a man of breeding in Germany must speak French. (Saenderl 1837) What makes this statement all the more remarkable is that L’Arbre Croche (near modern Harbor Springs, Michigan) had been an Ottawa settlement dating back to at least 1750 (Tanner 1987:61). Given that context, the question needs to be asked whether Saenderl and his contemporaries understood that they were dealing with two different 360 RichaRd a. Rhodes dialects of Ojibwe and whether they used the terms Ottawa and Chippewa to refer to them in the way we would. Fortunately there is a lot of evidence to answer that question in the form of contemporaneous documents produced in Michigan and at L’Arbre Croche. In particular L’Arbre Croche was where the great Ojibwe lexicographer, Frederic Baraga, lived from 1831 to 1835, the period during which he did his early language work. His dictionary (Baraga 1853) and grammar (Baraga 1850) both clearly document the dialect we now call Southwestern Ojibwe (Rhodes and Todd 1981). The dictionary contains a small number of forms labeled Ottawa and Algonquin. So it was clear that he knew that dialectally distinctive forms existed. There were also documents produced at L’Arbre Croche specifically in Ottawa during the 1830s, for example, Jesus o Bimadisiwin [Life of Jesus] (Baraga 1837). These further confirm that the missionaries fully understood the differences between Chippewa (= Southwestern Ojibwe) and Ottawa in a way that is consistent with late twentieth century records of Southwestern Ojibwe (Nichols and Nyholm 1995) and Ottawa (Rhodes 1975, 1982). Examples of lexical differences between the dialects consistently attested in both nineteenth- and twentieth-century sources are given in (1). (1) Baraga’s Baraga’s Baraga’s Dictionary Modern Dictionary Life of Modern Chippewa SW Ojibwe Ottawa Jesus Ottawa Ijinikasowin izhinikaazowin Anosowin anosowin noozwin ‘name’ Ogin ogiin Ogashiwan ogachiwan wgashwan ‘his mother’ Oshtigwân oshtigwaan Ondib ondib wndib ‘his head’ Nibiwa niibiwa Nibina nibina niibna ‘much’ Oma omaa Ajonda ajonda zhonda ‘here’ Notably missing from this...