Slavey Jargon (also Broken Slavey , Broken Slavé, Broken Slave, Broken Slavee, and le Jargon esclave ) was a trade language used by Indigenous peoples and newcomers in the Yukon area (for example, in around Liard River and in the Mackenzie River district) in the 19th century.
23-553: Broken Slavey is based primarily on the Slavey language with elements from French , Cree , 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
46-508: A diminished form until his death in 1983. 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
69-448: 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. The native languages of speakers who used Slavey Jargon were Dene Suline, French, Gwich'in, Inuktitut , 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
92-535: A separate phoneme. Prenasalized stops /ᵐb, ⁿd/ may appear in Slavey proper. The most pronounced difference is however the realization of a series of consonants that varies greatly in their place of articulation: In Slavey proper, these are dental affricates and fricatives; comparative Athabaskan work reveals this to be the oldest sound value. Mountain has labials, with the voiceless stop coinciding with pre-existing /p/ . Bearlake has labialized velars, but has lenited
115-524: A trade jargon" (p. 277). 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. Slavey language Slavey ( / ˈ s l eɪ v i / ; also Slave , Slavé )
138-478: A very specific morpheme order in the verb in which the stem must come last. The morpheme order is shown in the following chart. A Slavey verb must minimally have positions 13 and 14 to be proper. Here are some examples: Slavey marks gender by means of prefixation on the verb theme. There are three different genders, one of which is unmarked; the other two are marked by prefixes [go-] and [de-] . However, only certain verb themes allow gender prefixes. [go-]
161-519: 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. The languages are primarily written using a modified Latin script , with some using Canadian Aboriginal syllabics . In their own languages, these languages are referred to as: Sahtúgot’įné Yatı̨́ (spoken by
184-884: Is given in Alexander Mackenzie 's journal of his voyage down the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean in 1789. Although there are close interrelationships among the Dene communities, they are culturally and linguistically distinct. The K’ahsho Got’ine (Hare(skin) Dene) are now centred in Fort Good Hope and Colville Lake. The Shita Got’ine (Mountain Dene) have joined with the K’áálǫ Got’ine (Willow Lake Dene) (they lived around K’áálô Tué – ″Willow Lake″, today known as Brackett Lake) in
207-510: Is marked with an acute accent, and low tone is unmarked. Tones are both lexical and grammatical. Lexical: /ɡáh/ 'along' vs. /ɡàh/ 'rabbit' Slavey morphemes have underlying syllable structures in the stems: CV, CVC, CVnC, V, and VC. The prefixes of the stem occur as Cv, CVC, VC, CV, and C. Slavey alphabet (1973) Tone is indicated with an acute accent and the ogonek indicates nasalization. North Slavey alphabet South Slavey alphabet Slavey, like many Athabascan languages, has
230-492: Is used for nouns which mark location in either time or space. Some examples of these areal nouns are house (ko̜̒e̒), land (de̒h), river (deh), and winder (xay). The gender pronoun can be a direct object, an oblique object or a possessor. kú̜e̒ house go detl’e̒h 3SG .paints.area kú̜e̒ go detl’e̒h house 3SG.paints.area 'S/he is painting the house.' ko̜̒e̒ house go cha area.in shelter ko̜̒e̒ go cha {} house area.in shelter 'in
253-661: The Mackenzie Mountains of the Canadian territory of Northwest Territories . The dialect has around 800 speakers. Northern Slavey is an amalgamation of three separate dialects : South Slavey ( ᑌᓀ ᒐ Dené Dháh , Dene Yatıé or Dene Zhatıé ) is spoken by the Slavey people, who were also known as Dehghaot'ine, Deh Cho, Etchareottine - "People Dwelling in the Shelter", in the region of Great Slave Lake , upper Mackenzie River ( Deh Cho - "Big River") and its drainage, in
SECTION 10
#1732851372212276-885: The Sahtu Dene ), K’ashógot’įne Goxedǝ́ (the Hare Dene dialect) and Shíhgot’įne Yatı̨́ (the Mountain dialect) in the North, and Dené Dháh (primarily by the Dene Tha' in Alberta ), Dene Yatıé or Dene Zhatıé in the South. North Slavey is spoken by the Sahtu (North Slavey) people in the Mackenzie District along the middle Mackenzie River from Tulita (Fort Norman) north, around Great Bear Lake , and in
299-679: The Sahtu Region of the NWT. The Dene of the region are represented by the Sahtu Dene Council who, in 1993, signed the Sahtu Dene and Metis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement . Sahtú groups include the Hare Dene (K'ahsho Got'ine District, today: Colville Lake and Fort Good Hope), Bear Lake Dene (Déline District), and Mountain Dene (Tulit'a District). They call themselves also Ɂehdzo Got’ı̨ne (Trap People). An early description of Sahtú cultures
322-525: The District of Mackenzie, northeast Alberta , and northwest British Columbia . Some communities are bilingual, with the children learning Slavey at home and English when they enter school. Still other communities are monolingual in Slavey The dialect has around 1,000 speakers. Alternative names: Slavi, Slave, Dené, Mackenzian The division of Slavey dialects is based largely on the way each one pronounces
345-682: The Sahtú Dene experienced great loss during Canada's participation in the Manhattan Project . The need for radioactive materials, (such as radium ), to create atomic weapons was met with the deposits mined from the Eldorado Mine at Port Radium on Great Bear Lake. The Sahtú Dene were hired to transport the ore containing radium from the Northwest Territories to be processed in Ontario or
368-732: The United States. Since much of the uranium that existed in Europe was under Nazi control, the radium deposits in Canada were vital to the creation of the first atomic bombs. Unaware of the radiation's effects, the Sahtú Dene used cloth sacks to transport the ore. The number of deaths caused by radiation is disputed by the Government of Canada. The government report says that the people of Deline did not handle yellowcake but sulfur powder. The level of exposure to uranium ore without modern safety standards
391-643: The Yukon River. It is a different trade language than the one that was spoken along the Peel (a tributary of the Mackenzie) and Yukon 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. Broken Slavey has recently been documented with
414-610: The community of Tulit’a. The Sahtúot’ine (Sahtú Dene or Great Bear Lake Dene) are named after Sahtú/Great Bear Lake, and are based in Deline. Métis people, descendants of relationships established between Dene people and fur traders, reside in all five communities of the region. The Hareskin Dene called themselves K'a so Got’ine/Katoo Got’ine ("big willow people") or K’ahsho Got’ine/K'áshot’ Got’ine (″big-arrowhead-people″, mistranslated as Hareskin people, an English rendering of Gahwié Got’ine – ″Rabbit(skin) People″). The Déline community of
437-530: The language also contained Dene Suline influences. Later sources have ignored the earlier accounts and assumed that Slavey Jargon is merely French vocabulary ( loanwords ) used in northern Athabascan languages . Michael Krauss has suggested that French loanwords in Athabascan languages may have been borrowed via Broken Slavey. Broken Slavey was spoken along the Athabasca River, Mackenzie River, and sections of
460-447: 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
483-416: The old Proto-Athapaskan sounds *dz *ts *ts’ *s and *z. The consonant inventories in the dialects of Slavey differ considerably. The table above lists the 30 consonants common to most or all varieties. Hare lacks aspirated affricates (on red background), which have lenited into fricatives, whereas Mountain lacks /w/ (on blue). In addition, for some speakers of Hare, an alveolar flap /ɾ/ has developed into
SECTION 20
#1732851372212506-721: The shelter of the house' ko̜̒e̒ house go deshįte̒ee area.floor ko̜̒e̒ go deshįte̒ee house area.floor 'floor of the house' Sahtu The Sahtú or North Slavey (historically called Hare or Hareskin Indians ) are a Dene First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group living in the vicinity of Great Bear Lake ( Sahtú , the source of their name), Northwest Territories , Canada. The Sahtú peoples live in Colville Lake , Deline , Fort Good Hope , Norman Wells and Tulita which form
529-533: The voiced fricative to coincide with pre-existing /w/ . The most complicated situation is found in Hare, where the plain stop is a labialized velar, the ejective member is replaced by a /ʔw/ sequence, the aspirated affricate has turned into a fricative /f/ , and both the voiceless and voiced fricatives have been lenited to /w/ . The following phonological and phonetic statements apply to all four dialects of Slavey. Slavey has two tones: In Slavey orthography, high tone
#211788