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On interpreting ‘The Indian Interpreter’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Sarah Grey Thomason
Sarah Grey Thomason
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
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Abstract

This paper addresses the proposition that certain multilingual situations favor certain learning strategies on the part of speakers. The paper takes this proposition as the best approach to explaining the development of pidgin grammars, and exemplifies the general approach by studying the seventeenth-century Delaware-based Traders’ Jargon in its linguistic and social context. The task of the paper, then, is to see if the evidence provided by the Jargon's grammatical structures fits the theory's predictions, and if the evidence for the multilingual situation in which it arose fits as well. The conclusion is that both types of evidence fit well if we assume that the Jargon arose before the period of European settlement, and that this assumption is indeed justified. (Pidgin and creole studies; languages in contact; early European/Indian; North American Indian languages)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , August 1980 , pp. 167 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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