Myths of the Cherokee Extract from the Nineteenth Annual...

(2) Mobilian trade language (page 16): This trade jargon, based upon Choctaw, but borrowing also from all the neighboring dialects and even from the more northern Algonquian languages, was spoken and understood among all the tribes of the Gulf states, probably as far west as Matagorda bay and northward along both banks of the Mississippi to the Algonquian frontier about the entrance of the Ohio. It was called Mobilienne by the French, from Mobile, the great trading center of the Gulf region. Along the Mississippi it was sometimes known also as the Chickasaw trade language, the Chickasaw being a dialect of the Choctaw language proper. Jeffreys, in 1761, compares this jargon in its uses to the lingua franca of the Levant, and it was evidently by the aid of this intertribal medium that De Soto’s interpreter from Tampa bay could converse with all the tribes they met until they reached the Mississippi. Some of the names used by Fontanedo about 1575 for the tribes northward from Appalachee bay seem to be derived from this source, as in later times were the names of the other tribes of the Gulf region, without regard to linguistic affinities, including among others the Taensa, Tunica, Atakapa, and Shetimasha, representing as many different linguistic stocks. In his report upon the southwestern tribes in 1805, Sibley says that the “Mobilian” was spoken in addition to their native languages by all the Indians who had come from the east side of the Mississippi. Among those so using it he names the Alabama, Apalachi, Biloxi, Chactoo, Pacana, Pascagula, Taensa, and Tunica.

Woodward, writing from Louisiana more than fifty years later, says: “There is yet a language the Texas Indians call the Mobilian tongue, that has been the trading language of almost all the tribes that have inhabited the country. I know white men that now speak it. There is a man now living near me that is fifty years of age, raised in Texas, that speaks the language well. It is a mixture of Creek, Choctaw, Chickasay, Netches [Natchez], and Apelash [Apalachi]”—Reminiscences, 79. For further information see also Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend, and Sibley, Report.

The Mobilian trade jargon was not unique of its kind. In America, as in other parts of the world, the common necessities of intercommunication have resulted in the formation of several such mongrel dialects, prevailing, sometimes over wide areas. In some cases, also, the language of a predominant tribe serves as the common medium for all the tribes of a particular region. In South America we find the lingoa geral, based upon the Tupi′ language, understood for everyday purposes by all the tribes of the immense central region from Guiana to Paraguay, including almost the whole Amazon basin. On the northwest coast we find the well-known “Chinook jargon,” which takes its name from a small tribe formerly residing at the mouth of the Columbia, in common use among all the tribes from California far up into Alaska, and eastward to the great divide of the Rocky mountains. In the southwest the Navaho-Apache language is understood by nearly all the Indians of Arizona and New Mexico, while on the plains the Sioux language in the north and the Comanche in the south hold almost the same position. In addition to these we have also the noted “sign language,” a gesture system used and perfectly understood as a fluent means of communication among all the hunting tribes of the plains from the Saskatchewan to the Rio Grande.

(3) Dialects (page 17): The linguistic affinity of the Cherokee and northern Iroquoian dialects, although now well established, is not usually obvious on the surface, but requires a close analysis of words, with a knowledge of the laws of phonetic changes, to make it appear. The superficial agreement is perhaps most apparent between the Mohawk and the Eastern (Lower) Cherokee dialects, as both of these lack the labials entirely and use r instead of l. In the short table given below the Iroquois words are taken, with slight changes in the alphabet used, from Hewitt’s manuscripts, the Cherokee from those of the author: