Quick viewing(Text Mode)

The Missinipi Dialect of Cree

The Missinipi Dialect of Cree

The Missinipi Dialect of

DAVID H. PENTLAND University of

INTRODUCTION

The various dialects of Cree are conventionally identified - by speakers and linguists alike - by their reflex of Proto-Algonquian */. Five such dia­ lects are spoken today: Plains Cree, the .y-dialect, which has been exten­ sively documented by Albert Lacombe, Leonard Bloomfield, H.C. Wolfart, and a number of others; , the d- or fA-dialect, which was the subject of Joseph Howse's ground-breaking grammar (1844); , the n-dialect, and , the /-dialect, both of which were described by Bishop Horden and CD. Ellis; and Atikamekw, the r- dialect of , which was the subject of a Berkeley dissertation by Jean-Pierre Beland (1978). Earlier there was at least one more dialect of Cree. Like Atikamekw, it had r from Proto-Algonquian */, but it was located at the opposite end of the Cree dialect chain, in the far northwest. This dialect was mentioned by Lacombe in the introduction to his dictionary (1874:xv), and was therefore shown on later dialect maps by Michelson (1938:121, 1939:72)J and Wolfart (1973:9), but except for the few examples cited by 19th-cen­ tury missionaries enumerating the Cree dialects there have been no records of this western r-dialect in the last 200 years.2

1. Michelson's map shows an r-dialect in the vicinity of Ile-a-la-Crosse, , but he mentions it only in passing in the text of his last article on Cree (Michelson 1939:75). For western dialects Michelson depended mostly on published sources and cor­ respondents who sometimes provided erroneous information — and Peli­ can Narrows are said to have y rather than d, and Big Trout Lake, , is identified as Cree rather than Northern Ojibwa (Michelson 1939:69-71). 2. J.G.E. Smith (1976:431, n.5) speaks of "The persistence of an hi dialect near ", having mistakenly assumed that Wolfart (1973:9-10) provides only contem­ porary dialect distributions; in fact, Wolfart's Map 2 and the accompanying discussion blend his own data with older and partly inaccurate information from Lacombe and Mich­ elson.

Papers of the 34th Algonquian Conference, ed. H.C. Wolfart (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 2003), pp. 287-302. ~ N 00 00

HUDSON

BAY

t::::! > :5 0 ~ Cree Lake '"0 ~ -l ~ r >z 0

Qac / Map 1. The Missinipi region. THE MISSINIPI DIALECT OF CREE 289

Most of the evidence for the Missinipi dialect (other than a few place names) is contained in the lengthy Cree vocabulary compiled in 1743-44 by , where it is unfortunately mixed in with words from the Woods Cree dialect. However, it is likely that the last 60 words in Isham's vocabulary are unsorted data from Missinipi speakers, and that a number of other words from the same source were incorporated into other sec­ tions. Russell (1991) discusses several groups called "Missinipi" by the fur traders, but he dismisses the linguistic evidence presented in Pentland (1978) for the presence of an r-dialect on the upper Churchill River, con­ cluding that "further evidence must be forthcoming before it can be accepted" (Russell 1991:163). A fuller discussion of the material is there­ fore warranted, to demonstrate that a distinct Missinipi dialect did for­ merly exist in the northwest. There may even have been another dialect in the same region. In 1868 Alexandre-Antonin Tache, bishop of St-Boniface (Manitoba), com­ piled a little guidebook to the Northwest, which included a brief discus- sion of Cree dialects and the following comparative table:

Voici un tableau comparatif des modifications que le pronom personnel subit dans les differentes branches de la famille Algonquine du «Departement du Nord»: Francais Moi Toi Lui Saulteux Nin Kin Win Maskegon Nina Kina Wina Cris, proprement dit Niya [Kiya] [Wiya] Certains Cris d'Athabaska Nira Kira Wira Cris de l'lle a la Crosse Nila Kila Wila Presque tous les [C]ris des bois Nitha Kitha Wit[ha] Le th se prononce comme le th Anglais. [Tache 1869:82]

At first glance, Tache's table is a straightforward and accurate descrip­ tion, except for some misprints: (the western dialect of Ojibwa) and Swampy Cree are n-dialects; Plains Cree has y; and the Woods Cree (or "almost all" of them) use 6 (English (th), as in this). However, Tache also reports that r is used by some Athabasca Cree, and / is used by some

3. The Plains Cree pronouns are misprinted (Niya Kira Wira), with (r) from the follow­ ing line, and the printer did not have enough space to include the last two letters of the final Woods Cree form. 290 DAVID H. PENTLAND

at Ile-a-la-Crosse. The r-dialect is known from other sources, but no one else has ever reported an 1-dialect of Cree west of Ontario. Michelson (1939:88) mentioned Tache's report of an 1-dialect, but added a caution that "No subsequent writers, as far as I know, have repeated or substantiated this." However, Tache began his career as an Oblate missionary at Ile-a-la-Crosse. From 1846 to 1854 (except for a trip to Rome in 1851-52 to be consecrated bishop) he travelled around northern Saskatchewan, establishing missions at Lake and Lake Athabasca (cf. Map 1), and studying the Cree and languages (Hamelin 1990:1003-4). Since he actually lived at Ile- a-la-Crosse for a number of years his statement cannot be dismissed out of hand. Surprisingly, Joseph Howse does not mention any peculiarities in the local dialect of Ile-a-la-Crosse, although he wintered there in 1814-15 (Wol­ fart 1985:413-4), and for an example of r he refers to John Eliot's grammar of Massachusett (cf. Wolfart 1973:8). The modem dialect of Ile-a-la-Crosse is Plains Cree, with a number of French loanwords (but not a variety of , according to Bakker 1997:127). Tache gives us his opinion of the principal dialects: La langue crise est belle, riche et peut-etre la plus facile de toutes les langues sauvages. Les Cris des prairies parlent avec beaucoup de purete et meme d'elegance. Les Cris des bois perdent un peu de cette purete, en empruntant quelque chose aux Maskegons. Dans certaines localites quelques families ont introduit dans le lan- gage des mots et des consonnes que la langue primitive n'admet pas. La lettre R, par exemple, ne se trouve pas dans la langue Crise, et neanmoins les Cris d'Athabaska, en acceptent la rude consonnance, a la place de l'Y pourtant si euphonique. [Tache 1869:82] When Albert Lacombe published his great Cree dictionary in 1874 he dedicated it to Tache and printed a letter of thanks from the bishop; it is there­ fore rather remarkable that part of the introduction to the dictionary is plagia­ rized from Tache's little sketch. However, Lacombe omits any reference to an 1-dialect, and seems to imply that all the Sakawiyiniwak, les Cris des bois ou de la foret (saka-wiyiniwak 'the people of the woods') use r: Les Cris des prairies habitent des loges ou tentes faites avec le cuir du buffle, tandis que ceux des bois, le plus souvent, n'ont pour abri que des cabanes d'ecorces ou de branches d'epinette. Les premiers parlent leur langue avec beaucoup de purete et d'elegance; les seconds per­ dent de cette purete, en empruntant quelque chose aux Maskegons, et surtout en se servant de IV a la place de l'v, pourtant si euphonique. [Lacombe 1874:x] THE MISSINIPI DIALECT OF CREE 291

Following Tache's lead, Lacombe (1874:x) further divides the Cris des bois (or du bois) into the Sakittawawiyiniwok, les gens de l'lle a la Crosse (sa-kihtawa-wiyiniwak 'the people of Ile-a-la-Crosse'), and the Aya- baskawiyiniwok, les gens du Rabaskaw (ayapaska-wiyiniwak 'the people of Athabasca'). However, in his "Tableau comparatif des changements que subissent, dans les langues algiques, les lettresy, r, th, I, «", Lacombe (1874:xv) gives a simpler classification:

moi toi lui Cris proprement dits niya kiya wiya Cris d'Athabaskaw nira kira wira Presque tous les Cris des Bois nitha kitha witha Cris du Labrador nila kila wila Maskegons nina kina wina Algonquins et Sauteux nin kin win

The Cree of Labrador are presumably the Moose Cree (cf. Michelson 1939:88), perhaps blended in Lacombe's mind with the /-dialect of Mon­ tagnais; they are certainly not the people of Ile-a-la-Crosse. Otherwise the table gives a reasonable overview of the known Cree dialects - Plains, "Athabaska", Woods, Moose, and Swampy - plus the Algonquin and Saulteaux dialects of Ojibwa, omitting only the Atikamekw of Quebec. Lacombe's table also gives namawiya 'no, not' with its variants namawira, namawitha [misprinted -witta] and namawila, and the defec­ tive example ni-miweyitten (i.e., nimiywe-yihte-n) T am glad', ni-miwerit- ten, ni-miwethitten, etc., for correct nimirwerihten, nimidwedihten (modem nimidwidihtin), nimilwelihte-n, niminwe-nihte-n. Bishop Horden (1881:2-3) provides independent evidence, probably obtained from Hudson's Bay Company sources, that an r-dialect existed, although he allocates it to Ile-a-la-Crosse; he was also the first to include within the Swampy Cree area: In the diocese of Moosonee the pronoun "I" is thus expressed in the different dialects :- Nela At Moose Factory, Nena At Albany, Severn, and York Factory, Neya On the E. Main coast; while it is Netha At English River, and Nera At Isle a la Crosse. 292 DAVID H. PENTLAND

Tache and Lacombe refer to the r-dialect as the one spoken by the Cree of Rabaskaw or Athabasca. Since the name "Athabasca Cree" could easily be misinterpreted as implying some connection with the unrelated Athapaskan (or Athabascan) , or a residence on the shores of Lake Athabasca, 25 years ago I proposed the new name Missinipi Cree.4 A brief sketch of this dialect was presented at the 9th Algonquian Conference (Pentland 1978); no additional data have come to light other than some variant spellings of previously known place names, but I can now deal more effectively with James Isham's vocabulary, the only source of any importance.

JAMES ISHAM James Isham began his career with the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in 1732, when he was sent to York Factory to be "employed as a writer and to be instructed in keeping the accounts" (Rich & Johnson 1949:xiii). In an age characterized by heavy consumption of brandy, Isham impressed his superiors with his sobriety, honesty and diligence; after only four years' employment, at the age of 20, he was appointed chief factor at York. In 1741 he was transferred to Churchill, which the HBC intended to be their principal post on the west side of . Isham was called back to London in 1748 to give evidence before the parliamentary com­ mittee investigating the company's trade, and then again took command at York Factory, where he remained until his death in 1761 (Rich 1974). Isham was bom around 1716 in the central London borough of Hol- born, and returned to London on four occasions between 1737 and 1758 (Rich 1974:301). He therefore undoubtedly spoke a variety of London English, most likely a lower-class dialect akin to modern Cockney.5 Since he had acquired excellent penmanship at school but never mastered standard English spelling, it is easy to transcribe his writings but

4. Originally I spelled the name Misinipi, influenced by the Cree orthography; I now write double ssasa concession to English spelling habits, thus reverting to the form used by Alexander Mackenzie (1801:lxxvi). Russell (1991) independently adopted the same spelling for the group of people, but does not link them to a specific dialect of Cree. 5. Isham's spellings of Cree words show that his English was completely "r-less." According to Dobson (1968:914, 992), the reduction of r to a glide or zero in word-final and pre-consonantal positions did not occur "in good speech" until around 1800; earlier examples reflect "vulgar pronunciation." THE MISSINIPI DIALECT OF CREE 293 sometimes difficult to understand them; his vocabularies of Cree and other local languages must likewise be interpreted as the product of an unsophisticated 18th-century Londoner who wrote pretty much as he spoke, probably never realizing that there might be deficiencies in either his English or his Cree. In 1745 Isham was recalled to London to explain his dealings with Christopher Middleton's naval expedition; he apparently took with him a collection of stuffed birds and animals, and a manuscript entitled "Obser­ vations on Hudsons Bay" that he had compiled at Churchill during the winter of 1743-44. Although the manuscript bears the date 1743 on its title page, it includes the names of the committee elected in London in November 1743, a list Isham could not have seen before the summer of 1744.6 Isham had been at Churchill only two years when he compiled his observations, so a substantial part of his vocabularies probably derive from his earlier residence at York Factory. Since he began his career as an accountant, however, it is unlikely that he learned much Cree before his promotion to factor in 1737. The presence of the Home Guard Cree at York Factory would have allowed him to acquire both Cree vocabulary and an acquaintance with Cree culture - at least after 1737 when he could leave his desk whenever he chose - but some of the words and cultural details he gives are unlikely subjects of conversation between men engaged only on the Company's business. It is therefore likely that Isham acquired a Cree wife early in his career. Charles Price Isham, the only known child of James Isham and an unidentified Native woman, was not bom until 1754 or 1755 (Brown 1983:450); the mother was probably Cree, but it is not known whether she lived with James prior to his return to York Factory in 1750. It is likely, however, that she (or another Cree woman) provided the information that Isham included in his 1743 manuscript about Cree women's undergar­ ments (Rich & Johnson 1949:110-111).7 On the other hand, no one person could have been the source of the whole vocabulary. No doubt it was during the summer trading sessions

6. Rich & Johnson (1949:lxv) say the work was "probably submitted to the London Committee in 1744," but in a later biographical sketch Rich (1974:302) observes that although Isham had earlier asked to come home on account of ill health, he was not per­ mitted to return until the committee wanted to question him in 1745. 294 DAVID H. PENTLAND that Isham learned the numbers 1 to 10 in seven languages, including Blackfoot, Crow and Mohawk8 in addition to four languages spoken in Manitoba (Rich & Johnson 1949:34-37), and he probably collected a five- page vocabulary of (pp. 42-47) at the same time. However, the much longer Cree vocabulary includes forms from at least three dialects.

REFLEXES OF PROTO-ALGONQUIAN */ Unfortunately, when Isham copied out his Cree vocabulary he arranged it by topic, presumably mixing together words learned at Churchill with earlier material from York Factory. However, the final section of the word list, "Adjectives expressing several qualities &c. &c," is an unsorted accumulation of miscellaneous vocabulary; it begins with 14 adjectives, but many of the remaining 129 entries could have been listed under other categories, and are therefore likely to reflect the arrangement of his original rough notes, with words obtained at Churchill following those from York Factory. The adjectives include forms from two dialects:

Good Me tho sha shirt midosisit or Murther washing (29) midwasin Bad Mar rat ten ma-ra-tan itt's fart we thin now (30) wi-dinow 'he is fat'

In the following miscellaneous vocabulary, however, the first half of the list is mostly d-dialect (except for two forms with the verb final -pari-), whereas the second half has (r), (d) and (n), but no examples of (th). The following words in the firsthal f of this section appear to contain a reflex of*/:

7. Isham also explicitly noted in his Observations that "the young women are well shap'd" and "very frisky when Young," and that mixed marriages had produced fine chil­ dren who were "pretty Numerious" (Rich & Johnson 1949:79). 8. The Earchithinu numbers on page 35 are obviously Blackfoot; those in the "Ear- chethinue Language in a nother part of the Country" (p. 36) were identified as Crow by Goddard (1973:738), who notes that these are the earliest specimens known of the two Plains languages. The numbers in the "Southwd. Indn. Language" (p. 36) are Mohawk, recorded half a century before the firstmentio n of Iroquoians in the west (Nicks 1980). THE MISSINIPI DIALECT OF CREE 295

tirty or nasty Wir the bis ca (30) wi-dipiska-w Handsome Mur tha wa naw ke sue midonakosiw foolish Mur tha bu cat [na]ma dipwahkat 'he is or mur tha bu cow not wise' [na]ma dipwahkaw to go to wan- Nut ta per rue natopariw all ... koka thow (31) kahkidaw a great talker Ar the ma ta go sin [kit]adamihta-kosin to Know or are En kis ska tha tin nikiske-dihte-n Sensible to take great care cun na wa the maw sue ke [ni]kanawe-dihte-n sohki to haul short in no ta perry (32) nohtepari- measure to give meth or me tha tin mid, [ki]mi-6itin to go out wir the wa wadawi-- to go with me wich a wow nedar [ki]wi-ce-wa-w ni-da

Words in the second half of this section with (r), (d) or (n) as a reflex of */ are:

itt's Strange Hur ra wock ke ka (32) ariwa-k ... to Haste Ke na pa kinipi- itt's broke pursko perry (33) po-skopari- (?) I will not ne ma we der (34) namawida 'no' Cloudy weather ne quis quan nikwaskwan

The two words with n axe Swampy Cree; in his "discourses upon dif­ ferent subjects" Isham gives a third example:

mixture [of different Kinnacow (50) kinikow 'mixed together' sizes of shot]

There are also five more occurrences of kinipi- 'make haste' in the dia­ logues (pp. 49 [twice], 50, 56, 58), always with n. I cannot explain how Isham ever heard this dialect at Churchill, since the Swampy Cree were undoubtedly still far to the south of York Factory in his day. The words spelled with (th) are of course Woods Cree, the dialect Joseph Howse (1844) described so well; they are sometimes different from the forms given by Henry Kelsey (1709), but Kelsey compiled his dictionary at Fort Albany, a thousand kilometres southeast of York Fac­ tory. The remaining words in this section - those with (r) and (d) - appear to be from a dialect which had a flap or tap r as its reflex of Proto-Algon- 296 DAVID H. PENTLAND quian */, presumably the dialect noted a century later by Tache and Lacombe in northern Saskatchewan. The forms with (d> could also be allocated to the d-dialect (as in Pentland 1979:89), but the distribution m this part of the vocabulary suggests otherwise. In all Isham gives about two dozen words, some repeated many times in the dialogues, with (r) or (d). Curiously, he provides no examples of hr the expected reflex of Proto-Algonquian consonant clusters ending in */-'however, this gap is filled by the place name Athabasca, which in all the early sources was spelled with

THE MERGER OF *S WITH *S Misi-nipiy or 'great water' is the Cree name of the upper Churchill River.9 Earlier it was pronounced misi-nipiy, recorded by James Knight in 1715- 17 as Mishenipee and Mishenepe (Kenney 1932:53-54, 163). However, all the later sources give the name with s rather than s, suggesting that the merger of s with s began in the Missinipi and Woods Cree dialects early in the 18th century, about 150 years before it was completed in Plains Cree. The earliest records of Woods Cree show that s was distinct from s. Henry Kelsey usually wrote (sh) in his little dictionary (1709), but that was compiled in the eastern Cree area that still retains s today. More sig­ nificant is the brief text Kelsey composed at York Factory in 1696 - two words (out of 13) have etymological *s, and both are spelled with (sh) (Pentland 1991:132-134): keeshquebbauj ki-skwe-pe-[w] '(he) is drunk' meshs hee woan mesihowan '(if) I get into trouble'

Although James Isham recorded the place name as Missinnepee in 1743.44 (Rich & Johnson 1949:112), he still sometimes wrote (sh) in his Cree vocabulary:

9. Misi-nipiy is a rather unusual place name, since nipiy normally means the substance 'water' rather than 'a body of water'. It may be a caique on the name in some other lan­ guage which does not make this distinction, implying that the Cree are relative newcomers to the area. THE MISSINIPI DIALECT OF CREE 297

a Errnin She ke shu (21) sihkosiw needle shapunican (51) sa-ponikan Nineteen Shawk tar to shop (27) sahk tahtosap the Day Ke shic kaw (6) kisikaw this is well murthawashing (60) midwa-sin

the other hand, there are also many examples with s for earlier s:

the Skin wus sue kie (10) wasakay < wasakay to curt Kis ka sow (13) kiskiswe-w < kvskiswew give me some [food] arsumin (49) asamin < asamin my Belly is full Kispu'n (60) [ni]kispon < nikispon

re are even some forms with (sh) for s:

Hail Sha se can (6) se-se-kan my Son Ne coosh sish (8) nikosis grey goose short nishkosinnee (50) niskwasiniy

Some of these may be copying errors, and some may be mishearings, but it is sometimes also possible that Isham encountered a form with diminu­ tive consonant symbolism not noted by later sources. By the end of the 18th century the merger of s with s seems to have been virtually complete in Woods Cree. Although Howse (1844:38«) remarked that "on the coast, sh is used for the s of the interior," he usually wrote (s) in his grammar of Woods Cree. He learned his firstCre e at York Factory, but spent most of his career in Saskatchewan and (Wol­ fart 1985). Manitoba Swampy Cree probably lost the contrast at about the same time: in 1841 James Evans did not include a character for s in the Cree syllabary even though he had already used it for Ojibwa (Nichols 1984:14). On the other hand, in Plains Cree a generation later Lacombe (1874) was still writing (j) in some words with historical s, although (s) is much more frequent and (j) is alphabetized as (s).

REFLEXES OF PROTO-ALGONQUIAN *sk A third variable in Cree dialectology is the reflex of Proto-Algonquian *sk (Bloomfield's *ck). Most dialects of Cree have the reflex hk, but in the modern Woods Cree dialects of Saskatchewan some communities have 6k, some have sk, and some (based on a very limited sample) appear 298 DAVID H. PENTLAND

to have a mixture of 6k and sk. In my first report on this phenomenon (Pentland 1978) I stated that the variation depended on the age of the speaker, but shortly afterwards I discovered that Stanley Mission consis­ tently has sk, whereas usually has 6k (cf. Pentland 1979:76- 78). Politically the two communities belong to the same band. The 6k reflex now typical of Lac la Ronge was earlier attested in the coastal Woods Cree dialects of Fort Albany, Fort Severn, and York Fac­ tory. Kelsey's dictionary and Howse's grammar provide numerous exam­ ples, and there are also a few in Isham's vocabulary:

Blood Mirth co (11) midko a Vein or blood Mirth co ap pee midkoya-piy Vessel the Blader Wirth qui wi-6/cway a Seal or sea mawse ath keek (22) adkik

However, Isham also gives words with sk from Proto-Algonquian *sk; note that the root *meskw- 'red' occurs with both reflexes:

Red Mis quock (28) miskwak cf. mithkwow (Howse 1844) red willow misqua pemeque (135) miskwa-pe-mak cf. mifhqua-pim-mook (Chappell 1817) Sneezing [!] se niska ko mitt (11) siniskikomet 'he blows his nose' to blow the Nose She na sha co ma (33) si-niski-kome--

A similar double reflex is attested in the word for Tung', the only known example of a possible *sp cluster in Proto-Algonquian (cf. Pentland 1979:65, Goddard 1988:355, «.3):10 the Lights Us' spun (11) ospan 'his lung' cf. uth pun (Kelsey 1709)

10. Goddard (personal communication, 2002) suggests that 'groundnut, wild potato', nS^S?™*"?^** *wexPenya> maV also contain the *sp cluster: Bloomfield rwltw^-S S* derivative "^-hpin 'wild ginger (Asarum canadense)' in Plains Cree but Woods (?) Cree name-9pin at , Manitoba. However, the Cree word may re'flex oafnste0mf 1 *WE Rame'ppin (< Pr°to-Algonquian *name-xpenya), since it lacks a THE MISSINIPI DIALECT OF CREE 299

The most important of these words is the last example of sk, despite its obvious spelling errors. The form glossed 'to blow the nose' occurs in the second half of the unsorted leftovers that Isham listed after the adjec­ tives, among the words with (r) that I think he collected at Churchill rather than York Factory. Since Kelsey's dictionary (1709), Howse's grammar (1844), and some smaller vocabularies unanimously agree that Ok occurred in the Woods Cree dialect all the way from York Factory to Fort Albany, the sk reflex most likely belongs to some other dialect whose speakers traded at Churchill. I therefore suggest that the r-dialect which I have labelled Missinipi Cree is the source of Isham's sk (and the sp in Tung') as well as the words he spelled with (r) or (d); the Woods Cree dialect of York Factory, on the other hand, will have provided him with all the words spelled with (th), including those with 6k. No examples that contain both a reflex of */ and a reflex of *sk have been found to settle the question, but the proposed solu­ tion accounts for all the known data. Whether Missinipi or Woods Cree was the first dialect to merge s with s remains unknown, but they both seem to have had the merger long before it reached the Plains and western Swampy dialects.

THE LATER HISTORY OF THE MISSINIPI As mentioned in the introduction, no forms with r have been recorded for at least 125 years; the speakers of the Missinipi dialect have therefore either died out or adopted a different dialect. The reflexes of *sk- if they have been correctly allocated - may provide a clue to their later history. The modem York Factory band, which is now dispersed to half a dozen communities in , speaks Swampy Cree; their dialect cannot be a direct descendant of the language recorded at York Factory by Joseph Howse and his predecessors. Some people may have switched from Woods Cree to Swampy when the original speakers of Swampy Cree migrated into the area, but the historical records suggest that others, perhaps the majority, simply moved hundreds of kilometres west in search of better hunting territory. The linguistic evidence suggests that they settled at Lac la Ronge and other communities in eastern Saskatchewan. 300 DAVID H. PENTLAND

On the other hand, the dialect spoken at Stanley Mission does not derive from the old York Factory dialect. However, if speakers of the old Missinipi dialect merely switched from a flap r to d - probably when their area was flooded with ol-dialect migrants from Manitoba - the origin of the Stanley Mission dialect, and the fate of the Missinipi Cree, can be accounted for with a single minor sound change.

REFERENCES Bakker, Peter. 1997. A language of our own: The genesis of Michifi the mixed Cree- French language of the Canadian Metis. New York: Oxford University Press. Beland, Jean-Pierre. 1978. Atikamekw morphology and lexicon. Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Berkeley. Bloomfield, Leonard. 1984. Cree-English lexicon. 2 vols. New Haven, Connecticut.: Human Relations Area Files. Brown, Jennifer S.H. 1983. Charles Thomas Isham. Dictionary of Canadian Biography 5:450-451. Chappell, Edward. 1817. Narrative of a voyage to Hudson 's Bay in His Majesty's Ship Rosamond ... London: J. Mawman. Dobson, E.J. 1968. English pronunciation 1500-1700. 2nd edition. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goddard, Ives. 1973. Philological approaches to the study of North American Indian lan­ guages: Documents and documentation. Current trends in linguistics, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok; v. 10, Linguistics in North America, pp. 727-745. The Hague: Mouton. Goddard, Ives. 1988. Pre-Cheyenne *y. In honor of Mary Haas: From the Haas Festival Conference on Native American Linguistics, ed. by William Shipley, pp. 345-360. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Hamelin, Jean. 1990. Alexandre-Antonin Tache. Dictionary of Canadian Biography 12:1002-1012. Horden, John. 1881. A grammar of the , as spoken by the Cree Indians of North America. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Howse, Joseph. 1844. A grammar of the Cree language; with which is combined an anal­ ysis of the Chippeway dialect. London: J.G.F. & J. Rivington. Kelsey, Henry. 1709. A dictionary of the Hudson 's-Bay Indian language. [London].

11. Marc Picard (2001) has recently proposed, primarily on theoretical grounds, that Woods Cree d derives from an earlier stage with r; there is no direct evidence that this is true for the Woods Cree of York Factory and La Ronge, which has had 6 since the 17th century, but if Stanley Mission Woods Cree continues the old Missinipi dialect the change of r to d is historically attested in one variety of Cree. However, the phonetic similarity of the two reflexes may be irrelevant: although the historical development can be formulated as a sound law, it was probably simply a case of dialect borrowing. THE MISSINIPI DIALECT OF CREE 301

Kenney, James F., ed. 1932. The founding of Churchill, being the journal of Captain James Knight, Governor-in-Chiej"in Hudson Bay, from the Nth ofJuly to the 13th of September, 1717. Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons. Lacombe, Albert. 1874. Dictionnaire de la langue des Cris. : CO. Beauchemin & Valois. Mackenzie, Alexander. 1801. Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, through the continent of North America, to the frozen and Pacific oceans, in the years 1789 and 1793; with a preliminary account of the rise, progress, and present state of the fur trade of that country. London. Michelson, Truman. 1938. Studies among the Montagnais- Indians of the northern shore of the St. Lawrence River. Explorations and Field-Work of the Smithsonian Institution in 1937, pp. 119-122. Washington. Michelson, Tmman. 1939. Linguistic classification of Cree and Montagnais-Naskapi dia­ lects. Bureau ofAmerican Ethnology Bulletin 123:67-95. Washington. Nichols, John D. 1984. The composition sequence of thefirst Cre e hymnal. Essays in Algonquian bibliography in honour ofV.M. Dechene, ed. by H.C. Wolfart, pp. 1-21. Algonquian and Iroquoian Linguistics Memoirs, 1. Winnipeg. Nicks, Trudy. 1980. The and the fur trade in western . Old trails and new directions: Papers of the 3rd North American Fur Trade Conference, ed. by Carol M. Judd & Arthur J. Ray, pp. 85-101. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Pentland, David H. 1978. A historical overview of Cree dialects. Papers of the 9th Algon­ quian Conference, ed. by William Cowan, pp. 104-126. Ottawa: Carleton University. Pentland, David H. 1979. Algonquian historical phonology. Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto. Pentland, David H. 1991. Henry Kelsey's Christmas message, 1696. Linguistic studies presented to John L. Finlay, ed. by H.C. Wolfart, pp. 127-138. Algonquian and Iro­ quoian Linguistics Memoirs, 8. Winnipeg Picard, Marc. 2001. On the fricativization of Id and the French-Cree connection. Folia Linguistica Historica 22:137-147. Rich, E.E. 1974. James Isham. Dictionary of Canadian Biography 3:301-304. Rich, E.E., & A.M. Johnson, eds. 1949. James Isham's Observations on Hudsons Bay, 1743, and notes and observations on a book entitled "A voyage to Hudsons Bay in the Dobbs galley," 1749. Publications of the Champlain Society, Hudson's Bay Company series, 12. Toronto. Russell, Dale R. 1991. Eighteenth-century Western Cree and their neighbours. Canadian Museum of Civilization Mercury Series; Archaeological Survey of Canada Paper no. 143. Ottawa. Smith, James G.E. 1976. On the territorial distribution of the Western Woods Cree. Papers of the 7th Algonquian Conference, ed. by William Cowan, pp. 414-435. Ottawa: Carleton University. Tache, Alexandre A. 1869. Esquisse sur le Nord-Ouest de I'Amerique. Montreal: Typog­ raphic du Nouveau Monde. Wolfart, H.C. 1973. Plains Cree: A grammatical study. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s., v. 63, part 5. Philadelphia Wolfart, H.C. 1985. Joseph Howse. Dictionary of Canadian Biography 8:411-414.

Top View