227 rt Chimo Cree: A Case of Dialect Syncretism? Marguerite MacKenzie Memorial University of Newfoundland

The dialect of Cree1 spoken by the Fort Chimo Indians, now resident at Schefferville, Quebec, today is considered to be one of the y dialects like those of the east coast of James and Hudson Bays (MacKenzie 19 77). However, as recently as 1935, Michelson (1936) stated that it was an n-dialect like those of Labrador and the North Shore of the St. Lawrence River. What is the explanation of this contradiction? Has there been a restructuring of the dialect or possibly a replacement of the population? The language of the present-day speakers and that of the neighbouring speakers will be examined in order to determine how this situation has come about. The group of palatalized2 dialects within the Quebec- Labrador peninsula has traditionally been sub-divided into three groups according to whether the present-day reflex of Proto-Algonquian *1 is realized as 1, n or y (Michelson 1936, Lefebvre 1953, Pentland 1974). Thus PA *ki:la 'you' (sg.) is respectively ci:l, ci:n or ci:y and 'it is windy' is nu:tin, lu:tin, or yu:tin. The same phenomenon occurs in the non-palatalized dialects of Cree, but there the additional reflexes r or 5 are possible (ki:la, ki:na, ki:ya, ki:ra, or ki:5a). On the basis of this three-way division Pentland (1974) proposes the terminology "Southern Montagnais" for those dialects with 1, "Eastern Montagnais" for those dialects with n and "Western Montagnais" for those dialects with y_. The divisions are shown on Map 1, where it can be seen that the Fort Chimo group is situated between the larger n- and y- groups. The Fort Chimo Indians have been resident at Schefferville only since 1956 when they were prevailed upon by the Department of Indian Affairs to leave the Fort Chimo area and to settle closer to medical and educational facilities (Cooke 1976:80). It seems clear that this group was previously part of a larger Barren Ground group of nomadic caribou hunters. These people exploited the resources of a broad expanse of the treeless interior of the northern Quebec-Labrador peninsula. It was the establishment of fur trading posts at Fort Chimo on the northern coast of the peninsula and at Davis Inlet on the Labrador coast1* that brought about the separation of this Barren Ground group into what are today the Fort Chimo and Davis Inlet dialects. That these are dialects of Cree is without dispute (Michelson 1939, MacKenzie 1977), although these two groups are most often referred to as Naskapi. The term Naskapi personaspearefeseemidentificatioWhekrs nat nlo Michelson-dialectbcommunicationthose ane culturawhfon ro, state botlivhel) hed relieon buForfurtheethat t usedt i Chimtdrth fo haebrinlanosy evidencIndianbecomansoutherd Davi(Jsee .n ao Mailhot sfon terIndian ForInlethmet tosfChim ,unpublishegroups selftoo -. d 228

notes of the ethnographer Lucien Turner who visited Fort Chimo in the late 1880's. The only published form given by Turner (1894) is the word for 'man, Indian' nenenots." This word is cognate with ininu:, ilinu: and iyinu: or iyiyu: in the n, 1 and y dialects respectively. iyinu: is used in inland communities of the y-group and iyiyu: in coastal communities. The form cited by Turner thus corresponds with the n-dialect of Davis Inlet rather than the y-dialect of James and Hudson Bays. However, present day Fort Chimo speakers use the form iyiyu: which is used in Great Whale River and Fort George. Unfortunately few other records of the speech of these Indians exist. They were first contacted in the Ungava area in the early 1830's by fur traders, but little in the way of linguistic records were kept by these men. In contrast, for the Montagnais to the south, several 17th century dictionaries compiled by missionaries are available (Fabvre 1970, Silvy 1974). Thus it is mainly through the study of present-day speech that the history of the dialect becomes evident. The phonology and the lexicon of the Fort Chimo speakers will be compared with that of the Great Whale River group to the west and the Davis Inlet group to the east. The following set of words illustrates a number of phonological features of the dialects. Examples 1 through 4 show phonological features shared with Great Whale while examples 5 through Grea13 shot wWhal those e shareFordt witChimh o DaviDavis sInlet Inle. t Gloss

1. na:pa:w na:pa:w na :pe: w man 2. nima:s nima:s names' fish 3. ni :y ni :y ni :n I, me 4. ni :hi: ni:hi: e :he: yes

5. miht mi :t mi : t firewood 6. atihkw ati:xw ati:xw caribou 7. mi:ciwa: hp mi:ciwa : f mi:ciwa:f tent, house 8. utihp uti:f uti :f his brain 9. ukus ukusa ukusa his son 10. ap api api sit' (s) 11. tu:hwa:n tu:wa:n tu:wa:n ball 12. ni:ya:n ni :na:n ni :na :n we (excl) 13. <5i :ya:nu: ci:na:n £i:na:n we (incl)

The majority of Cree diale cts have a vowel system consisting of seven vowels, f our long i:, e:, a:, u: and three short i, a, u. In this paper, these vowels will be considered as the basic set, although some dialects have fewer vowels, because of the operation of historical rules which may collapse two vowels into one. Thus examples 1 and 2 show the collapse of e: with a: which is characteristic of the northern y-dialects TE astmain to Great Whale). These dialects then have a six vowe 1 system i:, a:, u:, i, a, u. For the purposes of this pape r I postulate a level of pre- Cree which contains the seven vowels mentioned above, the consonants p, t, i, k, m, n. s, S, h, w, y d/ r, 5) . 229 Changes which occur refer to this level, not to the PA level unless specifically noted. As well, the norther y-speakers collapse a and i in inter-consonantal position to i. There is a tendency in all the Montagnais dialects to collapse these two short vowels, particularly in unstressed position, to ±. Only the northern y-speakers have a distinct i as shown in example 2. Example 3 again illustrates the distribution of y and n which are reflexes of PA*1 while example 4 shows the only item in which e: becomes i: instead of a:. This form is used by the inland group within Fort George instead of the expected i:hi: used by the Fort George coasters.5 These four examples show how the phonology of the Fort Chimo people may have been influenced by the speech of groups from the east coast of James and Hudson Bays. The remaining examples illustrate rules shared by Fort Chimo and Davis Inlet speakers. Examples 5 through 8 show the occurrence of three historical phonological changes: lengthening of short vowels before pre-aspirated stops, fricativization of stops which were pre-aspirated and loss of the pre-consonantal h. The rule which fricativizes a pre-aspirated stop does not operate on all such stops. ht and he seem to be exempt as shown by these examples: GWR pimuhta:w FC pimu:ta:w he walks pi:hca:w pi:£a:w he enters miht mi:t firewood hp in medial position does not necessarily become f. I have recorded both pa:pu: and pa:fu: 'he laughs' for Fort Chimo vs. Great Whale pa:hpu:. But all examples of hk and hp in final position do undergo this rule. It would seem that the h triggers the fricativization and then is deleted. An intermediate stage of hx and hf could be postulated. he laughs his brain caribou knife pa:hpu: utihp atihkw mu:hkuma:n Length. - uti:hp ati:hkw mu:hkuma:n Fricat. pa:hfu: uti:hf ati:hxw mu:hxuma:n Drop. pa:fu: uti:f ati:xw mu:xuma:n Examples 9 and 10 illustrate the retention of final short vowels at Fort Chimo and Davis Inlet. This rule is characteristic of all the Montagnais dialects in Labrador and on the North Shore of the St. Lawrence, just as the dropping of these vowels is characteristic of the y-dialects. The final a marks two different morphological categories: the plural of inanimate nouns or the obviative case of animate nouns. The y-dialects still mark these categories, but they use supra-segmental phenomena such as a change in stress and intonation pattern to do so. In example 11 the loss of intervocalic h from *h is pre-consonantaillustrated. lThi hs disappearsrule occur.s Onlin yal lbetwee thosne dialectvowels so fwher thee 230 same quality such as in u:hu: 'owl', e:he: ' yes' and a:ha:we:w 'oldsquaw duck' is the h retained. The retention of h in all positions is a feature of the y_-dialects. Examples 12 and 13 show the reflex of PA* 1 as n in two personal pronouns where y_ would be expected, as in example 3. There seems to be a certain amount of va riation at Fort Chimo as I have also recorded ci:ya:nu: for 'we' (incl) . dialect spoken These phonological features show that the atures of the by the Fort Chimo people has incorporated fe dialect at northern y-dialects to the west and of the n logical level Davis Inlet to the east. However, the phono Some lexical does not seem to be the only one affected. items are now examined: Great Whale Fort Chimo Davis Inlet Gloss

14. ni:ya:y pita:ta£ pate:tac five 15. kutwa:sc a:suta:c a:§u:ta:c six 16. mita:ht pa:ykwiyiyu: pe:ykunnu: ten 17. cikahi:kin akita:skw akata:skw axe 18. mispun pi:wun pi:wan it snows 19. a:pitisu: atus£a:w atusfie:w he works 20. ma:tu: ma:w ma: w he cries 21. si:yuta:w si:wa:yu: 3 i:we:nu: he is hungry 22. minihkwa:w minu: minu: he drinks

23. kwa:suwa:n kwa:suwa:n pu: t maybe 24. nika:wiy nika:wiy nika:win my mother 25. mahi:kin mii:kin ma:nikay wolf 26. uta:mahi:kin uta:mai:kin uta:ma:nikin hammer The items 14 through 22 show that Fort Chimo and Davis Inlet share a large amount of vocabulary. In my data only one item (23) is shared with Great Whale. However, I have not made a systematic study of the vocabulary used in these three communities. Although it would seem that Fort Chimo and Davis Inlet form a single sub-group on the basis of lexicon, a careful statistical study would need to be made to support this statement. The last three items, 24 through 26, are examples of a rule which is particular to Davis Inlet and no other Cree or Montagnais community. This is the variation of n with y and of y with n (Ford 1978). Although Davis Inlet is an n-dialect the distribution of n and y_ within the dialect does not match that of other n-dialects. The history of n and y in the various dialects is summarized below: n-dialects Davis Inlet y-dialects

*1 > n *1 > n *1 > y *n > n *n > n - Y *n > n *y > y *y > y •- n *Y > y The Davis Inlet n which is derived from the historical PA*1 never varies with y while the n which is derived from PA*n— does vary. 231 Northwest River (n) Davis Inlet Great Whale (y_) Gloss

aSiniy as"inin asimy stone nika:wiy nika:win nika:wiy my mother wiya:3 una: 3 wiya:s meat pimiy pimin pimiy fat tu:wa:nt tu:wa:yc tu:hwa:n£ balls uspwa:kan uspwa:kay uspwa:kan pipe me:skana:t me:skaya:c ma:skina:h<5 on the road ni :n ni:n ni:y I, me nu:tin nu:tin yu:tin it is windy The rules which govern this variation are not entirely clear. While n < *n varies synchronically with y_, it seems that Y_ < *y_ has ceased to vary and become permanently n in many cases. When the comparison with Great Whale words is continued, it is clear that not only *y_ > n but also *h > n in certain environments at Davis Inlet. Northwest River Davis Inlet Great Whale Gloss uta:mai:kan uta:ma:nikan uta:mahi :kin hammer wa:skai:kan wa:ska:nikan wa:skahi :kin house ma^inai:kan mas'ina :nikan misinahi :kin book mai:kan ma:nikan mahi:kin wolf Since the h which appears as n at Davis Inlet always appears before a high vowel i_ or ij_, there could have been an assimilation to this following high vowel so that h > y. This y then participated in the variation of y with n and eventually became n permanently (*h > h > y > n). Before a non-high front vowel the change does not occur. Northwest River Davis Inlet Great Whale Gloss nuta:me:n nuta:mae:n nuta:maha:n I hit it £ipam £ipam £ipaham he closes it Since the variation of y with n has ceased while that of n with y still continues synchronically, it is possible to say that the variation of y is the prior rule historically. Some support for this speculation is found in the speech of old speakers of the Fort Chimo dialect. If the speech of people approximately 70 years old is compared to that of younger speakers, an interesting fact emerges: the old people of the Fort Chimo group speak more like the Davis Inlet group than do the younger Fort Chimo Greaspeakerst Whale. Younger Fort Older Fort Davis Inlet Gloss Chimo Chimo nima:s nima:s nime:s name:s fish piya:3i:3 piya:Si:s pine:^i:3 pine:^iS bird iya:tikw iya:tikw ina:tikw ina:tikw black spruce 232 Great Whale Younger Fort Older Fort Davis Inlet Gloss Chimo Chimo minahi:kw minai:kw mina:nikw mina:nikw white spruce ayimin ayimin animin animan it is difficult nika:wiy nika:wiy nika:win nika:win my mother wa:skahi:kin wa:skai:kin wa:ska:nikin wa:ska:nikan house uta:mahi:kin uta:mai:kin uta:ma:nikin uta:ma:nikan hammer The Older Fort Chimo speakers have the rules that y varies with n and that h varies with n but they do not have the rule that n varies with y. These speakers use n as the reflex of PA*1 in the words for 'it is difficult' animan, 'black spruce' ina:tikw and 'bird' pine:3i:£. As well, these collapse of e: with a: has not occurred in all environments. It seems clear from the linguistic evidence that the Fort Chimo people were once in close contact with the Davis Inlet group. Ethnohistorical and anthropological records indicate that there was continual travelling back and forth across northern Quebec-Labrador until the Indians were induced to settle permanently at one or other of the coastal trading posts. Is it possible to tell from the linguistic facts alone whether a group like the Fort Chimo people was originally part of the Barren Ground band with the Davis Inlet people, and then was linguistically influenced by the Great Whale speakers? If only the speech of the middle-aged and younger generation is examined it is quite difficult to decide. I know of no way in which relative importance can be assigned to distinguishing features such as the ones described above, in order to predict whether the present-day Fort Chimo speakers are linguistically more like the Great Whale group or the Davis Inlet group. Simply counting the isoglosses seems unsatisfactory. It is only by looking at the speech of the community as a whole that the pattern emerges. Older speakers are distinctly closer to Davis Inlet dialect while younger speakers show heavy influence from the James Bay and Hudson Bay coast. Cooke's (1976) history of the Fort Chimo group (referred to as the "Naskapis of Schefferville") indicates that the group which was first contacted at Fort Chimo hunted inland and to the east as far as the George River. But as early as 1843 the Hudson Bay Company began to send Indians from the east coast of James Bay inland to trap in the Barren Ground territory. The Company did not consider the Fort Chimo group to be serious trappers since they preferred to spend their time hunting caribou. The coastal Indians did not like the land and did not stay long. However in 1922-24 four families of Great Whale Indians moved to Fort Chimo and attached themselves permanently to that group (Cooke 1976: 65). Tanner (1978) has recorded a pattern for the inland group at Fort George of marrying with families who hunt nearer the coast in order to exploit those resources when inland resources were scarce. A number of famine years are recorded for all of northern Quebec and it seems likely that the Barren Ground group had similar arrangements with the Great Whale people. 233 This would mean that there was in fact contact between the Barren Group group and the Hudson Bay coast group over a long period of time. Many people were no doubt bi-dialectal. This is certainly the case for the old men at Fort Chimo who are very aware of dialectal differences between themselves and the James and Hudson Bay coast as well as between themselves and the younger speakers. What then encouraged the younger generation, (from 50 years approximately and younger) to take on so many characteristics of the Great Whale speech? Once again it seems that social facts give the clue. People began to attach themselves more closely and permanently to one single trading post under pressure from the traders and the missionaries. Churches and schools were provided. Part of the Barren Ground group settled at Davis Inlet around 1916 and the other part stayed near Fort Chimo. At Fort Chimo the Indians practised the Anglican religion which was dominant on the coast of James and Hudson Bays. They learned to read and write in the syllabic orthography. Although most of the books were written in the dialect of Moose Factory, one widely used book is printed in the dialect of Fort George. It has both the change of e to a: , and y_ as the reflex of PA*^. The people who settled at Davis Inlet came under the influence of the Catholic missionaries who taught them a Roman script and provided them with books written in more southern Montagnais dialects. But many old people can read and write in syllables, as evidence of their earlier association with Fort Chimo. The families who moved from Great Whale to Fort Chimo have become quite influential in the community. One man who became the lay preacher in the church apparently used Great Whale words for numerals, which are quite different from the ones used at Fort Chimo. It seems likely that the combination of the religious influence and the prestige of the Great Whale River families were factors in speeding up the adoption of features from the Hudson Bay coast in the speech of the Fort Chimo group. As they became more settled at the posts, they ceased to roam the interior of the peninsula and no longer met regularly with the Davis Inlet group. As the political boundary between Quebec and Labrador became more significant, communication lines for the Davis Inlet people became more north-south to Northwest River rather than east- west to Fort Chimo. The relocation of the Fort Chimo group to Schefferville in 1956 only increased the isolation of the two groups. The data presented in this paper show several significant facts about change in a language or a dialect. The first is that phonology seems to change more quickly than lexicon; Since the turn of the century, the Fort Chimo group have picked up three phonological features of the James and Hudson AgeneratioForvocabularsinglBan ytexaminatioTh y-dialecteChim phonologicaseconyon speakerseemsignificantlydsn facsobuf tlso th dieemphasizeobsfeature e nothaspeecsufficient.tt seeshth semcao fn thiratt twentob, eshav asveropoinyfe showyyear-oldchangelinguistit fasneve tbdny indeedmoresLabotheic amonchangrv. .g (1972) Onthe eof . 234 The Fort Chimo Indians are not the only group of Indians who live at Schefferville. There are also Montagnais who were part of the Sept lies band to the south but who traditionally hunted around Schefferville. When the mines opened and jobs became available, the people moved to the John Lake reserve. There are now twice as many Montagnais as there are Fort Chimo Naskapi. The n-dialect which these Montagnais speak is closely related to that of the James and Hudson Bay coast and that of the Barren Ground group but is still quite distinct. A striking feature of many Montagnais dialects is the change of 5 to h , This change seems to have started on the Lower North Shore of the St. Lawrence but has spread rapidly to other communities. At Betsiamites, for instance, older speakers retain 3 but younger speakers have replaced it with h (Cowan 1976:330). Thus many dialects which have lost h derived from pre-Cree h now have h which is derived from pre-Cree ^. A second characteristic of the n- and 1-dialects, as opposed to the y-dialects, is the reduction of si clusters to ss. Older Fort Younger Fort Older Younger Chimo Chimo Montagnais Montagnais Gloss wa:pus wa:pus wa:puS wa:puh rabbit astisic' astihic astihit astisit mittens asciy assiy assiy assiy earth ascikw assikw assikw assikw kettle It can be seen that the younger Fort Chimo speakers are adopting features of the higher prestige Montagnais dialect. Instead of asciy they use assiy and instead of astisit they use astihic. The use of these features is at present highly variable and a detailed study which correlates their use with social facts in the way that Labov (1972) has done for English is highly desirable. In this paper I have attempted to look at the Fort Chimo dialect of Cree, in order to determine whether it could have changed from an n-dialect to a y-dialect since the end of the nineteenth century. It has been demonstrated that phonological changes in a dialect can spread over a speech community in a single generation. A syncretized dialect which contains features of two neighbouring dialects can be created under certain conditions. The linguistic facts can give indications of the direction of change but only when the speech habits of the entire community are considered. Linguistic data alone do not seem sufficient to predict changes in a population but social and ethno-historical information must be considered as well. The change of the Fort Chimo dialect from an n-dialect to a y-dialect within a relatively short span of time has implications for the traditional system of sub-dividing these dialects according to the reflex of PA*1. it seems clear that use of a single feature such as thTs one can lead to a misleading classification such as that proposed by Pentland (1974). It is necessary to consider groups of phonological features, morpho-syntactic classes and lexical items before assigning dialectal sub-divisions. 235 NOTES Cree here refers to the whole complex of dialects often referred to as Cree-Montagnais-Naskapi. I feel that the division into Cree and Montagnais-Naskapi, while justified by a small number of phonological rules, leads to problems of nomenclature for sub-groups within Quebec-Labrador. In my forthcoming dissertation I argue that the present terms of self-identification - Montagnais, Cree and Naskapi - have dialectal validity and that the names East Cree (all y- dialects except Fort Chimo), Naskapi (Fort Chimo and Davis Inlet) and Montagnais (the two 1-dialects and all n-dialects including Davis Inlet) should be used. 2 The major division between the Cree dialects into Cree and Montagnais-Naskapi which has been previously proposed (Michelson 1939, Pentland 1974) is based mainly on the palatalization of k to 5 (and of 6 later to c, t, s). In all the Quibec-Labrador dialects, excluding Attikamek, k becomes 6 before all front vowels. These are referred to as the palatalized dialects (Montagnais or Montagnais- Naskapi). All other dialects retain k in all positions and are part of the unpalatalized group. Although this binary split of the dialects has some linguistic validity, I show in my forthcoming dissertation that the dialects form a continuum which does not justify separate terminology for the palatalized and non-palatalized sub-groups. 3 Many other fur trading posts were opened (and closed) in the interior, including Ft. McKenzie, Ft. Nascapie, and Ft. George, but only the coastal posts became permanent settle­ ments . " The initial n of nenenots (Turner's transcription) is intrusive and a particular feature of the Davis Inlet dialect. Forms which begin with i seem to optionally insert n before the short front vowel i.e. iskwe:w or niskwe:w 'woman'. 5 The coastal communities of James and Hudson Bays can be divided into 'coasters' wi:nipa:kuwiyiyu:£ who exploit the coastal resources such as seal, and 'inlanders' nuh£imi:wiyiyu:6 who make no use of them. 6 In the James Bay y-dialects, the 3 of the n and 1-dialects is either £ or s since the PA distinction between *I and *s is retained, as it is on the west coast of James Bay. REFERENCES COOKE, Alan 1976 A history of the Naskapis of Schefferville. Schefferville: Naskapi Band Council of Schefferville. Mimeo. 236

COWAN, William 1976 The generation gap in Montagnais dialectology. Cowan (ed.), Papers of the 7th Algonquian Conference 1975. Ottawa: Carleton University. FABVRE, Bonaventure 1970 Racines montagnaises. Transcription par Lorenzo Angers, David E. Cooter, Gerard E. McNulty.__ Montreal: Les Presses de 1'Universite du Quebec. FORD, Alan 1978 La variation n-y au Mushuau Innuts. Cowan (ed.), Papers of the 9th Algonquian Conference. Ottawa: Carleton University. LABOV, W. 1972 Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press. LEFEBVRE, Gilles 1953 La famille linguistique algonquine. M.A. Thesis, Universite de Montreal. MACKENZIE, M. 1977 Montagnais dialectology. Paper presented at the 9th Algonquian Conference, Worcester, Massachusetts. MICHELSON, Truman 1936 Indian language studies on James and Hudson Bay coast. Smithsonian Institution Annual Report 1935 (Explorations and Fieldwork): 75:80. 1939 The classification of Cree and Montagnais-Naskapi dialects. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 123. PENTLAND, David 1974 Cree-Montagnais dialectology and historical phonology. Paper presented to the Canadian Linguistic Association meeting. Toronto. SILVY, Antoine 1974 Dictionnaire Montagnais-Francais. Transcription par Lorenzo Angers et Gerard E. McNulty. Universite Laval, Centre d'Etudes Nordiques. Travaux Divers 29. TANNER, Adrian 1978 Ethnoarchaeology in the region of the James Bay Project. Unpublished report submitted to the Services d'Archeologie, Ministere des Affaires Culturelles du Quebec. TURNER, Lucien 1894 Ethnology of the Ungava district, Hudson Bay Territory. Eleventh Annual Report of the American Bureau of Ethnology, 1889-90.