AMERINDIAN PIDGIN ENGLISH

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AMERINDIAN PIDGIN ENGLISH. A general term for PIDGIN languages based on the indigenous languages of the Americas, such as Chinook Jargon, Delaware Jargon, Mobilian Jargon, Trader Navajo/Navaho. Amerindian varieties of English descend from a makeshift language used between Indians and white settlers, especially in the US. Each variety retains features of its ancestral languages, but a shared feature is the transitivizing suffix -um after verbs (Squaw makum bed), also found in Melanesian Pidgin English and Kriol in Australia. Loanwords (chipmunk, moose, squash) and loan translations (firewater, peacepipe, warpath) have come into conventional English from this pidgin.

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AMERINDIAN PIDGIN ENGLISH

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