Adams] SHONTO : ROLE OF NAVAHO TRADER 213 



Navalios, and reserved for trading situations. In this regard, as well 

 as in its formal structure, it is a true "trade jargon" ; one of several 

 types of pidgins or marginal languages which have been distinguished 

 by linguists (cf . Eeinecke, 1938, pp. 109-113) . It will be designated 

 here as "Trader Navaho." 



As is generally true of trade jargons. Trader Navaho does not pre- 

 sent a mixed vocabulary of Navaho and English words (cf. Eeinecke, 

 1938, p. 111). Its lexicon is pure Navaho, and for that reason out- 

 siders and in many cases even traders themselves believe that they are 

 in fact speaking acceptable Navaho. The grammer and syntax of 

 Trader Navaho, however, retain little of the complex and inflexible 

 sequence of morphological elements (cf. Hymes, 1956, pp. 628-632) and 

 none of the minute differentiation of object and process categories 

 (see Hoijer, 1945-49) found in the true Navaho speech. All of the 

 so-called "nouns" and "verbs" of Trader Navaho occur in only a single 

 form, and the syntax is generally reminiscent of English. Trader 

 Navaho is sometimes said to resemble Navaho "baby talk" ; to a cer- 

 tain extent it must be learned as a separate idiom by Navahos as well 

 as by traders. It is not surprising, therefore, that the extent to which 

 it is spoken and understood by Shonto Navahos varies greatly, with 

 the result that effectiveness of trader communication as between one 

 client and another varies to the same degree. 



Less than half of Shonto's Navaho adults are capable of conducting 

 even the simplest mercantile transaction in English (see table 13, 

 p. 92). Some command of Trader Navaho (which can readily be ac- 

 quired in 3 or 4 months) is therefore essential to the trader and is one 

 of the qualities which distinguishes him from all his "Wliite neighbors. 

 Every trader on the Navaho Keservation has a working knowledge of 

 Trader Navaho; even in eastern districts where most of the Navaho 

 population understands English it remains the basic language of 

 trade and is considered essential to it. 



The use of the trade jargon does more for the trader than simply 

 to enable him to communicate with his non-English speaking custom- 

 ers. In a subtle way it also serves to emphasize his superior status 

 with respect to his clientele as a group. For that reason Shonto's 

 trader habitually uses Trader Navaho to address even many of his 

 best educated customers, and is likely to initiate a conversation in 

 English only in cases where he is especially anxious to be understood 

 clearly.^^ 



For their part educated Navaho customers commonly try to 

 converse in English and avoid the use of Trader Navaho. An amus- 

 ing, not to say absurd, result of this linguistic vying is that conver- 



^ The Identical phenomenon has been observed with regard to the persistence of Pidgin 

 English in Canton and Hong Kong, long after the Chinese servant groups Involved had 

 acquired an adequate command of English. (See Eeinecke, 1938, pp. 112-113.) 



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