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56-400: Bungi has been categorized as a post-creole , with the distinctive features of the language gradually abandoned by successive generations of speakers in favour of standard Canadian English . In 1870, about 5,000 Métis were native speakers of Bungi, but by the late 1980s, only a handful of elderly speakers were known. Today, Bungi has very few if any speakers and is potentially extinct. Bungi

112-483: A byre yerself, or slocked a lantern! Perhaps even you think ye're smaart, like a stupid ass, but when you to Tsarts on Sunday, you'll-see, the people'll be maarkin' at ye, and ye'll be wis'in' ye could go in hindside farmost, like as if you were insteppéd already! Boy, whatever! When you were sittin' in a bott, fis'in' fer Dsack-fis' among the wullows on the Red Ruvver, you never thought some day ye'd be warkin' fer

168-555: A collection of over 500,000 photographs, 250,000 newspaper clippings arranged into morgue files, and microfilm copies of the newspaper. In 1994, the Lion's Club announced its intention to build an 18-storey apartment tower on the old Winnipeg Tribune site. To be called Tribune Towers, it would be for seniors 55 and older and contain 132 suites. There would have been skywalk connections to the Millennium Library . The project

224-476: A continuum exists between speakers of a creole language and a related standard language. There are no discrete boundaries between the different varieties, and the situation in which such a continuum exists involves considerable social stratification. The following table (from Bell 1976 ) shows the 18 different ways of rendering the phrase I gave him one in Guyanese English : The continuum shown has

280-467: A discussion that he had been a part of. Willie met me at the Selkirk station to drive me to St. Peter's rectory. This conversation ensued: "come on boy, I'm got the horse tied upset the hotel." We were no sooner seated in the buggy than he started, "Bye, did you hear about the elecsuns last week?" "No Willie, Dominion, provincial or municipal?" "Hell no, tsurch. I was runnin' for waarden. The meeting

336-600: A sentence (e.g. "My brother is coming, him."), changes in the pronunciation of phonemes (e.g. the phonemic distinction between [s] and [š] in not present in Western Cree dialects, and were reversed in Bungi from the standard English), etc. The third-person pronouns in Cree do not distinguish between masculine and feminine, which resulted in the interchangeable use of he and she in Bungi without regard for gender (e.g. "My wife he

392-453: A strong influence of Standard American English onto the speech of Black Americans so that a continuum exists today with Standard English as the acrolect and varieties closest to the original creole as the basilect. In Jamaica , a continuum exists between Jamaican English and Jamaican Patois . In Haiti, the acrolect is Haitian French and the basilect has been standardized as Haitian Creole . Meanwhile, in southern Africa, Afrikaans

448-541: A total redesign of the paper. The new design made its debut on September 6, 1975. Although the offset press could print a 112-page newspaper, the September 6 edition was 124 pages, including the 48-page Trib Classifieds . That forced the press operators to print the Trib Lifestyle section separately. Within a few months, circulation gained 30,000 paid readers, which made the upgrade a success. A few days before

504-421: Is a dialect continuum of varieties of a creole language between those most and least similar to the superstrate language (that is, a closely related language whose speakers assert or asserted dominance of some sort). Due to social, political, and economic factors, a creole language can decreolize towards one of the languages from which it is descended, aligning its morphology , phonology , and syntax to

560-425: Is a codified mesolect, or a partial creole, with the acrolect (standard Dutch ) stripped of official status decades ago, having been used for only religious purposes. Winnipeg Evening Tribune The Winnipeg Tribune was a metropolitan daily newspaper serving Winnipeg , Manitoba , Canada from January 28, 1890, to August 27, 1980. The paper was founded by R.L. Richardson and D.L. McIntyre who acquired

616-457: Is because of this, he argues, that it is difficult to document Bungi, and the speakers will often deny knowledge of the language. In addition to the being the name of a dialect, the word Bungi might have referred to a specific group of Métis of Scottish ancestry. The earliest records report that the name "Bungee" was used by the British, and especially Hudson's Bay Company employees to refer to

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672-528: Is going to the store."). Bungee borrowed words and structures from the parent languages (e.g. the standard Bungee greeting of "I'm well, you but?" came directly from Cree). Bungi speakers also reported that Bungi uses Cree vowels and Scots consonants. It often uses Cree syntax. Prior to 1938, people were already expressing concerns about the potential loss of Bungi. In letters to the Winnipeg Evening Tribune , Mr. J. J. Moncrief, writing under

728-636: Is now under the Soviet system of government." It was bought by Southam Newspapers in 1920. In 1922, the Winnipeg Tribune launched a radio station, CJNC-AM, that broadcast on the frequency 410 kHz and closed down a year later, on March 9, 1923. Said the station manager at the closing: We have some important news for you. Some of you may not consider it good news. The Tribune will give its last radio concert next Friday night. It will then dismantle its radio equipment and retire permanently from

784-550: Is unusual as a dialect in that for the Scottish immigrants and the First Nations who developed the dialect, English was often a second language. Others, such as Brian Orvis, a Bungi-speaker from Selkirk, Manitoba, argued that Bungi is a language unto its own. He asserted that Bungee-speakers do not like to be recorded speaking the language because the First Nations values are that one should not call attention to oneself. It

840-563: The Saulteaux . Sometime around the turn of the 20th century, the word Bungi began to be used to refer to people of Scottish and First Nations ancestry. The most notable particularity of Bungi is its phonology (sound system and pronunciation). Voice quality differences are also apparent. The lexicon is mostly English with borrowings from Gaelic, Cree, Ojibwa, and other languages. Several researchers have studied Bungi. Margaret Stobie studied Bungi and visited several communities where Bungi

896-579: The Tribune decided to differentiate itself from the Free Press by creating a locally-written tabloid, Trib Magazine , which started on November 24, 1979. In the late 1970s, the Tribune started publishing the weekend color comics in booklet form as "collectible comics." It was one of the first newspapers (and one of the very few in Canada) to use that short-lived format. The first issue, Vol.1 No.1,

952-548: The pen name "Old Timer," and Osborne Scott expressed their concerns about the survival of the Red River dialect. Others wrote in letters to the editor of the same newspaper in 1938 that Bungi would be gone in a generation. In her thesis, The Bungee Dialect of the Red River Settlement (1989), Blain discusses the ways in which Bungi-speaking families were excluded (whether this was intentional discrimination by

1008-436: The P.C.R. an' sittin' opp-site Can-ay-dsens, did you? Stop first, ye'll-see, I'm got in my green boax under the baid, pictsers s'owin' you playin' Cricket with a white peak-ed cap on yer heid, dsust like you were a dsentleman. But you got dsust as sock-sweated playin' a "dsentleman's game" as ever ye did kickin' a stinkin'-hide football over a byre! "Dsentleman's Game," indeed! Aw-hoi fer you, Osborne Scott! Lemme-see, you mind

1064-515: The Queen," Sanderson had said "God shave the Queen." However, Sanderson would discredit this idea in a letter to the editor, called Canon Sanderson Drops into Red River Dialect in response to Osborne's 1937 article ad radio address, and also included some examples of words in Bungi. In a letter to the editor titled Aw, My Fer You, Osborne Scott! , an anonymous person using the pseudonym Bung-gay (a nom de plume for Islay Mary (Charles) Sinclair, who

1120-564: The Red River, when in fact Osborne and another contributor (likely Mr. J. J. Moncrieff under the pseudonym An Old Timer) were saddened by the vanishing of Bungi and that their children would not know the accents and dialect, and wanted to remember the humour as well. Aw, my fer you, Osborne Scott, ye s'ould be properly as-s'améd of yerself, ye dirty tras', insultin' decent people from the Ruvver, dsust like as if ye aren't one yerself, in yer Englis' s'oes and tseckered suit, an' like as if ye never saw

1176-418: The acrolect form as [aɪ ɡeɪv hɪm wʌn] (which is identical with Standard English ) while the basilect form is [mɪ ɡiː æm wan] . Due to code-switching, most speakers have a command of a range in the continuum and, depending on social position, occupation, etc. can implement the different levels with various levels of skill. If a society is so stratified as to have little to no contact between groups who speak

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1232-479: The broadcasting field. In 1942, the newspaper published a famous army publicity photo of Mary Greyeyes , the first Indigenous woman to enlist in the Canadian Women's Army Corps . The photo was soon picked up by British newspapers overseas. On Friday, September 5, 1969, the Tribune replaced its small user-folded TV listings printed on yellow paper with a glossy-covered 32-page booklet, TV Times , which

1288-760: The closure happened at the same time as the closing of the Ottawa Journal . In 1980, the Ottawa Journal had been purchased by Thomson Newspapers and was closed. That left Southam's Ottawa Citizen as the only major newspaper in Ottawa and the Thompsons' Winnipeg Free Press the only major newspaper in Winnipeg. The Royal Commission on Newspapers , popularly known as the Kent Commission,

1344-414: The community or because of reluctance on the part of the family is not known), including not having their family history included in local history books, being assigned to wash an enormous amount of dishes away from the festivities at events, people trying to hide their Indigenous ancestry, shame about how they sound when they spoke Bungi, etc. Blain also notes that Bungi was in a constant state of change that

1400-448: The continuum) to refer to the phenomenon of code-switching used by some users of creole languages who also have some fluency in the standard language upon which the contact language is based. University of Chicago linguist Salikoko Mufwene explains the phenomenon of creole languages as "basilectalization" away from a standard, often European, language among a mixed European and non-European population. In certain speech communities ,

1456-472: The creole and those who speak the superstrate (dominant) language, a situation of diglossia occurs, rather than a continuum. Assigning separate and distinct functions for the two varieties will have the same effect. This is the case in Haiti with Haitian Creole and French . Use of the terms acrolect , mesolect and basilect attempts to avoid the value judgement inherent in earlier terminology, by which

1512-613: The design change, on September 1, all private sale listings were made in the classified ads free in the form of a Want-Ad Free-for-All promotion. That was because of fierce competition with the Winnipeg Free Press . In March 1979, it bought some space atop the Casa Loma building ( Portage Avenue & Sherbrook Street) to hold Winnipeg's largest billboard. It read, "[logo] With the Trib, it's Winnipeg. First." The billboard

1568-535: The immigrants. In a later, updated version of the article in 1951 that included parts of the original radio broadcast that were not in The Winnipeg Evening Tribune article, Osborne also told of a young Canon M. Sanderson learning to pronounce [s] and [š] under the tutelage of Rev. S. P. Matheson. When Sanderson was working with Rev. J. J. Anderson as his assistant, Anderson reported to Matheson that he had overdone it—instead of saying "God save

1624-506: The language spoken by the ruling classes in a capital city was defined as the "correct" or "pure" form while that spoken by the lower classes and inhabitants of outlying provinces was "a dialect" characterised as "incorrect", "impure" or "debased". It has been suggested ( Rickford 1977 ; Dillard 1972 ) that African American Vernacular English is a decreolized form of a slave creole. After emancipation, African-Americans' recognition and exercise of increased opportunities for interaction created

1680-465: The lite. Can't you die the daark?" Scott also recounted a discussion that he had overheard. I overheard this in our kitchen—the servant next door had come over to visit: "Sit down girl Mary; you'll see I'll make a cup a tea." "Oh Eliza girl, I'll not can, I'm got to get hom." "Keeyam getting hom. Sit down. Take off your saul and I'll put on kettle." "Aw Eliza I'll not can—I'm got Jane Mary's bodice on and it'll not can meet." Scott also recounted

1736-500: The local standard of the dominant language but to different degrees depending on a speaker's status. William Stewart , in 1965, proposed the terms acrolect , the highest or most prestigious variety on the continuum, and basilect , the lowest or least prestigious variety, as sociolinguistic labels for the upper and lower boundaries, respectively, of a post-creole speech continuum. In the early 1970s Derek Bickerton popularized these terms (as well as mesolect for intermediate points in

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1792-427: The population which had spoken it in previous generations, a factor which likely contributed to its near extinction by the time of her research. The study records the dialect in its final phase, when considerable levelling towards standard Canadian English was present. Bungi was spoken with a distinctive rhythm with a Gaelic fall, including the way that syllables are stressed, repetition of both nouns and pronouns in

1848-460: The press and premises of the old Winnipeg Sun newspaper. It was often viewed as a liberal newspaper focused on local news and events. The paper was owned by Southam Inc at the time of its demise. It was frequently referred to as The Trib . The Winnipeg Tribune began publishing on January 28, 1890, as a city newspaper, after the old Winnipeg Sun closed down. The initial edition contained four pages of local, national and international news. It

1904-511: The pseudonym Old Timer (a nom de plume commonly used by J. J. Moncrieef who was from the Shetland Islands), the author provided an excerpt from a letter that had some Bungi. I met a "nattive" from down the river Clandeboye way yesterday on the streets. We chatted of "ould" times. He relapsed into the lingo and I mentioned the number of fisherman caught on the ice. "Yes," he said, "what a fun the peppers are having about it. I mind when I

1960-473: The time ye took me to a daance, in a boab-sleigh, an' ye were wearin' a biled sart and yer beef-hide s'oes, an' it was so cauld yer nozz started runnin' like a soogar-tree, an' I had to lawn ye my strippéd sas' to wipe it on! Good thing ye didn't take cauld that night, boy, an' be like Sall-ee, when they tole her ould man s'e died from want o' breath, he says: "Oh, no, Boy!—s'e was breathen' when s'e died!" Or like yer poop Uncle, too, Boy—when he got cauld—one day he

2016-502: The title of Red River Dialect ). John James Corrigal and WIllie George Linklater were sootin the marse The canoe went apeechequanee. The watter was sallow watefer, but Willie George kept bobbin up and down callin "O Lard save me." John James was topside the canoe souted to Willie and sayed, "Never min the Lard just now, Willie, grab for the willows." Another story was recounted in the same article. Willie Brass, Hudson's Bay Co. servant,

2072-492: The tsurch and barned in yore on hom.' "By gos boy I lost the elecsun right there. By Jewpiter I'm got to hurry. Kiplun an me is going to the marse sootin this evening." In the same article, Scott provided a few more examples and definitions of words: Scott said that First Nations words were used in Bungi most often as "picturesque short words, generally exclamatory". In addition, the names of birds, animals, and plants were commonly First Nations words, as these things were new to

2128-408: The upsit side of the lake, away for Balsam Bay. We put of sales, blankets and buffalo robs to help us get there quicker like. When we hit the sore, we drov rite off the ice. One of the byes went chimmuck, be we got him out alrite. We drove up to Selcrick on the cross side and crossed the rivver right at the gutway above St. Peters cherch. Oh yes, bye, we got hom alrite; we had to swim our harses. There

2184-445: The very sensitive linguistic environment ultimately led to the extinction of this dialect. The main linguistic documentation of this dialect were conducted by Eleanor M. Blain (1987, 1989), Francis "Frank" J. Walters (1969–1970,), Margaret Stobie (1967–68, 1970, 1971) and Elaine Gold (2007, 2009). Osborne Scott also contributed to the understanding of Bungi (1937, 1951). In an article titled Red River Dialect published in 1936 under

2240-427: Was a small saver, my faather and some of the byes round out the ice and sate, our nates. Ould One-Button sayed it was going to be cowld. I think me its the awnly time he was wrong, for by gos all quick like a southwaste wind come up and cracked the ice right off, and first thing quick like we were rite out in the lake whatever. It was a pretty ackward place to een, I tell you. The piece we were all on started rite away for

2296-543: Was alive, an' the next he was a caark! I'm not got a fifty-cent-bit dsust no, Boy, but I'll bet a s'illin's warth o' sweeties at the karner staure that ye often think long o' th' ould Red Ruvver, an' wis'in' ye was back pickin' Tseepo nuts an' seekin' yer ould red cow 'wid spots-now-an'-agian'! Aw-hoi, fer you! Osborne Scott, speakin' on the Raddio. I think me ye're dsust tryin' to s'ow off! Post-creole continuum A post-creole continuum (or simply creole continuum )

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2352-541: Was also featured in the Ottawa Citizen and the Montreal Gazette . On Sunday, June 21, 1970, a new Centrex telephone system was installed for advertisers and subscribers to use when they called. This allowed direct dialing without requiring the person to contact the switchboard operator first. By the mid-1970s, daily circulation began to slip to 70,000 and was falling. The Southam chain decided on

2408-482: Was an Orkneyman who married an Eskimo woman in the north and retired to the Red River Settlement. He got home from the fort one night a little worse for wear with acute indigestion. He went to bed but kept waking, asking Eliza his wife for a drink of hot water saying "Strick a lite, you'll see I'm dying Eliza, and get me a drink, I'm dying." She did strike a light and got him hot water three or four times. Finally she got fed up and said to him, "Awe Willie I'm just slocked it

2464-655: Was created in 1980 in response to allegations of collusion following the same-day closings of the Thomson-owned Ottawa Journal and the Southam-owned Winnipeg Tribune . The last issue, with the headline "It's Been 90 Great Years", remains a collector's item to this day. A number of employees from the Tribune later helped form the Winnipeg Sun . The University of Manitoba archives and special collections holds

2520-462: Was designed by the advertising firm Martel-Stewart Ltd., and was larger than any that had been billboard seen in Winnipeg; it was also the largest in Western Canada . It measured 23 feet tall by 60 feet wide and had 4,200 light bulbs. The billboard space had been used by Export A cigarettes as early as 1959. When Southam's weekend magazine The Canadian merged with FP Newspapers' Weekend ,

2576-590: Was evolving towards the local standard English. Swan also reports the prejudice towards Bungi speakers in her thesis, Ethnicity and the Canadianization of Red River Politics (1991). She suggests that Anglo-Métis Manitoba Premier John Norquay , who was born near St. Andrews in what was the Red River Colony and would have spoken Bungi, had dropped his accent by the time that he had entered politics. The social prejudice towards Bungi speakers and

2632-582: Was in tsurch. Your father was in the tsair. Kilpun was running against me. Mind you boy, your faather was in the tsair. He was just about to take the vot when that fellow Kiplun got up. Oh that's Kiplun opting watter from the rivver he lives in that little house with the smok coming out of the chimney now. Yes mind you boy that fella Kiplun got right up in the meeting. Your faather boy was in the tsair and you know what Kiplun sayed? He sayed, 'Willie,' " 'Yes, Kiplun.' " 'What did you do with that coil oil?' " 'What coil oil, Kiplun?' " 'The coil oil you took out of

2688-506: Was never completed. In April 2013, an Ontario-based real estate investment firm, Fortress Real Development , announced a 45-storey 'SkyCity' condominium project at the old site. However, in 2018 or 2019, the project was cancelled for financial issues relating to the investment and development company. The University of Manitoba Library digitized all the paper's pages between 1890 and 1980 and has made it freely available online. A documentary, 'The Trib: The Story of an Underdog Newspaper',

2744-505: Was nothing in the pepper about it, whatever. We all had quite a funn about it at the dance that nite. P.S. I thought this would interest you in your ould age bye. Osborne Scott gave a talk on the radio at CKY on December 7, 1937, about Bungi (the talk was later published in the Winnipeg Evening Tribune on December 12, 1937, with the title Red River Dialect and again as a slightly longer article in 1951 in The Beaver , also with

2800-468: Was often referred to simply as the Red River Dialect. Expanded scholarship has preferred "Bungi" as the preferred spelling over "Bungee" and other spellings. The name derives from either Ojibwe : bangii , or Cree : pahkī , both words meaning a little bit . In these colloquial uses the term may have mildly pejorative connotations, even when used by speakers to describe themselves. Bungi

2856-424: Was published September 24, 1977. The final issue, Vol.4 No. 34, was published August 23, 1978, when the strips returned to the main edition. The trademark name is now owned by the paper's old rival, the Winnipeg Free Press . On August 27, 1980, without warning, the Tribune was abruptly closed, and 375 people were out of work. Gene Telpner joked that he had just gotten new drapes and furniture. Val Werier , who

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2912-481: Was said could not speak Bungi but rather imitate it from having lived in the community for a long time) wrote a letter to the editor in Bungi that Blain named the McBean Letter. The letter was in response to an irate letter titled Not Offensive to Red River Descendants about Scott's article submitted by Mrs. A. Kipling on January 7, 1938. Kipling felt that Scott had belittled and insulted the Bungi speakers of

2968-599: Was spoken in the Lower Red River Colony in the area from The Forks (where the Red River and Assiniboine River meet in what is now downtown Winnipeg) to the mouth of the Red River at Lake Winnipeg . This is the area where the English/Scottish retired Hudson's Bay Company servants generally settled. Over the years, Bungi has been spelled many different ways by many different people, and

3024-455: Was spoken. In her 1971 article, The Dialect Called Bungi , Stobie reported that Bungi was the English dialect spoken by the descendants of Gaelic-speaking Highlanders . Blain conducted one of the most thorough academic studies of Bungi in her thesis and other publications, The Bungee Dialect of the Red River Settlement (1989). Blain's research found extremely negative attitudes to Bungi among

3080-888: Was then in competition with two other newspapers: the Manitoba Free Press and the Winnipeg Telegram . In 1914, the Tribune moved its editorial offices from the Exchange area to the Central Business District area of downtown on Smith Street. It remained there until it closed in August 1980. During the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919, the newspaper sided with the Citizens' Committee of 1000 and declared, "Winnipeg

3136-422: Was with the Trib for 35 years, said that it was a shocking moment. However, people in the pressroom knew that something was coming because management had stopped the presses that morning. The presses had only stopped on a rare occasion, and when they stopped, it was only for major events. Shockwaves moved through the community also, and many Winnipeggers were angry about losing a competing public voice. Worse yet,

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