Linguistics

1. Facultad de humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación:
Licenciatura en Lingüística-
Prof. María Noel Caño-Guiral
María Zinnia Bardas Hoffmann
Gullah dialects

2. The Gullah Language
• Gullah is an English-based, creolized
language that naturally evolved from the
unique circumstances of, and was spoken by,
the slaves in South Carolina and Georgia.
• It is not written language. It is sometimes
referred to as the patios of the Lowcountry.
•

3. • Along with many of the African and English
words and expressions, it also contains
some other foreign languages or whatever
could be picked up, depending on the
nationality of the slave owner.

4. • The word Gullah is believed to be a
mispronunciation of the African word Gora
or Gola, which were names of tribes living
in Sierra Leone, West Africa.

7. What does this map tell us about the Gullah
people?

8. Living in the Sea Islands off the coast of South
Carolina, Georgia and northern Florida ( and
about 30 miles inland) is the Gullah/Geechee
Nation, comprised of the descendants of
Africans once enslaved in the Lowcountry and
Coastal Empire.
The words Gullah and Geechee refer to West
African ethnic groups. “However, amongst
ourselves, we don‟t use these designations,”
notes historian Marquetta L. Goodwine. “We
know we‟re all kin. We‟re all the same culture,
heritage, and legacy.”

9. Gullah language combines elements of West African
dialects with English pidgin bases. Gullah is the only
surviving English-based Creole language in America.
The language developed as a way for Africans of
various tribes to communicate with one another, a
way that plantation owners would not understand.
Gullah is an oral history, and younger generations
have kept the traditional spirit of Gullah alive through
language, religion, arts, crafts, stories, and song.
Gullah/Geechee people reflect a more African
influence in their behavior, self-expression, and
beliefs than any other African American group in the
United States of America.

10. • The Lord’s Prayer
Translated to Gullah by Alphonso Brown
Our Fadduh awt‟n Hebb‟n, all-duh-weh be dy holy
„n uh rightschus name. Dy kingdom com.‟ Oh lawd
leh yo‟ holy „n rightschus woud be done, on dis ert‟
as-‟e tis dun een yo‟ grayt Hebb‟n. „N ghee we oh
Lawd dis day our day-ly bread. “N f‟gib we oh
Lawd our trus-passes, as we also f‟gib doohs who
com‟ sin „n truspass uhghens us. „N need-us-snot
oh konkuhrin‟ King een tuh no moh ting like uh sin
„n eeb‟l. Fuh dyne oh dyne is duh kingdom, „n duh
kingdom prommus fuh be we ebbuh las‟n glory.
Amen.
• Listen to the Lord’s Prayer in Gullah

11. • The Twenty Third Psalm
Translated to Gullah by Alphonso Brown
De Lawd, „E duh my sheppud. Uh een gwoi‟ want. „E meck me fuh
lay down een dem green passuh. „E Khah me deh side dah stagnant
wahtuh. „E sto‟ muh soul; „E lead me een de pat‟ ob right-juss-niss
fuh „E name sake. Aae doh Ie wark shru‟ de whalley ob dem grayb
yaad Ie een gwoi‟ skayed uh dem dead people, fuh Ie know de
Lawd, „E duh deh wid me; „E stick wha‟ „E khah een „E han‟ „n de
staff een de udduh han‟ gwoi‟ cumpit me‟ „E fix up uh table fuh me
fuh grease muh mout‟ „n muh enemies een gwoi‟ git none. „E „noint
muh head wid uhl. Muh cup obbuh flo.‟ Sho‟ nuff all „E goodnes,‟ „n
„E muhcy gwoi‟ be wid me all de day ob muh life „n Ie gwoi‟ lib deh
een de house ob de Lawd fuh ebbuh „n ebbuh. Amen
Listen to the 23rd Psalm in Gullah
http://gullahtours.com/gullah/hear-and-read-gullah

12. “I Have A Dream,”
by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Translated to Gullah by Alphonso Brown
Ie say tuh unnuh teday, mye frien‟, eeb‟n dough we duh face dees haad
time yuh ob teday „n temorruh, Ie still hab uh dreem. „E uh dreem wuh
staat way down een America dreem.
Ie hab disshuh dreem dat one day dis America gwi‟ come up „n be tru‟
mout‟ ob de law wah call de Creed: “We hol‟ dees trut‟ fuh be sef-
ebbuhdent, dat all man duh mek equal.”
.

13. Ie hab uh dreem dat my fo‟ leetle chill‟n gwi one
uh dees day lib een America weh deh een gwi‟
be judge by de culluh ob deh skin but by dey
weh dey khaah „e sef. Ie hab uh dreem teday!
Ie hab uh dreem dat one uh dees ol‟ day, way
down een Allybameh…yeh, right down een
Allybameh, dat leet‟l black by‟s „n leet‟l black
gals gwi‟ be able fuh jy‟n up han‟ wid leet‟l white
by‟s „n gals „n wark tegettuh like sistuh „n
brudduh. Ie hab uh dreem!‟.”

14. Ie hab uh dreem dat one uh dees ol‟ day, ebby wally
gwi‟ be raise up, ebby hill „n mount‟n gwi‟ be mek lo‟
down, de haad ruff place gwi‟ be mek plain, „n de
crookit place gwi‟ be mek skrate, „n de glory ob de
Lawd gwi‟ be sho‟ up, „n ebbyboddy gwi see um
tegedduh.
Dees duh wah we look fo‟. Did yuh duh de fate dat Ie
gwi‟ hol‟ teh de Sout‟ wid.
Wid dis fate, we gwi‟ be able fuh cut fum de mount‟n
ob nutt‟n, a stone ob hope. Wid dis fate, we gwi‟ be
ab‟le fuh change up de uglynes‟ ob we nayshun ento
uh bootiful tegedduhness ob brudduhhood.

15. Wid dis fate we gwi‟ be able fuh wark tegedduh, „n
pray tegedduh, skrugg‟l tegedduh „n raise up tall fuh
freedum tegedduh, „n „e stan‟ so, dat we gwi‟ be free
one day.
„N dah sho‟nuf gwi be de day. Dis gwi‟ be de day
wen all Gawd chill‟n gwi‟ hice de chune wid new
mee‟nin, “My country „tis ob dee, sweet lan‟ ob
libuhty, ob dee Ie sing. Lan‟ weh my fadduh dead,
lan‟ ob de Pilgrum pride, fum ebby mount‟n side leh
freedum ring.” “‟N eff America gwi‟ be uh bettuh
nayshun, dis mus‟ be fo‟ real.

16. Ebonics
• It s (a blend of the words ebony
and phonics) is a term that was originally
intended to refer to the language of all people
descended from enslaved Black Africans,
particularly in West Africa, the Caribbean,
and North America.
• Since the 1996 controversy over its use by
the Oakland School Board, the
term Ebonics has primarily been used to refer
to African American Vernacular
English (AAVE.

17. • The word Ebonics was originally coined in
1973 by African American social
psychologist Robert Williams in a
discussion with linguist Ernie Smith (as
well as other language scholars and
researchers) that took place in a
conference on "Cognitive and Language
Development of the Black Child", held
in St. Louis, Missouri.

18. • His intention was to give a name to the
language of African Americans that
acknowledged the linguistic consequence
of the slave trade and avoided the
negative connotations of other terms like
"Nonstandard Negro English

19. • We need to define what we speak. We
need to give a clear definition to our
language...We know that ebony means
black and that phonics refers to speech
sounds or the science of sounds.

20. • Thus, we are really talking about the
science of black speech sounds or
language.
• 1975, the term appeared in Ebonics: The
True Language of Black Folks, a book
edited and cowritten by Williams

21. • A two-year-old term created by a group of black scholars,
Ebonics may be defined as "the linguistic and paralinguistic
features which on a concentric continuum represent the
communicative competence of the West African, Caribbean,
and United States slave descendant of African origin. It
includes the various idioms, patois, argots, idiolects, and
social dialects of black people" especially those who have
adapted to colonial circumstances. Ebonics derives its form
from ebony (black) and phonics (sound, the study of sound)
and refers to the study of the language of black people in all
its cultural uniqueness.
• Other writers have since emphasized how the term represents
a view of the language of Black people as African rather than
European.
• he term was not obviously popular even among those who
agreed with the reason for coining it. Even within Williams's
book, the term Black English is far more commonly used than
the term Ebonics.[

22. • John Baugh has stated that the term Ebonics is used in four ways by
its Afrocentric proponents.
It may:
• 1. be "an international construct, including the linguistic
consequences of the African slave trade";
• 2. refer to the languages of the African diaspora as a whole;or it may
refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English: either
• 3. it "is the equivalent of black English and is considered to be a
dialect of English" (and thus merely an alternative term for AAVE), or
• 4. it "is the antonym of black English and is considered to be a
language other than English" (and thus a rejection of the notion of
"African American Vernacular English" but nevertheless a term for
what others term AAVE, viewed as an independent language and
not a mere ethnolect).

23. Lorenzo Dow Turner

25. • An overheard conversation inspired Lorenzo Dow Turner, PhD‟26, to
become a linguistic detective. While teaching summer school at
South Carolina State College in 1929, Turner listened as two
students spoke what sounded like broken English.
• To others, that‟s all it was—a remnant of a pidgin language that
slaves adapted from white influences. Turner, who had a Harvard
master‟s degree in education along with an English PhD from
Chicago, heard the echoes of something more formal, although he
couldn‟t understand a word.
• He asked the students what language they were speaking. “We‟re
Gullah,” they said, referring to cloistered communities of slave
descendants on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia.
Their response sparked what would grow into the defining ambition
of Turner‟s professional life: tracing the roots of Gullah vocabulary
and culture. Other linguists had studied it before, but they
determined that it contained no vestiges of African languages.

26. • Reed Smith of the University of South Carolina believed that
Gullah emerged as slaves altered the European-influenced
English of white settlers. The Africans, he wrote in a 1926
pamphlet, would “wrap their tongues around it, and reproduce it
changed in tonality, pronunciation, cadence, and grammar to suit
their native phonetic tendencies.”
• About the time Turner first heard Gullah, University of North
Carolina‟s Guy B. Johnson declared, “This strange dialect turns
out to be little more than the peasant English of two centuries
ago.” He found the perceived absence of African language
influences “startling” but attributable to slavery‟s devastating
cultural effects.
• Turner believed African influences remained. Although there is
very little in Gullah that is not drawn from English, says University
of Chicago linguistics scholar Salikoko Mufwene, PhD‟79, Turner
was the first to prove that “one cannot account for the origins ...
ignoring the languages that the slaves had brought from Africa.”

27. • Born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina on
October 21, 1890, Turner was the
youngest of four sons of Rooks Turner and
Elizabeth Freeman. His father completed
his masters degree at Howard University,
although he had not begun first grade until
he was twenty-one years old.

28. • His mother gained the education allowed
to black women at the time (six years).
Two of Turner's brothers earned degrees
in medicine and law. Turner's family's
strong emphasis on education inspired
him and helped him achieve academic
success.

29. • Turner earned a master's degree from Harvard and a
Ph.D. in English literature from the University of
Chicago. He taught at Howard University from 1917 to
1928, and during his last eight years, he served as
Head of the English Department. After leaving
Howard, he founded the Washington Sun newspaper,
which closed after one year.
• In 1946 he began teaching at Roosevelt University in
Chicago, where he was Chairman of the African
Studies Program. In the early 1960s, he cofounded the
Peace Corps training program to prepare young
volunteers for service in Africa. Turner retired from
Roosevelt in 1967.

30. • Lorenzo Dow Turner is best remembered
as the father of Gullah studies. His interest
in the Gullah people began in 1929 when
he first heard Gullah speakers while
teaching a summer class at South
Carolina State College (now University).
• Although established scholars then viewed
Gullah speech as a form of substandard
English, Turner sensed that Gullah was
strongly influenced by African languages.

31. • He set out to study the language. For the
next 20 years, he made trips to the Gullah
region in coastal South Carolina and
Georgia, interviewing Gullahs (often in
isolated locations) and making detailed
notes on their language. He also made
recordings in the 1930s of Gullah
speakers talking about their culture, folk
stories and other aspects of life.

32. • As part of his studies, Turner traveled to several locations in
Africa, specifically Sierra Leone, to learn about the
development of Creole languages, as well as to Louisiana and
Brazil, to study Creole and Portuguese, respectively.
• He did research at University of London School of Oriental
and African Studies (on various African language systems).
• He wanted to be able to provide context for the obvious
"Africanisms" he discovered in his Sea Islands research.
• "Such depth and breadth allowed Turner to locate Gullah
culture and language within the broader complexities of the
African diaspora in the New World, ... firmly outside the
reductionist theoretical model of cultural assimilation."

33. • When Turner finally published his classic work
Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect in 1949, he made an
immediate impact on established academic thinking.
• His study of the origin, development and structure of
Gullah was so convincing that scholars quickly
accepted his thesis that Gullah is strongly influenced
by African languages.
• He showed the continuity of language and culture
across the diaspora. Many scholars have followed
Turner over the years in researching the African roots
of Gullah language and culture. He created a new field
of study by his work and an appreciation for a unique
element of African-American culture.

34. • Lorenzo Dow Turner was strongly influenced
by the American linguistic movement, which
he joined at its inception.
• Through his Gullah research, he gave shape
to several academic specialties: Gullah
studies, dialect geography and creole
linguistics, as well as being an important
predecessor to the field of African American
studies, which developed in the 1960s and
70s.
• Turner died of heart failure at Michael Reese
Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, on February 10,
1972.

36. • To gain entry into that close-knit environment.
• Turner sought out community leaders to
verify his credentials.
• “The Gullah culture is still a very closed
culture. You can‟t get in and just get things
done. You have to be introduced, and people
have to say that you are bona fide,” Amos
says. “He was a very cordial and polite man,
and he would sit down and talk and get
himself friendly with the people.”

37. • The effort paid off with a glimpse into the
conditions that allowed the culture to endure
slavery. On Sapelo Island, Georgia, for
example, “the slaves were the majority of the
population; they were very isolated,” Amos
says.
• “There was the white family that owned the
island and the plantation, and then everybody
else was black. Even sometimes the
overseers—the drivers, as they were called—
were African. So in that sense the culture
could develop and could be kept.”

38. Zora Neale Hurston
Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.
Fear, Off, Anger Zora Neale Hurston

39. • Born on January 7, 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama,
Hurston was the fifth out of eight children. At the
age of three, Hurston and her family moved to
Eatonville, where they lived on five acres of land
in an eight-room house.
• Her writings reveal no recollection of Alabama,
and Hurston said that Eatonville always felt like
home.She was immersed in black folk life.
• Her father, John Hurston, was a Baptist
preacher, tenant farmer, and carpenter who
became the mayor of Eatonville.

40. Eatonville

41. Eatonville Gullah food and folklore

42. • Charlotte Jenkins is the author of "Gullah
Cuisine: By Land and By Sea," a collection of
stories and recipes taken from Charlotte and
her husband Frank Jenkins' lives and
traditions in and outside their Gullah family
kitchens.

43. Gullah Tours
• The language and culture still thrive today in
and around the Charleston/Beaufort, South
Carolina region. Gullah Tours explores the
places, history, and stories that are relevant
to the rich and varied contributions made by
Black Charlestonians..
• Of course, if Gullah was spoken throughout
the tour, you would not understand, nor would
you enjoy the beautiful and interesting sites
of Charleston.

44. Glossary*
http://gullahtours.com/gullah/gullah-words
ANUDDUH another
DEEF deaf
DEN then, than
DISSO just so
YEZ ear, ears (human or animal)
YEYE eye, eyes; so pronounced when preceded by a
soft vowel sound ” ‘E yeye red”his or her eyes
are bloodshot with anger
ZACKLY exactly (See “puhzackly”)

45. BANDUN abandon, abandons, abandoned,
abandoning
BAWN born
B’KAUSE because
BITTLE victuals, food
BODDUN bother, bothers, bothered, bothering; worry,
worries, worried, worrying
CHILLUN child, children
CHUPID stupid
DON’ don’t, doesn’t
DUNNO don’t know, doesn’t know, didn’t know
FAMBLY family, families; family’s, families’

46. • Gullah Fambly” by: Carter Elysse Nunez (kudipeaches)
[just for tay tay :) <3]
• I „memba grinin‟
De rice, mashin‟ up tettuh
Me fingas fumblin‟
Wile me mind try fuh keep‟up
Wit Granmuddah hans‟ rhythm
Unk playin‟ him heart on de guitar
Chillun wat come frum cross‟de‟way
Fuh nyam all we rice
An‟ clap dey feet tuh “We Gwine Fuh Heb‟n”
Miss Rosa bringin‟ de chit‟l‟n‟
Granpapa stirrin‟ him secret sauce ;
We all know it gonna „cawch we tongue
But still we douse de chickin‟ en it
Swattin‟ „way dem crow wat try dey beak
On de fried cawn

47. • Mama pullin‟ down me skirt
An‟ rubbin‟ wet thumbs on me face cheek
Some o de boys ruffhouse
Knockin‟ oba de lemon tea
Auntie Rae grippin‟ dem yez
Slappin‟ de black off dem bum
Inside jokes flyin‟ thru de air
„Bout hog tyin‟ we drunk cuzin Ris
Dirty plates spread all „round de house
Dawgs baa‟kin fo‟ lef‟obas ;
Wen me bret fin‟ly spent
Ie grin knowin‟ next Chuesday gwine be de same.
© 2011 KUDiYAH CA‟LYSSe. All Rights Reserved
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/gullah-poetry

48. To speak or not to speak
The Rights of Persons Belonging to
Linguistic Minorities
• UN Sub-Committee on the rights of minorities Dr Fernand de
Varennes Murdoch University, Australia21 March 1997
Minority Rights and Other "Linguistic Rights": What the UN
Declaration Does Not Containt
• It is essential to emphasise certain limitations to the UN
Declaration in relation to language. It apparently was never
intended to be a comprehensive code of all human rights,
recognised or nascent in international law, which directly or
indirectly relate to language.
• Strictly speaking, it should mainly be seen to address those
rights linked to Article 27 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, the only "minority" provision in the
covenant.

49. • The origins of the UN
Declaration can thus explain
certain omissions. Freedom of
expression, for example, is not
mentioned specifically in the UN
Declaration, even though it is
now clear that this freedom
protects the private use of
language.

50. • For persons who belong to linguistic minorities,
freedom of expression can be an extremely
important right in relation to the private use of a
language, but it is not a right which they can claim
as members of a minority group.
• Everyone has freedom of expression, whether one
belongs to a majority or to a minority. Seen in this
light, it is clear that whilst freedom of expression
may be of great significance for the protection of
linguistic minorities in some countries, it does not
originate per se from Article 27 of
the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights.

51. • It is not contained explicitly in the UN
Declaration because some individual
human rights that may have a role in
matters such as language (and religion or
culture) are not minority rights. Since they
are not minority rights, they fall outside the
UN Declaration.

52. • The UN Declaration is also silent on the right to
an interpreter in criminal proceedings when an
accused does not understand the language
used by the court.
• Once again, as this is an individual right and not
a minority right, it is not mentioned in the UN
Declaration, despite considered by many to be a
fundamental right in international law.

53. • A final example of a relevant individual
right which the UN Declaration does not
directly address is the growing
acknowledgment of the impact of non-
discrimination in the area of language
preferences by public authorities.

54. • Although the interpretation of this aspect of
the right of non-discrimination in international
law is still going through a process of
clarification, there is increasing support for the
view that the operation of non-discrimination
must take into account the need to balance a
state's legitimate interests and goals in
prescribing certain preferences with the
ensuing disadvantage, denial or burden this
may effect on individuals.