From: schmidt@auvax1
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: "Acting White"
Date: 16 Aug 92 01:18:53 GMT
Organization: Adelphi University

In article <Bt1JGJ.Cu5@acsu.buffalo.edu>, simon@acsu.buffalo.edu (Patrice A. Simon) writes:
> In article <36733@uflorida.cis.ufl.edu> djohns@elm.circa.ufl.edu (David A. Johns) writes:
>>There's really a continuum of dialects ranging from "Plantation
>>Creole" to just a hint of an accent attached to Standard American
>>English.  And a lot of people are not stuck at one particular point on
>>that continuum, but can slide in one direction or another as the
>>situation warrants.
> 
> 	Isn't there some influence from African languages? I know of a few
> words which are still used in the Caribbean (mainly food dishes) that
> are African. There is also a strong European influence. For example, some
> Caribbean islands that were colonised by the British inherited various 
> distinct dialects from England, Ireland Scotland and Wales, depending on
> the plantation owners.

The word "juke box" comes from "ju ju" and similar words in several West
African languages.  The Gullah (see below) refer to a dance hall as a "juke",
so the box which made the music in the juke was the juke box.  My Senegalese
friends tell me the phrase "wow" comes directly from the Wolof with exactly the
same meaning, although a book on origins of words in our library says it is
Scotch, but obsolete.  The truth is probably some combination.  Also, for
those who may have heard the Anancy the Spider folktales, Anancy means spider
in Asante and other Akan languages, and the folktales are told there too.

A couple of other interesting tidbits.. Pickininy (sp?) means "child" in, not
any African language, but guess what: Portugese!!  Gee, I wonder how that got
into the Patois??  Also, the word Jumbo comes from the name of the first
African elephant brought to the USA (by P. T. Barnum, I think)  He brought it
here from England, And I'm sure the name has African roots, but probably
doesn't mean "big".  

There are a couple of books published listing other words, and _West Africa_
magazine has had articles on occasion about this subject.  

> 
>>Plantation Creole was presumably spoken by a large percentage of
>>slaves.  It was fairly similar to modern Jamaican Patois, and can
>>still be heard among the Gullah people of South Carolina and Georgia,
>>who until very recently were isolated from the rest of American
>>society.  
> 
>>David
> 	If you read Zora Nealson's "Their Eyes Were Watching God," the
> accents are almost Caribbean. I actually thought they were at first.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Patrice Simon
> simon@acsu.cc.buffalo.edu			v5097ucd@ubvms.buffalo.edu
> opnsimon@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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