The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-09-19
GENUINE NEGRO DIALECT
POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
1T AND THE SPURIOUS ARTICLE.
Common Errors of Writers Who I'm
dertaISe TO Reproduce It-Not to BE
Caught on Casual Hearing.
Letter in New York Evening Post.

June IS, on The Abuse of Dialect should
serve to call attention to the growing abuse
of negro dialect in American literature, and
at least check the output of the very in
ferior sort that is gravely served up to the
public by Understanding publishers. For
the public, which is very kind to the pub
fishers and very willing to take their word
for anything offered, deserves better treat
ment in return This question of negro dia-
lect is not one that should be discussed
hippantly. In France they would appoint
commission of savants to deal with it with
monographs.
1 cannot remember when / became IA
miliar with the Southern negro dialect. l
do not mean familiar enough to write or
even repeat it, but SO familiar with it that
there was nothing strange about the sound
Of it to my ears. Reared on an old South
ern plantation, where there were hundreds
of negroes, not one of whom made any
pretense to book-learning, or spoke any
other than the broadcast of dialects, 1 do
not suppose it ever occurred to me that
there was any difference between it and
the language of my fathers fireside until,
when 1 was a lad of twelve, he began to
read to me, month by month as they came
out, Mr.. Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle
Remuss" tales in Scribners. And then even
the difference did not strike me with any
peculiar force. Neither the pronunciation
nor the construction Jared on me in the
least. Uncle Remus" was simply another
Uncle Reuben and "Maum' Liza, whose
old-faShioned dialect it never occurred TO
me was other than the pureSt English
though ] was careful never to copy it,
After the appearance of the first Rainy
Days with Uncle Remus," there was an in
terVai OF some years IN my life, filled up
for the most part with Latin verbs and
mathematical enormities during which 1
lost the run of negro dialect literature, I'M
til 1 returned to the old plantation and be-
gan to make discoveries. There were ne
groes with me at least half of the time.
In the fields they worked under and in
the house they waited upon me, and all
the time that they were near me there was
q. steady flow of Afro-American dialect.
Some books and periodicals containing the
negro dialect of commerce coming my way,
| began to read 1t and compare it with
mand This was but a natural beginning
of course of study and observation, and
thousands of notes were the results.
NOT TO BE LAUGHED AT.
shall never forget the first shock that
this fad for dialect-gathering gave me- L
have received several since A young man,
an Englishman, very red in the face and
very much of "tenderfoot," came to spend
the winter with my family and brought
along a number of yellow-backe books,
among which there was a copy of Mr. II.
Clavering Gunther's Florida Enchant-
ment" He lent it to me and 1 read (which
/ have ever since regretted-and then he
read it himself and guffawed at some para
graphs of alleged negro dialect until want
ed to throw him out of a window But it
gave me some comfort to know that he af-
forded the darkies about as much amuse-
ment as they did him, and with a great
deal more reason. | remember two who Gull
tivated his accent-whch left little to be de-
sred-until fog began. to gather every
ina how L.
The idea of this Britisher regarding my pet
dialect as something to be laughed at dis
gusted me But it opened my eyes at the
same time to the fact that the whole world
was beginning to regard it in the same way,
and that Mr.. Harris who understands the
pathos and the poetry of 1t as well as any
he should, but using it as a sort of motley
to make the great unthinking world laugh.
But 1t was not my purpose in beginning
this article to lecture any one as to how
this dialect should be employed. This would
simply be wasting time. My sole purpose
was to call attention to the class of stuff
that the readers of the North accept with
all seriousness as negro dialect and to point
out some of the glazing errors that a long
and intimate acquaintance with the original
enables me to detect.
find the first note made in my long list
OF comparisons to be based upon the mis-
take OF an amateur in handling negro char
acter. federal soldier. in detailing his
experience in escaping An the Florence,
S. c., prison. claims to have been told by
young negro girl, in the presence of her
mother, that she was always glad to do
anything fur one 'er Mr. Lincum's solgers."
"A young negro girl, living on a backwoods
plantation, would have said nothing of the
kind The chances are ten to one that the
appearance OF a Yankee" would have
thrown her into panic. Negroes on out
of-the- way South Carol ma plantat ons knew
nothing about the emancipation feature OF
owners for yankees" who, in many in
stances, they pictured as dreadful race,
half men and half dragons who, for all
knew might he rannihalS We'll Rut
this aspect Of the case aside, such a thing
as an ignorant little negro girl making use
her parents. uuch less of stranger, is
ridiculous. i have seen great many little
negro girls in my life, and have universally
observed that the instant l appeared on the
scene they became prey TO dlmdence,
hardly daring to answer any simple ques-
ton put them above whisper, II u tne hr
present, it was simply Impossible 10 get
anything more ineligible than a grin and
a shipper out of them
THOMPSON CRITICISED.
find notes on a novel published in 1881
and written by Mr.. Maurice Thompson.
called "A Tallahassee Girl" which struck
me as furnishing some pretty good examples
of the kind of negro dialect that set me to
thinking. Somewhere in the book he makes
an old colored woman say of a wedding, de
ceremony's bout ter begin l thought
that very good. But the chances are that
she said, Hits bout ter begin" No peo-
pie have the faculty of putting things
shorter than the plantation negroes of the
South. The town negro gets an mixing of
such words ceremony" and uses them
in place and out of place. but the old
fashioned country darby makes hit serve
for everything from the day of judgment to
the rheumatism. | met an old fellow on the
morning after the great earthquake Of 1883
and he asked, Hit skeer you las night,
bosS?'
Mr. Thompson charges another of his
characters, an old negro man in V hose cabin
a young traveller is nursed through ser1-
help i'm git well and sen i'm long bout his
natural business, same like udder folks,
we eS done our duty eZ Christians | hard
ly know how to deal with this sentence. 1t
is so utterly foreign to anything old
negro would say that / cannot begin TO say
idea would have been expressed. l don't
think a genuine old darby would have un-
dertaken even to express such an idea.
There is a great deal of character in negro
dialect, and a writer who puts false Senu-
ment into Negroes mouth displays Woful
old-fashioned negroes-are not given to ut
tering high-Sounding speeches of this kind.
The Indian may have done 1t, but 1t is not
in the negros line.
In the same book a daughter of the mis-
represented old darby speaks of "cuilud
that way, but a plantation negro would
laugh at her. The chances are that this
young person said, Err black GAL" or,
maybe, as they are not much given TO the
use of adjectves, Err gal" 1t is Just as
much a mistake to put such talk into the
mouth of young plantation negro as it
was for Mr.. Gunter to make colored
ladvfS maid in his "IslOrida Enchaufrnpnf