New-York tribune., 1913-09-07
CHAPTER Y.

The circumstance that the folksongs OF
[, the slaves were preserved by oral tradi-
I ton alone until nearly fifty years ago.
when the first collection was printed
gives peculiar interest 10 a study OF their
! language, or languages, for the songs o1
the black creoles of Louisiana and the
/ Antilles are also American folksongs,
/ though they are sung in French patois
and not in English. In both cases run
/ damental phenomenon confronts US; The
slave had to make the language in whlch
he communicated with his master, or
rather he had to reconstruct ii orally
without the help Of written or printed
books Having made his patois, he forgot
his own Lative tongue and perpetuated
the new medium of communication in the
same way in which he had learned and
f perpetuated the African language. After
this had been done and the new tongue
had become for him a vehicle for his
rude artistic utterances, those utterances
had to be retained by tradition and trans
mitted by word Of mouth entirely. This
brought with il a phenomenon with which
students of ballads are familiar-the cor
ruptions of texts due to the habit OF ac-
cepting sound for sense. The slaves OF the
states in which the masters spoke Eng
b Iish, under Protestant influences. heard
the Biblical expressions which appealed
powerfully 10 their imagination and emo
tions from their preachers. some Of whom
were as illiterate as the multitude they
sought TO enlighten. They heard their
masters use many words Of which they
could only surmise he meaning, but
which also appealed to them as resound-
Ing and mouth-hlling. Like children they
accepted the sounds without inquiring
into the sense or gave them meanings or
their own. Such terms as 'iggle-quarter."
"countaquils" and "ginny-bank' in the
working song Round the Corn, Sally"
may be corruDtions OF French words
heard from the Husuenot refugees. (Cn-
less, indeed, 'lggle- quarter be eagle
quarter, "ginny- bank" the Bank of Nir-
ginia. and the lines have a financial
sense) Others have a more or less obvi-
Gus Interpretation. "Oh, my body rock
long fever may have well been car
ried away from a sickroom as the remark
of master or mistress: MY body has long
been racked by fever" BODY racked
wild pain" is a line in one Of the songs
which ! have printed-"O'er the Cross
ing" l cannot accept the Interpretation
of Daniel rock de lion joy as Daniel
d racked the lions jaw" given in foot
note Of slave Songs, locked the
! lions Jaw" is too obviously the correct
[ reading "An' de nineteen vile in his
[ han is pretty plainly indicated as once
+ having read: "The amounting oil in his
hand" BY the context, and John sittin'
on de golden order was probably John
sitting on the golden atar"-a picture
which could not fail to appeal 10 the
| fancy Of the negroes, though / do not
' know where they found it,
The survival of words from African Ian
guages seems much smaller in the songs
than in the folktales from Bahama which
: Professor Edwards prints in his book.
AS ! have intmated these words would
naturally be retained in songs connected
with superstitious ceremonies and forbid
den dances.
, PHONETIC CHANGES IN DIALECT.
70 In his preface 10 Slave Songs" Mr.. Al
3 len points out the phonetic" decay had
gone very far in the speech Of the slaves
and with il "an extreme smplihcation OF
etymology and syntax" Tn and . or I had
been softened into and b., and 70 had
been intcrchanged; words had been shorn
of syllables which seemed redundant-as
illustrated in lee bro " for little broth
er." The letters n, and r were some
times used euphonically, perhaps TO graf
8 ify melodic sense, as the vowel fire.
ouently was for rhythmical effect Mr..
Allen gives an example of the euphonic
n: 'He baddes' little gal from yere TO
nEurope"; the interjection OF a, as in
"sittin side-a oh de holy lamb" is very
common.
There were contractions which scarcely
call for comment, in view of what still
happens every day among cultured white
people in colloquial speech. The progress
of How do you do?" through How dye
do?" and How dy'" to "Huddy'' is very
patent, and we can scarcely deplore 1t in
view Of the singularly melli1uous and
brisk line Tell my Jesus huddy o." The
grammatical simplihcations were natural
enough in a people who had to speak a
language which they were not permitted
10 learn to read or write. En- was pro-
noun WHlNu dppiitu W az oS"N''' ""N
both numbers; been and done as the past
lenses of verbs are familiar to-day among
other than the blacks in the South, as
are many other peculiarities OF grammar
of which we cannot say whether the
slaves borrowed them from the illiterate
whites or the whites from them.
IL is perhaps little singular. though
not impossible of explanation. that the
negroes who came under the domination