Read American Language Supplement 2 Online
Authors: H.L. Mencken
American Language Supplement 2 (46 page)
Thomas’s study is devoted to the speech of educated Jews in New York. He says that one of its chief characteristics is a slight change in tongue position in the pronunciation of
t, d, n, l, s
and
z
, producing the effect of a lisp. This lisp is even more noticeable in the speech of English Jews, and writers who attempt to transcribe that speech usually indicate it.
1
Brody, unlike Menner, is not content with the manner of rendering Yiddish-American followed by American writers. He does not mention Gross, but he is critical of Glass, and also of Anzia Yezierska, Myra Kelly and Bruno Lessing, whom he accuses of writing what he calls Yidgin English. His chief complaint is that, when a Yiddish preposition corresponds to two prepositions in English, they seek exotic color by translating it into the wrong one. An example is provided by
froon
(Ger.
von
), which may mean either
of
or
from
. Miss Yezierska makes it
from
, as in “God
from
the world,” whereas
of
is correct. Brody thus translates II Samuel XVIII, 33:
Oi weh! Mine son Absalom, Absalom mine son! God from the world! Better from far already I should have died, only if not he!
And thus Mark XIV, 36:
Oi weh! So tired I am from the neart, till I could die! Mine Father from Heaven, everything it could be by You! So make it maybe I shouldn’t have this bitter cup to drink!
Beginning August 26, 1933 J.X.J. (John J. Holzinger) published in the
New Yorker
a series of “Notes for an East Side Dictionary” which recorded amusingly some Yiddish-American pronunciations. A few examples:
Dub. A large receptacle for water, as in
washdub
.
Greens,
v
. Smiles broadly.
Kettle. Steers and cows; livestock.
Lift,
v
. Past tense of
to live
.
Locker. Beer which has been stored some months before it is used.
Mop. A gang, a crowd.
Putter. A fatty substance obtained from milk and cream by churning; as in
pick putter-and-ache man
.
Spit. Quickness in motion.
2
But of all the racial dialects on exhibition in the United States the one that has got the most attention, both from the literati and from students of linguistics, is that of the Southern Negroes. Tremaine McDowell says
1
that it made its first appearance in American fiction in Part I of Hugh Henry Brackenridge’s satirical novel, “Modern Chivalry: Containing the Adventures of Captain Farrago and Teague O’Regan, His Servant,” published in 1792,
2
but it had been attempted in plays so early as 1775 and there were traces of it in other writings even before.
3
One of the characters in “Modern Chivalry” is Cuff, an illiterate slave who discovers a petrified mocassin and is invited to Philadelphia to address the primeval scientificoes of the American Philosophical Society. A sample of his discourse:
De first man was de black a-man, and de first woman was de black a-woman: and get two tree children; de rain vasha dese, and de snow pleach, and de coula come brown, yella, coppa coula, and at the last quite fite, and de hair long; and da fal out vid van anoda, and van cash by de nose, an pull, so de nose come lang, sharp nose.
Obviously, this could not have been good reporting, for
the
is sometimes
the
and sometimes
de, and
is sometimes
and
and sometimes
an, w
is sometimes
w
and sometimes
v
, and
r
is sometimes elided and sometimes not. But it at least gave some hint of one of the characters that must have shown itself in ignorant Negro speech in those days as it has shown itself ever since, to wit, a simplified grammatical structure. The origins of that structure was thus described by Krapp:
4
When the Negroes were first brought to America they could have known no English. Their usefulness as servants, however, required that some means of communication between master and slave should be developed. There is little likelihood that any masters exerted themselves to understand or to acquire the native language of the Negroes.… On the contrary, the white overlords addressed themselves in English to their black vassals.… This English … would be very much simplified – the kind some people employ when they talk to babies. It would probably have no tenses of the verb, no distinctions
of case in nouns or pronouns, no marks of singular or plural. Difficult sounds would be eliminated, as they are in baby talk. Its vocabulary would be reduced to the lowest elements.… As the Negroes imported into America came from many unrelated tribes, speaking languages so different that one tribe could not understand the language of another, they themselves were driven to the use of this infantile English in speaking to one another.
The slaves, however, were not taught English by their white overlords but by the low-caste whites set over them as overseers and by the earlier comers of their own race. In Virginia, until the beginning of the Eighteenth Century, they worked side by side in the fields with white bond servants, and nearly everywhere else their management was entrusted to overseers who, in many cases, were former bond servants of non-English origin and in nearly all cases were either illiterate or next door to it. In another place
1
Krapp suggests that the result must have been the development of a dialect comparable to Pidgin English or Beach-la-Mar, and that this dialect survives more or less in the Gullah of the sea islands of Georgia and South Carolina, to be noticed presently. But its vestiges are also to be found in the speech of the most ignorant Negroes of the inland regions, which still shows grammatical peculiarities seldom encountered in white Southern speech, however lowly,
e.g.
, the confusion of persons, as in “I
is
,” “
Do
she?,” “
Does
you?,” “
Am
you de man,” and “He
am
”;
2
the frequent use of present forms in the past, as in “He
been die
,” and “He
done show
me,” and the tendency to omit all the forms of
to be
, as in “He
gone
” and “Where you
at?
.”
3
The phonology of this mudsill Negro speech greatly resembles that of the lowest class of whites, so much so that many competent observers, among them Southerners, have declared that it is substantially identical,
4
but my own belief, after a lifetime spent in contact with Negroes of all classes, is that in intonation, at least, it shows
special characters.
1
Even the educated Negro seldom loses this intonation, though in vocabulary and pronunciation his speech is identical with that of the corresponding class of whites.
2
Indeed, he tends to speak a shade “better,” in the schoolma’am’s sense, than whites on his own level, and it has been noted by more than one observer that in New York City, for example, the colored people seldom use
foist
and the other hallmarks of the so-called Brooklyn dialect. The representation of Negro speech in literature has always been imperfect, and often absurd. A familiar example is afforded by the
brer
of Joel Chandler Harris’s stories. No Southern Negro ever actually uses
brer
. What he says, when he attempts
brother
, is something on the order of
bruh-uh
or
bruh
, maybe with a faint trace of
r
at the end.
3
The Gullah or Geechee dialect of the Georgia and South Carolina coasts
4
is an anomaly among American Negro dialects, as it is indeed among American dialects in general, for it is the only one that is not easily intelligible in far parts of the country. Krapp was of the opinion that “very little of it, perhaps none, is derived from
sources other than English,” and not a few white linguists have supported him,
1
but this theory has now been considerably weakened by the studies of Dr. Lorenzo D. Turner, of Fisk University, a Negro linguist who prepared himself for his task by acquiring a working knowledge of the principal West Coast African languages. He began field work between Georgetown, S. C. and the Georgia-Florida border in 1930, and by 1944 had assembled no less than 6,000 loans from twenty-eight languages and dialects. Of these about a thousand came from Kongo, spoken in Angola and the Belgian Congo, and another thousand from Yoruba, spoken in Nigeria. About four-fifths of them appear today only as personal names, and others are used only in traditional African songs, mostly unintelligible to the singers, but the rest “are used daily in conversation.”
2
Some of Turner’s specimens from the surviving vocabulary follow, with the African terms from which they come:
Agali. Welcome. (Wolof
agali
).
Ban. It is done. (Vai and Bambara
ban
, to be finished).
Beng, or bing. A rabbit. (Fante
kping
).
Bong. A tooth. (Wolof
bong
).
Bubu. Any insect, but usually one whose sting is poisonous. (Fula
mbubu
, a fly; Hausa,
bubuwa;
Bambara,
buba;
Kongo
mbu
).
Bukra. A white man. (Efik and Ibibio
mbakara
, white man, from
mba
, he who, and
kara
, to govern).
Da, or dada. Mother. (Ewe
da
or
dada
).
Daf. Corn cooked in cakes. (Hausa
dafwwa
, boiled corn or rice).
Dajije. Sleep well. (Twi
dajije
).
Det. A hard rain. (Wolof
det
).
Dindi. A small child. (Vai
din din
).
Do. A child. (Mende
ndo
).
Dzadza, or dzagdza. A blackbird. (Mende
dzadzalo
).
Dzambi. A red sweet potato. (Vai
dzambi
).
Dziga. A sand flea. (Yoruba, Wolof, Mandinka and Hausa
dziga
).
Dzoga. A seesaw. (Wolof
dzogal
, to rise).
Enufole. Pregnant. (Ewe
fo le enu
, she is with child).
Fufu. A powder used to cast a spell. (Ewe
fufu
, dust).
Fukfuk. The viscera of an animal. (Mende
fukfuk
).
Fulafafa. A woodpecker. (Mende
fula
, to bore through;
fafa
, a small tree).
Gafa, or kafa. Rice. (Hausa
shinkafa
).
Guba. A peanut. (Kongo
nguba
, a kidney).
Gumbo. Okra. (Tshiluba
tshinguhmbuh;
Umbundu
otshingumbo
).
Hudu,
v
. To bring bad luck to. (Hausa
hudu
, a form of gambling; Ewe
hododo
, lending or borrowing;
hodada
, a dice game).
Ibi,
v
. To vomit. (Yoruba
ibi
).
Kunu. A boat. (Bambara
kunu
).
Kuta. A tortoise. (Bambara and Malinke
kuta;
Dahomean
kulo;
Efik
ikut;
Buluba-Lulua
nkudu;
Djerma
ankura;
Hausa
kunkura
).
Landu, or dalandu. An alligator. (Kongo
ngandu
, a crocodile; Hausa
lando
, a lizard; Bobangi
landa
, to glide or move along).
Na. And. (Twi and Ibo
na
).
Nanse. A spider. (Twi and Fante
ananse
).
Nuna. A term of respect used in addressing an old woman. (Mandinka
nna;
Kongo and Bobangi
nuna;
Buluba-Lulua
nunu
).
Nyamnyam, or nyam,
v
. To eat. (Wolof
nyanmyam
).
Podzo, or odzo. A heron. (Mende
podzo
).
So so. A call to horses. (Vai, Mende and Jeji
so
, a horse).
Toko. Plenty. (Twi
toko
, plentifully; Dahomean
togogo
, overflowing).
Tot,
v
. To carry. (Umbundu
tuta
, to carry; Kikongo
tota
, to pick up; Mandingo
ta
, to carry on the head or in the hand).
Ula. A louse or bedbug. (Umbundu
ola
or
ona
, a louse;
ula
, a bed; Yoruba
ola
, a moth).
Vudu. Sorcery. (Dahomean
vodu
, a spirit or fetish;
vodudoho
, a curse;
vuduna
, a cult or religion; Ewe
vodu da
, a snake that is worshipped;
vodusi
, a priest).
Wanga. A charm. (Umbundu
owanga
, a charm or fetish).
Yan,
v
. To tell a lie (Wolof
yan
).
Some of these have got into the general American vocabulary, especially in the South,
e.g., buckra, gumbo, dzambi (yam), dziga (chigger), vudu (voodoo), hudu (hoodoo), guba (goober)
and
kuta (cooter)
. It is possible also that
kunu
may have been the progenitor of
canoe
and
tot
of
to tote
, though it does not appear to be likely.
1
Other investigators, all working before Turner, sought to show that Gullah is simply an archaic form of English, strongly influenced by the British dialects, including Scots, and also by French. Bennett, before cited
2
compiled a list of Elizabethan and even earlier survivals in its vocabulary and phonology, and came to the conclusion that it comes closer to the dialect of Lancashire than to any other English dialect.
3
Arthur A. Norton, reporting on a trip to the South
Carolina coast in 1898, professed to find it “nearly similar to the broken English of the French-Canadians.”
1
And Reed Smith, writing in 1926,
2
saw its genesis in “the English vocabulary as spoken on the coast by the white inhabitants from about 1700 on.” What the Negroes did, he goes on, was to take “a sizeable part” of that vocabulary,
