Wolof hip

[Jonathan Lighter]

The late appearance of "uh-huh," etc., in print may partly reflect the superprescriptionist idea that they "aren't words"; second,  their spelling, until regularized, would be problematical. It may be that many potentially earlier cites are disguised in phrases such as, "He answered with a grunt."

Dalby may be right, of course, but white people can be quite inarticulate. The native grunt-and-groan elements of English may always have been sufficient.  What about "um-hmm"?

I see no way of resolving this question on the basis of current knowledge.

JL
Dave Robertson <ddr11 at UVIC.CA> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Dave Robertson

Subject: Re: Wolof hip
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The presence of glottal stops in ("uh-huh" and) "u[n]h-uh" seems like poor
evidence for borrowing. Two reasons come right to mind: First, English has
glottal stops elsewhere, especially at the beginning of a syllable--Think of
an emphatically uttered "I *am* *American*." And the farther you get from
the literary standard, the more glottal stops you'll hear in US English.
Second, English interjections and allegro forms make use of other sounds
uncommon in or missing from our phonemic inventory, such as nasal vowels.
Some of the other Wolof evidence presented is fairly compelling, but "uh-uh"
is harder to make a case for.

--Dave Robertson (UVic)


----- Original Message -----
From: "James A. Landau"
To:
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 8:03 AM
Subject: Re: Wolof hip


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "James A. Landau"
> Subject: Re: Wolof hip
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In a message dated Sat, 27 Nov 2004 02:58:43 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer
> quotes:
>
>> Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 16:30 MET
>> From:
>> Subject: RE: 4.694 Etymology of OK
>>
>> And if the explanation of an African origin for
>> such a quintessential Americanism as OK isn't enough of a cultural
>> shock,
>> Dalby also suggests that the positive and negative interjections uh-huh
>> and uh-uh also have an African origin. He says that these kinds of
>> inter-
>> jections are particularly common in Africa, and points out that not only
>> are they more common in American English than in British English,
>> they're
>> also more common in Afrikaans than in European Dutch!
>
> This one particular Dalby suggestion seems plausible for the following
> reason:
> "negative uh-uh" (which for clarity I will spell "unh-uh") in English has
> a
> glottal stop. The only other word in English that I know of that has a
> glottal
> stop is "uh-oh", also an interjection. It seems odd that English should
> have
> exactly two vocabulary items with a phonological feature (the glottal
> stop)
> not found in European languages.

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