Wolof hip

[Wilson Gray]

On Nov 29, 2004, at 11:27 AM, Dave Robertson wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dave Robertson <ddr11 at UVIC.CA>
> 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)

I might add that no less a student of black vernacular English in the
United States than the late Frederick Sanford, who published under the
pen name "Redd Foxx," on numerous occasions stated publicly that these
"grunts" are absolutely not of African origin.

-Wilson Gray

>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 8:03 AM
> Subject: Re: Wolof hip
>
>
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>> header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: Wolof hip
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ---------
>>
>> In a message dated   Sat, 27 Nov 2004 02:58:43 -0500,  Benjamin Zimmer
>> <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> quotes:
>>
>>>  Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 16:30 MET
>>>  From: <WERTH at alf.let.uva.nl>
>>>  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.
>