geechee

[Wilson Gray]

On Jan 5, 2005, at 5:24 PM, Educational CyberPlayGround wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Educational CyberPlayGround <admin at EDU-CYBERPG.COM>
> Subject:      Re: geechee
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Sorry Wilson,
>
> Didn't mean to bum you out. This topic
> always brings up a lot of baggage.
> I run a mailing list called CreoleTalk
> for Linguists from all over the world
> interested in creole & dialect speakers.
>
> I used to live on St. Croix, USVI teaching
> elementary school.  see:
> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/AboutUs/aboutus.html
>
> best,
> karen

Don't worry. All is forgiven.;-) I find the topic fascinating. In fact,
years ago, a friend of mine went so far as to suggest that none other
than the late great Raven McDavid would be interested in the change in
meaning of "geechee" in the course of its travels from, presumably,
South Carolina to Texas. However, I never had the nerve to contact the
great man about something that strikes me as rather trivial. To me, the
fact that the word survived transportation to Texas is more interesting
than the change in meaning that it underwent there. A lot of black
Texan families, including the family of your humble correspondent, have
their roots in South Carolina. Interestingly enough, "geechee" is a
common household term that I learned as a child, but I know "Gullah"
only as a literary term. FWIW,  with reference to New Orleans and other
locations in Louisiana, "creole" is pronounced as approximately
"kree-awl" in my native version of BE.

Justice Thomas is a whole 'nother story. But I'm more than willing to
let that sleeping dog lie.

-Wilson

>
>>> Some of the resources below may be of interest.
>>>
>>> Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas [is/was] a Gullah speaker.
>>> (12/14/00) issue of the New York Times in Thomas's own words
>>> "When I was 16, I was sitting as the only black kid in my class, and
>>> I
>>> had
>>> grown up speaking a kind of a dialect. It's called Geechee.
>>
>> it's too bad that you had to bring up the man once lampooned -
>> correctly, in my opinion - as "The yard-jockey of the Republican
>> right." It's spoiled my whole day.;-) What a bringdown! Starting from
>> the age of *13*, I, too, "was sitting as the only black kid in my
>> class, and I had grown up speaking a kind of dialect." Additionally, I
>> was also only one of seven blacks among 800 students. I'll stop here.
>> As the blues song puts it, "Don't start me to talkin', 'cause I'll
>> tell
>> everything I know. I'll talk about [him] low-down an' dirty an' every
>> word I say will be true."
>>
>> -Wilson Gray
>>
>>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Linguistics/GullahGeechee.html
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>> "Gullah, a word derived perhaps from Angola, draws to some degree on
>>> amix
>>> of West African languages like Ewe, Ibo and Yoruba."
>>>
>>> African Languages
>>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Linguistics/aflang.html
>>>
>>> World Creoles
>>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Linguistics/worldcreoles.html
>>>
>>> American Virgin Islands Creole
>>> http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Linguistics/vi.html
>>>
>>> best,
>>> Karen Ellis
>
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