geechee

Thu Jan 6 20:16:21 UTC 2005

Hey Wilson & all,

talkin about fascinating . . .

did anybody watch the 3 hour TV document on PBS last night that
focused on  American English?

PBS gives an English lesson
By Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times  |  January 5, 2005

In the linguistic travelogue ''Do You Speak American?" airing tonight at 8
on WGBH (Channel 2), Robert MacNeil investigates the modern adventures of
our gloriously unruly tongue -- not merely what is said, but how it's said,
both the words we use and the way we shape them.
<http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2005/01/05/pbs_gives_an_english_lesson/>

I thought it was a little long. . .  and it did a pretty good job
of explaining AAVE / regional dialect & Ebonics.
I loved the effort made to explain once again what
Labov, Baugh, Rickford and others are trying to teach the public
and K12 educators which I totally agree with.

I devote my area on linguistics toward that end!
I also loved the way folklore - story tellers etc.
were woven into the story - that was fantastic.

FYI: see
National Children's Folksong Repostiory
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/Repository/NCFR.html

but I was majorly bummed out by the
complete and total omission of

1) American Indian languages which contributed
to the first words used  - how
could they have done that!!??

2) Louisiana Creole and it's influence
on everything

3) American Virgin Island Creole and
it's existence as literature.

Yes, the show was already 3 hours long . . .

but they could have stolen minutes away
from the hip hop, surfing dude, valley girl, snowboarding,
roller blading and ya know like the rest of like the words,like,
ya know, like, what i mean? like what about the netglishes,
dude, ya know?
spanglish, netglish,
SABE - Standard American- British English
OVE - Oral and Vernacular Englishes
ICE - International Colloquial English
which of course, must be invading everyone's language, like like like
ya know dude? like i'm so sick of like  . . .

best,
karen

> >
> > 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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