gwine

[Salikoko S. Mufwene]

I have missed part/most of this discussion, but I can't help expressing my
shock at the contents of this posting.

At 08:34 AM 3/7/2006 -0800, you wrote:
> From Henry Louis Gates, Jr., _Figures in Black_ (1987; rpt. N.Y.: Oxford
> U. P., 1989), p. 191 ( The author is considering the appearance of
> "gwine" in an old spiritual :
>
>   "Gwine to sit down at the welcome table,
>   Gwine to feast off milk and honey." ) :
>
>   "Gwine," for instance, is still commonly found in Black speech.

SSM: Where? in North America? as part of African American vernacular
speech? not even in Gullah, I think. Well, I heard "gwine" a couple of
times during my field work (second half of the 1980s) but it is far less
common than the alternative "go" (pronounced with a schwa) that is the
dominant way of expressing FUTURE.

>It is basically untranslatable, yet, with a little reflection, we must see
>that the full import of the word goes far beyond its referent 'I am going
>to,' and implies far more. "Gwine" implies a filial devotion to a moral
>order but also the completion, the restoration, of harmony in a universe
>out of step somehow. "Gwine" asserts a reordering, again this restoration
>rhythmic, its diphthong heightening its force on the heels on the
>breathily spoken "gw" sound, the "w" tempering the hard "g." "Gwine"
>connotes unshakeable determination, the act to come made certain to come
>by the act of speech. "Gwine" leaves no room for doubt, for question, for
>vacillation...."Gwine" contains a concept, a way of looking at the world,
>not fully translated by "I am going to." With "gwine," people accept their
>primal place in the bosom of God.

SSM: This is beyond everything I have been able to detect and understand
after years of studying Caribbean English creoles, Gullah, and AAVE... but
then one must be prepared to learn something new every day.

Sali.


>   JL
>
>
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**********************************************************
Salikoko S. Mufwene                    s-mufwene at uchicago.edu
Frank J. McLoraine Distinguished Service Professor
University of Chicago                    773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924
Department of Linguistics
1010 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/mufwene
**********************************************************

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org