Gullah language
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Gullah (also called Gullah-English, Sea Island Creole English, and Geechee) is a
creole language A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. ...
spoken by the
Gullah The Gullah () are an African American ethnic group who predominantly live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, within the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Their language and cultu ...
people (also called "Geechees" within the community), an
African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
population living in coastal regions of
South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...
and
Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...
(including urban Charleston and Savannah) as well as extreme northeastern
Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
and the extreme southeast of
North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
.


Origins

Gullah is based on different varieties of
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
and languages of
Central Africa Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo ...
and
West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...
. Scholars have proposed a number of theories about the origins of Gullah and its development: # Gullah developed independently on the Sea Islands off the coast of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida throughout the 18th and 19th centuries by enslaved Africans. They developed a language that combined grammatical, phonological, and lexical features of the nonstandard English varieties spoken by that region's white slaveholders and farmers in that region, along with those from numerous Western and Central African languages. According to this view, Gullah developed separately or distinctly from African American Vernacular English and varieties of English spoken in the South. # Some enslaved Africans spoke a Guinea Coast Creole English, also called West African Pidgin English, before they were forcibly relocated to the Americas. Guinea Coast Creole English was one of many languages spoken along the West African coast in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries as a language of trade between Europeans and Africans and among multilingual Africans. It seems to have been prevalent in British coastal slave trading centers such as James Island,
Bunce Island Bunce Island (also spelled "Bence," "Bense," or "Bance" at different periods) is an island in the Sierra Leone River. It is situated in Freetown Harbour, the estuary of the Rokel River and Port Loko Creek, about upriver from Sierra Leone's capi ...
, Elmina Castle,
Cape Coast Castle Cape Coast Castle ( sv, Carolusborg) is one of about forty "slave castles", or large commercial forts, built on the Gold Coast of West Africa (now Ghana) by European traders. It was originally a Portuguese "feitoria" or trading post, establish ...
and Anomabu. This theory of Gullah's origins and development follows the monogenetic theory of creole development and the domestic origin hypothesis of English-based creoles.


Vocabulary

The Gullah people have several words of Niger-Congo and
Bantu Bantu may refer to: *Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages *Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language * Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle *Black Association for National ...
origin in their language that have survived to the present day, despite over four hundred years of slavery when African Americans were forced to speak English. The vocabulary of Gullah comes primarily from English, but there are numerous
Africanisms Africanisms refers to characteristics of African culture that can be traced through societal practices and institutions of the African diaspora. Throughout history, the dispersed descendants of Africans have retained many forms of their ancestr ...
that exist in their language for which scholars have yet to produce detailed etymologies. Some of the African loanwords include: ''cootuh'' ("
turtle Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked t ...
"), ''oonuh'' ("you lural), ''nyam'' ("eat"), '' buckruh'' ("white man"), ''pojo'' (" heron"), ''swonguh'' ("proud") and ''benne'' (" sesame"). The Gullahs’ English-based creole language is strikingly similar to Sierra Leone Krio of West Africa and contains such identical expressions as ''bigyai'' ("
greed Greed (or avarice) is an uncontrolled longing for increase in the acquisition or use of material gain (be it food, money, land, or animate/inanimate possessions); or social value, such as status, or power. Greed has been identified as und ...
y"), ''pantap'' ("on top of"), ''ohltu'' ("both"), ''tif'' (" steal"), ''yeys'' ("
ear An ear is the organ that enables hearing and, in mammals, body balance using the vestibular system. In mammals, the ear is usually described as having three parts—the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. The outer ear consists of ...
"), and ''swit'' ("delicious"). Linguists observe that 25% of the Gullah language's vocabulary originated from
Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierr ...
. Songs and fragments of stories were traced to the Mende people, Mende and
Vai people The Vai are a Mande-speaking ethnic group that live mostly in Liberia, with a small minority living in south-eastern Sierra Leone. The Vai are known for their indigenous syllabic writing system known as Vai syllabary, developed in the 1820s ...
, and simple counting in the Guinea/Sierra Leone dialect of the
Fula people The Fula, Fulani, or Fulɓe people ( ff, Fulɓe, ; french: Peul, links=no; ha, Fulani or Hilani; pt, Fula, links=no; wo, Pël; bm, Fulaw) are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Sahel and West Africa, widely dispersed across the region ...
was also observed.


Turner's research

In the 1930s and 1940s, the
linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
Lorenzo Dow Turner Lorenzo Dow Turner (August 21, 1890 – February 10, 1972) was an African-American academic and linguist who did seminal research on the Gullah language of the Low Country of coastal South Carolina and Georgia. His studies included recordings of G ...
did a seminal study of the language based on field research in rural communities in coastal South Carolina and Georgia. Turner found that Gullah is strongly influenced by African languages in its phonology, vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, and semantics. Turner identified over 300
loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
s from various languages of Africa in Gullah and almost 4,000 African personal names used by Gullah people. He also found Gullahs living in remote seaside settlements who could recite songs and story fragments and do simple counting in the Mende, Vai, and
Fulani The Fula, Fulani, or Fulɓe people ( ff, Fulɓe, ; french: Peul, links=no; ha, Fulani or Hilani; pt, Fula, links=no; wo, Pël; bm, Fulaw) are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Sahel and West Africa, widely dispersed across the region. ...
languages of West Africa. In 1949, Turner published his findings in a classic work called ''Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect'' (). The fourth edition of the book was reprinted with a new introduction in 2002. Before Turner's work, mainstream scholars viewed Gullah speech as substandard English, a hodgepodge of mispronounced words and corrupted grammar, which uneducated black people developed in their efforts to copy the speech of their English, Irish, Scottish and French
Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
slave owners.Mill and Montgomery, "Introduction to Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect by Lorenzo Turner", xix–xxiv, Gonzales, ''The Black Border: Gullah Stories of the Carolina Coast'', p. 10.
Turner's study was so well researched and detailed in its evidence of African influences in Gullah that academics soon changed their minds. After the book was published in 1949, scholars began coming to the region regularly to study African influences in the Gullah language and culture.


Phonology

Gullah sounds that do not fit into the consonant table include: Bilabial: /mb/, /mp/, /mw/ Alveolar: /nt/, /nd/, /ns/ Velar: /ŋd/, /ŋg/, /ŋk/ Source used:


Grammar


Morphology

The following sentences illustrate the basic verb tense and aspect system in Gullah: :''Uh he'p dem'' — "I help them/I helped them" (present/past tense) :''Uh bin he'p dem'' — "I helped them" (past tense) 've been helping them:''Uh gwine he'p dem'' — "I will help them" (future tense) 'm going to help them:''Uh done he'p dem'' — "I have helped them" (perfect aspect) 've done helped them:''Uh duh he'p dem'' — "I am helping them" (present continuous) do help them:''Uh binnuh he'p dem'' — "I was helping them" (past continuous) 've been helping them


Syntax

These sentences illustrate 19th-century Gullah speech: :''Da' big dog, 'e bite'um'' — "That big dog, it bit him" (
topicalization Topicalization is a mechanism of syntax that establishes an expression as the sentence or clause topic by having it appear at the front of the sentence or clause (as opposed to in a canonical position further to the right). This involves a phrasa ...
) :''Duh him da' cry out so'' — "It is he (who) cried out that way" (fronting) :''Uh tell'um say da' dog fuh bite'um'' — "I told him, said that dog would bite him" ( dependent clauses with "say") :''De dog run, gone, bite'um'' — "The dog ran, went, bit him" (
serial verb construction The serial verb construction, also known as (verb) serialization or verb stacking, is a syntactic phenomenon in which two or more verbs or verb phrases are strung together in a single clause.Tallerman, M. (1998). ''Understanding Syntax''. London: ...
) :''Da' duh big big dog'' — "That is a big, big dog" ( reduplication)


Storytelling

The Gullah people have a rich storytelling tradition that is strongly influenced by African oral traditions but also by their historical experience in America. Their stories include animal
trickster In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwi ...
tales about the antics of "Brer Rabbit", "Brer Fox" and "Brer Bear", "Brer Wolf", etc.; human trickster tales about clever and self-assertive slaves; and morality tales designed to impart moral teaching to children. Several white American writers collected Gullah stories in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. The best collections were made by Charles Colcock Jones Jr. from Georgia and Albert Henry Stoddard from South Carolina. Jones, a Confederate officer during the Civil War, and Stoddard were both whites of the
planter class The planter class, known alternatively in the United States as the Southern aristocracy, was a racial and socioeconomic caste of pan-American society that dominated 17th and 18th century agricultural markets. The Atlantic slave trade permitted ...
who grew up speaking Gullah with the slaves (and later freedmen) on their families' plantations. Another collection was made by
Abigail Christensen Abigail Mandana Holmes Christensen (1852–1938) was an American collector of folklore. Biography Abigail ("Abbie") Christensen was born in Massachusetts to abolitionist parents, her family later moved to South Carolina. She investigated the Afric ...
, a Northern woman whose parents came to the Low Country after the Civil War to assist the newly-freed slaves. Ambrose E. Gonzales, another writer of South Carolina planter-class background, also wrote original stories in 19th-century Gullah, based on Gullah literary forms; his works are well remembered in South Carolina today. The linguistic accuracy of those writings has been questioned because of the authors' social backgrounds. Nonetheless, those works provide the best available information on Gullah, as it was spoken in its more conservative form in the 19th century.


Today

Gullah is spoken by about 5,000 people in coastal South Carolina and
Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...
. As of 2021, an estimated 300 people are native speakers. Although some scholars argue that Gullah has changed little since the 19th century and that most speakers have always been bilingual, it is likely that at least some
decreolization Decreolization is a postulated phenomenon whereby over time a creole language reconverges with the lexifier from which it originally derived. The notion has attracted criticism from linguists who argue there is little theoretical or empirical b ...
has taken place. In other words, some African-influenced grammatical structures in Gullah a century ago are less common in the language today. Nonetheless, Gullah is still understood as a creole language and is certainly distinct from Standard American English. For generations, outsiders
stigmatized Social stigma is the disapproval of, or discrimination against, an individual or group based on perceived characteristics that serve to distinguish them from other members of a society. Social stigmas are commonly related to culture, gender, rac ...
Gullah-speakers by regarding their language as a mark of ignorance and low social status. As a result,
Gullah The Gullah () are an African American ethnic group who predominantly live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, within the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Their language and cultu ...
people developed the habit of speaking their language only within the confines of their own homes and local communities. That causes difficulty in enumerating speakers and assessing
decreolization Decreolization is a postulated phenomenon whereby over time a creole language reconverges with the lexifier from which it originally derived. The notion has attracted criticism from linguists who argue there is little theoretical or empirical b ...
. It was not used in public situations outside the safety of their home areas, and many speakers experienced discrimination even within the Gullah community. Some speculate that the prejudice of outsiders may have helped to maintain the language. Others suggest that a kind of valorization or "covert prestige" remained for many community members and that the complex pride has insulated the language from obliteration.
US Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of ...
Justice
Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 1 ...
was raised as a Gullah-speaker in coastal
Pin Point, Georgia Pin Point is an unincorporated community in Chatham County, Georgia, United States; it is located southeast of Savannah and is part of the Savannah Metropolitan Statistical Area. Pin Point is wide and long, and lies 13 feet above sea level. Th ...
. When asked why he has little to say during hearings of the court, he told a
high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...
student that the ridicule he received for his Gullah speech, as a young man, caused him to develop the habit of listening, rather than speaking, in public. Thomas's English-speaking grandfather raised him after the age of six in Savannah.Jeffrey Toobin, ''The Nine,'' Doubleday 2007, at 106
In recent years educated Gullah people have begun promoting use of Gullah openly as a symbol of cultural pride. In 2005, Gullah community leaders announced the completion of a translation of the New Testament into modern Gullah, a project that took more than 20 years to complete. In 2017,
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
began offering Gullah/Geechee as a language class in its African Language Program. It is taught by Sunn m'Cheaux, a native speaker from South Carolina.


Samples

These sentences are examples of how Gullah was spoken in the 19th century: This story, called ''Brer Lion an Brer Goat'', was first published in 1888 by story collector Charles Colcock Jones Jr.:
Brer Lion bin a hunt, an eh spy Brer Goat duh leddown topper er big rock duh wuk eh mout an der chaw. Eh creep up fuh ketch um. Wen eh git close ter um eh notus um good. Brer Goat keep on chaw. Brer Lion try fuh fine out wuh Brer Goat duh eat. Eh yent see nuttne nigh um ceptin de nekked rock wuh eh duh leddown on. Brer Lion stonish. Eh wait topper Brer Goat. Brer Goat keep on chaw, an chaw, an chaw. Brer Lion cant mek de ting out, an eh come close, an eh say: "Hay! Brer Goat, wuh you duh eat?" Brer Goat skade wen Brer Lion rise up befo um, but eh keep er bole harte, an eh mek ansur: "Me duh chaw dis rock, an ef you dont leff, wen me done long um me guine eat you". Dis big wud sabe Brer Goat. Bole man git outer diffikelty way coward man lose eh life.
This is a literal translation into English following Gullah grammar, including verb tense and aspect, exactly as in the original:
Brer Lion was hunting, and he spied Brer Goat lying down on top of a big rock working his mouth and chewing. He crept up to catch him. When he got close to him, he watched him good. Brer Goat kept on chewing. Brer Lion tried to find out what Brer Goat was eating. He didn't see anything near him except the naked rock which he was lying down on. Brer Lion was astonished. He waited for Brer Goat. Brer Goat kept on chewing, and chewing, and chewing. Brer Lion couldn't make the thing out, and he came close, and he said: "Hey! Brer Goat, what are you eating?" Brer Goat was scared when Brer Lion rose up before him, but he kept a bold heart, and he made (his) answer: "I am chewing this rock, and if you don't leave me (alone), when I am done with it I will eat you". This big word saved Brer Goat. A bold man gets out of difficulty where a cowardly man loses his life.


The Bible in Gullah

This passage is from the New Testament in Gullah: Now Jedus been bon een Betlem town, een Judea, jurin de same time wen Herod been king. Atta Jedus been bon, some wise man dem dat study bout de staa dem come ta Jerusalem fom weh dey been een de east. 2An dey aks say, "Weh de chile da, wa bon fa be de Jew people king? We beena see de staa wa tell bout um een de east, an we come fa woshup um op." Wen King Herod yeh dat, e been opsot fa true. An ebrybody een Jerusalem been opsot too. He call togeda all de leada dem ob de Jew priest dem an de Jew Law teacha dem. E aks um say. "Weh de Messiah gwine be bon at?" Dey tell King Herod say, "E gwine be bon een Betlem town een Judea. Cause de prophet write say ..'
Therefore when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of king Herod, lo! astronomers,, came from the east to Jerusalem, and said, Where is he, that is born heking of Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and we have come to worship him. But king Herod heard, and was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And he gathered together all the princes of priests, and scribes of the people, and inquired of them, where Christ should be born. And they said to him, In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by a prophet ../blockquote>


Kumbayah

The phrase ''Kumbaya'' ("Come By Here"), taken from the song of the same name, is likely of Gullah origin.


Related languages

Gullah resembles other English-based creole languages spoken in West Africa and the
Caribbean Basin In Geography, the Caribbean Basin is generally defined as the area running from Florida westward along the Gulf coast, then south along the Mexican coast through Central America and then eastward across the northern coast of South America. This ...
, including Krio of
Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierr ...
,
Bahamian Creole Bahamianese, also described as the Bahamian dialect, is spoken by both Black and white Bahamians, although in slightly different forms. Bahamian dialect also tends to be more prevalent in certain areas of the Bahamas. Islands that were settl ...
,
Jamaican Patois Jamaican Patois (; locally rendered Patwah and called Jamaican Creole by linguists) is an English-based creole language with West African influences, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican diaspora. A majority of the non-English ...
,
Bajan Creole Bajan , or Bajan Dialect, is an English-based creole language with African and British influences spoken on the Caribbean island of Barbados. Bajan is primarily a spoken language, meaning that in general, standard English is used in print, in ...
,
Trinidadian Creole Trinidadian Creole is an English-Based creole language commonly spoken throughout the island of Trinidad in Trinidad and Tobago. It is distinct from Tobagonian Creole – particularly at the basilectal level – and from other Lesser Antillean ...
,
Tobagonian Creole Tobagonian English Creole is an English-based creole language and the generally spoken language in Tobago. It is distinct from Trinidadian Creole and closer to other Lesser Antillean creoles. See also * Trinidadian English Trinidadian and ...
,
Sranan Tongo Sranan Tongo (also Sranantongo "Surinamese tongue," Sranan, Surinaams, Surinamese, Surinamese Creole) is an English-based creole language that is spoken as a ''lingua franca'' by approximately 550,000 people in Suriname. Developed originally amo ...
,
Guyanese Creole Guyanese English Creole (''Creolese'' by its speakers or simply Guyanese) is an English-based creole language spoken by the Guyanese people. Linguistically, it is similar to other English dialects of the Caribbean region, based on 19th-century ...
, and Belizean Creole. Those languages are speculated to use English as a lexifier (most of their vocabularies are derived from English) and that their syntax (sentence structure) is strongly influenced by African languages, but research by
Salikoko Mufwene Salikoko Mufwene is a linguist born in Mbaya-Lareme in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He is the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor of linguistics at the University of Chicago. Mufwene was elected to the American Philosophica ...
and others suggests that nonstandard Englishes may have also influenced the syntactical features of Gullah (and other creoles). Gullah is most closely related to Afro-Seminole Creole, which is spoken in scattered Black Seminole communities in Oklahoma, Texas, and Northern Mexico. The Black Seminoles' ancestors were Gullahs who escaped from slavery in coastal South Carolina and Georgia in the 18th and 19th centuries and fled into the Florida wilderness. They emigrated from Florida after the Second Seminole War (1835–1842). Their modern descendants in the West speak a conservative form of Gullah that resembles the language of 19th-century plantation slaves. There is debate among linguists on the relationship between Gullah and African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). There are some that postulate a Gullah-like "plantation creole" that was the origin of AAVE. Others cite different British dialects of English as having had more influence on the structure of AAVE.


See also

*
English-based creole languages An English-based creole language (often shortened to English creole) is a creole language for which English was the '' lexifier'', meaning that at the time of its formation the vocabulary of English served as the basis for the majority of the cre ...
* African American studies *
African-American English African-American English (or AAE; also known as Black American English, or Black English in American linguistics) is the set of English sociolects spoken by most Black people in the United States and many in Canada; most commonly, it refe ...
* ''Gullah Gullah Island'' *
Ian Hancock Ian Francis Hancock ( Romani: Yanko le Redžosko; born 29 August 1942) is a linguist, Romani scholar and political advocate. He was born and raised in England and is one of the main contributors in the field of Romani studies. He is director ...
* Valerie Boles


References


Sources

* Christensen, Abigail 1892 (1969), ''Afro-American Folk Lore Told Round Cabin Fires on the Sea Islands of South Carolina'', New York: Negro Universities Press. * Gonzales, Ambrose Elliott (1969), ''With Aesop Along the Black Border'', New York: Negro Universities Press. * Gonzales, Ambrose Elliott (1998), ''The Black Border: Gullah Stories of the Carolina Coast'', Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company. * Jones, Charles Colcock (2000), ''Gullah Folktales from the Georgia Coast'', Athens: University of Georgia Press. * Parsons, Elsie Clews (1923), ''Folk-Lore of the Sea Islands, South Carolina'', New York: American Folk-Lore Society. * Sea Island Translation Team (2005)
''De Nyew Testament (The New Testament in Gullah)'' Open access PDF
New York: American Bible Society. * Stoddard, Albert Henry (1995), ''Gullah Animal Tales from Daufuskie Island, South Carolina'', Hilton Head Island, SC: Push Button Publishing Company. * Brown, Alphonso (2008), ''A Gullah Guide to Charleston'', The History Press. * Chandler Harris, Joel (1879), ''The Story of Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Fox as Told by
Uncle Remus Uncle Remus is the fictional title character and narrator of a collection of African American folktales compiled and adapted by Joel Chandler Harris and published in book form in 1881. Harris was a journalist in post-Reconstruction era Atlanta, a ...
''
Atlanta Constitution ''The Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the only major daily newspaper in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. It is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the result of the merger between ...
. * John G. Williams: ''De Ole Plantation.'' Charleston, S. C., 1895
Google-US


Further reading

* Carawan, Guy and Candie (1989), ''Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life: The People of Johns Island, South Carolina, their Faces, their Words, and their Songs'', Athens: University of Georgia Press. * Conroy, Pat (1972), ''The Water Is Wide''. * Geraty, Virginia Mixon (1997), ''Gulluh fuh Oonuh: A Guide to the Gullah Language'', Orangeburg, SC: Sandlapper Publishing Company. * Goodwine, Marquetta L., and Clarity Press (Atlanta Ga.). Gullah Project. 1998. ''The Legacy of Ibo Landing: Gullah roots of African American culture''. Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press. * Jones-Jackson, Patricia (1987), ''When Roots Die: Endangered Traditions on the Sea Islands'', Athens: University of Georgia Press. * Joyner, Charles (1984), ''Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community'', Urbana: University of Illinois Press. * Mille, Katherine and Michael Montgomery (2002), Introduction to ''Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect'' by Lorenzo Dow Turner, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. * Montgomery, Michael (ed.) (1994), ''The Crucible of Carolina: Essays in the Development of Gullah Language and Culture'', Athens: University of Georgia Press. * Mufwene, Salikoko (1991). "Some reasons why Gullah is not dying yet". English World-Wide 12: 215–243. * Mufwene, Salikoko (1997). "The ecology of Gullah's survival". ''American Speech'' 72: 69–83. . * Opala, Joseph A. 2000. ''The Gullah: rice, slavery and the Sierra Leone-American connection''. 4th edition, Freetown, Sierra Leone: USIS. * Turner, Lorenzo Dow (2002), ''Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect'', Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. * Wood, Peter (1974), ''Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion'', New York: Knopf.


Films

* ''
Daughters of the Dust ''Daughters of the Dust'' is a 1991 independent film written, directed and produced by Julie Dash and is the first feature film directed by an African-American woman distributed theatrically in the United States.Michel, Martin (November 20, 2016)" ...
'' * ''The Language You Cry In''. Toepke, Alvaro, Angel Serrano, and California Newsreel (Firm). 1998. San Francisco, CA: California Newsreel. video recording. * ''
Conrack ''Conrack'' is a 1974 American drama film based on the 1972 autobiographical book '' The Water Is Wide'' by Pat Conroy, directed by Martin Ritt and starring Jon Voight in the title role, alongside Paul Winfield, Madge Sinclair, Hume Cronyn and ...
'' (1974;
Jon Voight Jonathan Vincent Voight (; born December 29, 1938) is an American actor. He came to prominence in the late 1960s with his Academy Award–nominated performance as Joe Buck, a would-be gigolo, in ''Midnight Cowboy'' (1969). During the 1970s, h ...
,
Paul Winfield Paul Edward Winfield (May 22, 1939 – March 7, 2004) was an American stage, film and television actor. He was known for his portrayal of a Louisiana sharecropper who struggles to support his family during the Great Depression in the landmark fil ...
and
Hume Cronyn Hume Blake Cronyn Jr. OC (July 18, 1911 – June 15, 2003) was a Canadian-American actor and writer. Early life Cronyn, one of five children, was born in London, Ontario, Canada. His father, Hume Blake Cronyn, Sr., was a businessman and ...
)


External links


Gullah Language of the Sea Islands



Bible Translation Project Website

De Gullah Nyew Testament



Text of "Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect"

ADEPt Gullah-Geechee Collection of ethnolinguistic culture


Audioclips


Old Recordings, Library of Congress

Gullah New Testament Reading


*
Modern Gullah Storyteller (video)

example of Spoken Gullah

Gullah on ILoveLanguages
{{Authority control African-American society Analytic languages Culture of the Southern United States Endangered diaspora languages English-based pidgins and creoles Gullah culture Languages of the United States Languages of the African diaspora South Carolina culture African-American history of South Carolina African Americans in South Carolina African-American history in the Southern United States History of the Southern United States