Gullah Language: A survey of linguistic inquiry
Introduction
The late afternoon sun spilled out across the marshland, illuminating the wide, winding rivers which glistened gold as they twisted lazily through waves of reeds and scattered pines. Driving north on I-95, making my way from South Florida back to Maryland, I noticed that the landscape suddenly seemed to have opened outwards around me, revealing a vast, breathtaking expanse of light and color and sky and water.
Georgia’s “Golden Isles” suddenly had me surrounded. The spectacular natural beauty of this place was truly otherworldly. I was not at all surprised to learn that here, just west of Jekyl Island, even from the interstate, one can catch a rare glimpse of a world which seems almost completely forgotten by time.
The sea-islands which stretch the length of the Georgia and South Carolina coasts, reaching southwards towards Jacksonville, FL, were at one time inhabited almost exclusively by the Gullah, a local population who are descended from west Africans, once brought to these shores in iron shackles by the transatlantic chattel slave trade (La Roche, 2017).
Due to the remote geography of this locale, as well as various political and economic factors, this community had remained in relative isolation well into the twentieth century (Opala, nd).
Thus, the group retained many African cultural traditions including story-telling, basket weaving, and hand-clapping, all of which have roots that can be traced directly back to coastal west Africa (La Roche, 2017).
Also, perhaps most notably, the group has their own distinctive language system (Turner, 1949) (Jones-Jackson, 1983).
Synopsis
This paper will explore the Gullah language in three ways:
First, by providing some basic history and a few cursory findings about the community of speakers today, in order to provide some context. Statistics from Ethnolgue, a publication used by linguists which provides aggregated world language data, will also be presented in the introduction.
Next, some specific details are provided on the syntax and mechanics of the language, as well as an explanation of how linguists describe and explain the rapid changes which necessarily occur in all creole languages (Smith, 1994).
Finally, this paper will examine the origins, history and future of Gullah, in the hopes of illustrating how a spirit of resiliency and a wealth of cultural heritage can combine in order to overcome age-old structural, symbolic and economic challenges which, in many cases, still loom large today.
Background
The Gullah language is a creole spoken almost exclusively on the sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia (Jones-Jackson, 1983). Gullah uses English as a lexifier with a few African loanwords and is sometimes known as Sea Island Creole (Klein, 2013).
Gullah language is distinct from other varieties of African American English and bears similarities to the Krio Language of Sierra Leone, as well as other Anglophone creoles from the Caribbean (Ethnologue, 2020).
Currently, some 490 speakers of Gullah are said to exist, according to the 2015 US Census (Ethnologue, 2020). The Afro-Seminole creole language is derived from Gullah thus has up to a 90% similarity index (Ethnologue, 2020). Gullah is also closely related to Bahamian Creole (Glottolog 4.1 — Gullah, n.d.).
The origins of the Gullah trace back to the “Gola” people on the West African “rice coast,” in modern day Angola (Stoddard, 1944) (La Roche, 2017). Southern planters found the wet, marshy lowland areas favorable for growing rice and chose to source their captive workforce for this endeavor from a population that already had had experience with rice cultivation (Opala, n.d.).
As it turns out, this was perhaps a wise choice indeed, since rice cultivation is highly specialized and requires meticulous planning (La Roche, 2017). Also, as Malcolm Gladwell argues in his book Outliers, rice cultivation necessitates superior quantitative intelligence, thus natural selection favors quantitative intelligence among these populations (2008) (Beckford, 2010).
Like many African Americans, some Gullah relocated to northern cities around the time of the Great Migration period in the mid 20th century (Barnes & Steen, 2013). For this reason Gullah communities exist in many northern cities including New York and Detroit (Ethnologue, nd).
The Gullah community which remained on the sea islands continues to live off of the land, farming tracts which in many cases have been in their families since the time of reconstruction (Jarrett & Lucas, 2002). However, within the past half-century the introduction of infrastructure including paved roads, electricity and bridges has precipitated the construction of several luxury golfing resorts and retirement communities which cater to wealthy white patrons (Jarrett & Lucas, 2002).
As a result, some Gullah have been forced to succeed their family lands to real estate developers.
Metrics
The “ethnic” Gullah population, meaning those with Gullah heritage, is estimated to number at around a quarter million (Ethnologue, 2020). Additionally, some linguists believe the speakers with some proficiency in Gullah, in fact, may number in the thousands, although definitely less than ten thousand (Glottolog 4.1 — Gullah, n.d.).
Gullah is classified as “threatened” (status 6b) on Ethnologue’s “Expanded Graded Inter-generational Disruption” scale, which classifies over 7,000 world languages using standardized criteria. Gullah’s “threatened” rating means the language is still actively used by all generations including young children, “but is losing its users” (Ethnologue, n.d.).
Compared with the hundreds of other world languages which received this same rating, Gullah is at least one standard deviation below the mean in terms of its population size (Ethnologue, 2020).
This comparison appears to be a strong indicator of Gullah’s resilience, and the speech community’s strong affinity with their language, given that many other languages with around 500 speakers are listed as “critically endangered”.
Leadership & Community Action
From an ethnographic perspective, it would appear this morsel of quantitative analysis may in fact prove to be quite accurate, as it is consistent with many qualitative indicators as well.
Perhaps one such indicator is the strong leadership and collaboration within the Gullah community. In 2001, the Gullah chose to join forces with another group African-American sea inland inhabitants called the Geechee. The Geechee language was also distinct from English but, according to the accounts of community members, was somewhat more rudimentary, perhaps more akin to a pidgin or contact language.
When the two groups joined to form the Gullah-Geechee nation on July 2, 2000, they selected Marquetta L. Goodwine as the High Priestess and head of state (Goodwine, n.d.). “Head pun de boddee,” as it said in Gullah (Goodwine, n.d.).
Goodwine, or “Queen Quet”, as she is called, appears truly quite the renaissance woman, describing herself on her website as “an author, computer scientist, lecturer, mathematician, historian, columnist, preservationist, environmental justice advocate, environmentalist, film consultant, and ‘The Art-ivist’” (Queen Quet, High Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, n.d.).
In addition to growing traditional crops such as okra and tobacco on her familial land tract, Goodwine advises state and local governments on the Gullah community. She has served in advisory roles to The White House and The Department of the Interior and has been selected to speak before The United Nations both on the topic of Gullah heritage for UNESCO in Paris and on climate change in Marrakesh.
Dr. Ramona LaRoche, who is a professor of Communications and Information Science at The University of South Carolina, also takes a multi-disciplinary approach in examining Gullah culture. In her 2017 dissertation, “‘Bajan To Gullah’ Cultural Capital: Wood, Stone, Iron, and Clay 1670 To 1770”, LaRoche uses methodologies from the emerging academic disciplines of “digital humanities” and “cultural heritage informatics,” in order to sift through vast collections of historical records using quantitative, computational methodologies, and, in some cases, artificial intelligence. As LaRoche explains:
“British planters, merchants and other non-landholding persons from Barbados owned and transported enslaved persons to the South Carolina colonial settlement as early as 1670. However, there is minimal specific information about Africans or Barbadian Creoles selected for these voyages. To date, no empirical research has examined any data on African or African descended artisans (enslaved or free) who accompanied their owners or authorized travelers to the New World.” (2017)
By using 21st century technology, LaRoche hopes to unearth and digitally reconstruct the nuances of day-to-day life during the time of slavery. These tech-savvy Gullah scholars and preservationists certainly appear to be stalwart protectors of the culture.
However, in addition to the likes LaRoche and Goodwine, who have put in years of service as educators and community leaders, it seems a newer generation of young Gullah, have also become passionate about the cause of cultural preservation.
Millennial Gullah
YouTube channels such as Geechee X and J. Berry Collective have provided millennial Gullah speakers with a platform to air the intricacies of their language. In one video entitled, Gullah Geechee Code-Switching, posted February 6th of 2020, J. Berry demonstrates the discursive stylings of a conversation with female friend in “mesolectal” Gullah, then when she switches over to an incoming call from a debt collector, she makes a dramatic shift to a light, breezy, millennial-style American English.
While this niche of online Gullah cultural exchange seems limited to a relatively small community of younger participants, it does exemplify the younger community’s continued engagement with the Gullah language. In addition to this youthful enthusiasm for Gullah, another important factor when considering the overall health and vitality of a language is it’s stories, literature and song. In this regard, Gullah has made significant contributions to mainstream American culture.
Gullah in Popular Culture
Perhaps most notably, the song “Kum ba ya” is thought to have originated from the Gullah language version of the song (Winick, 2012). The song is then thought to have spread to other African American slave populations throughout the south, perhaps during the 1800s (Winick, 2012).
In 1888, the historian Charles C. Jones Jr., described by The New Georgia Encyclopedia as “the foremost Georgia historian of the nineteenth century,” published his worked on Gullah folktales titled, Negro myths from the Georgia Coast, told in the vernacular (Charles C. Jones Jr. (1831–1893), n.d.). The comprehensive anthology demonstrates not only the remarkable literary merits of Gullah, but also the moral sensibilities of Gullah culture, which seem to venerate common sense and glorify an unassuming, down-to-earth style of altruism.
The “Uncle Remus” stories, such as “Bre’r Rabbit and Bre’r Fox,” by author Joel Chandler Harris, are known by most Americans through the Walt Disney cartoon adaptions. “BUH WOLF, BUH RABBIT, AN DE TAR BABY,” is the Gullah language original, which appeared in Negro Myths from the Georgia Coast.
These works are absolutely thrilling to read both in terms of the unique richness of the language and storytelling, as well as the clear and irrefutable demonstration of the universality of narrative and, indeed, the universality of the human experience.
It seems perhaps somewhat unexpected to consider that this sense of humanism and universalism from the Gullah, impressed these 19th century white Southern writers, in the same way that many readers would find it moving today.
Personal Interest
In answer to the question of why, out of all the world’s over 7,000 languages, I chose Gullah, perhaps my reasonings were twofold. First, I was immediately struck with the beauty and mystery of the landscape. Growing up in the Maryland suburbs, my friends and I would sometimes find little pockets of the “world that time forgot”, throughout the forest of old growth oaks and beech trees which grew along Rock Creek.
The impromptu exploration of a decrepit wooden train trestle, or an abandoned mill, would seem to transport me to a time less homogenized, a time less ordinary. Free from the modern mathematical circuitry of telephone poles and traffic lights, I found myself whisked back to the rhythms of life in a time altogether different. Gullah, to me, is a link to another strange and magical “other” world obscured through a forgotten past.
Second, thanks to the recent advances in informatics and digital humanities, examining the nuances of the Gullah language is now possible through the use of empirical quantitative methodologies. Moreover, recent advances in complexity science have allowed geneticists to conceptualize the drift and shift alleles in terms of emergent phenomenology, opposed to the reduction to simple cause and effect.
Linguists recently have begun applying this new science of phylogenetics to the drift and shift of the typological features of human language as well (Bakker et al., 2017). In the study of creoles, this becomes particularly important, as the mixing processes are accelerated through linguistic violence as well as physical violence (Smith, 1994).
While the technical merits of the new research methods I have discussed are still new and unproven, I still believe they hold great promise. These new developments attracted me, with the promise of answering questions not only about Gullah or Creoles, but perhaps also offering new insights on the inner-workings of the human capacity for language.
There appear to be strong indicators that this process of linguistic hybridization and the rule governed language behaviors which precipitate are patterned after predictable and perhaps immutable qualities of the “language centers” in the human brain. If, perhaps, all of this has begun to seem like a bit of an intellectual woolgathering expedition, it may be necessary to first provide some background in creoles and their linguistic analysis.
Linguistic Analysis
Traditionally, Creole languages are conceptualized as having a donor or lexifier language, usually a European Lingua Franca, mixing with a local language of Africa or Asia. In this model, the donor language is referred to as the superstate language whereas the African or Asian language is called the isubstrate.
While Creole speech seems to first have emerged with European donor languages in the age of discovery, it is also important to note that there are Creoles that now use Arabic, Chinese and Malaysian as their base language in place of a European lingua franca. Additionally, some Creoles are comprised of two or more European languages, such as the Saramaccan language, spoken in Suriname, where both English and Dutch are lexifiers.
Creoles are natural languages and tend to develop their own grammatical rules and norms. Creoles differ from other languages however in that the course of their trajectory was altered by colonialism and modernization, causing a hybridization to occur within an atypically short time-frame. In the words of the linguist Norval Smith:
“It is clear in fact that Creole languages develop as the result of ‘linguistic violence’ (and, as we shall see, frequently social violence too). In other words, we have to reckon with a break in the natural development of the language.” (1994)
Certain features are common in Creole languages that are typically not found within other speech communities. Among these are the repetition of adverbs and adjectives, using tonality alone to indicate a question, and similar patterns of simplified verb conjugations (Sebba, 1997). In Gullah, verbs are tenseless and uninfected.
Verbs
Although they are omitted in almost all cases, the inflectional morpheme affixes -s, -ed, and -ing are all removed, it would seem, through the application of various separate rules of the language, opposed to one single rule for all cases (Jones-Jackson, 1983).
However, tense is nonetheless explicated through the use of preverbial markers, which are sometimes called participles. Figure 1-a shows some examples of this feature taken from the fieldwork Dr. Patricia Jones-Jackson conducted with the Gullah in 1983.
In this example, Jones-Jackson uses the lexical verb shell, probably a commonly performed action in the Gullah community, as both fresh peas and shellfish are staples of the Gullah’s diet. As seen above, the tense inflected English forms shell, shells, shelling, and shelled, all translate simply to the one Gullah verb shell. The two English primary auxiliaries be and do, as well their past tense forms been and done, have been repurposed in Gullah to behave more like structure words from the substrate languages such as Igbo and Yoruba. Jones-Jackson explains that the usage of tense in these African languages emphasizes the habitual facets of the temporalities which they describe, and are less concerned with the societal construct of standardized, linear time:
“Historically, Gullah speakers have maintained a ‘strongly marked aspectual system with little or no formal indication of tense’. Accordingly, a single verb-system may be used to refer to a past, present, or a future action. Turner (1949) explains that little importance is directed to the actual time that an action took place; rather, it was the mood and aspect of the action that impressed the speaker at the moment that are important. This, too, is a pattern common in West African languages such as Ewe, Mandinka, Kimbudu, Yoruba, and others, which are also contributing languages of Gullah.” (1983)
Like the regular lexical verbs, auxiliary verbs and irregular lexical verbs also operate in much the same way, where inflected tense is replaced by a strongly marked aspectual system, using the Gullah participles de, don, ben and bena. The preverbial participle don, is the primary marker of past tense and replaces the English auxiliaries was and were, as depicted in figure-1b. The second and third-person perspectives can be explicated through the use of de. The progressive and perfective aspects can be established by the use of de, ben, and bena. Also depicted in figure-1b, the English auxiliaries was and were can be replaced by don, when they are functioning as the primary verbs in the sentence. Additionally, ben as a premodifier replaces the past tense of irregular verbs, such as felt, left, wet, come, saw, and set.
Pronouns
The pronouns of Gullah also demonstrate how Africanized language features and structural frameworks were retained within the language. In Gullah’s substrate languages, markers for the characteristics of gender, animacy and ownership are also omitted. In Gullah, gender, animacy and possessiveness also are omitted, through the application of various rules and patterns. In 1983, Jones-Jackson describes Gullah’s African-like pronominal system:
“Gullah speakers seem to have inherited this pattern of using a single pronoun to refer to masculine, feminine or neuter genders in the nominative case. Today, many speakers, including children still adhere to this Africanlike pronominal system.” (Jones-Jackson, 1983, pp.293)
As Jones-Jackson indicates, the omissions of gender and ownership information from pronouns is a very common feature within the language and still was learned by younger children, at least as recently as 1983. Figure-2a shows common patterns for the omission of nominative pronouns.
The pronoun her is omitted in the nominative case among almost all of the speakers, as Jones-Jackson demonstrates in both 1983 and in 1984. As shown in figure-2b, her is also commonly omitted in the genative and objective cases as well.
Figure-2b, also shows cases where she was inserted in syntactic positions that normally would require the word her, a practice which Jones-Jackson noted was becoming increasingly common at the time of her research.
The post-Creole Continuum
In order to understand how Gullah functions structurally and syntactically, it seems equally as important to first understand how the typology shifts over time. Novel features and usage patterns constantly are emerging within the Gullah language.
For example, as we have seen, the substitution of she, in place of em, was a trend that became increasingly common among the younger generation in the early 1980s. Conceptual frameworks, created by 20th century linguists, serve as the foundation for studying how these changes in the language emerge.
William Alexander Stewart, a linguist who did extensive work on Creoles, including Gullah, and was also noted for making significant contributions to the scholarly study of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). In addition to this, Stewart was a student of sociolinguistics and was influenced by the work of Dell Hymes and Irving Goffman.
By examining the intersection of language and society, Hymes and Goffman hoped to describe the complex interplay of prestige, power and strategic interaction. Stewart is known for having applied these theories of prestige and privilege in order to explain the tendency of creoles to grow increasingly similar to their superstrate.
Stewart envisioned this phenomenon as a continuum. The varieties of a creole which hold least intelligibility with the superstrate were at one end of the contiuum and at the other end was the prestige variety of the language, with close resemblance to the European lingua franca. In this theory, known as the “Post-Creole Continuum,” the base variety of a creole is termed the basilect, the middle-ranging varieties are called the mesolect and the “prestige” varieties are known as the acrolect (Jones-Jackson, 1984).
The “Post-Creole Continuum” seeks to describe speech acts and speech behavior as governed by an “implicational hierarchy,” which prevents the random mixing of features from opposite poles of the continuum.
This pattern of speech behavior, which is well documented in Gullah as well as other creoles, is very much consistent with the theories of Goffman and Hymes (Psathas, 1980).
Decreolization in Gullah
After publishing her 1983 research on the contemporary language features of Gullah, in 1984 Jones-Jackson also published an equally comprehensive work on “decreolization” and the disappearance of Gullah.
Third-person pronouns are the language feature of choice for quantitative analysis of decreolization in Gullah, as their genderless usage in the nominative and objective cases tends to vary between generations and between speakers.
Due to the phenomenon of implicational hierarchy, pronouns by themselves become a rich predictor for other accompanying language usage patterns. As Jones-Jackson explains:
“[t]o limit the data to features which clearly delineate the Creole from standard English, one can test for gender distinction and case marking within the self-contained category of third person singular pronouns without encumbering the discussion with additional subcategories.”
Figure-3a shows a breakdown of the frequency of third person pronouns along the “Post-Creole Continuum”:
“Language Death”
In conclusion to this brief and cursory survey of the linguistic inquiry into Gullah, it is important to point out that “decreolization” in Gullah occurs mainly as the result of the removal of social barriers which prevent upward mobility (Jones-Jackson, 1984). As Jones-Jackson explains, “there is sufficient breakdown in the formerly rigid social stratification brought on by educational programs and other acculturative forces to cause social mobility and to motivate large numbers of creole speakers to modify their speech in the direction of the standard language.”
So, while to many cultural preservationists, the prospect of “language death” certainly may sound shocking and even tragic, it is also important to consider the alternative. According the definitions set forth by linguist David DeCamp, the lack of any decreolization in Gullah would be a singularly strong indicator of racism, discrimination and rampant systemic and structural challenges (Jones-Jackson, 1984).
While the cause of linguistic preservation in the Gullah community is certainly, by any estimation important and worthwhile, it also seems shortsighted not to acknowledge that the forces driving decreolization are in other ways forces for good which are empowering the broader community.
Sociopolitical Considerations
In order to better understand the nuances of 21st century Gullah, it is important to examine the historical context going back to the reconstruction period at the end of slavery. As Goodwine explains, at the end of the Civil War, the Union Major General William T. Sherman came to visit Nags Head Island. Impressed with the massive population of former slaves who were living on the Sea Islands, he was moved to issue “Special Field Order №15,” which bequeathed, to every freed slave in the country, the fabled “40 acres and a mule”.
While this order was eventually rescinded in Washington, it did provide an important framework for land ownership by the Gullah. Goodwine explains that community leaders from the freed Gullah worked with Sherman to institute the distribution of land parcels. According to Goodwine, these parcels did not always come with a mule, “but definitely with tools” (Goodwine, 2015).
However, not all the Gullah were so fortunate as to be awarded the free land parcels. Still, given that farming rice on these lands largely was no longer economically viable after the abolition of slavery, the white landowners, in almost all cases, did work out payment plans with the freed Gullah.
Heirs’ Property
These familial land-tracts were passed down from generation to generation without wills or legal documentation, so they fall under a murky and old-fashioned section of the legal code, known as “heirs’ property”. As attorney Willie B. Heyward, a South Carolina native who is himself of Gullah heritage, explains on his website:
“Coastal regions of the Southeastern United States contain a substantial amount of real property currently owned by African Americans whose ancestors obtained title to the property both before and after the Civil War. Much of this property was passed down through generations by intestacy (passing away without a will) — so the land became “Heirs’ Property” owned by descendants of an original property owner.
Accordingly, Heirs’ Property is land owned “in common” (title is held by heirs as “tenants in common”) regardless of whether they live on the land, pay property taxes, reside or even set foot on the land. All heirs’ property owners are related in some way by blood, marriage or adoption.” (“HEIRS’ PROPERTY?,” n.d.)
This antiquated law has made it easy for real estate developers building luxury resorts to buy property “out from under” Gullah families, who have lived on these lands since the time of slavery. Names which real estate developers chose, like “Hilton Head Plantation” are considered by many to add insult to injury. By way of comparison, no modern German alpine ski resort has yet tacked the words, “concentration camp” onto the end of their name, in order to add rustic charm. Nevertheless, in 1980s South Carolina, somehow nobody on a planning commission or county council seems to even have raised an eyebrow.
Gullah Today
Luckily, demographics in the state are changing. More news coverage of the Gullah, will bring increased scrutiny, and public opinion in areas like Savannah and Charlston seems to be shifting. Given these recent changes, it seems likely that new legislation and other protections will be put in place to help the Gullah. While the importance of such cultural preservation initiatives should not be understated, it appears that maybe there may be more to the future of Gullah than just rising prices and rapidly dematerializing linguistic heritage. As
Jones-Jackson theorizes in her 1984 paper on decreolization, it seems Gullah may, in fact, be entering a period of outward expansion:
“the kind of situation that one finds in Gullah, and other creole languages, where ‘death’ consists of a constant elaboration and expansion of options and varieties resulting from the intrusion and imposition of a standard, but similar language”.
While, as previously mentioned, “linguistic death” may be a tough pill for many preservationists to swallow, perhaps Gullah might be alive and well after all, if only in a more diluted form. It seems, for many Gullah descendants, such as the millennial “youtubers” mentioned at the beginning of this paper, perhaps this is okay.
Although Gullah is traditionally considered to be a dialect of the sea islands, a large number of people in the low lying areas such as Charleston and Savannah also have Gullah roots. It seems likely that in these areas mesolectal language features may continue to become increasingly prominent.
Additionally, certain sea islands are now protected through legislation and community action, in these small insulated pockets, historically accurate Gullah may still be heard, as the young old alike continue to, “kraka de teeth!”
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