[78-L] Stephen Foster

[davdieh at aol.com]

 > Chris Zwarg:>



>> First of all, there is NOT ONE WORD in the whole lyrics that says
>> anything about
>> the ethnicity of either the singer nor the ladies, nor about the moral
>> or mental
>> qualities of either
>
> You know, you completely blow your credibility when you suggest that these
> lyrics are not specifically black, and specifically demeaning. They are.
> No one who heard them then was in any doubt. "Gwine" is all you need to
> see.
>
While "gwine" is certainly a specifically-black reference, whether it was
intended or understood as demeaning is quite another matter -- it was, in
fact, a part of the actual dialect spoken by many African-Americans of the
time, and in fact, it survives today in the speech of the Gullah speakers
of the Sea Islands off South Carolina and northern Georgia. Note the
examples in the American Bible Society's Gullah translation:
http://juniperwebsolutions.com/gullah/bible.html

There's a common perception today that much of minstrel-era dialect was
simply made up by comedians and songwriters, but the more research that's
done by sociolinguists the less likely this seems. The works of J. L.
Dillard, William Labov, and Walter Brasch contain much worth reading on
this point.
>Elizabeth
_______________________________________________
When I was first hired at a Texas college 30 years ago, new employees were given an orientation by
the system HR director, a black man in his late 50's. He outlined some rule changes passed by
the state legislature and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we may not agree with these things but, 
as we say, they're gwine to gwine." While not exactly ripped from the pages of the Hepster's Dictionary,
clearly this usage was still current among rural black people and, given the professional context, certainly
not regarded as in any way demeaning.
David Diehl


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