[78-L] Stephen Foster

[Tom]

<< While "gwine" is certainly a specifically-black reference, whether it was
intended or understood as demeaning is quite another matter .... >>
 
 
Don't you think it's somewhat disingenuous to suggest that Stephen Foster was the equivalent of a mid-19th century sociolinguist engaged in works of benign altruism to preserve the gullah dialect?
 
Here is a sample from John’s Gospel 1.1 from De Nyew Testament, compared with the same verse from the King James Version:
 
Fo God mek de wol, de Wod been dey. De Wod been dey wid God, and de Wod been God.
 
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
 
What's next for the gullah dialect? The collected works of Shakespeare?
 
Tom
 

--- On Sun, 1/25/09, davdieh at aol.com <davdieh at aol.com> wrote:

From: davdieh at aol.com <davdieh at aol.com>
Subject: Re: [78-L] Stephen Foster
To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
Date: Sunday, January 25, 2009, 3:06 PM

 > 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


78-L at klickitat.78online.com
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