A key shortcoming of early scholars of Black English, as described by Asante is their lack of knowledge of African cultures, or their misunderstanding of African language. Asante illustrates this with the example of Ambrose Gonzales, who “like many white American linguists, misunderstood the Gullah language and arrived at the wrong conclusions.” Gonzales, according to Asante, interpreted African words to be corruptions of English. (66)
Asante writes that “white American linguists refused to consider the possibility that blacks used African words in their vocabularies,” when in fact, the converse was true. The author quotes George Krapp, who wrote in 1924 that “it is reasonably safe to say that not a single detail of Negro pronunciation or Negro syntax can be proved to have other than English origins.” Krapp’s notion was seconded by other writers, and, as stated by Asante, “represented the prevailing American notions about race, cultural retentions, and African intelligence.” (67)
The key criticism that Asante makes is certainly up for debate. The author writes that “It is my contention that black Americans retained basic components of the African experience rather than specific artifacts,” and goes on to state that “to seek distinctive retention of African words in black America as Turner, Herskovits, and Romeo Garrett attempted to do is to search amiss.” (68)
Asante makes a convincing case in this essay by detailing his analysis of the transition of language from its West African form through the stages of pidginization and creolization, and its arrival at Englishization-Ebonics, but I find his criticism of Turner, Herskovits, and Romeo Garret less so. However, if Asante’s point is that by searching for specific African words that have been retained, we miss the bigger picture (or search amiss), than he is putting forth an ambitious, thought-provoking statement.
Asante’s most powerful moment in this essay, in my opinion, is the description of serial verbs. Clearly, the author is a master of this material, and his break-down of both African languages, Ebonics, and regular English is nothing short of fascinating. There is data here, and Asante presents it in an organized fashion and uses it well to make his point that “black Americans retained basic components of the African experience rather than specific artifacts.”
In my opinion, Asante is on shakier ground when describing “harmonizing” as “a principal function of black speech behavior.” (72) Describing audience interjections such as “Amen,” and “Pray on,” the author puts forth the notion that “a certain noticeable communicative style is transmitted in ton, rhythm, or pitch in these cases,” and goes on to write that “the so-called black voice can be recognized by other Ebonics speakers by pitch and tone.” This seems to me that rather than being used as support for the author’s points, this section should have been a point unto itself, with data to back it up, as Asante did in the case of serial verbs.
Holloway writes that “African cultural and linguistic acculturation into the American culture took several generations,” and goes on to state that “after about 8 generations of country-born Africans, successful Americanization had taken place.” However, Holloway also writes that “the linguistic exchanges were mutual and reciprocal: the process also brought about the Africanization of the South. (85) The “distinct white Southern accent” is, Holloway writes, the result of “generations of interaction with African speech patterns.”
Africans, according to Holloway, traditionally named their children for days of the week, months and seasons in which they were born. This practice did not cease immediately upon forced importation to America.
Holloway writes that “after the first and second generation, Africans began to substitute African day names for English translations,” and uses examples such as an ex-slave named Thursday Jones. This strange juxtaposition of the English-language version of African naming practices and the last name of a former slave owner is highlighted in the next example given by the author: that of Martin Jackson. Jackson took his name because of an African relative named Jeaceo, which the author posits is a corruption of the original Quaco, which is a male day name for Wednesday.
Of the Africanisms listed at the end of Holloway’s essay, the ones I find to be of particular interest are banana, massa, and bad. Although, banana is interesting primarily because of its bland description: “Wolof word for fruit and was first recorded in 1563, and entered British English in the seventeenth century via Spanish and Portuguese.” There is no symbolism; it is just a word that is used every day.
Massa I find to be illuminating. The word is always, in my experience, presented in movies and books with no explanation, and it is probably safe to say that it is generally assumed that “massa” is a corruption of “master,” rather than an African word for chief.
And finally: bad. Holloway notes the “African use of negative terms, pronounced emphatically to describe positive extremes. There is much to be said on this, and I don’t think I am smart enough to say it. However, this seems to me to be quite astute on one level, and humorous on another.
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