Sea Island creole dialect (Gullah/gechee)Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg SS 2015Philosophische Fakultät I 08.06.2015Neuphilologisches InstitutLehrstuhl für englische SprachwissenschaftDozentin: Marie-Christin Himmel, M.A.Referentinnen: Christina Aigner, Sabrina BrustSea Island Creole (Gullah / Geechee)Historical Background– primarily spoken along the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia– slaves from West Africa (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea) and the Caribbean were brought to the rice plantations on the Sea Islands– English based creole language, but origins are still speculative (three hypotheses)– warm, semitropical climate of coastal South Carolina and Georgia ? spread of tropical diseases– isolated on the islands, no contact to mainland ? Gullahs were able to preserve their language and cultural habitsPhonologyVowelslike in pileConsonantsvoiceless stops , and in Gullah are generally unaspirated at the beginning of stressed syllablesconsonants are sometimes omitted:b: in medial position number ? nummuhd: in medial position candle ? cannelor (final) when it follows n or l band ? ban´l: in medial position almost ? a´mostng: when final and unstressed evening ? evenin´s: initial when followed by a consonant scratch ? ´cratchw: in intial position woman ? ómanConsonants which are added:n: prefixes esp. to words beginning with u- or yu- sound young ? nyoungs: prefixed to a few words beginning with consonant question ? squestiony: initially added to word beginning with a vowel arm ? yahmthe “th” sound:/?/ ? /t/ ‘thank you’ ? tank yu/ð/ ? /d/ ‘this, that, them’ ? d?s, dat, d?mMorphosyntaxFeatures that share Gullah with other Atlantic English creoles:– tenses: bin for past or past of past, go/ga for future, duh for progressive, and done for perfect– partial gender and case distinctions in the pronominal systems (thus him is used for all three genders and is used both as object and subject)– use of fuh (English: for, to): we tell um fuh come = ‘we told him to come’– extensive use of serial verb/predicate constructions: come kyah me to d’hospital = ‘come and take me to the hospital’– use of weh derived from what– nouns are uninflected in number: kyat don eat raw tato = ‘a cat does not eat raw potato’ or ‘cats don’t eat raw potato’– common usage of the associative plural: Sara dem very nice people = ‘Sara and her family/friends/associates are very nice people’)– common usage of the associative plural (as in Sara dem very nice people ‘Sara and her family/friends/associates are very nice people’)– similar pronunciations of words such as oil , cat , fair –No fixed set of features that has Gullah in order to be identified as a creole– Gullah has an indefinite article a (pronounced only as ), where other English creoles use the singular quantifier one– it actually has a schwa, which is not attested in Caribbean creoles– dem (as in dem boy) both with the meaning ‘those boys’ and ‘the boys’, whereas Jamaican Creole uses prenominal dem for the plural demonstrative meaning only– wider set of negations, whereas Jamaicans only have only oneGullah structure:– many structures that are English, as NP and VP– questions are typically marked by intonation, especially those starting with a wh-phrase or aint (, , < aint it): Ain/Inni you see Al yes’day? = ‘Didn’t you see Al yesterday? – the object NP still follows the verb, and within the NP, the order is still Det(erminer) + Adj(ective) + N(oun) + Modifying clause – pronominal system: a) personal pronouns Standard English Gullah – relative clauses ?distinction between factive and non-factive /purposive relative clauses ?purposive: introduced by the complementizer fuh: a book fuh da chillum (fuh/tuh) read = ‘a book for the children to read’ ?factive: introduced by a null complementizer or by weh (English: what): everything (weh) Alison say= ‘everything what Alison said’ ‘everything that Alison said’ Bibliography Brown, Keith & Sarah Ogilvie. 2009. Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world. Amsterdam et al.: Elsevier, p.470-471. Kortmann, Peter & Edgar W. Schneider, eds. 2004. Handbook of Varieties of English. 3 vols. Berlin / New York: Mounton de Gruyter. Mufwene, Salikoko S. 1997. “The Gullah´s Development: Myth and Sociohistorical Evidence.” Language Variety in South Revisited. Ed. Cynthia Bernstein, Thomas Nunnaly and Robin Sabino. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, p. 113-122. Opala, Jospeh A. 2004. The Gullah: Rice, Slavery and the Sierra Leone – American Connection. (05.06.2015).Stevens, Jeff. 2005. Gullah. (05.06.2015).