Language in the USA Part 4 pps

140 patricia nichols

A. When Christmas come, I had gone

to my Aunt May house. Then my

aunt say have to beat my little sister

cause she had, she had broke a

glass with the cocoa in um.

When Christmas came, I went to my

Aunt May’s house. Then my aunt said

that she had to beat my little sister

because she [the sister] had broken a

glass with cocoa in it.

B. And then we had gone up to we

other cousin house name Neecie.

And then we had see, then we, then

that night we had gone up to

Jerome. Then when we come from

there, the dog had come and bite

my little sister, and my little sister

say, “Owww, Ooooo.”

And then we went up to our other

cousin’s house named Neecie. And

then we saw, then we, then that night

we went up to Jerome’s. Then when

we came from there, the dog came

and bit my little sister, and my little

sister said, “Owww, Ooooo.”

C. And then ee say, “Unnnn.” And then she said, “Unnnn.”

D. And then she, and then after that –

Monday – we, I had gone to my

aunt house fuh see my baby sister.

And then we had gone and play.

And then I had ride her bicycle.

And she bicycle had broke.

And then she, and then after that –

Monday – we, I went to my aunt’s

house in order to see my baby sister.

And then we went and played. And

then I rode her bicycle. And her

bicycle broke.

E. And Neecie say, “Oh, Rhetta, see

what you done do: broke that girl

bicycle!”

And Neecie said, “Oh, Rhetta, see

what you have done: broken that

girl’s bicycle!”

F. I say, “I ain’t do um. You do um

cause you want me fuh tote you!”

I said, “I didn’t do it. You did it

because you wanted me to tote

[carry] you [on the back of the

bicycle].”

An older woman in her eighties uses similar features in an excerpt from a narrative

about a drowning in the Waccamaw:

G. And my father and my sister right

here over there drown out there in

the Waccamaw Bay. They was

coming from Georgetown in a row

boat. And a boat been coming from

this side, name the . . . . A big

boat. And ee was foggy, and they

couldn’t see. And when the boat

strike the little boat, my brother, he

jump on this big boat fuh let the

people know what happen. And

And my [god] father and my sister

right here over there drowned out

there in the Waccamaw Bay. They

were coming from Georgetown in a

rowboat. And a boat was coming

from this side, named the ....A

big boat. And it was foggy, and they

couldn’t see. And when the boat

struck the little boat, my brother – he

jumped on this big boat in order to let

the people know what had

Creole languages: forging new identities 141

then they had to go a long ways

before they turn round. And when

they turn round, my sister and my

godfather-dem was done sweep

away.

happened. And then they had to go a

long way before they turned around.

And when they turned around, my

sister and my godfather and all the

other people had already been swept

away.

H. And my daddy stand up in

Waccamaw River with ee pipe in ee

mouth. . . . With his pipe in ee

mouth, he was so tall!

And my daddy stood up in the

Waccamaw River with his pipe in his

mouth. . . . With his pipe in his mouth,

he was so tall!

These two short narratives exhibit several grammatical constructions that can be

identified as creole in origin:

(1) ee and um as distinguishing subject/possessive it from object it (A, F,

G, H)

(2) no tense marking inflections for simple past on many verbs (A, B, C,

G, H)

(3) done marking completed action for past perfect verbs (E)

(4) fuh introducing a clause of purpose or reason, or one expressing uncer￾tain/unaccomplished events (D, F, G)

(5) no possessive marking for nouns (A, B, E)

(6) no copula (be-verb) for some clauses containing predicate nomina￾tives, adjectives, or locatives (no examples)

The child has begun to use had as a past-tense marker, which she clearly distin￾guishes from the present-tense have. She also uses an African vocabulary item,

tote, which has passed into general American English to describe a bag used to

carry something: tote bag.

A Gullah feature that neither speaker uses – but which can still be heard among

the very young and very old – is a marker for reiterative or habitual aspect: duh,

as in “Gregg duh hide.” This particular example of duh was used to describe

a playmate who was ducking down behind an automobile repeatedly, his head

disappearing and reappearing over the top of the vehicle.

Children and adults of the Waccamaw Neck can be heard codeswitching

between Gullah and a regional variety of AAVE, depending on the social sit￾uation. Similar switching between language varieties probably occurred at earlier

stages and probably accounts for the grammatical “mix” that can be found in

Gullah and other creoles, as waves of different language speakers entered the

community over time. For creole development generally, Myers-Scotton (1997,

2001) makes a convincing case that codeswitching between varieties results in

the process of “turnover,” whereby the grammatical structures used by one gen￾eration are at least partially replaced by another set of grammatical structures

in subsequent generations – as the proportions of incoming speakers shift the

142 patricia nichols

balance between native languages in a dynamic creole society. Such a “turnover”

process may have occurred more than once for Gullah, as speakers from different

areas of West and Central Africa joined Carolina speech communities.

Hawaiian Creole

Recent socio-historical research on the other US creole with an English vocabulary

reveals how important different waves of speakers can be to the development and

eventual shape of a stable creole language. Hawaiian Creole (still called Pidgin

by the islanders themselves) is unique among creoles in that documentation exists

for how it has changed with successive language contact between different groups

of speakers. The development of Hawaiian Creole can be divided into six phases,

beginning with the initial phase of contact between native Hawaiians and small

numbers of European American missionaries (1778–1829) and ending with the

present phase that began in 1950 when large numbers of mainland European

Americans became island residents (Roberts 1998). For language contact, the

second through fifth phases are important. The second phase (whaling era of 1830–

59) included Chinese and more European Americans than the previous one. The

third phase (plantation era of 1860–99) included massive numbers of Chinese,

Portuguese, and Japanese laborers. The fourth phase (beginning of territorial

era from 1900–19) included large numbers of children born to Chinese and to

Portuguese laborers. The fifth phase (middle and end of territorial era from 1920

to 1949) included many native-born descendants of Chinese, Portuguese, and

Japanese immigrants. A number of Filipinos also entered the islands during the

fourth and fifth phases, but most of these were bachelors or men who had left

their wives and families in the Philippines.

Hawaiian Pidgin was the initial contact language to emerge in the islands.

This pidgin with a native Hawaiian vocabulary emerged between 1790 and 1820

between native Hawaiians and Europeans of different language backgrounds who

visited the islands (Roberts 1995). During the subsequent whaling period, sailors

used Hawaiian Pidgin as a trade language, as did early immigrants to the sugar

plantations. Linguists have argued at length about the relationship between this

early pidgin with its Hawaiian vocabulary and the subsequent one that emerged

nearly a century later with an English vocabulary. When English speakers became

a presence in the islands during the mid and late 1800s, many native Hawaiians

appear to have first learned English as a foreign language under the tutelage of

the missionaries, while continuing to use Pidgin Hawaiian for trade with seamen

stopping in the islands. The Hawaiian Pidgin English that preceded Hawaiian

Creole did not begin to emerge until the period of massive immigration of plan￾tation laborers accompanying European American commercial influence. By

the late nineteenth century, this pidgin with an English vocabulary was being

widely used as a plantation language (Roberts 1998), owing in large measure to

Creole languages: forging new identities 143

overwhelming numbers of immigrants: by 1890 immigrants and their descen￾dants outnumbered the native Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian population, and by

1934 indigenous Hawaiians represented less than 10 percent of the total popula￾tion (Reinecke 1969).

One factor that seems very important for development of the creole was the

increasing use of English as a medium of instruction for school children. During

the decade 1878–88, English began to replace the native Hawaiian language as

a medium of instruction in the public schools of Hawai‘i (Siegel 2000). English

was the preferred language of education for the large population of Portuguese

immigrants, many of whom served as overseers on island plantations, and they

actively demanded its use in the schools. Because a massive increase in the num￾bers of children born to Portuguese and Chinese immigrants occurred after 1890,

many island-born children thus heard English in the classroom from their teachers

and learned Pidgin English on the playground from other children. Island-born

children of immigrant parents tended to be bilingual for the first generation, using

a home language with parents and the pidgin with their peers. The English of the

schools would have represented yet a third language, one that had stiff competition

from the other two. Subsequent generations of Chinese and Portuguese children

used the creole as their primary language. Japanese immigrants did not come

to the islands in large numbers until 1888, and thus their island-born children

did not have an initial impact on the common language that evolved (Reinecke

1969). Japanese island-born children, moreover, tended to be more loyal to their

home language than did immigrant children of other ethnic groups (Roberts

1998).

The Portuguese seem to have been a significant social link between planta￾tion owners or managers and the plantation laborers, acting as they often did

in the role of plantation overseers. Sharing cultural and religious ties with the

European Americans, Portuguese children were the largest immigrant group

in the schools for the quarter of a century when the creole was stabilizing

at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth phase (Siegel 2000). A

1939 study offers a tabulation of “errors” made by children according to eth￾nic group (Hawaiian, Chinese, Portuguese, and Japanese) and notes specific

structures – which we would now recognize as creole grammatical structures –

that characterize the speech of children from different ethnic groups (M. E.

Smith, cited in Roberts 1998). The frequency of these “errors” for each ethnic

group can be linked to the substratum languages spoken at home (Siegel 2000).

Portuguese and Chinese immigrant speech of the plantation phase had a strong

influence on the grammatical structures of Hawaiian Creole during its formative

stages.

The text below appears in a contemporary literary quarterly published by

Hawaiian writers (Lum 1990: 72–73). Translation is provided by Kent Sakoda

and his colleagues (Diana Eades, Teri Menacker, Ermile Hargrove, and Suzie

Jacobs):

144 patricia nichols

A. Anyway, I no can tell if da Bag

Man is happy or sad or piss off or

anyting l’dat cause he get one

moosetash and skinny kine beard

wit only little bit strands, stay hide

his mout. But his eyes, da Bag

Man’s eyes, stay always busy . . .

looking, lookin, looking.

Anyway, I can’t tell if the Bag Man

is happy or sad or pissed off or

anything like that because he has a

mustache and a thin kind of beard

with just a few strands hiding his

mouth. But his eyes, the Bag Man’s

eyes are always busy... looking,

looking, looking.

B. I look back at him, and to me, he

ack like he little bit shame. We stay

da only small kids sitting down at

da tables, me and Russo, but da Bag

Man ack like he no like know us.

I look back at him, and it seems to

me that he’s acting like he’s a little

embarrassed. Me and Russell, we’re

the only little kids sitting at the tables,

but the Bag Man acts like he doesn’t

want to know us.

C. Had one nudda guy in one tee-shirt

was sitting at da table next to us

was watching da Bag Man too. He

was eating one plate lunch and

afterwards, he wen take his plate

ovah to da Bag Man. Still had little

bit everyting on top, even had

bar-ba-que meat left.

There was another guy in a

tee-shirt who was sitting at the table

next to us and he was watching the

Bag Man too. He was eating a plate

lunch and after he was done, he took

his plate over to the Bag Man. There

was still a little bit of everything on it,

it even had some teriyaki meat.

D. “Bra,” da guy tell, “you like help

me finish? I stay full awready.”

“Hey man,” the guy says, “do you

wanna help me finish this? I’m

stuffed.”

E. Da Bag Man no tell nutting, only

nod his head and take da plate. I

thought he would eat um real

fast... gobble um up, you know.

But was funny, he went put um

down and go to da counter fo get

one napkin and make um nice by

his place . . . da fork on tap da

napkin. Even he took da plate out

of da box, made um j’like one real

restaurant. I wanted fo give him

sometin too, but I only had my cup

wit little bit ice left. I awready went

drink up all da Coke and was

chewing da ice. Da Bag Man was

looking at me now, not at me but at

my cup. I nevah know what fo do

The Bag Man didn’t say a word,

just nodded his head and took the

plate. I thought he’d eat it real fast,

gobble it up, you know. But the funny

thing was that he put it down and went

to the counter to get a napkin and set

it up nicely at his place... with the

fork on the napkin. He even took the

plate out of its container, made it just

like a real restaurant. I wanted to give

him something too, but I only had my

cup with a little bit of ice left. I had

already drunk all of the Coke and was

chewing on the ice. The Bag Man was

looking at me now, not at me but at

my cup. I didn’t know what to do

though, because it would be