Gullah Language - Origins

Origins

Scholars have proposed two general theories about the origins of Gullah:

  1. Gullah arose independently in South Carolina and Georgia in the 18th and 19th centuries when African slaves on rice plantations developed their own creole language combining features of the English they encountered in America with the West and Central African languages they brought with them on the Middle Passage. According to this view, Gullah is an independent development in North America.
  2. Some slaves brought to South Carolina and Georgia already knew Guinea Coast Creole English (also called West African Pidgin English) before they left Africa. Guinea Coast Creole English was spoken along the West African coast during the 18th century as a language of trade between Europeans and Africans and among Africans of different tribes. It was used especially in British coastal slave trading centers such as James Island, Bunce Island, Elmina Castle, Cape Coast Castle and Anomabu.

But these two theories are not necessarily mutually exclusive. While it is likely that some of the Gullahs’ ancestors came from Africa with a working knowledge of Guinea Coast Creole English, and this language influenced the development of Gullah in various ways, it is also clear that most slaves taken to America did not have prior knowledge of a creole language in Africa. It is also clear that the Gullah language evolved in unique circumstances in coastal South Carolina and Georgia, thus developing its own distinctive form in that new environment.

The vocabulary of Gullah comes primarily from English, but it also has words of African origin. Some of the most common African loanwords are: cootuh ("turtle"), oonuh ("you"), nyam ("eat"), buckruh ("white man"), pojo ("heron"), swonguh ("proud") and benne ("sesame").

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