~Gullah: Sea Island Creole~



	Gullah: Sea Island Creole


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		Nouns Verbs Pronouns Tense Word Order Gender Glossary Speaking Gullah

			Gullah is a creolized form of English revealing survivals from many of the African languages spoken by the slaves who were brought to South Carolina and Georgia during the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth. These survivals are most numerous in the volcabulary of the dialect but can be observed also in its sounds, syntax, morphology, and intonation; and there are many striking similarities between Gullah and the African languages in the methods used to form words. Perons interested in undertaking the study and interpretation of the speech of uneducated Negroes in the coastal region of South Carolina and Georgia would do well to acquire some acquaintance with several languages spoken in those sections of the West Coast of Africa from which the Negroes were brought to United States as slaves. The Negro dialect known as Gullah or Geechee is spoken by the ex-slaves and their descendants in that part of this region which extends along the Atlantic coast approximately from Georgetown, South Carolina, to the northern boundary of Florida. It is heard both on the mainland and on the Sea Islands near by. The many similarities in form between the nouns, pronouns, and verbs of Gullah and those of the West African languages will be considered under the categories of number, tense, case, and gender.

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