Gullah (language)
| Gullah | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
 United States
|
|
| speaker | 390 native speakers (2015) | |
| Linguistic classification |
|
|
| Official status | ||
| Official language in | - | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639 -1 |
- |
|
| ISO 639 -2 |
cpe |
|
| ISO 639-3 |
gul |
|
Gullah (also guallah creole or Sea Island Creole English ) is an English- based creole language that is similar to Krio . As of 2015, there should have been only 390 speakers, out of around 250,000 people belonging to the Gullah .
It is spoken by the Gullah in the United States in the coastal regions of North Carolina , South Carolina , Georgia, and Florida . There are smaller speaker groups in Detroit and New York . In 1977 there were a total of around 125,000 speakers, few of whom were monolingual.
There is a close relationship to the Afro- Seminole of the Black Seminoles . Linguistic influences consist of West African languages . The written language is mostly English, although a dictionary and its own orthography and grammar exist.
Gullah developed in the early rice plantations in South Carolina, probably in the early 18th century when there were large numbers of slaves brought to America from various West African countries. In order to communicate with each other and with their English-speaking masters, the slaves developed Gullah from a mixture of English and various African languages. Whites could probably at least understand the language.
Language examples:
- Tek'e foot een 'e han = run, leave quickly
- Dry 'long so = without reason or justification
- Two-time-one-gun = double-barreled rifle
- Lawfully lady = wife who is married according to the law
literature
- Joseph Opala: Bunce Island, A British Slave Castle in Sierra Leone - Historical Summary. James Madison University, Harrisonburg 2007; in: Christopher DeCorse: Bunce Island Cultural Resource Assessment and Management Plan , p. 21ff. ( PDF; English )
- Wolfgang Viereck, Heinrich Ramisch, Karin Viereck: dtv-Atlas English language . dtv, Munich 2002, p. 168f. ISBN 3-423-03239-1 . The section reports on linguistic peculiarities of the Gullah.
- Bernard Comrie, Stephen Matthews, Maria Polinsky (advisory editors): Bildatlas der Sprachen. Origin and Development of the Languages of the Earth. Nikol Verlag, Hamburg 2007, p. 154. ISBN 978-3-937872-84-1 . The Gullah language is mentioned at the specified location and is shown on a map in the southeastern United States.
- David Crystal: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. , 2nd edition, Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt 2004, p. 338. ISBN 3-86150-705-6 . Here, too, the language is named and entered on a map. The number of speakers is given as "approx. 150,000 to 300,000". Crystal cites for his survey of "100 pidgin and creole languages": Ian F. Hancock: A survey of the pidgins and creoles of the world . In: D. Hymes (Ed.): Pidginization and creolization of languages. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1971, pp. 509-523.
Web links
- Joseph A. Opala: The Gullah: Rice, Slavery, and the Sierra Leone-American Connection. Yale Macmillan Center - Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition, Yale University (English).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sea Island Creole English. Ethnologue.com. Retrieved August 25, 2020.