Columbia Encyclopedia entry: Gullah
Gullahgŭl'ə, a creole language formerly spoken by the Gullah, an African-American community of the Sea Islands and the Middle Atlantic coast of the United States. The word is probably a corruption of the African Gola or Gora, names of African tribes living in Liberia, but it may also be derived from Angola, whence many of the Gullahs' ancestors came. The Gullah dialect, spoken now by only a few hundred people, is a mixture of 17th- and 18th-century English and of a number of West African languages (among them Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba). The African influence on Gullah can be seen in the phonology, vocabulary, and grammar. Some African words in Gullah have entered American English, including goober (peanut), gumbo (okra), and voodoo (witchcraft). Du Bose Heyward's novel Porgy (1925), upon which Gershwin's opera is based, was written in the Gullah dialect.
See M. Crum, Gullah (1940); L. D. Turner, Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect (1973).
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Wikipedia search results for: Gullah
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The Gullah are African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina and Georgia, which includes both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Historically, the Gullah region once extended north to the Cape Fear area on the coast of North Carolina and south to the vicinity of Jacksonville on the coast of Florida; but today the Gullah area is confined to the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry. The Gullah people are also called Geechee, after the Ogeechee River near Savannah, Georgia. The term Geechee is more commonly used in Georgia.
The Gullah are known for preserving more of their African linguistic and cultural heritage...more »
Columbia Encyclopedia search results: Gullah
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- creole language
Creole language, any language that began as a pidgin but was later adopted as the mother tongue by a people in place of the original mother tongue or tongues. Examples are the Gullah of South ...
- Sea Islands
Sea Islands, chain of more than 100 low islands off the Atlantic coast of S.C., Ga., and N Fla., extending from the Santee River to the St. Johns River. The ocean side of the islands is genera...
