In his essay
African Elements in African American
English, Molefi Kete Asante argued that because African American slaves
could not logistically retain any of their cultural artifacts from their
homeland, they instead retained basic components of the African experience. Specifically, this “experience” included a
general retention of African linguistic behavior, including combinations of “classes
of sounds, units of meaning, and syntax behaviors[i].”
The linguistic similarities Asante detailed did not include an array of actual African
lexicon, but rather grammatical style and verb conjugation patterns. Asante prefaced
his argument with a scathing criticism of the early scholars of African
American culture. There are both strengths and weaknesses in the argument
Asante posed in favor of the retention of African linguistic behaviors and the
argument he posed against the early
scholars of African American culture. Overall, I found Asante’s argument
against the early scholars of African American culture to be very weak, and the
arguments he posed in favor of African Americans retaining portions of African
linguistic behaviors to be interesting and worthy of consideration and
continued study.
The primary
weakness of Asante’s argument against earlier scholars of African American
culture is that he discredited pioneers in the field, such as Herskovits,
Turner, Jahn and Gonzales and then subsequently used some of their research and
theories as an authoritative voice to support his argument against other
scholars. Asante wrote: “They theorized
on the basis of field research in African cultures, diasporas and continental,
challenged many interpretations about the African connection…they provided in
effect, novel interpretations of old substances.”[ii]
These “old substances” Asante was referring to were previously mentioned in his
essay as the prevailing ideas among early American scholars of African culture,
including thoughts that the language used by African Americans was “a
corruption of English”, “the babbling of children”, and “unworthy of investigation [iii].” If we are to agree with Asante that
Herskovits, Turner et al merely provided a new twist on the same old story,
then we must discredit their scholarship entirely. In doing so, it is then very difficult for
the reader to move on to the next few paragraphs, where Asante, in his example
using the misinterpretations of the Gullah language by Ambrose Gonzales, uses
one of the very scholars he has discredited (Turner) as a voice of
authority. Asante wrote: “The point made
by Turner is that white American linguists refused to consider the possibility
that blacks used African words in their vocabularies.[iv]”
Here, Asante is agreeing with the very same scholarly opinion that he has just
spent an entire page arguing against.
While some may not consider it a weakness, Asante suggested, but
did not come out and say, that the early scholars of African culture and
African retention in the diaspora were inadequate and that while their efforts
were “gallant”, they were lacking because the linguists themselves were
white. Asante wrote: “Earlier, Ambrose
Gonzales, like many other white American
linguists…[v]”,
and “the point made by Turner is that white
American linguists…[vi]”,
and “in fact, the evidence demonstrates that whites unfamiliar with either African languages…[vii]” All of these examples of why the early
scholars where to be discredited included this descriptive notation of their
race. This weakened Asante’s argument, as Herskovits’s extensive studies in Africa and his
concluding theories about African cultural continuity should not be undermined because
of his biological race.
While Asante did allow that the conclusions of Herskovits, Garrett
and the like were “interesting, provocative, and a valuable addition to our knowledge,”
[viii]
he concluded that they “cast too narrow a mold that often depended on
continuity of specific words from several ethnic regions of Africa…. and do not
make an argument for a more general retention of African linguistic behavior
applicable to most black Americans.”[ix] It appears that Asante is discrediting these
pioneers of African Studies merely because of the very specifically traceable
lexicon approach of their work. One must
remember, Herskovits was a cultural anthropologist, not a linguist. Asante’s criticism would be similar to
comparing specific empirical evidence and concrete examples (Herskovits and specific lexicon), to that of more
inferential and broad applications (Asante and linguistic behaviors.) Both approaches are valid and applicable to different
situations. However, using one
methodology to discredit another is unwarranted, especially given the small
amount of research in the field of African American linguistics in comparison
to other fields of study.
Asante does, however make very plausible and creditable arguments
for the transference of African linguistics to the linguistic behaviors of
African Americans. The primary strength of his argument exists in the flow he
created documenting the West African languages of Niger-Congo, to
Pidginization, to Creolization, to Englishizatioin, (refered to as Ebonics.) This point exemplifies how Ebonics contains
structural remnants of certain African languages while maintaining an
overwhelmingly English vocabulary.
Specifically, the use of aspect rather that tense in many verb
conjugations and constructions is apparent. Of
particular interest is the Niger-Congo tense-aspect of Present (he go),
Near past (he gone), Remote Past (he been gone), Future (he going to go),
Aspect of progress (he going), Aspect of completion (he done gone) and Past
aspect of repetition (he been going.)
This pattern of West African verb conjugation is obvious in American
Ebonics. The relationship between the
verbs within a given construction is also of great importance and a major
difference between American Ebonics and English. Asante explains: “In some
sentences Ebonics speakers use several verbs, whereas Standard English has
available a single verb to express the completed action. “ [x] Examples of this include “Turn loose and drap down from dar” (Come
down from there), “I hear tell you went home” (I hear that you went home), “Go home and see about those children”
(go home and attend to those children) and “he
picked up and went to town” (he went to town.) [xi] Asante pointed out that giving
every action a verb and using verb tenses that are grammatically incorrect in
Standard English is a common practice by African Americans. I was unaware that these tense-agreement usage
patterns are an important part of West African languages, as seen in examples
like “He clumb de tree to shake de
simmons down whilst I be pickin em up” (He climbd the tree to pick the persimmons) and “Fore I knowed it I done fell slap to sleep” (before I knew it, I fell asleep!)
Asante continued by saying that “done” is a verbal aspect of completed
action, without reference to time, as opposed to the perfective (have/had/has), which is marked for time
(in Standard English).” [xii] This makes the sentence “I done ate” in
Ebonics “I completed the action of eating”
in Standard English, where the verb “done”
specifies nothing in reference to time.
Asante points out that the American English speaker assumes the speaker
of Ebonics is referring to something completed within a reference to time, when
in fact, this is incorrect.
While I find Asante’s theory that African American English
(Ebonics) was a direct “descendant” of the language of the West African slaves
to be convincing and academically sound, it is not lost on me that one of the
very arguments he uses to discredit earlier scholars on the subject (that they
were looking for too specific lexicon and word roots) is the very same proving
method Asante used as he discussed verb conjugations and tense forms! In this
case, he too was looking for an exact, specific link.
Overall, much can be learned by the scholarship of pioneers such
as Herskovits and Turner, and the more current linguistic approach of
Asante. As Ebonics remains one of the
most obvious points of differentiation between Americans, an understanding of
the roots and formation of the language is crucial for both blacks and whites
in this country.
No comments:
Post a Comment