Assessing the Authenticity of Joel Chandler Harris's Use of Gullah

Bibliographic Data

ID6031418
AuthorsRudolph C Troike (corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume85
Issue3
Pages287-314
Publication date2010-08-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Speech (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-1283 • E-ISSN: 1527-2133
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00031283-2010-017
OpenAlexW2109996676
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited16

Few linguists have analyzed the famous African American folktales published by Joel Chandler Harris, but most who have done so have strongly supported the authenticity of Harris's representation of the language used in the stories. Harris's use of Gullah in some of his stories, however, has escaped professional attention except by one linguist, Sumner Ives, who confirmed the phonological accuracy of the representation. The in-depth analysis undertaken here of one of Harris's “Daddy Jack” tales (1881), comparing the language used with other more modern sources, linguistic as well as literary, and with data on other creoles, demonstrates overwhelmingly that Harris's “constructed Gullah,” while slightly biased toward a “basilectal” version (as was Lorenzo Dow Turner's), is extraordinarily accurate in most respects, and should be recognized as the earliest extensive valid record of this variety

Art history · Linguistics · Representation (politics · Variety (cybernetics · History · Law · Lexicography and Language Studies · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Mathematics · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy

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