The beginning of Molefe Asante's essay on the influences of African language on African American English serves to offer criticisms, some weak and some strong, of the way African languages were studied in the early days of the academic field. He offers criticisms of certain writers in the field and of the field in general. The central idea of this beginning portion of his essay is that many early works in African American studies were based on the incorrect assumption that African languages had no influence on African American English. Until Melville Herskovits began his work, the common belief was that African culture was lost and African American English was a pidgin language that came from corruptions of American English as a result of the slaves inability to articulate the language. Asante uses a piece written by Turner to offer examples of misunderstandings and ignorance of African language leading scholars to believe an African word used in the pidgin of slaves was a corruption of a similar sounding English word. These arguments strengthen Asante's position that many early scholars were unwilling to accept the existence of African retentions in African American English. The author's argument is mostly sound however there are some weaknesses in his position.
Much of his critique is for the narrow scope of scholastic studies in African American language studies. While it is true that many early scholars focused on language alone and did not seem to notice the importance of other forms of communication (gestures, dance, the dozens, etc.) it is important to note that many of these scholars, like Herskovits, were breaking into a new field. It is to be expected that the first foray into a field of study will leave some areas uncovered. This is especially true when studying a different culture for the first time, particularly one so diametrically different to one's own culture. Apart from this weakness, Asante offers a strong explanation of of the shortcomings of early studies in African American English. After he discusses early scholarly work in the field, Asante continues to the main purpose of his essay.
The central argument of the essay as a whole is that African languages, specifically the Niger-Congo languages, have a made a very clear influence into African American vernacular and Ebonics. The strongest point he makes in this regard is in reference to the similarity between tenses in Ebonics and tenses in the Bantu, Efik, and Ewe languages. He offers a clear example of tense being derived from context as opposed to coming from the use of different words. The examples he uses in modern Ebonics and their similarity to the given African languages demonstrates a clear connection between the two linguistically. Many of the examples he gives can still be heard in modern Ebonics. A weaker point he offers is his argument is his explanation of the way Ebonics uses multiple verbs to express an idea explained with a single verb in English. While his examples make sense, they seem to be less common or archaic constructions that are not commonly heard in every day speech. The point he makes would be much stronger in analysis of what this means culturally. Why is it that Africans use multiple verbs to explain the same idea as English? What does this say about the two cultures? Unfortunately, Asante leaves this point unexplored. While the essay has some weaknesses, it is overall a strong essay that offers some very clear and powerful explanations of the African influence on African American English and Ebonics.
African Naming Culture and Acculturation
The essay by Holloway discusses historical African naming processes and and the way they responded to acculturation in colonial America. One example that he gives is that early on slaves retained their practice of naming their children after seasons and days of the week in their original language. Over time, this changed to slaves naming their children after days of the week and seasons in English. This shows a very clear mixing of the two cultures and the way traditional African naming practises transitioned to the new world but still retained some of the original cultural identity. Another naming practice that came later during the acculturation process was when slaves began adopting their owner's last names. This shows that African slave culture was mixing more and more with colonial American culture. Whereas original African last names would come from a variety of different possibilities including place of birth the slaves began to adopt the European tradition of passing last names from one parent to child. This shows another step in the process of long term acculturation of Afican Slaves. Finally, another important naming practice mentioned by Holloway is the use of a familial nickname that persists to this day. Many black people (or "almost every" black person as Holloway puts it) has two names: given names and familial nicknames. This practise continues to this day and began with African naming tradition. This naming tradition shows, more than anything, a culturally driven emphasis on family. All of these naming traditions are important and interesting both historically and culturally. They demonstrate how acculturation affected African slave culture and tradition.
Of the list of terms given by Holloway, some are more intriguing than others. One word that stands out quickly from the list is "rap." Obviously this term has come into its own in modern English as a musical genre but it's very intriguing to learn that this term comes from African origin. With rap music being such a big part of modern black culture, it is an interesting fact that this term comes originally from African speech. Another intriguing term listed is "cowboy." Whereas rap is a large part of black culture, cowboys are a large part of American culture as a whole. The word's origins in slavery come as a surprise because often cultural depictions of cowboys are of white men. Cowboy culture factors largely into a certain section of American history and folklore and it is important to note the origins of the term. Finally, moving up the scales to a more grander one, "ok" is by far the most intriguing term on the list. The other terms listed show an obvious impact on black and American culture but "ok" is a term that is used worldwide in many different languages on almost every continent. While the origins are dubious, it is interesting to see that this term could have possibly come from an African language (and it is also important to note the lack of consideration given to this origin). The list of terms offered by Holloway is incredibly interesting because it gives clear examples of how African languages have impacted the world on a small and large scale.
