“Lef’”—left—is given not only its own proper meaning, but serves for leave, leaving, as “loss” does extra duty for lose, losing, lost.
“She-she talk”—a contemptuous characterization by Gullah bucks of feminine gossip—is suggestive of the whispering frou-frou of silken petticoats.
“En’ t’ing’”—and things—is a verbal grab-bag comprehensive enough to hold every etcetera, animate or inanimate, that one may lay tongue to. A woman’s “chillun en’ t’ing’” may cover her chickens as well as her children; her “husbun’ en’ t’ing’” may include also her gentlemen friends, while reference to King Solomon’s “wife en’ t’ing’” would assuredly have lumped in with his wives every petticoat on the “Proverbial” premises!
The Gullah contraction of defend, is “’fen’,” yet, if that defense be inadequate, he will invariably “refen’” himself. If he anoint, ’tis “’n’int,” yet his pastor is the Lord’s “renointed.”
As the Gullah’s tongue has no trouble with “eart’”—his correctly pronounced contraction of “earth”—he should have no difficulty with dirt or shirt, but these are invariably pronounced “du’t” and “shu’t;” and, although the “uh” sound is so easily uttered, he always “shets” a door, and tries to “shet,” but never shuts, his lady’s mouth.
Among the Negroes on Pon Pon, Stepney—a man’s name—is commonly used as a synonym for hunger, want. He who hoped to keep the wolf away would “haffuh wu’k haa’d fuh keep Stepney frum de do’,” while the fabled ant would admonish La Cigale, the grasshopper, “tek care, gal, you duh sing duh summuhtime, tek care Stepney don’ come een yo’ house ’fo’ wintuhtime!”
There are, of course, many variations, some Negroes using only a few Gullah words, while practically all the house servants spoke without a taint. During the Confederate War, Phyllis, a highly trained young maid who had been taught deportment under Maum Bella, a fine old family servant in Charleston, once “impeached” the language of the five-year old boy under her charge. “Mass——, you shouldn’t say path, you should say parth.” How a broad “a” got loose in Charleston one can’t imagine, unless it came in with the buxom Virginia girls who periodically descended upon “the City” to marry her most eligible young men.
The Gullah grabs his prophets, his kings, and his apostles out of the Old and New Testaments, haphazard, and uses them as they come, “to point a moral or adorn a tale”—and he believes in elaborate adornment.
Himself unlettered, he catches the names as they come to his ears from the lips of the whites, or of educated Negroes, and frequently gets his personnel inextricably mixed, the mouth-filling “Nickuhdemus” being quite as frequently turned out to graze, “bite grass,” as the esteemed “Nebuhkuhnezzuh.” The Apostle Paul is most often quoted by the class-leaders and local preachers, but they love to mouth over “Buhrabbus,” while entirely ignorant of the character.
What Old Testament book can it be that the Gullah calls “Rebus?” Perhaps some Bible student will hazard a guess. It may be a far-fetched corruption of Genesis, for, in giving assurance of his having pursued a subject or an investigation from beginning to end, he will often say: “Uh bin t’ru da’ t’ing frum Rebus spang to Rebelashun!”