Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v2.djvu/375

 Negro Dialects 359 negro speech, the word buckra, meaning boss or overseer. Tote, meaning to carry, which long claimed a place beside buckra, has been found in American writings of so eariy a date as to preclude the theory of African origin. (3) The dialect spoken by the Creole negroes of Louisiana. This dialect is of course not English but French, and is best represented, though sparingly, in the works of George W. Cable. Its musical quality and the extent to which elision and con- traction have been carried may be seen in the following love song of the Creole negro Bras-Coupe, one of the characters in Cable's Grandissimes. An interlinear translation is added: En haut la montagne, zami, On the mountain chain, my friends. Mo p6 coup^ canne, zami, I've been cutting cane, my friends, Pou' l€ i'a' zen', zami, Money for to gain, my friends, Pou' mo bailie Palmyra. For my fair Palmyre. Ah! Palmyre, Palmyre, mo c'ere, Ah! Palmyre, Palmyre, my dear. Mo I'aim^ 'ou — mo I'aim^ 'ou. / love you — I love you. (4) The Uncle Remus dialect, or the dialect spoken by the negroes in the great inland sections of the South and South-west. Though there have been changes in vocabulary and a decline in vigour and picturesqueness of expression, due to the influence of negro schools and to the passing of the old plantation life, this is the dialect still spoken by the majority of the older negroes in the country districts of the South, especially of the far South. The characteristics of this dialect consist wholly in adaptation of existing English words and endings, not in the introduction of new words or new endings. The plurals of all nouns tend to become regular. Thus Uncle Remus says foots {feet), toofies {teeth), and gooses {geese), though the old plural year is retained. The relative pronoim who is not used, its place being taken by which (or w'ich), what (or w'at), dat, and the more interesting which he and which dey, corresponding to Chaucer's that he and that they. Thus: " She holler so loud dat