Language is Power
Adolf Hitler said “If a lie is repeated often enough people will
believe it.”
The most evil man in history was able to orchestrate the murder
of millions of people by manipulating language. By controlling the
media and supplying propaganda he was able to convince good
people to commit evil acts. He knew three things:
1. Keep it short and simple.
2. Repeat it.
3. Offer easy solutions to complex problems
(e.g. within 4 years German unemployment dropped from 6 million to 0)
He even took an archetypal symbol– the swastika – and used it as
a logo for the Nazi regime. Where it was once the oldest known
symbol of luck, peace, power peace and life – all positive things, it
is now a universal symbol of hatred… that’s powerful!
With your seating partner, brainstorm
all the ways language can be used to
manipulate people.
How many historical example can you
think of when language played a key role
in the subjugation of a race/group?
British Colonialism
• http://www.the-map-ashistory.com/demos/tome05/index.php
• spreads the English language, but also
establishes English speakers as the
elite, powerful, wealthy and morally
superior… BUT wait, how does that
happen?
The Slave Trade
Slavery in America: Historical Overview
By Ronald L. F. Davis, Ph. D. California State University, Northridge
On the eve of the American Civil War approximately 4 million
enslaved African Americans lived in the southern region of the
United States of America. The vast majority worked as
plantation slaves in the production of cotton, sugar, tobacco,
and rice. Very few of these enslaved people were African born
principally because the importation of enslaved Africans to the
United States officially ended in 1808, although thousands were
smuggled into the nation illegally in the 50 years following the
ban on the international trade. These enslaved people were the
descendants of 12 to 13 million African forbearers ripped from
their homes and forcibly transported to the Americas in a
massive slave trade dating from the 1400s. Most of these
people, if they survived the brutal passages from Africa, ended
up in the Caribbean (West Indies) or in South and Central
America. Brazil alone imported around five million enslaved
Africans. This forced migration is known today as the African
Diaspora, and it is one of the greatest human tragedies in the
history of the world…
Slavery robbed people of…
• their basic human rights
• their homeland and family
• their freedom and their life
The role of language in this travesty is
HUMONGOUS!
Words were used to put people down,
they were robbed of their native
languages and forced to learn new ways
to communicate.
Brainstorm a list of all the ways words
can be used as weapons!
Narrative of Sarah Gudger. Ex-slave, 121 years
I 'membahs de time when mah mammy wah alive, I wah a
small chile, afoah dey tuck huh t' Rims Crick. All us chillens
wah playin' in de ya'd one night. Jes' arunnin' an' aplayin'
lak chillun will. All a sudden mammy cum to de do' all a'sited.
"Cum in heah dis minnit," she say. "Jes look up at what is
ahappenin'," and bless yo' life, honey, da sta's wah fallin'
jes' lak rain.* Mammy wah tebble skeered, but we chillen
wa'nt afeard, no, we wa'nt afeard. But mammy she say evah
time a sta' fall, somebuddy gonna die. Look lak lotta folks
gonna die f'om de looks ob dem sta's. Ebbathin' wah jes' as
bright as day. Yo' cudda pick a pin up. Yo' know de sta's
don' shine as bright as dey did back den. I wondah wy dey
don.' Dey jes' don' shine as bright. Wa'nt long afoah dey
took mah mammy away, and I wah lef' alone.
*(One of the most spectacular meteoric showers on record, visible all
over North America, occurred in 1833.)
Federal Writer's Project, United States Work Projects Administration (USWPA); Manuscript Division,
Library of Congress
Slave Narrative Reading
Response
Instructions: Complete the following on a separate sheet of paper.
1. Write a brief explanation of the event described by ex-slave
Sarah Gudger.
2.
What makes her narrative difficult to understand?
3.
Why do you think the recorder of this narrative chose to
write/transcribe it the way it is?
4.
What is the effect of retaining the original dialectical
pronunciation?
5.
In the novel, what is the effect of using dialect as opposed to
traditional Standard English?
Ebonics Rooted In Slaves' Language
By Major W. Cox
Recently, the slang spoken by inner city African-American children,
sometimes referred to as "Black English," has garnered enormous media
attention. This current interest in the subject stems from an action
taken by the Oakland, California, Board Of Education. The members of
the Board voted to declare "Ebonics" (a contraction of ebony and
phonics) the primary language of the inter-city African-American
children within the district. Therefore, these children should be taught
Standard English as a second language.
Many commentators and pundits have spoken or written on the subject
in the weeks since. Most all have condemned Oakland’s action in harsh
terms. Nevertheless, the sad reality for these children is that they are
unable to speak Standard English. The question society must answer is,
why?
In search of an answer to this dilemma, one needs to look back in the
nation’s history to the slave trade. History tells us that the first Dutch
slave traders bringing slaves to America would collect their "cargo"
from different locations. In so doing, they insured the slaves on ships
traveling to America could not speak to each other. This provided the
ship’s crew a measure of protection against being overthrown during the
long journey to America. Once they landed at their destination, they
found the purchasers of their peculiar cargo willing to pay a premium
for a group of slaves who could not speak to each other.
As the demand for slaves increased, the muting of African languages in
the United States continued. Slave traders found it more efficient to
land in the Caribbean Islands, before coming to the United States. This
allowed them to exchange and mix their slave cargo with that of other
traders in order to obtain a speechless language mix among the slaves
being sold in the United States.
Once slaves reached their destination, the only communication allowed
or possible was in the English language. Slave masters universally
prohibited slaves from speaking any language other than English; yet, it
was unlawful for slaves to be taught to read or write. As a result, slaves
developed a pidgin language, using the limited English taught by their
masters as the basis of their vocabulary. Hence, if a slave wanted to
express the concept of being wealthy or rich, he may have used these
words: "I am eating high on the hog." Or if he wanted express a feeling
of being safe and secure, he might have expressed it this way: "I’m
sleeping in tall cotton." When slaves needed to communicate an idea,
opinion or thought for which they had not learned an English word, they
surely must have used words from their native African language.
Mothers taught their children this African-English pidgin, which slaves
used to communicate among themselves. This was the language that
slaves used to express their feelings of love to each other and hope for
their children. This is the language [that] slaves used to sing their songs
and tell their stories. Slaves used their African-English pidgin language
to teach survival strategy from one generation to the next. It became
the language of slavery. When a slave escaped from the South to the
North, it was the inability to speak proper English that frequently
branded him an escaped slave.
When slavery ended in 1865, most conditions of life for the millions of
former slaves improved enormously. But a close look at the years
following emancipation finds little improvement in opportunity or ability
for former slaves to learn and use Standard English. Jim Crow
segregation laws in the South culturally isolated generations of
descendants of former slaves, they spoke the only language they knew:
the African-English pidgin learned from their slave ancestors. In the
North, conditions were little better. There, generations of descendants
of former slaves found themselves segregated into urban ghettos. In
these poor slums, isolated from opportunities to learn and speak
standard English, black children continued to learn and speak the
language of love and hope, the language of survival at the breasts of
mothers who only spoke the African-English pidgin handed down from
their slave ancestors.
America's poor black children speaking "Ebonics" today are speaking the
language of a culturally isolated people. The solution to these children’s
problem of not being able to speak Standard English is simple! We need
to embrace each as one of us. Instead of encouraging them to create
their own language of cultural deprivation, teachers need to manifest
enough dedication and devotion toward their students to teach them
how to speak correct English without destroying their self-esteem.
Originally Published: 15 January 1997, Montgomery Advertiser
Reproduced with permission. If you want to know more about Major W. Cox, see the following
web site:
http://www.majorcox.com/more.htm
Ebonics Essay Reading Response
1. Write a brief explanation of how the unique
language of the enslaved people originated.
2. Briefly compare the way you learned language
skills to the way the enslaved learned to
communicate.
3. Statement: Major Cox has a strong opinion about
Ebonics and which English should be taught in
schools. Make a list of reasons to agree and to
disagree with him.
Works Cited
• http://slaveryinamerica.org