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K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

Lumbee English 1

About this video

Director
Neal Hutcheson
Provider
North Carolina State University / North Carolina Language and Life Project
Date created
2001
Duration
6:07
Location
North Carolina
File
Flash Video
License
This video copyright ©2008. All Rights Reserved

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First of two sets of excerpts about Lumbee English and Lumbee identity from the documentary film Indian by Birth: The Lumbee Dialect, produced by Neal Hutcheson and the North Carolina Language and Life Project.

For more excerpts from Indian by Birth, see Lumbee English 2.

This video is one in a series that also includes:

Transcript

Narrator (00:04)
Lumbee English may have been influenced by a number of different groups, beginning with the very first English-speaking colonists in the area.  The earliest English colonists landed on the Outer Banks in the late 1500s.  Scholars once speculated that the Lumbee were descendants of the Lost Colony, the group of English settlers who vanished from Roanoke Island around 1587.
Dr. Walt Wolfram (00:27)
There’s no doubt about it, there are a lot of similarities between Outer Banks English and Lumbee English.  For example, the pronunciation of words like tide as “toid,” you can hear among older people in Prospect and you can also hear on the Outer Banks.  Also words like “mommuck” and “toten” are found in both places.  And you hear grammatical constructions, such as “I weren’t there” in the Outer Banks, and also in Lumbee English.  But it’s a stretch to say that this proves that there’s a connection between Lumbee English and Lost Colony English.  What is probably more likely is the fact that there was an earlier English, that because of isolation, fueled the English that developed in the Outer Banks and Lumbee English as well. 
Narrator (01:17)
While the English colonies gradually migrated inland, the movement of Scottish settlers up the Cape Fear River, and into the Robeson county area, was another likely influence on the development of Lumbee English.  A third possible influence came from Scots-Irish settlers who migrated south down the Appalachian mountain range, and east into the Piedmont.  From these diverse sources of English, the Lumbee carved out the unique dialect that today is strongly associated with Lumbee culture. 
(01:48)
And all farming.  Big farms.  15 acres of tobacco… ***
(02:06)
Language is very important.  As I talked to the reporter the other day, she said, “Well why is language so important? Why is there such — Why does this need to be protected?” I said, “Well that’s how we recognize who we are.” You know, not only by looking at someone, we know just who we are by our language.  We recognize someone is from Spain because they speak Spanish, or from France because they speak French.  I said, “and that’s how we recognize Lumbees; if we’re anywhere in the country, and we hear ourselves speak, we know exactly who we are.”
(02:39)
It’s like an immediate identification mechanism.  Can I talk to this person, can I trust this person, do we share common experiences, do we have a common bond?
Hubbard Lowery (02:48)
Even if it’s somebody been away for years, there’s something that lingers about their language that if he talks long enough, you’ll pick it up. 
Narrator (02:57)
Lumbee English distinguishes itself through vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar.  One of the most obvious features of Lumbee English is vocabulary.
(03:08)
And a cup of “ellick” is actually coffee with sugar in it.  You know, so it’s like a sweet cup of coffee, a cup of ellick.
(03:18)
Ron bring me a cup of that ellick in here, I need, I want some ellick.
(03:23)
“Juvember,” okay, that’s — some folks call them a slingshot.  But it’s just, what we would take a forked branch, cut it off, put rubber bands on it, tongue of the shoe, a make a little rock in it, and that’s a juvember.  That’s all I ever heard until I got grown and found out they call them slingshots, or something else, you know.  But that’s what a juvember is. 
(03:46)
Well to me, when you mommuck something you like — you just treat it bad, like just mess over it.  You know, you make a mess of it. 
(03:59)
You’re mommucking up them clothes? You better get all that dirt out of them and not mommuck them up. 
(04:04)
A “toten” is like an omen of something bad that’s going to happen, or a sign of death.  You can see a toten, or you can hear a toten. 
Narrator (04:15)
Many Lumbee terms are largely unknown outside of Robeson county. 
(04:21)
Toten?  Yes, to carry.
(04:22)
Juvember, yeah, yeah, juvember, yeah, that’s when you have a cold snap in July, that’s juvember. 
(04:31)
Ellick?  Name of a person? That’s what it sounds like to me. 
(04:41)
Mommuck? Not familiar with that one. 
(04:46)
Mommucking?  Trying to act like their momma? 
(04:50)
Now people around here, you know ** around here, they’re used to it, they’re part of — their ancestors are part of the reason our ancestors talked the way we did.  But you get anywhere away from this immediate area, people, some — they know it’s different, they know it’s something they’ve never heard before, and a lot of times they’re fascinated by it, because, it’s, you know, it’s something different.
(05:10)
*** Chicken and rice and rice and chicken. 
(05:24)
Set you downside* again good wife here. I want to try to look after fixing a meal, **. 
(05:37)
In high school, we took grammar, of course, everybody takes grammar, in English, and a lot of the words we use, we were discouraged from using them because it wasn’t proper English according to the grammar.  We’d always heard — Teachers that would come in from outside of the community would really downgrade the words that we would use — it’s not proper.  And you’d be punished, in certain cases.