Lumbee English 2

About this video

Director

Neal Hutcheson

Provider

North Carolina State University / North Carolina Language and Life Project

Date created

2001

Duration

5:38

Location

North Carolina

File

Flash Video

License

This video copyright ©2008. All Rights Reserved

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• Search LEARN NC for American Indians, English, language arts, linguistics, Lumbee, and North Carolina.

In the classroom

Second 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 1.

This video is one in a series that also includes:

• African American English
• The Cherokee Language
• Dialect in Southern cities
• Mountain Talk
• Outer Banks English
• Spanish and English in the American South

Transcript

(00:05)

[Singing]

Narrator (00:13)

Lumbee English often goes deeper than simple labels.  Many words help to define a sense of community. 

(00:21)

A “lum,” that’s just lingo, that’s just belonging. When you say you’re a lum, that’s identity.  And, we were up at Chapel Hill the other Sunday for Oliana’s graduation, and they referred to the alumni as lums.  I said, “How about that, we’re all lums.”

(00:46)

If you maintain your community ties and stuff, if it’s just coming home at Christmas and for Mother’s Day and Lumbee homecoming and stuff like — it’s got to be some.  Some kind of way, I mean you know, this Heather Locklear thing — Heather Locklear ain’t no lum, I don’t care what nobody says, I don’t care if her granddaddy or great-granddaddy or whatever it was came from here, she’s never lived as a lum, she’s never been involved in this community, she’s never certainly had to experience the things that are, just the — going to be part of your life experience if you’re a lum, and you know, you live in Robeson county, so it’s hard for me to see somebody like that as  a lum.  To me, it’s got to be, you’ve just got to be part of this community, even if it is from a distance.  You know, so, I guess what I’m saying is you’ve got to have the genetics and the culture. 

Narrator (01:37)

An important part of the Lumbee accent is in the pronunciation, which is mostly Southern, with a few distinct vowel differences.  Like the vowel in the word “side” or “ride.”

Unseen male speaker speaking Lumbee English (with subtitles) (01:47)

I like to got bit though one time, the snake was right there on my hand, boy — it was a black snake. We was in a ‘baccer field cropping some ‘baccer, my uncle he killed that black snake, put him in a box.

Unseen female speaker speaking Lumbee English (with subtitles) (01:59)

Well, when he got halfway to that little ditch on this side…

Narrator (02:07)

Other language variations are found in Lumbee grammar, like the use of “bes”, where other dialects use “am,” “is,” and “are.”

Unseen female speaker speaking Lumbee English (with subtitles) (02:16)

You know how dogs smells down… That’s how that dog bes doing.

Narrator (02:21)

Another difference is the use of “I’m,” where other dialects use “I have.”

Unseen male speaker speaking Lumbee English (with subtitles) (02:27)

I’m forgot whether it was rainin’ there or no.

Narrator (02:32)

Lumbee speakers sometimes use “weren’t,” where other English speakers use “wasn’t.”

Unseen female speaker speaking Lumbee English (with subtitles) (02:36)

That’s just the type of person she is. I weren’t talking to him, I weren’t seeing him or anything. I had a boyfriend.

Narrator (02:44)

But Lumbee dialect is more than words and sounds.  It is a combination of verbal and nonverbal presentation that makes it an extension and expression of Lumbee culture. 

(02:56)

I would say that the larger percentage of the time, you could tell a Lumbee by their speech.  By certain words they use, or pronunciations, or just the style and tone of the conversation. 

(03:09)

Okay, but you kind of, when you spot each other, you kind of look, “well that looks like a lum over there,” and then when they say something, you know. You just know.  There’s going to be something — even if it’s not the sound itself, it’s going to be an expression.

(03:26)

Now one of the most refreshing things happened when I went to University, and I had an English teacher, and she said — one of the first few sessions we had in class — she said that the English, or the words that you use, it is used to communicate, and if it communicates with people, it’s just as right, just as proper, in that context, as the proper English you would expect in Washington, D.C. But she said the difference was knowing when to use what kind of English.

(04:06)

Since 1887, there’s been an attempt to standardize Lumbee English, and they haven’t been successful.  So there has to be something in terms of it being embedded in the culture, ingrained in the culture. Because you would think in a hundred years of public education that something would have changed, when in fact it hasn’t. 

(04:44)

Uncle Sam says we speak no native language.  He says we do not live in a traditional way.  Therefore, we cannot be Indian.  I say: For centuries, his ancestors make speaking our native language against the law, made practicing our traditions punishable by him.  For this reason, many of our languages have died.  Many of our own people know nothing of their culture and history.  But the Indian blood runs thick and strong through our veins.  We are Native Americans, Indian, by birth.