Capturing the nuances of African-American speech is always a challenge, and the particular voice patterns of the Carolina Sea Islands’ Gullah people—Geechee in our family—especially so. The patois on the outer, isolated islands off the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia derived from the blending of various African tongues with West Indian influences and the overarching lingua franca of Southern English. In earlier segments of the story we have tried to create a vernacular reflecting some of these influences without being too severe. Linguistic studies suggested using “em” for all third-person pronouns; however, since the Mayfields straddled house and field, giving them some exposure to standard English, we deferred to the use of the third-person pronoun without the possessive and the occasional dropping of the h from th. The choices could be maddening. In our matrilineal family tradition, we were always told that we were Geechee descendants. In contemporary studies, scholars of Gullah culture have decried the term “Geechee” as a derogatory expression. Thus we were faced with a dilemma at the outset of the tale. Do we honor the respected academic research or the testament of our grandmother and the truth of the story she told? In this fictive landscape of ours, how do we get to the truth of the language, the truth of the story?
Since music is a theme, we thought it important to approach spoken passages with sound in mind and let the spelling follow. Hence, readers will encounter changes in language through time and in different situations. Characters modify speech patterns depending upon whom they are addressing and the emotions of the moment. Many early characters are emerging from pre-literate and semi-literate enslavement and Jim Crow constriction. We have allowed ourselves to hear what they say and let that guide the spelling; thus the dialect/dialongue is not standardized. For instance, “something” may appear as somethin’ and sumpin; “everybody” as ever’body, ev’body, eb’body; “brother” as spoken by the Reverend may appear as brothuh in the barbershop and brothah to signal a labor recruiter’s New England Yankee twang.
We debated both going without dialect and standardizing it. We decided instead to allow for variation in hopes that the many voices we encountered would suggest the fluidity of language these people lived in as they made their way from enslavement to liberty and from the countryside to the city—as they struggled to find voice and to carve out and discover their identity. This fluidity is reflected in character names as well. A character’s family name, nickname, and outside name may change as individuals literally try on new selves with nomenclature. Betty is Miz Bette, Mah Bette, Ma Bette, Mother Betty, Bette, and Mauma. Eudora is Dora and Dora May. Alelia is also Leelee and Lia. And since two sisters wrote this book, our voices closely related yet distinct, we saw no reason to force a linguistic uniformity onto this family story. The small discrepancies in names and style may be read as tell-tale signs of individuality within the family, both the Mayfields and ours.
In most sub-Saharan African languages, sound is paramount. As another character of mine once said, “L’epellation n’est pas importante. C’est le son qui est la verité.” Spelling is not important. The sound holds the truth. When in doubt, read aloud. It is a story meant to be spoken and sung as well as read.
—IFA BAYEZA