In the Lowcountry, even Uncle Sam speaks Gullah

Uncle Sam be Gullah.

Who knew?

I know because the U.S. Postal Service recently delivered to me an envelope addressed in Gullah:

“Dabid Flauterdale

De Ilant Pakit

Pos Offis Bex 5727

Hillum Haid Ilant

Souse Calina 29938”

The letter came from my friend Pierre McGowan. He’s 90 and recently recovered from major surgery. But he’s already back to being stubborn as the Tar Baby, hunting and fishing and fussing about the traffic on St. Helena Island.

Pierre was born and raised in a Gullah world.

When his daddy became the rural mail carrier on St. Helena in 1924, the McGowans were among about 65 whites scattered about an island of 5,000 Gullah-speaking blacks.

So Pierre is bilingual, and apparently, so is Uncle Sam.

Today, the Gullah dialect is celebrated as a valuable piece of the unique slice of American history played out on St. Helena and other sea islands off the South Carolina and Georgia coast.

Milestones along the way include the visits by linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner in the 20th century, and the publication in 2005 of the “De Nyew Testament” in Gullah by the American Bible Society in cooperation with Wycliffe Bible Translators. That was the fruit of more than 25 years of labor by professional translators and local Gullah leaders.

But for many Gullah adults, the language they absorbed as children was scorned at home by parents who wanted their children to assimilate into a so-called better life of better jobs, usually far from home.

Pierre has told me that some of today’s published Gullah language is not how he heard it growing up.

It’s a complicated subject, and I’m not going to say who’s right or wrong.

Pierre talks about the language in his book of tales from an unusual upbringing, “The Gullah Mailman.”

It’s hard to follow, but see if you can roll with Pierre’s flow from the book. He cites the late Charleston newspaper writer and storyteller Jack Leland with this:

“One of the peculiarities of Gullah lies in the fact that it has some words that sound almost alike, so much so that the unattuned ear finds them unintelligible. For instance, the word ‘dey’ can mean ‘they,’ ‘there is’ and ‘are’ — plus the double-use meaning of ‘is there’ or ‘are there.’ It may also mean ‘deer.’

“As one plantation guide allegedly told a Northern hunter who drew tired of waiting on a deer on a hunting stand and suggested moving: ‘Dey ain’t no use fuh move. When you dey, de dey ain’t dey dey and when de dey dey dey, you ain’t dey dey.’

“Translation is: ‘There is no point in moving. When you are there, the deer are not there, and when the deer are there, you are not there.’ ”

Give Uncle Sam hell if you see fit. But give him credit too. It’s not easy to catch Gullah.

This story was originally published May 23, 2017 at 12:15 PM with the headline "In the Lowcountry, even Uncle Sam speaks Gullah."