If, as a young Ebonics speaker and gospel-inflected and sermon-inflected Jocko lover in Harlem, I learned the standardized prescriptions and the juggling of language varieties early, my mother was the major reason. At least that’s what the sociolinguists tell me. They contend that women generally fluctuate more than men in terms of language modes and use a greater concentration of prestigious forms. Indeed, my mother seemed to be a language chameleon. I had witnessed her speak different ways to family, neighbors, grocers, salespeople, doctors, church people, and school officials. Although she was born and raised in Georgia, she never, over all the years, sounded Black southern to me. But then she had been in New York City since the 1940s. She was Black enough, certainly Black enough in the beauty parlor, but not so southern in accent as her sisters and brothers or my grandmother. Not so Black and southern as my grandmother’s second husband.
I have wondered how my biological grandfather fit in language wise. A successful businessman, he died when my mother was just shy of nine years old, and I never heard her speak of him with anything but reverence. I think she, his eldest daughter, was a daddy’s girl. But I wonder how much she was a daddy imitator linguistically. Did he display some of the versatility I heard from her? Several times while in Ocilla I listened to elders tell me about my grandfather, Charles Otis Lewis, and recall his wit and prominent civic reputation. It never occurred to me to ask how he sounded, the style and timbre of his verbal game. My mother did tell me about an incident in church when my grandfather dozed off and was needled by the pastor to pay attention. My grandfather calmly adjusted his hat brim and replied casually that when he heard something worth paying attention to he would. That sounds like my mother talking. Sounds like me sometimes.
---from The Promise of Language.
R.I.P., Mary Lewis Gilyard (2/5/27-12/14/24)
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