6 Words South Carolinians Use Every Day That Came From Gullah

Some of the words you use carry more history than you’d guess.

South Carolinians say many of them without a second thought, from the kitchen to the grocery store.

Here’s where these everyday words came from.

1. Goober

Gullah speakers kept the African word goober for peanut, according to Folkstreams.

Merriam-Webster links goober to Bantu origins, akin to Kimbundu nguba, and dates its first use in English to 1832.

The research database EBSCO says in its Gullah overview that Gullah’s influence reaches beyond the coastal Carolina islands.

Goober is among the words that became part of mainstream American culture.

South Carolina made boiled peanuts its official state snack food in 2006.

2. Gumbo

Gullah isn’t the only road gumbo took into English, but the National Park Service lists it among the words that came into English through Gullah.

Merriam-Webster’s account runs through American French and back to a Bantu word, akin to the Umbundu word for okra.

English had the word by 1802.

The Washington Post reported in 2010 that the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum had mounted an exhibit on Turner’s work, and its word list ties gumbo to a Kimbundu word, kingombo.

Okra points to Africa as well: it traces to an Ibo word (now spelled Igbo) and dates to 1679.

That’s older than the country.

Folkstreams lists okra among the few African words that remain in Gullah.

3. Benne

Gullah speakers’ word for sesame, benne, also names Charleston’s benne seed wafers.

Merriam-Webster ties the word to Malinke and dates it to 1769.

The exhibit’s word list traces it to Wolof instead.

Both are West African languages.

Taste reports that the seeds crossed from West Africa on slave ships in the early 1700s.

Enslaved people grew benne in their gardens, so the plant behind Charleston’s benne wafers has a West African past.

4. Cooter

Gullah kept kuta, an African word for turtle, and cooter is its relative in Southern English.

Merriam-Webster defines a cooter as a freshwater turtle of the southern and eastern United States.

It links the word to kuta in Bambara and Malinke, and dates it to 1832.

Turner recorded the word itself in Gullah, spelled cootuh and meaning turtle, according to the University of Chicago Magazine.

5. Tote

The National Park Service lists tote among the words that came into English through Gullah.

Merriam-Webster says it likely comes from an English-based creole, akin to Gullah tot, of Bantu origin.

It dates the verb to 1677, nearly 350 years ago.

The exhibit’s word list ties it to Kikongo tota, meaning to pick up.

When you tote groceries in from the car, you’re using a Gullah-linked word.

6. Yam

Gullah is one of several routes yam may have taken, and the National Park Service lists it among the words that came into English that way.

Merriam-Webster runs the route through Portuguese and Spanish, back to a Fulani word, nyami, meaning to eat.

It dates the English word to 1657.

If you’ve ever passed the yams at a holiday table, you’ve said a word with an African root.

The Linguist Behind These Words

Gullah vocabulary is documented in Lorenzo Dow Turner’s book Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect, published in 1949 by the University of Chicago Press.

Folkstreams reports that Turner listed nearly 4,000 items of African language origin among Sea Island speakers in the 1930s.

They range from personal names to everyday words to expressions that turn up only in stories, songs and prayers.

University of Chicago linguist Salikoko Mufwene, quoted in the University of Chicago Magazine, points to Turner’s list of 3,600 “basket names,” the African-origin nicknames given to Gullah children, as his strongest evidence of African influence.

The sound outlasted the words.

Only a few complete African words remain in Gullah, so you hear the influence in how Gullah sounds more than in its word list.

The Juke Question

Gullah may be the source of juke, but the evidence is split.

The Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language, reproduced on Encyclopedia.com, says juke, meaning bawdy and disorderly, may have come wholly or partly through Gullah, and compares it to the Bambara word dzugu, meaning wicked.

Merriam-Webster’s jukebox entry gives an Atlantic Creole origin instead, tracing juke house to Jamaican English juk, meaning to poke or stab, and Krio chuk.

The dodge verb juke, as in juking a defender, is a separate word.

It’s probably an alteration of the English dialect word jouk, meaning to cheat or deceive.

The Heritage Corridor

Gullah lives on along the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, a National Heritage Area and unit of the National Park System.