The thing that is especially interesting about the use of proverbs in African American writings is its suggestion of a movement from the written language back to the oral. ... When Africans were taken from their homeland and brought to America as slaves, they also brought with them their individual cultures, languages and customs. ... Most slave owners forbade their slaves from speaking their own language, and forced them to speak English. ... Thus oral tradition gives more emphasis to the rhythm of the language, with repetition and short phrases making the stories, riddles and proverbs easier...

• Word Count: 2075
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

This characteristic of speech is spoken especially (but not exclusively) in African American communities in urban areas and in the south. ... Ebonics is not a poor sister to English but a language system with roots in West Africa (Perry and Delpit 2). This is a language that evolved in a struggle and under conditions of extreme oppression, a creative response to a slave society that did it's best to erase African language and culture (Perry and Delpit 2). ... It is also important for everybody to know, that not all African Americans speak Ebonics; there are non-African Americans who do s...

• Word Count: 747
• Approx Pages: 3

Africans were forced to learn European languages, history and religion and disregard their own. ... Then they lost their African names, languages, religions and customs. ... Upon arrival in the West Indies the Africans were experiencing several different language groups from the many tribes and for the first time they were exposed to a new culture and language of the Europeans. ... " This seems to suggest that the African languages were devalued due to its decreasing use and the inability of the creole Africans to understand and speak them. The planters tried to teach the enslaved popula...

• Word Count: 2280
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

See Africans cared about their family and land. ... They also spoke different languages, and Europeans were fully clothed while Africans were partially clothed. In similarity there were some Africans that hunted other Africans just like Europeans to save their lives and land to survive. Africans also had slaves to. ... Also, because there was plenty of land in Africa, which made the African people important, especially to the Europeans. ...

• Word Count: 1029
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

By doing this, European colonists "messed up- the traditional African lifestyle. ... The Europeans, hiding under the flag of Christianity humanitarianism and liberalism, occupied Africa and enforced hard labour to the men and women of Africa. ... Therefore they decided to immerse their colonies in the French culture, language, and way of life and store the concepts of "evol e."" ... The French that had come to Africa had no appreciation for the mystical culture of the Africans. ... The colonization of Africa simply weakened Africa to its roots at the time of the colonization. ...

• Word Count: 999
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

The African perception of life, religious believes, political ideologies, literary insights and thought patterns were best represented in these African languages as initiated by the African ancestors. ... The implication of relegation of African languages by these foreign languages on the African continent is an unfortunate loss of one of the paramount ingredients of the African cultural and racial identity. In precise terms, African languages have been significantly lost to English and French languages among others. ... Therefore, without the use of African languages in works of art, African ...

• Word Count: 796
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Linguistics Of course, African slaves had their own language before they came to America. ... As would be expected, they adapted to the English language retaining distinctly African subtleties. ... This altered language is sometimes referred to as "Black English," and is said to be "spoken at times by as many as 80% to 90% of African-Americans." ... In other words, phrases such as "ain't" and "wasn't" that are wrong in English would have made perfect sense in an African language. ... Their advancements in music, art, religion, language, and science have helped shape ...

• Word Count: 1049
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

The Africans brought here against their will were not born slaves. ... In Africa their cultures were rich and varied, as different from one another as were the African peoples themselves. Their colors, their languages, their food, their clothing differed in a range as great as the difference in size between the pygmies and the giant Watusi of Africa. ... "Oroonoko" was a love story about an african prince put into slavery. ... He is a leader of an African Tribe, and nobleman of African descent. ...

• Word Count: 928
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

They would also use these songs to communicate information about escaping, because the slave owners could not understand the "slaves' language". ... "It was created in the days of slavery in America, when a black person was still an African in America, not an African-American. ... (African American music). ... As the popularity of African influenced music in the African American community erupted, the up-beat rhythm and unique tune interested the younger white community. ... Still today there are many African influenced music. ...

• Word Count: 1385
• Approx Pages: 6

Their native language and English would be combined and they would be able to develop a combination African-English language. ... First of which is Ebonics developed out of contact between African languages and English. ... The second one is Ebonics developed out of contact between African languages and English. The Africans then blended their own native language with English. ... The Africans then blended their own native language with English. ...

• Word Count: 375
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

The history of the African-American has been a story of assimilation and resistance. ... This fear of how resistance could be met compelled many African slaves to assimilate to their new life. ... They began to take on the cultures and the language of the majority. Thus, many slaves left behind the beliefs and traditions that had been taught to them in Africa. Many of the African slaves in America had the "Fanta Mentality." ...

• Word Count: 515
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

Introduction The Middle Passage is the crossing of the Ocean from Africa to America of African people, who passed from the state of liberty to the state of slavery, and took place between the XVI and XIX centuries. ... The Diaspora gives birth to a new human being: the African American, who links together the African and the American culture. ... For Africans the slave ship is a hell over the water. ... "Their complexions, differing so much from ours, their long hair and the language they spoke, which was different from any I had ever heard, united to confirm me in this belief. ... ...

• Word Count: 4160
• Approx Pages: 17
• Grade Level: High School

They spoke a language similar to his own and resembled the people that he was accustomed to. ... All of these new ideas, languages, complexions, religions, and people were very different than those of his own people. He had an introduction to new languages that at first were just variations of his own, but as he met more people other than those of Africa, the languages became totally different. Especially noted of the English language, which was very strange to Equiano, but he learned it because he needed to. ... Survival was the primary goal of the Africans that were placed in the slave t...

• Word Count: 1232
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Would you agree that African culture survived more strongly in the Caribbean colonies than in North America? In 1562 John Hawkins, the first English slave-trader arrived in Africa with a fleet of three ships. Into these ships he put the three hundred black Africans he had abducted from Sierra Leone. ... FAMILY: Hostile to family life slavery uprooted many Africans from their homeland and their extended family ties. ... African "promiscuity" was seen as proof that family life did not exist in Africa as Europeans knew it. ...

• Word Count: 2095
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Carolina and the middle states enslaved Africans as well. ... There they were traded for Africans. ... The slaves mixed their African roots with Christianity. ... Off the coast of South Carolina, Africans evolved their own language, Gullah. Gullah blended English with African languages such as Yoruba and Ibo. ...

• Word Count: 1117
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

The African resistance in the United states was much different than that of African resistance in other parts of the world. ... Culturally they would continue to practice their native dances, read moral narratives, played music, kept their native language patterns alive, built and maintained families, practiced their own spiritual beliefs, and even did magic. "The slaves made European forms serve African functions." ... The free Africans also helped the cause. The free Africans were also being mistreated and abused. ...

• Word Count: 579
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

The language used in this narrative is very proper and Equiano also goes out of his way to show respect for the white Europeans while voicing his opinion on slavery as shown here: Tortures, murder, and every other imaginable barbarity and iniquity, are practiced upon poor slaves with impunity. ... He spends a lot of time showing similarities in African and European culture. ... Slaves in Africa were not sold or bought though. ... Equiano believes that slaves in Africa are not treated harshly at all though because, "they do no more work than other members of the community, even their m...

• Word Count: 770
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Many of the travellers to Africa wanted to free the land from the slave trade. ... At the time, he symbolized the personification of an african explorer. ... This caused no trouble for David as he had been isolated from European communication for about six months, and had learned everything about the botswanien way of living, their language and laws. ... After some years Livingstone wanted to og further into Africa. ... But his heart will always be in Africa. ...

• Word Count: 1340
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Santerí or La Regla Lucumí originates in West Africa in what is now Nigeria and Benin. ... The traditions of Santerí are fiercely preserved and full knowledge of the rites, songs, and language are prerequisites to any deep involvement in the religion. ...

• Word Count: 559
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

Olaudah Equiano, a native of the African province Eboe and author of The Interesting Narrative experienced the cruel and inhumane life of a slave. ... He faced slavery on several fronts, in his native Africa, the West Indies, Europe and America. ... In defense of the enslaved, would we not all be considered ignorant if we were forced into a new culture, with a foreign language and different customs? ... The Africans, who were most likely kidnapped from their homeland, were cramped below the deck of the ship where they were afforded not even enough room to turn over. ... It is no wonder so m...

• Word Count: 1722
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The conquistadors needed labor force in order to achieve their goal of colonizing the New World, so they went to Africa where the Royal African Monopoly controlled a vast majority of the community and forced them into slavery. ... The massive immigration of African slaves to America led to several sociological problems such as the segregation of races in America, and the matriarchal order in Africa. ... As some of them were brought from different parts of Africa, they also struggled because of language and left behind their families causing changes in sociological order. ...

• Word Count: 1523
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

Although he often observes that any master can have a cold heart, and I believe this comes out of him in his writings after his sister was torn from him for the final time, "Sharer of my joys and sorrows, happy should I ever esteemed myself to encounter every misery for you, and to procure your freedom by the sacrifice of my own Fallen victims to the violence of the African trader." ... The observations and feelings about the African slave trade are finally brought forward through Equiano's call for mercy during his vogues on these ships. ... He know sees how a heartless master can effec...

• Word Count: 2057
• Approx Pages: 8

The book was focused on the primitive modern sense of what it meant to be an African-American during the Harlem Renaissance. ... However, by 1922 his work had appeared in many magazines including Double Dealer that sought to publish African-American poets and writers. ... I made up a language in which to exist. ... Georgia forces the mixed-race Kabnis, who could be an allusion to Toomer himself, to confront the African-American past. ... The earth becomes a symbol of the south – home to the African-American people. ...

• Word Count: 3347
• Approx Pages: 13

Its goal was to send the free slaves to Liberia, Africa. ... He often wrote in corse and blunt language that left no room to be misunderstood. ... Frederick Douglass - Frederick Douglass, (1818-1895), was the leading spokesman of African Americans in the 1800's. ... Harriet Tubman - Harriet Tubman was an African American whose daring rescues helped hundreds of slaves escape to freedom. ... Douglass, an eloquent ex-slave from Maryland, was the leading African American spokesperson of the time. ...

• Word Count: 2903
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: High School

" (5) Hannah knows that the African blood found in her veins "would forever exclude me from the higher walks of life... "They regarded me curiously as I entered, grinned with malicious satisfaction that I had been brought down to their level, and made some remarks at my expense; while the children kicked, and yelled, and clawed each other, scratching each other's faces, and pulling each other's hair I stumbled to a bench I supposed designed for a seat, when one of the woman arose, seized me by the hair, and without ceremony dragged me to the ground, gave me a furious kick and made u...

• Word Count: 1311
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School