An African-American Linguistic Enclave: The Settler English of Sinoe County, Liberia

当前关于黑人英语白话文相对于白人非标准美式英语的地位（白话文是趋同还是分化）的争论需要一个更丰富、更充分的解决方案对纯电动汽车历史的细致理解。利比里亚定居者英语（LSE）是那些非洲裔美国人祖先在19世纪移民到利比里亚的人的语言，它是有关BEV早期阶段的一个充满活力的信息来源。在利比里亚境内，与美国南部腹地联系最紧密的定居者社区是密西西比州锡诺县的那些人——1838年，来自纳齐兹的定居者在那里建立了非洲人社区。此外，在整个锡诺人的历史中，定居者一直抵制与非定居者的融合。因此，华人定居者的美国根源和后移民历史使他们的语言成为研究伦敦政治经济学院作为非洲裔美国人语言飞地的最佳选择。本研究利用汉语言社会语言学访谈的数据作为语法分析的基础。它还试图尽可能详细地确定西诺原始定居者和他们的LSE的美国过去的细节，并最终将这种语言变化与BEV联系起来，无论是过去还是现在。

ABSTRACT The current debate as to the status of Black English Vernacular (BEV) vis-a-vis white non-standard varieties of American English (is BEV converging with them or diverging from them?) requires for its resolution a richer and more fully nuanced understanding of the history of BEV. Liberian Settler English (LSE), the speech of those whose African-American ancestors immigrated to Liberia in the nineteenth century, lives as a vibrant source of information about BEV's earlier stages. Within Liberia, the Settler communities with the strongest tie to the American Deep South are those in Sinoe County, Mississippi-in African having been founded there by Settlers from Natchez in 1838. Further, throughout their history of the Sinoe Settlers have resisted integration with non-Settlers. Thus, both the American roots and the post-immigration history of the Sinoe Settlers make their speech the optimal choice for the study of LSE as an African- American linguistic enclave. The present study draws on data from sociolinguistic interviews from Sinoe as the basis for grammatical analysis. It also seeks to determine with as much detail as is possible the particulars of the American past of Sinoe's original Settlers and their LSE and, ultimately, to relate that speech variety to BEV, both past and present.