Sunn M’Cheaux Image Courtesy of Natalie Simmons
Gul·lah/g
l OUR LANGUAGE IS ee
NOT BROKEN BY: SUNN M’CHEAUX
In the years since I started teaching Harvard University’s first and only Gullah language course, there are still moments when it feels surreal to be at such an esteemed institution of higher learning teaching my native language that I was barred from speaking throughout my education in Lowcountry South Carolina schools. Adding insult to irony, Gullah is a language that is indigenous to my hometown; English is not.
32 MELANISTIC
Yet, I am often asked how I learned to speak Gullah, never how I learned to speak English. In a predominantly English-speaking colonized region, it is presumed that I must have picked up Gullah—an English-based AfroIndigenous creole—by way of exceptional circumstances with English being learned by default of my immediate surroundings, schooling, and society at large. Yes and no. Mostly, no.
