Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum here. Oxford University Press is the publisher that
Speaker 1: compiles the Oxford English Dictionary. This reference work not only
Speaker 1: updates is new words and meanings and to our lexicon.
Speaker 1: For example, their word of the Year for twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two was goblin mode, but it's also a historical guide
Speaker 1: to how our language has developed over the past millennia
Speaker 1: or so. And now they are teaming up with the
Speaker 1: Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard
Speaker 1: University for a new project creating the Oxford Dictionary of
Speaker 1: African American English. It's being spearheaded by the Hutchins Center's director,
Speaker 1: Henry Lewis Gates Junior. He's known for lots of stuff
Speaker 1: helping people explore their ancestry, writing books, and hosting documentaries,
Speaker 1: among other things, and he's already served as the co
Speaker 1: editor of the Dictionary of African Biography. But this current
Speaker 1: project is a scholarly initiative meant to be, to quote
Speaker 1: Oxford's website, the definitive reference for information about the meaning, pronunciation, spelling, usage,
Speaker 1: and history of African American English words entries in the work.
Speaker 1: In addition to the words, their definitions and pronunciations will
Speaker 1: include usage examples, serving to quote acknowledge the contributions of
Speaker 1: African American writers, thinkers, and artists, as well as everyday
Speaker 1: African Americans to the evolution of the US English lexicon
Speaker 1: and the English lexicon as a whole. Perhaps the most
Speaker 1: exciting part of the project is that the editors are
Speaker 1: asking the public to submit words and ideas. It's planned
Speaker 1: to be a three year project. It got off the
Speaker 1: ground in twenty twenty two and is slated for publication
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five. Gates actually approached the Oxford University
Speaker 1: Press about creating the dictionary after he proposed the idea.
Speaker 1: The project received grant funding from the Melon and Wagner
Speaker 1: Foundations for the article. This episode is based on hosta
Speaker 1: Fork spoke with Jennifer K. Nhin Miller, the executive editor
Speaker 1: of the Oxford Dictionary of African American English at Oxford
Speaker 1: University Press. As she said, the pieces have fallen into
Speaker 1: place nicely. Our advisory board is made up of some
Speaker 1: of the top scholars in the fields of linguistics, African
Speaker 1: American studies, and African American History studies. The team of
Speaker 1: editors at Oxford University Press is working in collaboration with
Speaker 1: Gates and the Advisory Board to provide a portrait of
Speaker 1: how language is and was used by the various communities,
Speaker 1: emphasizing celebrating and documenting Black history and giving credit where
Speaker 1: credit is due. Gates explained in a press release, every
Speaker 1: speaker of American English borrows heavily from words invented by
Speaker 1: African Americans, whether they know it or not. A words
Speaker 1: with African origins such as gouber, gumbo, and okra survived
Speaker 1: the passage along with our African ancestors, and words that
Speaker 1: we take for granted today such as cool and crib,
Speaker 1: pocum and dis hip and hep bad meaning good, and
Speaker 1: dig meaning to understand. These are just a tiny fraction
Speaker 1: of the words that have come into American English from
Speaker 1: African American speakers, neologisms that emerge out of the Black
Speaker 1: experience in this country over the last few hundred years.
Speaker 1: This new work will join other dictionaries of varieties of English,
Speaker 1: but like Oxford's own Australian Oxford Dictionary or the Dictionary
Speaker 1: of Southern Appalachian English from the University of North Carolina Press,
Speaker 1: for which hine Miller was a co editor. Oxford also
Speaker 1: has a division of World Englishes, which they define as
Speaker 1: a localized or indigenized varieties of English spoken throughout the
Speaker 1: world by people of diverse cultural backgrounds in a wide
Speaker 1: range of sociolinguistic contexts. Including words from various world englishes
Speaker 1: has been an Oxford practice eighteen eighty four, when the
Speaker 1: first Oeed included the Tagalog word abaca, a banana plant
Speaker 1: or its fiber gets native to the Philippines. Today, there
Speaker 1: are resources for words from Australian to Ugandan English, with
Speaker 1: many in between, and several others coming soon. But the
Speaker 1: Oxford Dictionary of African American English will be even broader
Speaker 1: in scope. Each inclusion will have the typical format of
Speaker 1: a dictionary entry and include real life examples from various
Speaker 1: types of sources to give as complete a picture as possible.
Speaker 1: There will be pronunciation guides which may include different regional
Speaker 1: pronunciations as well as audiophiles, and the online version. Oh
Speaker 1: when possible. The entries will have etymological notes too. Heine
Speaker 1: Miller said, in the instances where we can trace that history,
Speaker 1: I think it's important. We want to give a well
Speaker 1: rounded sketch of the language variety, both in historic and
Speaker 1: contemporary usage. From a descriptive perspective. There will also be
Speaker 1: crossover with other dictionaries, so if a word makes it
Speaker 1: into the Oxford Dictionary of African American English, it could
Speaker 1: likely appear in the regular OEED as well, either as
Speaker 1: a dedicated entry or a new sense of an existing entry.
Speaker 1: While the dictionary is intended as a scholarly resource of
Speaker 1: value to researchers and members of the speech community, the
Speaker 1: editors want it to be equally usable by the general public.
Speaker 1: To achieve the aims of accessibility and applicability, the editors
Speaker 1: are looking to the public for suggestions. Anyone who has
Speaker 1: an idea for a word or phrase to include can
Speaker 1: submit it through a form on the OED's website. If
Speaker 1: you google the Oxford Dictionary of African American English, it'll
Speaker 1: pop right up. This sort of public input is a
Speaker 1: tradition that goes back to the early days of the
Speaker 1: OED in the eighteen hundreds. Hein Miller said it was
Speaker 1: very much a community project. We really find that's one
Speaker 1: of the best ways to get ideas of terms. How
Speaker 1: the terms are used in natural speech and their significance
Speaker 1: within the communities. Everyone is so passionate about this project,
Speaker 1: we can't wait to release it to the public. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is based on the article new Oxford Dictionary will
Speaker 1: document African American English lexicon on houstaforks dot com, written
Speaker 1: by Kerry Whitney. Brainstuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with houstaforks dot com and is produced by Tyler Klang.
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