Africanisms refers to characteristics of African culture that can be traced through societal practices and institutions of the African diaspora. Throughout history, the dispersed descendants of Africans have retained many forms of their ancestral African culture. Also, common throughout history is the misunderstanding of these remittances and their meanings. The term usually refers to the cultural and linguistic practices of West and Central Africans who were transported to the Americas during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Africanisms have influenced the cultures of diverse countries in North and South America and the Caribbean through language, music, dance, food, animal husbandry, medicine, and folklore.
Language
American English
Africanisms are incorporated in American English. Although physical artifacts could not be kept by slaves because of their enslaved status, "Subtler linguistic and communicative artefacts were sustained and embellished by the Africans’ creativity."Holloway 65
The language spoken by African Americans is greatly influenced by the phonological and syntactic structures of African languages. African American languages were not initially studied, because scholars thought Africans had no culture. "Recent linguistic studies define a language variously referred to as Black English, African American English, or, more appropriately, Ebonics."Holloway 68 Some West African languages do not explicitly distinguish past and present. Instead, context allows statements to be interpreted as past or present. The early language associated with cowboy culture was influenced by African phonology.Holloway 56 African words that became part of the American language include banana, jazz, boogie and zombie.
African-Americans in the United States continued some African naming traditions throughout slavery and beyond, including naming themselves for seasons or days of the week, and using more than one name in a lifetime.
African and African-American linguistic structures, as well as the traditions of rhythmic speech, call-and-response and verbal battles, developed into rap and hip-hop, which has had a global influence.
The Gullah dialect of English spoken in the Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia and the Carolinas has retained many African features.
Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese
Latin American countries have incorporated Africanisms into Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. Latin American Spanish words with African roots include merengue, (music/dance as well as 'mess' or 'wimp') cachimbo (pipe, soldier), and chevere (fantastic, great). The African languages have also influenced the phonology of Puerto Rican Spanish with the deletion of final consonants like /s/ and /n/, and the alternation of the /l/ and /r/ consonants. In Brazil, words like 'bunda' (butt) and 'cochilar' (napping) come from the Kimbundu language of West Africa.
Haitian Creole
Scholars have noted that the Haitian Creole that developed in Saint Domingue contained a mixture of Africanisms and local expressions, "a thousand little nothings that one wouldn't dare to say in French." Although much of its vocabulary is from 18th Century French, the grammar of Haitian Creole comes from the West African Volta-Congo language branch, particularly the Fongbe language and Igbo language.Seguin, Luisa (2020). Transparency and Language Contact: The Case of Haitian Creole, French, and Fongbe. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages. pp. 218–252.
Jamaican Patois
English is the official language of Jamaica. But the grammatical structure, vocabulary, sound and syntax of Jamaican Patois has roots in African languages (Gladwell 1994). The use of only one verb tense in Jamaican Creole shows its relationship to root languages of the Niger-Congo region, where they also use verbs with no past or future tense.
Music
Secular music
African influenced music traditions in the United States set the foundation for much of what became known as American music. The blues is a music genre created by Africans in America. The music featured polyrhythms, call and response figures, loose blues forms, a blues scale, and vocalizations that are different from western music. This innovation led to all African-American secular music that followed, which includes blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, rock & roll, soul music, fusion, disco, funk, hip hop and others. The underlying elements of these genres can all be traced back to the musical elements derived from West Africa during the formation of the blues genre.
The musical instrument the banjo was created by African American slaves, copied by memory from African instruments with similar names, like the 'bania' and 'banjo'. The slaves taught European-Americans how to play the instrument, and it became a mainstay of several genres of American music, including bluegrass and folk music. Other musical instruments of African origin, from the Bantu culture of Angola, include drums, diddley bows, mouthbows, the washtub bass, jugs, gongs, bells, rattles, ideophones, and the lokoimni, a five-stringed harp.
African and European musical traditions came together in New Orleans, Missouri and Mississippi to create the foundation for jazz. In New Orleans, a city filled with people of French, Latin American, West Indian and African heritage, lighter-skinned Black Creoles sometimes trained as classical musicians, where they learned western music theory. Paid musicians in New Orleans in the late 19th century were generally of this Black Creole class. The African tradition of music as a public and collaborative event rather than a private performance helped create gatherings of musicians in New Orleans' Congo square, where they combined French, Latin and African musical traditions to form early jazz. Ragtime, a late 19th century precursor to jazz, blended elements from minstrel-show songs, African American banjo styles, and the cakewalk with European music.
In Latin America, African influence could be heard as early as the 17th century in songs called Negritos, whose lyrics mixed Spanish and African languages and whose call and response patterns and rhythmic groupings came from Africa. Other African-influenced Latin music includes bachata, batucada, cha-cha-cha, conga, funk carioca, mambo, tango, pachanga, reggaeton, rumba, samba, son, salsa, tropicalia, and zouk. In Argentina and Uruguay, African rhythms and practices influenced the development of candombe drumming and tango.
Sacred music
Sacred music is music with religious themes. This music remains prevalent and relevant through Christian gospel music and church hymns. During slavery in the United States, the enslaved people sang "negro spirituals" such as "Go Down Moses" as a way to ease their pain and also as a way to send coded signals to each other in resistance to slavery. The songs were sung at work in the fields as well as while worshipping. Negro spirituals during slavery brought together a community. Praising the Lord through song offered an alternative vision of empowerment and liberation to the Christianity that was imposed on them by slave masters. Gospel music emerged from the tradition of black spirituals in the early 20th century. African traditions in Black gospel singing can be heard in the call and response patterns, vocal styles and polyrhythmic clapped accompaniments. This music remains the foundation of the African American experience. Additionally, it influenced other races and cultures. "... African Americans recognized the richness of these religious folk songs and were quick to bring them to European art music practices such as those found in unaccompanied choral motets and vocal art songs."Sharp, 95
Food
Another influential aspect of African culture is food, which had a global impact even before the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Since then, African traditions have had a particular impact on African-American, Southern American, Latin American, and Caribbean cuisine.
African cuisine was born in East Africa, the cradle of human civilization. From there, recipes, spices and culinary techniques spread through migration and trade to Asia, Europe and indigenous cultures of the Americas.Spivey
During the Transatlantic slave trade many foods accompanied enslaved people to the Southern United States including okra, black-eyed peas and African rice. Okra is a green vegetable which may originally have been domesticated in Ethiopia or Egypt. It appears in a variety of soups, stews and rice dishes. Enslaved Africans passed their recipes on to their descendants, as well as to Southern whites. These dishes became known as soul food with origins in former slave states. Many of these recipes continue to be popular and became one of the most well-known aspects of African- American and Southern American culture.
The Louisiana dish 'gumbo' comes from the West African word for "okra", nkombo. Jambalaya and gumbo are similar to West African dishes such as dchebuchin, which originated in the Senegambian region.
African culinary traditions have had a substantial influence on Caribbean and Latin American cuisine, as can be seen and tasted in dishes such as mondongo (chitlins), fufu, giambo, sancocho, picodillo tembleque, bean soups, chinchulines (another form of chitlins), and other dishes.
Dance
In Africa, music and dance were interwoven with daily life as well as with sacred traditions. Tribes danced to the beat of drums, and dances were led by acrobatic leaders who were frequently priests or holy men. African dance traditions survived the transatlantic Middle Passage because slave traders encouraged the enslaved Africans to dance on the ships to stay in shape. Other African dance traditions brought to the Americas and the Caribbean included improvisation, an orientation towards the earth, circularity and community, call-and-response, polyrhythms and the ring shout. When drumming was forbidden to slaves by their masters, they created complex percussive polyrhythms by clapping their hands and stomping their feet.
One dance that was adopted into the broader American culture is the Charleston. The Charleston was adapted from the ancient African dance of the Ashanti people. This dance and the Charleston have common movements. Similar dances were performed across the American South during slavery. "The Charleston is a dance that was performed by the descendants of African slaves in the American south. Like its sister vernacular form, jazz, from which it takes its rhythmic propulsion, it is a blend of African and European sources, and it has had a broad influence on American life and art. The name derives from the fact that the dance was supposedly seen performed by black dockworkers in Charleston, South Carolina. It is probable that they came from one of the black communities on an island off the coast."Lille 1 In 1923 the Charleston was made popular by African-American James P. Johnson.
Other popular dances of the 19th and 20th centuries with African-American roots include the cakewalk, the black bottom, the lindy hop, the jitterbug, the twist, break dancing and hip hop.
The African influence on Latin American dance included polycentric rhythms and movement, bent knees and a downward focus, improvisation, whole foot steps, body isolations, and exaggerated hip movements. These influences combined with indigenous and European traditions to create many of today's Latin dances, including salsa, samba, mambo merengue and bachata. Capoeira is a popular Brazilian dance and martial art form derived from the Engolo tradition of Angola that was originally brought by enslaved people to South America. Argentinian Tango was heavily influenced by the dance traditions of Africans in Argentina and Uruguay.