<p>Preface<br />

It is very difficult to begin acknowledging here all the people&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; places&iuml;&frac14;&OElig;<br />

and things that are chiefly responsible for such an undertaking; but<br />

the authors wish to thank some important people here without<br />

whose help&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; inspiration&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; and dedication this book would have been<br />

impossible. Thanks to Ron Hobbs&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; to whose urging to do the re-<br />

search needed for such a work we finally succumbed. Thanks to<br />

Lorenzo D. Turner&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; whose many years of study and many fine books<br />

on black language made the research task easier. Thanks also to the<br />

many p~ople who have done some initial work in the area of<br />

black languages and black dialects. Especially inspiring were LeRoi<br />

Jones s (Imamu Amiri Baraka s) Blues People&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; Lydia Parrish s<br />

Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; Edward L. Tinker s Gombo<br />

Comes to Philadelphia&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; Western Electric Company s audio presenta-<br />

tion&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; &quot;The Dialect of the Black American&iuml;&frac14;&OElig;&quot; and William A. Stewart s<br />

work at the Center for Applied Linguistics.<br />

Thanks also to Barbara Schwartz&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; who typed the final draft and<br />

to Amy Shelansky&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; Pat Bruce&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; and Bella Rosenberg&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; who gave of<br />

their time and energy in research. And finally&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; to Kathy Benson&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; the<br />

one person most responsible for pulling the manuscript together<br />

into some literate&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; ~oherent form.<br />

Hopefully&iuml;&frac14;&OElig; readers will not interpret the information presented<br />

here as final authority; new discoveries are being made in this area<br />

every day. Instead this should be viewed as an introductory work.<br />

The authors take all responsibility for it.</p>