Editing Gullah (section)

===African influences===
*The Gullah word ''guba'' (or ''goober'') for [[peanut]] derives from the [[Kongo Language|Kikongo]] and [[Kimbundu]]  word ''N'guba''.
*The Gullah dishes [[Charleston red rice|red rice]] and [[okra soup]] are similar to West African [[jollof rice]] and okra soup. Jollof rice is a traditional style of rice preparation brought by the [[Wolof people|Wolof]] people of West Africa.<ref>[http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/history/hs_es_cuisine.htm Slavery in America<!-- Bot generated title -->] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090919100626/http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/history/hs_es_cuisine.htm|date=September 19, 2009}}</ref>
*The Gullah version of "[[gumbo]]" has its roots in African cooking. "Gumbo" is derived from a word{{Which|date=February 2025}} in the [[Umbundu]] language of Angola, meaning okra, one of the dish's main ingredients.
*Gullah rice farmers once made and used [[mortar and pestle]]s and [[winnowing]] fanners similar in style to tools used by West African rice farmers.
*Gullah beliefs about "[[Boo Hag|hags]]" and "haunts" are similar to African beliefs about malevolent ancestors, [[witchcraft|witches]], and "devils" (forest spirits).
*Gullah "[[Hoodoo (folk magic)|root doctors]]" protect their clients against dangerous spiritual forces by using [[ritual]] objects similar to those employed by African [[witch doctor|traditional healers]].
*Gullah [[herbalism|herbal medicines]] are similar to traditional African remedies.
*The Gullah "seekin" ritual is similar to [[coming of age]] ceremonies in West African secret societies, such as the [[Poro]] and [[Sande society|Sande]].
*The Gullah [[ring shout]] is similar to ecstatic religious rituals performed in West and Central Africa.
*Gullah stories about "[[Br'er Rabbit]]" are similar to West and Central African [[trickster]] tales about the figures of the clever and conniving rabbit, spider, and tortoise.
*Gullah spirituals, shouts, and other musical forms employ the "[[call and response]]" method commonly used in African music.
*Gullah "sweetgrass baskets" are coil straw [[basket]]s made by the descendants of enslaved peoples in the [[South Carolina Lowcountry]]. They are nearly identical to traditional coil [[basket]]s made by the [[Wolof people]] in [[Senegal]].
*Gullah "strip [[quilt]]s" mimic the design of cloth woven with the traditional strip [[loom]] used throughout West Africa. [[Kente cloth]] from the [[Ashanti people|Ashanti]] and the [[Ewe people|Ewe]] peoples, as well as [[Akwete cloth]] from the [[Igbo people]] are woven on the strip loom.
* An African song, preserved by a Gullah family in coastal Georgia, was identified in the 1940s by linguist Lorenzo Turner and found to be a [[Mende people|Mende]] song from Sierra Leone. It is probably the longest text in an African language to survive the transatlantic crossing of enslaved Africans to the present-day United States. Later, in the 1990s, researchers Joseph Opala, Cynthia Schmidt, and Taziff Koroma located a remote village in Sierra Leone where the song is still sung today, and determined it is a funeral hymn. This research and the resulting reunion between a Gullah family and a Mende family that have both retained versions of the song is recounted in the documentary ''The Language You Cry In'' (1998).<ref>{{cite journal|date=December 1999|title=Review: ''The Language You Cry In'': The Story of a Mende Song by Alvaro Toepke, Angel Serrano|journal=American Anthropologist|publisher=Wiley, on behalf of the American Anthropological Association|volume=101|pages=826–828|doi=10.1525/aa.1999.101.4.826|jstor=684061|author=Thomas-Houston, Marilyn M.|number=4}}</ref>
* Some words coming from other African languages such as [[Yoruba language|Yoruba]], [[Fon language|Fon]], [[Ewe language|Ewe]], [[Twi]], [[Ga language|Ga]], [[Mende language|Mende]], and [[Edo people|Bini]] are still used by Gullah people.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Brown |first1=Ras Michael |title=African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry |date=2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=180, 225–230 |isbn=9781107024090 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dPfzevzxIboC&q=Kongo%20Initiation%20Titles%20and%20Lowcountry%20Personal%20Names}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Pollitzer |first1=William |title=The Gullah People and Their African Heritage |date=2005 |publisher=University of Georgie Press |pages=124–129 |isbn=9780820327839 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2efDSQdNq-cC&q=Development%20of%20a%20creole%20language}}</ref>
*The Gullahs’ English-based creole language is strikingly similar to [[Krio language|Sierra Leone Krio]] of West Africa and contains such identical expressions as ''bigyai'' ("[[greed]]y"), ''pantap'' ("on top of"), ''ohltu'' ("both"), ''tif'' ("[[theft|steal]]"), ''yeys'' ("[[ear]]"), and ''swit'' ("delicious").<ref>{{cite web |last1=Opala |first1=Joseph |title=The Gullah: Rice, Slavery, and the Sierra Leone-American Connection |url=https://glc.yale.edu/gullah-rice-slavery-and-sierra-leone-american-connection |website=Yale Macmillan Center Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition |date=March 10, 2015 |publisher=Yale University |access-date=12 September 2021 |archive-date=October 19, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211019041928/https://glc.yale.edu/gullah-rice-slavery-and-sierra-leone-american-connection |url-status=live }}</ref>