Listics

I just spent three days on the road with Daniel Browne, the son of George Daniel Browne, an archbishop, who led the Episcopal church in Liberia toward self-support, independence from American Church and membership in the Province of West Africa. Daniel’s brother Herman Browne followed in his father’s footsteps. He works for Rowan Williams in Canterbury.

The Browne brothers have done well since graduating from their father’s alma mater,Cuttington University College, in the 80’s. I’m always impressed by people like Daniel who speak English as a second language. Daniel’s a technologist who knows a lot about networking systems. He’s been training IT people from across Wisconsin on a proprietary piece of software that the State purchased to administer a large network. I’m pleased to note I beat him three out of three on his own chess board. An old man can be forgiven for bragging. All the young ladies were looking at him. I was like the invisible man. Dan plays soccer. I play fetch with the puppy.

The reason for this post is to record an observation that I haven’t shared with Dan yet. This could be whack, like a white guy with an opinion on ebonics or something, but bear with me… I have African American friends who transpose “s” and “k” in words that use an “sk” combination. I kind of like the sound… really, just aks me. That “aks” thing is something that I thought came off the streets or maybe had roots in Southern black culture or whatever. Point is, Daniel is way not the least bit dyslexic, but I heard him use those “sk” to “ks” transpositions a couple of times this week. I’m thinking that — surprise — it’s an African thing. I gotta aks him tomorrow.

Blog in progress… after talking with Daniel and absorbing a Liberian history lesson, I see that I was working with wrong assumptions and it’s all more complex dan dat. Liberia was settled (on the coast at least) by freed slaves from North America in 1822 and following. While there are several native tribes in Liberia, each with its own dialect, there are also many Liberians for whom English is their first language.

More on this later as I venture down anthropological, sociological, and linguistic paths trod previously by many college sophomores.