Our seminar director explained that the word “wow” meant “yes” in Wolof—the major language in Senegal. He said the man at the pay phone was probably answering questions in an interview. For many years I have wondered how “wow” worked its way into “yes” in English where it has a stronger affirmation and often a sense of surprise.
Researching the origin of ‘wow’ in English, I came across several scholarly articles suggesting a word close to ‘wow’ was first used in a Scottish document in the 1500s while other articles suggested other possible European origins for ‘wow.’ My reasonable assumption was that ‘wow’ may have been brought to North and South America by some of the estimated twelve million Africans seized in the brutal Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. A major Dutch-built ‘castle’ on the island of Goree, near Dakar, had a dungeon where captives were held to await slave ships.
My guess was confirmed by producer and author Gail Pellet in her TV series “Slavery and the Making of America”(2005). She notes that this Wolof word ‘wow’ had been mainstreamed during slavery. I have found evidence for at least sixty plus English words of African origin and many more “Africanisms in American Culture.”* Chigger is from Wolof and/or Yoruba where ‘jiga’ means insect. Cola--the nut-- plays a large role in African ceremonies and is from the Mandingo word ‘kolo.’ Gumbo is from several Congo languages’ word for okra—ngombo. Cool is from a Yoruba word “Kool” describing a special kind of art. And the list continues.
Some African words have come into North American English via Portuguese—the first Europeans to trade along the West coast. A language later called ‘Pidgin English’**developed since so many languages dotted the coast. Of course, many words and phrases related directly to trade, such as “plenty too much.”
One ‘pidgin’ word developed from Portuguese was ‘pickaniny’--meaning ‘baby-child’—borrowed from the Portuguese traders’ word for “small”(pequeno). In past generations in the southern USA, some Black mothers sang to their baby before bedtime: “Go to sleep, my little pickaniny.”
One of my students was from that part of southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroun which has so many languages that her Roman Catholic church uses Pidgin in all its services. She noted that the end of December is when they all celebrated the birth of “Pickan Jesus.”
Meanwhile, back in Paris in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was established as a key United Nations Document. It has been translated into several Pidgins and Creoles***: English-based, French-based, Portuguese-based, Spanish-based, and others.
WOW!
*Title of the book edited by Joseph E. Holloway (Indiana University Press, 1991)
**The word “pidgin” itself is an attempt to say “business.” A Portuguese Pidgin and Chinese Pidgin English developed along the coast of China—a necessity for trade by the 16th century. If a ship’s captain was visiting a lower deck and left his handkerchief in the top deck, he would ask his Chinese crewmember to “Go topside, catchee one piecey nose-rag, come bottomside.” There may be Chinese crewmembers that spoke different Chinese languages and thus spoke Pidgin to each other.
***Creole in many cases began as Pidgin and then became the permanent language of a country or area—Haiti is one example.