The Book of Negroes

Aminata speaks two African languages and learns them both with ease, which serves her well aboard the slave ship and later in New York. She also learns English quickly, both Gullah and the ‘white’ speech patterns. This too will help her later. These talents both advance the plot of the novel and add meaning to her life. But Aminata’s fluency–and her ability to shift fluently into and among many languages–has a symbolic resonance as well. This symbolic function relates both to the theme of storytelling, as well as that of names and naming: language is the tool by which both themes are often expressed. In Middle Passage, the men speak in a multiplicity of languages, but they are all united in their suffering as Africans. Language does not always serve as a uniting force, however. Once in South Carolina, Aminata meets Georgia and realizes that “it was not for her to understand me. It was for me to understand her,” and only by learning English could Aminata survive in her new life (126).

The slaves on the plantation also survive by having a secret language, Gullah, which they will never teach to the whites.