Not an aftermath exactly, but preoccupied still with words, words, words, this much more than a mere afterthought: the NYT reports under the headline “Hip, Woke, Cool” – also three words – that Henry Louis Gates as director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard is editing in cooperation with Oxford University Press a new lexicon dedicated to the richness of the African American language, the Oxford Dictionary of African American English (ODAAE)
It’s a long way from the Harvard of Longfellow and Lowell to that of Henry Louis Gates, and as far from Trench’s mid-nineteenth century idiosyncratic glossary to this one in planning across the pond and in this 21st century, with all the creativity, nuances and melodies that time and place bring to the English language in all its variations; a vibrant reminder of the evolutionary power of language as ideas and experience are given form and rhythm. A terrific project, I think, and with a multidisciplinary character and application; projected completion in 2024.
As a quick reference, some resources:
- At the Hutchins Center
- At the Oxford English Dictionary
- Entries from Cab Calloway’s Hepster Dictionary (1938)
- “Dr. Hepcat and the Heptser’s Dictionary” – a BBC radio documentary about the roots and language of jive, including an interview with Calloway’s daughter.
- “Hepcats Jive Talk Dictionary” – Edited by Lou Shelly at the Internet Archive
And, Cab Calloway doing his own marketing! Wonderful!