he sounds should be uttered very
rapidly.)

Translated, this means: "Mistress says all them other folks have come to
see her. Aren't you coming to see her?"

"Shum" is a good gulla word. It means all kinds of things having to do
with seeing--_to see her_, _to see him_, _to see it_. Thus, "You shum,
enty?" may mean, _You see him_--_her_--or _it_? or _You see what
he_--_she_--or _it_--_is doing_, or _has done_? For gulla has no genders
and no tenses. "Enty" is a general question: _Aren't you? Didn't you?
Isn't it?_ etc. Another common gulla word is "Buckra" which means _a
white man of the upper class_, in contradistinction to a poor white. I
have known a negro to refer to "de frame o' de bud," meaning the
carcass, or frame, of a fowl. "Ay ain' day" means "They aren't (ain't)
there."

A friend of mine who resided at Bluffton, South Carolina, has told me of
an old gulla fisherman who spoke in parables.

A lady would ask him: "Have you any fish to-day?" To which, if replying
affirmatively, he would answer: "Missis, de gate open"; meaning, "The
door (of the 'car,' or fish-box) is open to you." If he had no fish he
would reply: "Missis, ebb-tide done tack (take) crick"; signifying: "The
tide has turned and it is too late to go to catch fish." This old man
called whisky "muhgundy smash," the term evidently derived from some
idea of the word "burgundy" combined with the word "mash."

Here is a gulla dialect story, with a line-for-line translation. A train
has killed a cow, and a negro witness is being examined by a justice of
the peace:

JUSTICE--Uncle John, did you see
what killed Sam's cow?

NEGRO--Co'ose Uh shum. (Of) course I saw him.

JUSTICE--What was it, Uncle
John?

NEGRO--Dat black debble you-all (It was) that black devil you-all
runnin' tru we lan'. Nigga duh (are) running through our land.
(A) nigger (fireman) he
stan' deh, duh po' coal stands there (and) he pours coal
in eh stomach. into its stomach.
Buckra duh sit up on eh seat, (A) white man (engineer)
he sits up on his seat.
duh smoke eh cigah, an' ebry (and) he smokes his cigar, and every
tahme eh twis' eh tail eh run fasteh. time he twists its (engine's) tail it
An' runs faster. And
eh screams dis lak uh pantuh. Eben it sc