=?x-unknown?q?22578=3A__Mambo_RacineRe=3A_22562=3A_=5BISO-8859-?==?x-unknown?q?1=5D_=A0DeGraff_=28fwd=29?=

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Racine125@aol.com

>
>From: Michel DeGraff <degraff@MIT.EDU>

>Let's take this report at face value.  The pronunciation "MAM-bo
>KA-ti" with stress on the first syllable of each word, as in English,
>clearly violates the rules of Haitian Creole phonology.

Well, I guess you will have to come here and tell all the people in Jacmel they are saying my name wrong.

>At best, what Grey reports above is how some Haitians in Jacmel would
>pronounce "Mambo Kati" in the English-like way that Grey herself
>pronounces it.  This is not surprising.  There is a vast linguistic
>literature on a related and larger set of phenomena that fall under
>the label "accommodation" whereby speakers, for various
>sociolinguistic reasons, try to "accommodate" (e.g., reproduce) their
>interlocutors' speech patterns

Oh please, surely you are not suggesting that thousands of Jacmel residents change their speech for my sake!  LOL  It amazes me the lengths to which some people will go to deny reality.

>P.S. For those of you who'd like to believe that Grey is being
>unfairly maligned on "pathetic" grounds of (mis)spellings, it must be
>remembered that it's Grey herself who started the first
>(mis)spelling-bee round against Angela Nonvayon

Excuse me?  "Angela Novanyon" is the pseudonym of an African-American woman living in Philadelphia, posing as Haitian and posing as a Mambo.  She is so confused that she doesn't know "nom vayan" is a general term referring to the sacred name of an initiate - she thinks HER name is "Nomvayan", which she incorrectly spells "Novanyon".

That's how these kind of things get started!  One person makes an error and another repeats it and another, and then soon you have a whole camp of people who think it is correct.

Peace and love,

Bon Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen

"Se bon ki ra" - Good is rare
     Haitian Proverb

The VODOU Page - http://members.aol.com/racine125/index.html

(Posting from Jacmel, Haiti)