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Gullah Language Still Survives In Coastal Carolinas

If you venture to the coastal Carolinas or Georgia, you might still overhear some people speaking in a dialect that reaches back more than three centuries, to the arrival of slaves from West Africa. Slave descendants in the region became known as Gullahs, or in some places, Geechees. In 2006, Congress designated a National Heritage Corridor established to help preserve the Gullah-Geechee culture, including its language.  

"It is what's known as an English-Creole," or, a mixture, says South Carolinian Sharon Cooper-Murray. She has studied the Gullah culture for more than 30 years. Cooper-Murray adds that when Africans arrived in Carolina, they may have brought more than 100 languages and dialects, creating the need for a common dialect.  

Sharon Cooper-Murray lives on Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina.  On Saturday, March 28, she'll present a program for "kids of all ages" at Historic Brattonsville in York County http://chmuseums.org/event/1760/

Mark Rumsey grew up in Kansas and got his first radio job at age 17 in the town of Abilene, where he announced easy-listening music played from vinyl record albums.