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Social Linguistics and Literacies

In its first edition, Social Linguistics and Literacies was a major

contribution to the emerging interdisciplinary field of sociocultural
approaches to language and literacy, and was one of the founding
texts of the ‘New Literacy Studies’.
This book serves as a classic introduction to the study of language,
learning and literacy in their social, cultural and political contexts. It
shows how contemporary sociocultural approaches to language and
literacy emerged and:

• engages with topics such as orality and literacy, the history of

literacy, the nature of discourse analysis and social theories of
mind and meaning;
• explores how language functions in a society; and
• surveys the notion of ‘discourse’ with specific reference to
cross-cultural issues in communities and schools.

This fifth edition offers an overview of the sociocultural approaches

to language and literacy that coalesced into the New Literacy
Studies. It also introduces readers to a particular style of analysing
language-in-use-in-society and develops a distinctive specific
perspective on language and literacy centred on the notion of
‘Discourses’. It will be of interest to researchers, lecturers and
students in education, linguistics, or any field that deals with
language, especially in social or cultural terms.

James Paul Gee is the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of

Literacy Studies and a Regents’ Professor at Arizona State University.
This page intentionally left blank
Social Linguistics
and Literacies

Ideology in Discourses

Fifth edition

James Paul Gee

Fifth edition published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 James Paul Gee
The right of James Paul Gee to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Falmer Press 1990
Fourth edition published by Routledge 2011
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Gee, James Paul.
Social linguistics and literacies : ideology in discourses / James Paul Gee. –
Fifth edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Sociolinguistics. 2. Literacy. 3. Language acquisition. 4. Discourse
analysis. I. Title.
P40.G44 2014
306.44–dc23
2014037280

ISBN: 978-1-138-85385-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-85386-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-72251-1 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Cenveo Publisher Services
Contents

Lists of Tables vii

Introduction 1

1 Ideology 7

2 Meaning 24

3 Literacy crises 30

4 Literacy as social 45

5 Orality and literacy: the great divide 55

6 The literacy myth and the history of literacy 67

7 The capacities of literacy and Paulo Freire 77

8 The New Literacy Studies 90

9 Social languages, situated meanings and

cultural models 101

10 Cultural models/figured worlds in action 118

11 Discourse analysis 129

vi Contents

12 Discourse analysis: stories go to school 145

13 Discourses and literacies 166

14 More on (big ‘D’) Discourses 187

15 Language, individuals and Discourses 203

16 Discourses, individuals and performances 218

17 Science and the lifeworld 234

Conclusion 245
References 254
Index 271
Tables

11.1 Percentage of in’ in Norwich, shown according to

style and class 132
16.1 Hedges/mitigating devices and perception terms 231
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction

Abstract
Social Linguistics was initially an attempt to do two things. First, it
was an argument that a new field was emerging out of work from
different disciplines. In the first edition of this book, this field was
called the ‘New Literacy Studies’. Second, I wanted to develop
within this field a particular perspective on language and literacy with
special reference to educational issues. The New Literacy Studies is
now established and the perspective developed here has become
one standard viewpoint within that field. What started as an ‘inter-
vention’ is now ‘after the fact’, so the book can serve as an introduc-
tion to what it originally only hoped to help bring into existence. The
book has been updated over the years with revisions to old material
and the addition of new material, but its basic arguments have stayed
the same.

Social and cultural approaches to language and literacy have made

great progress since the first (1990), second (1996), third (2007) and
fourth (2011) editions of this book. I hope that I have made some
progress as well. In each new edition, I have tried to bring the book
up to date and to make it easier to read. I have added and subtracted
material. I have revised old analyses and added new ones.
Nonetheless, through all five editions, it has remained at core the
same book.
2 Social Linguistics and Literacies

When this book was first written, the traditional view of liter-
acy was ‘cognitive’ or ‘mental’. Literacy was seen as something
residing primarily inside people’s heads, not society. This book
sought to show the limitations of a purely cognitive view of
literacy. However, in the intervening years, work on the human
mind has become itself less purely cognitive and more social and
embodied. This newer work makes psychology fit a good deal
better with the sociocultural viewpoints expressed in this book.
Thus, in newer editions of this book I have discussed how theo-
ries about the ‘social mind’ and embodied learning relate to
sociocultural approaches to language and literacy.
Since the first edition of this book, digital media and ‘digital
literacies’ have come to play a much more dominate role in soci-
ety. They have changed the ecology of reading and writing and
added new literacy, like forms of producing and consuming mean-
ing. The new editions of this book discuss these matters more and
more and relate them ever more deeply to how traditional literacy
now works in the world.
This fifth edition rearranges the structure of the book for the first
time. I have placed the material in more, but much shorter chapters
than before. And I have changed the order of the chapters a bit.
I hope and believe this will make the book more accessible and the
argument clearer. As with every new edition, I have revised the writ-
ing in the book to seek greater lucidity and clarity, a never-ending
task in writing and part of what makes writing such an interesting
challenge.
This book offers an overview of the sociocultural approaches to
language and literacy that coalesced into the New Literacy Studies.
It also introduces readers to a particular style of analysing language-
in-use-in-society (see also Gee 2014a, b). Finally, the book develops
a distinctive specific perspective on language and literacy centred on
the notion of ‘Discourses’ (with a capital ‘D’).
The general argument of the book is this: to appreciate language
in its social context, we need to focus not on language, but on what
I will call ‘Discourses’. Discourses (‘big ‘D’ Discourses’) include
much more than language. To see what I mean, consider the
unlikely topic of bars (pubs). Imagine I park my motorcycle and
enter my neighbourhood ‘biker bar’. I say to the burley, leather-
jacketed and heavily tattooed man sitting next to me: ‘May I please
have a match for my cigarette?’ What I have said is perfectly gram-
matical English. Yet, it is, nonetheless, ‘wrong’, unless I have used
 Introduction 3

a heavily ironic tone of voice. It is not just the content of what you
say that is important, but also how you say it. And in this bar, I have
not said it in the right way. I should have said something like ‘Gotta
match?’ or ‘Would’ya give me a light?’
But now imagine I say the right thing (‘Gotta match?’ or
‘Would’ya give me light?’), but while saying it, I carefully wipe off
the bar stool with a napkin to avoid getting my newly pressed
designer jeans dirty. In this case, I’ve still got it all wrong. In this bar
they just don’t do that sort of thing. I have said the right thing, but
my ‘saying–doing’ combination is all wrong. It’s not just what you
say or even how you say it. It’s also who you are and what you are
doing while you say it. It is not enough just to say the right ‘lines’,
you have to be (enact, role-play) the ‘right’ sort of person.
Other sorts of bars cater to different ‘types of people’. If I want
to, I can go to many different bars and thereby be different ‘types
of people’. So, too, with schools. Children are ‘hailed’ (‘summoned’)
to be different sorts of students in different classrooms, even in
different content areas like literature or science. In one and the
same classroom, different children may be ‘hailed’ to be different
types of students. One, for example, may be ‘hailed’ to be a ‘gifted
student’ and the other a ‘problem student’. There are specific ways
to get recognised – different in different schools and at different
times – as ‘gifted’ or ‘a problem’. The teacher, the student and
fellow students need (however unconsciously) to know these ways
for ‘business as usual’ to go on. A good deal of what we do with
language, throughout history, is to create and act out different
‘kinds of people’ for all sorts of occasions and places.
This conflicts with a common view that things like ‘gifted’ and
‘problem student’ are internal and fixed internal traits. But none of
us can be (or act out) a certain kind of person unless such a niche
exists in our environment. No matter what the shape of your brain,
you cannot be a dyslexic (have serious problems with decoding
print) in a society with no reading or one that does not use an alpha-
bet (letters correlated with sounds). The Syrian Simeon Stylites
(390–459 AD) achieved fame because he lived for 37 years on a
small platform on top of a pillar. Today we would make him a
mental patient. But in his time and society they made him a saint and
called him, not ill, but an ascetic. Heavy multitasking can get one
labelled ‘ADD’ (attention deficit disorder) in school and yet can earn
one respect as a ‘digital native’ out of school. A fanatical and obses-
sive narrow focus can earn one a Nobel Prize in maths, but earn one
4 Social Linguistics and Literacies

disdain when devoted to other areas like, say, carving avocado pits
into shrunken heads, unless one joins a worldwide internet site of
fans devoted to such carvings and becomes a respected artist and
member of the community. We need other people to be anything.
Discourses are ways of behaving, interacting, valuing, thinking,
believing, speaking and, often, reading and writing that are accepted
as instantiations of particular identities (or ‘kinds of people’, see
Hacking 1986, 1994) by specific groups, whether one is being a
lawyer of a certain sort, a biker of a certain sort, a business person
of a certain sort, a church member of a certain sort, an African-
American of a certain sort, a woman or man of a certain sort and so
on and so forth through a very long list. Discourses are ways of
being ‘people like us’. They are ‘ways of being in the world’. They
are ‘forms of life’. They are socially situated identities. They are,
thus, always and everywhere social products of social histories.
Language makes no sense outside of Discourses and the same is
true for literacy. There are many different ‘social languages’ (differ-
ent styles of language used for different purposes and occasions)
connected in complex ways with different Discourses. There are
many different sorts of literacy – many literacies – connected in
complex ways with different Discourses. Cyberpunks and physi-
cists, factory workers and boardroom executives, policemen and
graffiti-writing urban gang members engage in different literacies,
use different ‘social languages’ and are in different Discourses. And,
too, the cyberpunk and the physicist might be one and the same
person, behaving differently at different times and places. In this
book I will use schools and communities, rather than bars, as exam-
ples of sites where Discourses operate to integrate, divide and sort
people and groups in society.
Each of us is a member of many Discourses and each Discourse
represents one of our ever multiple identities. These Discourses
need not, and often do not, represent consistent and compatible
values. There are conflicts among them and each of us lives and
breathes these conflicts as we act out our various Discourses. For
some, these conflicts are more dramatic than for others. The
conflicts between the home-based Discourse of some minority
children in the United States and the Discourses of the school are
deep and apparent. Indeed, the values of many school-based
Discourses treat some minority children as ‘other’ and their
social practices as ‘deviant’ and ‘non-standard’.
 Introduction 5

The same was true of my home. I am white, but my home was not
middle class in the ways in which schools often expect. These
conflicts are real and cannot simply be wished away. They are the
site of very real struggle and resistance. Such conflicts also exist for
many women between their ways of being in the world as women of
certain types and the dominant Discourses of male-based public
institutions. Similar sorts of conflicts exist for many others, as well,
most certainly for many people based on social class. They are
endemic in modern pluralistic societies.
Each Discourse incorporates taken-for-granted and tacit ‘theories’
about what counts as a ‘normal’ person and the ‘right’ ways to think,
feel and behave. These theories crucially involve viewpoints on the
distribution of ‘social goods’ like status, worth and material goods in
society (who should and who shouldn’t have them). The biker bar
‘says’ that ‘tough guys’ are ‘real men’; the school ‘says’ that the
certain children – often minority and lower-socioeconomic children –
are not suited for higher education and professional careers. Such
theories, which are part and parcel of each and every Discourse, and
which, thus, underlie the use of language in all cases, are forms of
ideology. And, thus, language is inextricably bound up with ideol-
ogy and cannot be analysed or understood apart from it.
I do not believe there is any one uniquely ‘right’ way to describe
and explicate the workings of language in society. Thus, I do not see
myself as in competition in a ‘winner takes all’ game with other
social and critical theorists, many of whom I greatly admire. Certain
ways of describing and explicating language and society are better
and worse for different purposes. And any way of doing so is worth-
while only for the light it shines on complex problems and the possi-
bilities it holds out for imagining better and more socially just
futures.
This book has been in print continuously for 25 years and going.
It has been updated to remain current, but it has really remained
current because its core argument still holds as strongly today as it
did when it first appeared. For example, newer editions of the book
argue that the views on literacy that appeared in the original edition
of the book – and the core ideas of the New Literacy Studies – apply
straightforwardly to digital media and digital literacies as well.
But, sadly, it is also true that many of the social problems in the
world of 1990, when this book first appeared, are worse today
than they were then – problems like inequality, greed, poverty,
6 Social Linguistics and Literacies

segregation and environmental degradation. Language and liter-

acy, including digital literacy, are still too often today used to
sustain inequalities and to create acquiescence to an unjust status
quo. So there is new pressing work that must be done. This book
is, at best, a start. But readers cannot let it be an end. They must
dare to rethink language, literacy and the world in new ways, in
ways that will go well beyond this book, and in ways that will
truly make this book out of date. And, thus, finally, I pass the task
to you. This will be the last edition of this book.
Chapter 1

Ideology

Abstract
Chapter 1 contains a brief discussion of the history of the word
‘ideology’. It argues that a demand for evidence over ideology has
been one historical basis for equality and liberation. At the same
time, the chapter argues that all humans deal with the world in terms
of often taken-for-granted theories. We all have a moral obligation
to examine these theories consciously and critically, and confront
them with argument and evidence, when they have the potential to
cause harm to others. The chapter ends with a fundamental principle
that I argue serves as one important basis of ethical human discourse.

Ideology
When I wrote the first edition of this book the word ‘ideology’ was
a hot term in the social sciences. There were great debates about
what the word ought to mean. There were debates, as well, over
how people’s values, desires and interests helped determine their
beliefs. Though these debates – many of them centred on different
interpretations of Marx – have become less fashionable, nonethe-
less, it is common today, especially in media and politics, to hear
it said that someone’s claims are based on ‘ideology’ and not
‘facts’.
The word ‘ideology’ has an interesting history. The term was first
used just after the French Revolution by Antoine Destutt de Tracy.
8 Social Linguistics and Literacies

In his Eléments d’idéologie (written between 1801 and 1815), de

Tracy proposed a new science of ideas, an idea-ology. De Tracy
denied that ‘innate ideas’ (whether from God or biology) or ‘estab-
lished authority’ (whether religion or the state) were the true source
of human knowledge. He argued that all the ideas in our heads come
from evidence about the world we have gathered through our physi-
cal senses. What we think and how we act is due to our upbringing
and environment (the experiences we have had).
De Tracy’s viewpoint ran counter to established ideas of church
and state that people came in different (lower and higher) ‘grades’
by birth and were inherently fit from birth for different roles in life.
On the one hand, for most people these were lower roles, roles
beyond which they should not aspire. On the other hand, the view
that people are what their environments – their homes, local commu-
nities, schools and nations – make them leads to the belief that, by
giving everyone nurturing environments, every human being is
capable of thinking and acting as a responsible and intelligent citi-
zen. In turn, this argues that equality and democracy are both
morally right and possible.
But, in France, Napoleon quickly came to see matters differently
and the term ‘ideology’ came to be pejorative. As Napoleon’s
government became an empire supported by established religion, he
faced inevitable criticism from people who wanted a democratic
republic, not a despotic emperor. Napoleon attacked the
Enlightenment proponents of democracy. He charged that they
‘mislead the people by elevating them to a sovereignty which they
were incapable of exercising’ (McLellan 1986: 5–9; Williams 1985:
153–7). Napoleon blamed these ‘ideologues’, as he called them, for
his defeat in Russia and his ignominious retreat from Moscow:

It is to ideology, this cloudy metaphysics which, by subtly

searching for first causes, wishes to establish on this basis the
legislation of peoples, instead of obtaining its laws from knowl-
edge of the human heart and from the lessons of history, that we
must attribute all the misfortunes of our fair France.
(Cited in McLellan 1986: 6; Williams 1985: 154)

The Enlightenment philosophers wanted to found a just system of

government on a study of how human beliefs, needs and desires are
shaped by various physical and social environments (Toulmin
1992). Napoleon refers to this idea as ‘cloudy metaphysics’. For
 Ideology 9

him, a system of government should be founded not on social theo-

rising, but on ‘knowledge of the human heart and from the lessons
of history’. We know perfectly well what Napoleon thought ‘knowl-
edge of the human heart’ and ‘the lessons of history’ taught: the
need for elite authorities to control the mass of people who were fit
only for following orders.
Napoleon did not like the Enlightenment philosophers’ social
theory because it conflicted with his pursuit of power. Rather than
arguing against this theory by using evidence to argue for a rival
theory of his own, he castigates it as ‘abstract’, ‘impractical’ and
‘fanatical’. In its place he substitutes not another theory, but ‘knowl-
edge of the human heart’ and ‘the lessons of history’ (practical, not
theoretical knowledge). It just so happened that Napoleon was in a
position (he believed) to know the knowledge of the human heart
and the lessons of history better than others. And they just so
happened to support his policies. Napoleon privileges his experience
(and that of people like him) over the claims to knowledge coming
from opponents who deduce their conclusions from a ‘mere’ theory.

Marx and ‘false consciousness’

Let’s turn to the fortunes of the term ‘ideology’ after Napoleon.
Karl Marx agreed with de Tracy that innate ideas, biology and
established authority were not and should not be the foundation of
knowledge and belief. Like de Tracy, he believed that our ideas and
behaviour are products of our interactions with our physical and
social environments. In fact, Marx gave a particular twist to this
claim. He believed that our knowledge, beliefs and behaviour
reflected and were shaped most importantly by the economic rela-
tionships (relations of production and consumption) that existed in
our societies.
In a society where power, wealth and status are quite unequally
distributed (as was his, as is ours today), Marx claimed that the
social and political ideas of those groups with the most power, status
and wealth ‘are nothing more than the ideal expression of the domi-
nant material relationships’ (Williams 1985: 155–6; Marx and
Engels 1970; Marx 1977). What this means is that what people in
power believe is simply an expression or reflection of their desire,
whether conscious or not, to retain and enhance their power.
Napoleon’s belief that ‘the people’ were incapable of exercising
sovereignty is a good example of Marx’s point. Napoleon’s belief is
10 Social Linguistics and Literacies

ultimately founded in his position at the top of a particular social

structure and his will to retain and enhance his power in that social
structure. It is not to his benefit to believe in democracy. In a democ-
racy, people may not have voted to have an empire with him as
emperor. It is to his benefit to believe that decisions about who
should rule and how they should rule ought to be settled by appeal
to the lessons of the human heart and history as interpreted by
himself and others like him.
It is the failure of the elite and powerful in a society to realise that
their view of reality follows from and supports their positions of
power that, in Marx’s view, creates ideology. ‘Ideology’, for him, is
an ‘upside-down’ version of reality. Things are not really the way
the elite and powerful believe them to be; rather their beliefs invert
reality to make it appear the way they would like it to be.
I will argue that Marx is wrong that all beliefs from the top of
society need be the result of ‘false consciousness’. Nonetheless, he
is right to suspect that, in many cases, elites’ non-theoretical
appeals to their experience (how they see the world) as the test of
truth is merely an attempt to ensure they have more of the sorts of
empowering experiences they are already having and the rest of us
do not.
Marx is also right about the important role production and
consumption play in how people see the world, though this rela-
tionship is not as deterministic as Marx saw it. Societies have often
been set up to ensure that only elites and more privileged people
produce ideas and knowledge (including the products that come out
of business and industry), while the masses are supposed to primar-
ily follow, work and consume. This is why, across history and even
today, reading (a form of consumption) is far more prevalent than
is writing (a form of production).
However, things are changing today. Digital media like the inter-
net, social media and many new digital tools are allowing more and
more people, young and old, to produce their own media, designs,
games, books, ideas, knowledge and information, even without
professional credentials. This is a trend that, not surprisingly, is
opposed by many credentialled ‘experts’, professionals and elites.

Experience versus theory: an example

I want to recast debates about ideology in terms of the roles expe-
riences and theories play when we humans make claims. I want to
 Ideology 11

argue that we humans always have theories and never really make
claims without them. Theories are not just for academics or
scientists.
So, let me make some of the key issues in the previous discussion
more concrete through a specific example. Consider the following
sentence, uttered by a seven-year-old African-American child in the
course of telling a story during ‘sharing-time’ (‘show and tell’) at
school:

1 My puppy, he always be followin’ me.

Consider one possible reaction to this sentence:

This child does not know how to speak English correctly. She
speaks ‘bad English’. This is probably because she attends a
poor and neglected school and comes from an impoverished
home with few or no books in it, a home which gives little sup-
port for and encouragement to education.

This belief claims this little girl is less ‘correct’ than others in
the society and that her home is ‘less adequate’. The person who
holds such a belief, will, in all likelihood, deny they have person-
ally ‘studied the matter’. However, they will be reinforced in their
belief by much of what they have read in the popular press, seen
on television and been told by reputed ‘experts’. This all contrib-
utes to the ‘obviousness’ and ‘everyone knows that’ quality of the
belief.
There are two things in this little girl’s sentence that contribute to
the above belief. First, is its informal quality (e.g., the juxtaposition
of the subject ‘my puppy’ to the front of the sentence, followed by
the pronoun ‘he’; using ‘followin’’ instead of ‘following’). However,
people with the above belief are likely to be more seriously disturbed
by the ‘bare’ helping verb ‘be’, rather than ‘is’. Why can’t the child
say ‘My puppy is always following me’?
The problem will get worse when we add the fact that children
like this one can be heard to say such things as ‘My puppy followin’
me’ (with no bare ‘be’) on other occasions (Baugh 1983; Labov
1972a). The child will now be said to be inconsistent, simply vary-
ing between different forms because she does not really know the
right one, doesn’t really know the language, despite the fact that it is
her language.
12 Social Linguistics and Literacies

Let’s now juxtapose to the above belief a theory from linguistics.

We will start with the most striking feature, the bare ‘be’. To under-
stand how this ‘bare be’ form is used and to grasp its significance, we
must first explicate a part of the English aspect system (Comrie 1976).
One of the things many people hate about theories is that they often
use technical terms. And we will do just that. ‘Aspect’ is a technical
term that stands for how a language signals the viewpoint it takes on
the way in which an action is situated in time. Almost all languages in
the world make a primary distinction between the perfective aspect
and the imperfective aspect.
The imperfective aspect is used when the action is viewed as
ongoing or repeated. English uses the progressive (the verb ‘to be’
plus the ending ‘-ing’ on the following verb) to mark the imperfec-
tive, as in ‘John is working/John was working’ or ‘Mary is jumping/
Mary was jumping’. In the first of these cases, John’s working is
viewed as ongoing, still in progress in the present (‘is’) or the past
(‘was’); in the second, Mary’s jumping is viewed as having being
repeated over and over again in the present (‘is’) or past (‘was’).
The perfective is used when an action is viewed as a discrete
whole, treated as if it is a point in time (whether, in reality, the act
took a significant amount of time or not). English uses the simple
present or past for the perfective, as in ‘Smith dives for the ball!’
(Sportscast), in the present, or ‘Smith dived for the ball’, in the past.
The imperfective of these sentences would be: ‘Smith is diving for
the ball’ and ‘Smith was diving for the ball’.
We will refer to the English that many but by no means all
African-American speakers speak as ‘African-American Vernacular
English’, ‘AAVE’ for short (Labov 1972a; Smitherman 1977; some
Black Nationalist linguists and some media reports use the term
‘Ebonics’ for AAVE, see Baugh 2000). We will refer to the English
that elites in the society are perceived as speaking and that many
others accept and do their best to emulate as ‘Standard English’
(there are actually different varieties of Standard English, see
Finegan 1980; Milroy and Milroy 1985; Milroy 1987a).
AAVE and Standard English do not differ in the perfective,
though an older form of AAVE used to distinguish between a simple
perfective (‘John drank the milk’) that marked an action as simply a
point in time and a completive that stressed the end point of the
action, marking it as complete and done with (‘John done drank the
milk up’). Like all languages, AAVE has changed and is changing
through time.
 Ideology 13

AAVE and Standard English do differ in the imperfective. Some

African-American speakers make a distinction between ongoing or
repeated (thus, imperfective) events which are of limited duration
and ongoing or repeated events which are of extended duration. For
limited duration events they use the absent copula as in ‘My puppy
following me’, and for extended events they use the ‘bare be’ as in
my ‘My puppy be following me’. Thus, the following sorts of
contrast are regular in the variety of English spoken by many young
African-American speakers in the United States (Bailey and Maynor
1987):

Limited Duration Events:

2a In health class, we talking about the eye.
[Standard English: In health class, we are talking about the
eye]
2b He trying to scare us.
[Standard English: He is trying to scare us]

Extended Duration Events:

3a He always be fighting.
[Standard English: He is always fighting]
3b Sometimes them big boys be throwing the ball, and …
[Standard English: Sometimes those big boys are throwing
the ball, and …]

In 2a, the talk about the eye in health class will go on only for a short
while compared to the duration of the whole class. Thus, the speaker
uses the ‘absent be’ form (‘we talking’). In 2b, ‘he’ is trying to scare
us now, but this does not always happen or happen repeatedly and
often, so once again the speaker uses the ‘absent be’ (‘he trying’).
But, in 3a, the fighting is always taking place, is something that ‘he’
characteristically does, thus the speaker uses the ‘bare be’ form (‘he
be fighting’). And in 3b, the speaker is talking about a situation that
has happened often and will in all likelihood continue to happen.
Thus, she uses the ‘bare be’ (‘big boys be throwing’). Standard
English makes no such contrast, having to rely on the context of the
utterance, or the addition of extra words, to make the meaning
apparent.
This contrast in AAVE is one that is made in many other
languages. It is one linguists expect to find in languages, though it
is not always found, as in Standard English (Comrie 1976). That
14 Social Linguistics and Literacies

Standard English fails to overtly draw this contrast is somewhat

odd, but, then, all languages fail to make some contrasts that
others make.
But, one might ask, why has the non-standard dialect introduced
this distinction and not also the standard dialect? One price speakers
pay for standard dialects is that they change more slowly, since the
fact that a standard dialect is used in writing and public media puts
something of a brake on change (Gee and Hayes 2011). However,
since non-standard dialects are freer to change on the basis of the
human child’s linguistic and cognitive systems, non-standard
dialects are, in a sense, often ‘more logical’ or ‘more elegant’ from
a linguistic point of view. That is, they are ‘more logical’ or ‘more
elegant’ from the viewpoint of what is typical across languages or
from the viewpoint of what seems to be the basic design of the
human linguistic system.
Non-standard dialects and standard ones often serve different
purposes. The former signal identification with a local, often non-
mainstream community and the latter identification with a wider,
pluralistic and technological society and its views of who are elite
and worth emulating (Chambers 1995; Milroy 1987a, b; Milroy
and Milroy 1985). In fact, a change in a non-standard dialect, since
it makes the non-standard dialect different from the standard, may
enhance its ability to signal identification with a local community
as against the wider mainstream society.
But both standard and non-standard dialects are marvels of human
mastery. Neither is better or worse. Furthermore, it is an accident of
history as to which dialect gets to be taken to be the standard.
Standard English has its origins in the power of a fourteenth-century
merchant class in London, people who spoke an East Midland
dialect. Because of their growing economic clout, their dialect
spread for public business across the country. It became the basis of
so-called ‘Received Pronunciation’ (‘RP’) in England, and eventu-
ally gave rise to Standard English in the United States. A reversal of
power and prestige in the history of the United States could have led
to a form of AAVE being the standard and the concomitant need
here to save from negative judgments dialects that are closer to what
is currently Standard English.
The other features of our sentence are also quite common across
languages. The juxtaposition of the subject ‘my puppy’ to the front
of the sentence is a way to signal that a speaker is switching
topics or returning to an old one. It is actually common in many
 Ideology 15

dialects of spoken English and in many other languages (Ochs and

Schieffelin 1983).
The variation between ‘followin’’ in informal contexts and
‘following’ in more formal contexts occurs in all dialects of English,
including dialects closer to the standard. It turns out that people are
not very good at actually hearing what they and others are really
saying – though they think they are good at this – so you cannot trust
your ears in this regard, you have to make tape recordings and listen
repeatedly and carefully.
The two forms (‘following’ and ‘followin’’), in all dialects of
English, actually have different meanings (Milroy and Milroy
1985: 95). The form ‘followin’’ means that the speaker is signal-
ling more solidarity with and less deference towards the hearer,
treating the hearer more as a peer or friend. The ‘following’ form
signals that the speaker is signalling less solidarity with and more
deference towards the hearer, treating the hearer less as a peer and
intimate and more as one higher in status than the speaker. Of
course, these are matters of degree, and so one can (unconsciously)
mix and match various degrees of ‘-in’’ and ‘-ing’ in a stretch of
language to achieve just the right level of solidarity and deference
(Labov 1972a, b; Chambers 1995; Gee 2014a; Milroy 1987a).

Tacit versus explicit theories

So what belief does the linguist hold about the girl’s sentence in
(1) above? It is this: the child speaks a particular variety of English
and speaks it entirely correctly. Her variety of English is not worse
than Standard English; at least by one criterion it is better, since it
makes a cross-linguistically well-attested distinction that Standard
English doesn’t make. But, in fact, linguists do not talk about
languages being better and worse, since all speakers, given their
biological and cognitive equipment, acquire an amazingly consistent
and complicated variety of a language (a dialect) as children.
Thus, the child cannot be said to have failed to have acquired
English because she came from an impoverished home, since she
has, in fact, acquired English. And she cannot even be said to have
the features we have looked at in her English because she comes
from an impoverished home, because lots of other languages in the
world have these or similar features and their speakers come from
quite different homes. It may, however, be that the child has failed to
learn another dialect of English, namely some dialect closer to
16 Social Linguistics and Literacies

Standard English, because she comes from a home or community

that is given very poor access to speakers of Standard English
(perhaps she sees few of them on an extended or friendly basis) and
attends a school that fails to foster Standard English in any very intel-
ligent way.
Now, let’s think about the contrast between the linguist’s belief
and our original belief. This is not a contrast – as it might at first
seem – between a theoretically grounded belief (the linguist’s) and
a belief based just on practical experience (the non-linguist’s belief).
Both beliefs are, in fact, theoretical, based on theories.
By ‘theory’ I mean a set of generalisations about an area (in this
case, language and language acquisition) in terms of which descrip-
tions of phenomena in that area can be couched and explanations can
be offered. Theories, in this sense, ground beliefs and claims to
know things. They tell us how and where to look for evidence and
what counts as evidence. Of course, our theories in everyday life are
often taken for granted and not overtly reflected on.
Some generalisations upon which we base our everyday claims to
know are perfectly secure and obviously right. Put your hand on a hot
stove and you will regret it. But some generalisations that underlie
claims to know are much less secure and can damage people as much
as any stove.
Thus, consider the belief that the little girl above does not speak
English correctly and the linguist’s social belief that she does speak
English correctly. Let’s call the first belief the ‘bad English belief’
because it is a claim that some native speakers of English speak ‘bad
English’ or incorrect English. The bad English belief and the
linguist’s belief are both based on generalisations and as such are
equally theoretical. All claims to know are based on theories.
One important difference between them is that the linguist’s
theory is based on a set of generalisations about which the linguist
has been reasonably explicit. Thus, actual argument and debate
can take place. The claim advanced by people holding the bad
English belief is often based on generalisations that people have
not overtly considered and explicitly spelled out to themselves or
others. Let’s call the linguist’s theory an ‘overt theory’ and call the
bad English theory a ‘tacit theory’.
Because both the linguist’s belief and the bad English belief are
based on theories, let us directly contrast them below. To do this, we
have to guess (infer) what generalisations underlie the bad English
belief, since they are often tacit and not spelled out. Below I lay out
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am living in a modest room on the upper floor) at half-past five,
thinking it best to see them as far as the harbour myself. The
appointed time has come, but not a carrier is to be seen. I wait till a
quarter to six, and am becoming somewhat uneasy, when I am aware
of the gradual approach of so frightful a din that there cannot be the
slightest doubt as to who is causing it. But have the twenty-four been
suddenly multiplied by three? A closely-packed crowd roars and
surges in the square beneath me; the bass voices of the men, the
shrill, vibrating cries of the women make up a pandemonium of
sound; but no disorderly actions take place—in fact I had not
expected any. The crowd follows me in a confused mass for the few
hundred paces down to the harbour, where the ferry-boat is waiting.
“Bwana, I would rather stay here,” says Kazi Ulaya, the handsome,
with a tender look at the fair one beside him. “Do what thy heart
prompts, my son,” I reply mildly. “And this is my boy, sir,” says Pesa
mbili II, of Manyema, who has by this time recovered his plumpness.
But he refrains from introducing to me the bibi, who, in some
embarrassment, is hiding behind his broad back.
“Now sing those fine songs of yours once more.”
The men are standing round me in a serried circle. “Kuya
mapunda” goes very well; the pleasing melody rises in full volume of
sound above the voice of the rushing Lukuledi. In “Dasige
Murumba” too, the singers acquit themselves fairly well; but when
the standard song, “Yooh nderule” begins, the circle seems full of
gaps, and my eye can distinguish in the twilight various couples
scattered here and there among the bushes by the bank. “Ah!
farewell scenes,” I think to myself, but soon perceive that I am
mistaken; no tender sentiments are being discussed, but my matter-
of-fact fellows are throwing themselves like wolves on the last repast
prepared for them by loving hands before the voyage. I wish them,
sotto voce, a good appetite, and make a note of the fact that the heart
of the native, like that of the European, can be reached through his
stomach.
The ferryman shouts impatiently to hurry them up, and I drive the
unattached contingent of the singers down into the shallow water.
Splashing and laughing they wade towards the boat; the darkness
has come on rapidly, and I can only just distinguish the white figures
as they clamber on board. “Yooh nderule, yooh nderule, bwana
mkubwa nderule”—the familiar sounds, long drawn out, ring over
the water in Pesa mbili’s voice—“kuba sumba na wogi nderulewa,
yooh nderule”—the chorus dies away. The boat has disappeared in
the darkness, and I turn my steps towards the mess-room, and the
principal meal of the day, where I am once more claimed by
civilization. The Weule Expedition is at an end.
ENTERING THE RED SEA
 CHAPTER XIX
FROM LINDI TO TANGA

On Board the ss. König, in the Mediterranean, off the

Mouths of the Nile, January 20, 1907.

A few hours ago, in losing sight of the palms of Port Said, we left the
last of Africa behind us. The flat, sandy shore of the Egyptian Delta
has now vanished from our view, and a grey waste of waters lies
before the vessel as she fights her way with increasing difficulty
against the rising north-west gale. The Mediterranean in winter is
not inviting. No trace in reality of the ever-cloudless sky we have
been taught to look for; and Captain Scharf, who certainly ought to
know, says that he has never experienced any other weather here at
this time of year. This season is always cold and stormy, forming no
pleasant transition between the delightful temperature of the Red
Sea in winter and the sub-Arctic climate of the Atlantic and the
North Sea. We shall have to steam along the coast of Crete and to
pass close enough to the southern extremity of Greece, to catch sight
of the snow-covered peaks of the Spartan mountains; so much does
the head-wind retard the course of our broad-bowed, somewhat old-
fashioned boat, which, for a first-class steamer, makes wonderfully
little way. The traveller has all the more leisure to retire, in the
comfortable smoking-saloon, into the solitude of his own thoughts,
and take stock of all that he has seen, heard and learnt in the last
nine months.
The evening of the 2nd of December passed very pleasantly on
board the Kanzler in Lindi roadstead. One could scarcely make out
where so many white-clad Europeans came from, all at once. One of
the passengers attributed this influx to the iced Pilsener which
Ewerbeck and I lavished in unlimited quantities in the high spirits of
departure; but this suggestion is scarcely to be taken seriously. The
presence of a German steamer in the harbour is in these latitudes
always a festival, celebrated by most people whenever it comes
round. And quite rightly so, for nothing is more deadening than the
monotony of workaday life in Africa.
 The trip which had taken the Rufiji three days of hard work was
performed by the swift Kanzler in one day. Early on the morning of
the fourth, Ewerbeck and I landed at Dar es Salam: Ewerbeck, in
order to take his final leave of the Protectorate, and I, to give account
to the Government of the financial and administrative side of my
expedition. For a new-comer like myself a change of place made no
difference; but the Imperial District Commissioner was visibly
moved by sad and serious thoughts. He had spent the best part of his
life, over fifteen years, in the development of this very part of
German East Africa; and, in such a case, a man does not leave the
scene of his labours with a light heart.
Dar es Salam was still more delightful than in June. At this time of
year it abounds in mangoes of every size and every variety. The
mango-tree was long ago imported from India, and is now found
wherever Indians are settled in East Africa, whether in British,
German, or Portuguese territory. It is certainly a pleasanter
immigrant than the low-caste Indian; it somewhat resembles our
linden tree in its mode of growth, and gives a pleasant look of home
to a settlement. The fruit, sometimes as large as a child’s head, is
served on ice at every meal, and is almost equal in flavour to the
pine-apple.
Into this pleasant, easy life the news of the events of December
13th came like a bolt from the blue. An excellent hotel, the
“Kaiserhof,” had been opened just before my return to Dar es Salam,
and I had the great pleasure of being one of its first guests. We were
almost suffocated with comfort: electric light, a broad, shady
verandah outside every room, a comfortable bath-room attached to
each apartment, and a more than luxurious table were, together,
almost too much of a good thing, after our lean months in the bush.
Fortunately, however, man becomes accustomed to every thing, even
to good living.
I have seldom seen so many long faces as in those days, when the
news of the sudden dissolution of the Reichstag burst like a bomb in
the comfortable, well-to-do official circles of the town. It seemed as
though every single European, down to the lowest subordinate, had
been personally affected by the event; all the mess-rooms were loud
with the dismal prognostications of the croakers as to the black
future—or rather the want of any future—before the colony, whose
 inglorious end seemed placed beyond doubt,
as each of us foresaw that the General Election
in January would admit at least a hundred
Socialists to the Reichstag. “And of course it is
all up with the railways,” was the stereotyped
refrain of all these lamentations, which the
mourners duly drowned in a sea of whisky and
soda. Personally I am convinced that things
will not be as bad as that, but that the next
Reichstag will show at least as much feeling
for the colonies as its predecessor, or, indeed,
it is to be hoped, still more. On January 25th
our steamer is to arrive at Genoa; on that date
the elections will be over, and on the following
day we shall be able to get a general survey of
THE AUTHOR IN the results, and form some idea as to the fate
BUSH COSTUME of our colonies in the immediate future.
I left Dar es Salam on December 20th by the
Admiral, a splendid boat, almost new, and rolling far less even than
the Prinzregent. It was also more comfortable than the latter; it was
no wonder, therefore, that all the cabins were full. We had still more
English on board than in the spring; many from Cape Town, and still
more from Johannesburg. Accordingly, the prevailing style of dress
was noticeably luxurious. This time I was able to go ashore at Tanga,
and even see something of the Usambara railway. Captain Doherr,
with his usual foresight, had (probably remembering the managerial
functions which he had been called upon to perform a few months
previously, in the service of the eight Deputies) arranged for a special
train to be ready for the passengers, or at least for such as wished to
avail themselves of it. With this we made the run to Muhesa, where
the expedition was brought to a halt by means of enormous dishes of
sandwiches and trays of whiskies and sodas. Something is really
being done in the north-east of the colony, as one can see even from
the train; it is true that not all the land is yet under cultivation, but
every bit of it is already in the hands of a permanent owner, even far
beyond the rail-head.
There were grand doings at Tanga in the evening. This town enjoys
a whole series of advantages. In the first place, it is the nearest to the
mother country of all our East African ports, and thus constitutes the
gateway to the colony. In the second place, the harbour is tolerably
good; the bay, indeed, is not land-locked to the same extent as that of
Dar es Salam, but, like the latter, it has sufficient anchorage within a
short distance of the shore. The most important point, however, is its
nearness to Usambara, the choicest part of our territory as regards
climate and soil. Usambara has but one fault: it is not large enough
to accommodate all would-be settlers. It is said that even now the
available land has been allotted, and there is no chance for later
applicants. Many of these are now staying at Tanga, or on their way
south to seek new fields for their energies: in fact, the boom at Lindi
was in great part caused by the congestion in the north. The
economic centre of gravity, therefore, for our whole colonial activity
lies at present in this north-eastern district. This, by the bye, is
evident from the whole aspect of European life at Tanga. After
passing many months on end in the Usambara mountains, with no
opportunities for social intercourse, the planter suddenly feels the
need of society, and in a few hours’ time we may behold him seated
in the club at Tanga.
Where there are Germans, there is also music. Dar es Salam enjoys
the advantage of two bands—that of the sailors from the two cruisers,
and that of the askari. Both are under official patronage, but I
cannot say much for the proficiency of the native performers: in any
case, their music was accompanied by a great deal of noise. At Tanga
it is not in economic matters only that the residents assert their
independence—even the Boys’ Band of that town is a purely private
enterprise. Tanga is a scholastic centre par excellence, hundreds of
native children being instructed in the elements of European
knowledge and initiated into the mysteries of the German tongue,
which, indeed, one finds that all the little black imps can speak after
a fashion. The more intelligent, in whom their teachers discover, or
think they discover, any musical gift, are admitted to the famous
Boys’ Band. This is just now in excellent training. When the
passengers from the Admiral presented themselves in the evening on
the square in front of the Club, the band turned out to welcome
them, and the playing was really remarkably good.
 CHAPTER XX
RETROSPECT

At the Entrance to the Red Sea.

Christmas and New Year’s Eve were passed at sea, with the usual
festivities; the latter, on which the dancing was kept up with equal
enthusiasm and energy by German and English passengers, was also
the eve of our arrival at Suez.
About noon on the first day of January, 1907, I set foot on the soil
of Egypt, which I have only just left, after a stay of nearly three
weeks. I had a great desire to study the relics of ancient Egyptian
culture on the spot, and therefore left Cairo and its neighbourhood as
speedily as possible for Upper Egypt—Luxor, Karnak and Deir el
Bahri. From a climatic point of view, also, Cairo was not well adapted
for an intermediate station between the tropics and the winter of
Northern Europe. One after another of our passengers remaining
behind for a tour in Egypt became indisposed. Some, therefore, took
the next boat for Germany, arguing that their colds “would cost less
at home,” while others made off up the Nile by train de luxe, in order
to accustom themselves slowly and carefully in the glorious desert air
of Assuan to the sub-arctic climate of Ulaya.
The Assuan dam is historically a piece of Vandalism, technically a
meritorious piece of engineering, economically a truly great
achievement. The narrow-gauge railway winds up the Nile in sharp
curves between Luxor and Assuan. Sometimes the Nile flows in
immediate proximity to the track—sometimes there is a narrow strip
of alluvial level between the sacred stream and the new unholy iron
road. All this time one is oppressed by the narrowness of the country;
it seems as if the first high wind must blow the sand right across it
and bury it altogether. Suddenly the bare hills on the left retreat: a
wide plain opens out before us, only bounded in the far distance by
the sharp contours of the hills in the Arabian Desert. The plain itself,
too, is a desert—but how long will it remain so? Turn to the right and
consider the great block of buildings which meets your eye. It is
neither Egyptian nor Arabian, there is none of the dirt of Fellah
barbarism about it; on the contrary, it represents the purest Anglo-
American factory style. The tall chimney crowning the whole, and
emitting a dense cloud of smoke, forms an incongruous contrast with
its surroundings—the silver Nile with its border of green fields,
running like a ribbon across the boundless sands of the desert to east
and west. Look before you at the straight canal crossing the plain and
lost to sight in the distance and the ditches and channels by which it
distributes the Nile water in all directions, with perfect regularity.
The building is a pumping-station, established to restore the desert
plain by irrigation to its former fertility. Now it is still perfectly bare:
in a few months’ time, it will be a sea of waving corn with stalks
bearing fruit a hundredfold.
The economic exploitation of the Upper Nile Valley is an example
which ought to be followed by our own colonial administration.
Without a resolute purpose, without capital, and without accurate
knowledge of the country and its resources, even that English or
American company could do nothing. We need all three factors, if we
want to make any progress, whether in Eastern or in South-Western
Africa, in Kamerun or in Togo. There is only one small point of
difference—the alluvial soil of the Nile Valley, accumulated through
many myriads of years needs nothing but irrigation to once more
make it into arable soil of the first quality. The Nile, wisely regulated,
is the magic wand which will, almost instantaneously, change the
desert into a fruitful field. This transforming agency is absent in the
bush and steppes of German East Africa. It is true that that country
possesses numerous streams, but at present their volume of water is
subject to no regulation, and none of them is navigable on the same
imposing scale as the Nile. In the course of years, no doubt, the
Pangani will become an artery of traffic, as also the Rufiji, and
perhaps our frontier stream, the Rovuma; but it will not be within
the lifetime of the present generation.
The soil of German East Africa, too, cannot be compared with that
of Egypt; it is no alluvial deposit, rich in humus, but in general a
tolerably poor one, produced by the weathering of the outcropping
rocks and not to be rendered fertile by moisture alone. Nevertheless,
so far as I am able to judge, the water question remains the cardinal
one in our colonial agriculture. At Saadani they have begun at once
to do things on the grand scale, breaking up large areas with steam-
ploughs, in the hope that wholesale cotton cultivation may put an
end to the American monopoly. So far this is very good; the
temperature is favourable, and the soil quite suitable for such a crop.
One factor only is uncertain: German East Africa, like India, is never
able to reckon on a normal amount of atmospheric moisture—and, if
the rains fail, what then?
The Dark Continent has often been compared to an inverted plate.
The land slopes gently upwards from the sea-shore, the angle of
inclination gradually becoming greater, till we have a bordering
range of mountains of considerable height. But it is only as seen from
the coast that this range can be said to have a mountainous
character; once he has crossed it, the traveller finds that, as on the
heights of the Harz or the Rhenish slate mountains, he is on a plain
almost level with its summit. To carry out the comparison with the
plate, we may say that he has now crossed the narrow ledge at the
bottom, and is now walking over the horizontal surface within that
ledge.
This peculiar conformation has to be taken into account by those
engaged in developing our colonies, i.e., in the first place, it is
responsible for the fact that the rivers are navigable only to a very
slight degree, if at all. In the second place, the greater part of the
rainfall is precipitated on the seaward slope of the range, while its
other side is almost rainless, which accounts for the arid character of
Ugogo and the neighbouring districts. Yet the greater part even of
this interior has a soil on which any crops which can be cultivated at
all in Equatorial Africa are well able to thrive. The planter there is
fortunate in being able to count on the vivifying influence of the
tropical sun, which, throughout the year, conjures flourishing fields
out of the merest sand. In the south I was able, day after day, to
convince myself of the truth of this assertion.
The South has hitherto been the Cinderella of our colonial
districts, and I fear it is likely to remain so. The prejudice as to its
barrenness has deterred both official and private enterprise. It is true
that neither the Mwera Plateau nor the Makonde highlands, nor the
wide plains extending behind these two upland areas, between the
Rovuma in the south and the Mbemkuru or the Rufiji in the north,
can be called fertile. Sand and loam, loam and sand, in the one case,
and quartz detritus in the other, are the dominant note of the whole.
Yet we have absolutely no reason to despair of this country, for if the
native can make a living out of the soil, without manuring and with
none of the appliances of our highly-developed intensive farming—if
this same native is in a position to export an appreciable fraction of
his produce in the shape of sesamum, ground-nuts, rubber, wax,
cereals and pulse—it would surely be strange if the white man could
not make much more out of the same ground.
One thing, indeed, must never be forgotten: neither this district
nor Africa in general is a pays de Cocagne where roast pigeons will
fly of their own accord into people’s mouths; work, unceasing,
strenuous work, is just as much an indispensable condition of
progress as in less happy climates. We have had sufficient
opportunity to observe and appreciate this persevering industry in
the case of the Makonde, the Yaos, and the Makua. And we may be
sure of one thing, that the European planter, whether in the north or
the south, on the coast or in the interior, will not have a much easier
time than these people. That, however, will do him no harm; on the
contrary, the harder the struggle for existence, the more vigorous has
been the development of a colony throughout the whole course of
human history. The United States of to-day are the standing proof of
this assertion; the South African colonies, now developing in a most
satisfactory manner, speak no less clearly, and other cases in point
might easily be adduced.
The waves are running higher, the König having more breadth of
beam than depth, does not roll, but cannot help shipping more seas
than she would like. Ought I, in face of this grand spectacle, to let
myself be absorbed in useless forecasts of the future? My friend
Hiram Rhodes’s taunt about “political childhood” was cruel—yet
there was some truth in it, and not as regards the Zanzibar treaty
only. We Germans have begun colonizing three hundred years later
than other nations, and yet Dick, Tom and Harry are raising an
outcry because our colonies, acquired fully twenty years ago, do not
yet produce a surplus. The honest fellows think that “South-West”
alone ought to be in a position to relieve them from the necessity of
paying any taxes whatever. One could tear one’s hair at such folly
and such utter lack of the historic sense. Most books are printed in
Germany—none are bought, and but few read there. Among these
few we can scarcely include any works on colonial history, otherwise
it would be impossible that even colonial experts should know so
little of those thousand conflicts, difficulties and reverses
experienced to their cost by the English in India, in the South Seas,
in Africa, and in America, and which over and over again might well
have disgusted the Dutch, the Spaniards, and the Portuguese with
their extensive colonial possessions. Unconsciously influenced by the
wealth of England and the affluence of Holland, both in great part
arising from their foreign possessions, we are apt to forget that three
centuries are a period fifteen times as long as our own colonial era,
and that at least ten generations of English and Dutch have won by
hard, unceasing work what we expect to receive without effort on our
part. I am firmly convinced that we shall never learn to appreciate
our really splendid possessions till a more thorough system of
instruction has supplied the want above referred to—doubly
inexcusable in a nation whose intellectual pre-eminence is
everywhere acknowledged.
Such historic sense is to be gained by putting two kinds of capital
into the colonies—the blood shed for their preservation and
development, and the hard cash spent on the utilization of their
resources.
To illustrate the extent of the British Colonial Empire and its
distribution throughout the world, it is often pointed out that the
mother country is seldom without a colonial war of some kind. This
is true in the present, and it has also been true in the past: England
has in fact always had to fight for her dominions beyond sea.
Undoubtedly, this three hundred years’ struggle for possession,
which, under her special circumstances has often been for England a
struggle for existence, is the principal ground for the peculiarly close
and intimate relation between the mother country and the daughter
states. Hardly a family but has dear ones buried in Indian or African
soil. This fact at first attaches to the country a painful interest, which
very soon gives rise to an interest of another sort. The truth of this
doctrine has been illustrated in the saddest way for us by the
sanguinary war in South Western Africa.
The other kind of capital—the monetary—cannot be discussed in
the case of our colonies without touching on the railway question.
What complaints have been made of the invincible reluctance of
German capitalists to engage in colonial undertakings! I am not
myself a wealthy man, but, if I had a million to lose, I should
nevertheless hesitate before investing it in a country without means
of communication, being entirely devoid of natural ones, while
artificial ones are as yet only in the elementary stage. At home, every
one is now expecting great things from the new driver of our colonial
chariot. Herr Dernburg is a trained financier, and he, perhaps, can
succeed where others have failed—in the completion of the great
railway system projected long ago, and in procuring the no less
necessary financial resources.
Lastly, the native is not without an important bearing on the future
of our East African colony. As an ethnographer, I am in a better
position to form an opinion about him than with respect to other
questions, in which the outsider like myself has only common sense
to guide him. The black man is pronounced by some, “an untrained
child;” by others, “utterly depraved and incurably lazy.” There is yet a
third party who are inclined to leave him at least one or two small
virtues, but these are steadily shouted down. It is true that the native
population of the Coast towns have a horror of any serious work, and
look down on it as a lowering of themselves; but I think we may be
permitted to entertain a better opinion as to the great mass of the
people in German East Africa. The most numerous tribe in the whole
colony are the Wanyamwezi, who are estimated at about four million
souls, and occupy the whole central area east of the Great Rift Valley.
No one has yet ventured to doubt their industry or their capacity for
progress; they are excellent agriculturists, and at the same time they
were, for a whole century, the mainstay of the caravan trade between
the coast and the heart of the continent. Before long this traffic must
in the nature of things cease, but we have no right to suppose that the
Wanyamwezi will therefore become superfluous. A glance over the
reports of the Uganda Railway will show us how fortunate we are in
possessing such an element in the social structure as this vigorous
tribe. Let us then be wise enough to encourage and develop this
economic force for the native’s own benefit, and above all to get the
full advantage of it ourselves. What is true of the Wanyamwezi is also
true of many other tribes. Even now, I cannot forget the impression
made on me by the high average of the farming which I saw among
my friends in the Rovuma Valley. People who, however often they
have been displaced, still cling so firmly to the soil, must certainly
have great potentialities for good, or all the teachings of racial
psychology and history are falsified. This unexpectedly high stage of
culture can only be explained by an evolution extending over a
period of incalculable length. There is nothing to disprove the great
antiquity of agriculture among the Bantu; they are conservative, as
their continent is conservative; the few alien elements still in the
economic stage of the collector and hunter—the Bushmen in the
most arid parts of the south, and the Pygmies in the most
inaccessible forests of Central and West Africa—must have been
crowded out by them many centuries ago.
The farming of our natives is done entirely with the hoe—that
implement-of-all-work, with the heavy transverse blade which serves
alike for breaking up and cleaning the ground, for sowing the crops,
and, to a certain extent, for reaping them. We are too much inclined
to think of this mode of cultivation as something primitive and
inferior, and, in fact, in so far as it dispenses with domestic animals,
whether for work or for the supply of manure, it is really very far
behindhand. But we must also take into account that some parts of
our colonies are infested with the tsetse-fly, and that the system of
cultivating narrow strips of ground entirely with the hoe really marks
a very high stage of farming. The best proof of this is the retention of
the narrow bed in our gardens, where the cultivation can scarcely be
said to be of a more elementary description than that of our fields. It
is significant, too, that for the more intensive forms of culture when
carried on in the open fields, e.g., flower-growing, as near Erfurt,
Quedlinburg, Haarlem, etc., and market-gardening as in the
neighbourhood of Brunswick, Hanover, Mainz, and other large
towns, the long, narrow bed is most in favour. Moreover, it is
difficult to see how the native could cope with the weeds—the
principal danger to his crops—were it not that his narrow beds are
easily reached from all sides.
 The native mode of agriculture, therefore, need not be interfered
with: it has been tested and found excellent.
Another question is, how shall we, on this basis, make our black
fellow-subjects useful to ourselves? In my opinion, there are two
ways, as to both of which the pros and cons are about equal. Both
have been in operation for some time, so that we have a standard to
guide us in forecasting the ultimate development of the whole
colony. In the one, the native is not encouraged to advance in his
own home and on his own holding, but is trained as a labourer on the
plantation of a European master—plantations being laid out
wherever suitable soil and tolerable climate promise a good return
for outlay. The other method has the progress of the native himself in
view, and aims at increasing his economic productivity by
multiplying and improving the crops grown by him on his own
account, teaching him new wants and at the same time increasing his
purchasing power. In this way it is hoped that he will exchange his
exports for ours.
The future must show whether the German people will decide for
one of these ways to the exclusion of the other, or whether, as
heretofore, both will be retained. For the mother country their value
is about equal and depends on the degree of activity shown in
colonial affairs as a whole. But the second is decidedly to the
advantage of the native himself. As a plantation labourer he is and
remains a mshenzi; as a peasant proprietor he is able to advance. At
the same time we must not forget that our colonies were founded in
the expectation of providing homes for our surplus population, and
that if the native is to claim the most fertile parts of his own country
for himself, nothing can come of that ver sacrum. It also depends on
the general direction of our policy whether the numerical increase
and physical improvement of the native are to our interest or not.
Some primitive peoples have almost or entirely disappeared under
the influence of civilization; the Tasmanians belong to history; the
Maoris of New Zealand and the Kanakas of Hawaii are rapidly
diminishing, and we have lately heard of the last Vedda in Ceylon.
The negro race does not belong to these candidates for extinction; on
the contrary, wherever it has come in contact with the white, it has
grown stronger in every respect; there is therefore no fear of its dying
out. But shall we go further and, by artificial selection, deliberately
raise their coefficient of multiplication? Certainly we ought to do so,
for a numerous resident population is under all circumstances a
benefit to us. It solves the labour problem for the planter, and, on the
other hand, the European manufacturer and merchant will, of
course, prefer a large number of customers to a small one. How is
this improvement to be initiated? I have nothing further to add to the
remarks which, à propos of the various diseases and other scourges
of this continent, occur in the preceding pages.
In Europe some people are stupid, others of moderate capacity,
and yet others decidedly clever. The huge lip-ornaments of the
Makonde and Makua women sometimes produce the impression of a
simian type of face, and small boys occasionally suggest by their
features a not remote kinship with the missing link, but this exhausts
the list of excuses I could have alleged for looking down from a
superior height on the people in question. In all the months spent
among the natives of the Rovuma Valley, I never discovered any
reason why we should, as we are so fond of doing, associate the idea
of absurdity with the African. On the contrary, the behaviour, not
only of the elders, but of the liveliest of the young people in their
intercourse with Knudsen and myself, was characterized by a quiet
dignity which might well have served as an example to many a
European of similar social position. My personal experiences will not
allow me to believe in the dogma of the negro’s incapacity for
development. It cannot be denied that he has achieved a certain
intellectual progress, even in North America, though the obstacles
there are greater than the facilities. Why, therefore, should he not
rise, as soon as the opportunity is offered to him in such a way that
he can take advantage of it? Only we must not expect this advance to
take place overnight, any more than we can expect a rapidity of
economic progress at variance with every law of historical
probability.
It is now quite dark; the boat must have changed her course, for
the gale no longer meets us in front, but comes from the port side, so
that no doubt we are approaching Crete. To-morrow, or the day after,
we shall pass the coast of Greece. I must confess that I am looking
forward to a sight of this country, though I do not regard its classic
age with the same unbounded and uncritical enthusiasm as many of
our countrymen, to whom the ancient Greek is the embodiment of all
historical and cultural virtues. One thing only even the blackest envy
cannot deny to the Hellenes of old—a courage in colonial enterprise
which we should do well to imitate both now and in the future.
This future is still shrouded in mystery. Will our East African
colony become a second India? I do not doubt for a moment that it
will, and my mind’s eye sees the whole country traversed by railway
lines. One of these follows the old caravan road from the coast to
Tanganyika. The iron horse has superseded the old carrier-transport,
and the clattering train now bears the carriers themselves, as well as
bulky goods which could never have been put on the market under
the old system. One line runs to the Victoria Nyanza and another to
distant Nyasa; we are able to link up with the British network of
railways in South Africa, with the communications of the Congo
State, with the Nile Valley. Thirty years ago Stanley’s march to the
Lake Region and his boat-voyage down the Congo were epoch-
making achievements. We of to-day may perhaps live to make the
trip by train de luxe from the Cape to Cairo, and from Dar es Salam
to Kamerun.
 INDEX

Abdallah bin Malim, Wali of Mahuta, 352 et seq.;

his noisy devotions, 399–400
Achmed bar Shemba, song by, 31
Adams, Pater, on the Makonde, 259–60
African continent, conformation of in relation to Colonization, 415
race, original home, question of, 12
African Fund, the, 9, 10
Age-classes, 304
Akundonde, Yao chief, information from, 140, 184
settlement of, 212,
visit to, 213 et seq.
Alum, as water-clarifier, 153–4
Ancestor-worship, 326
Antelope-hunting, 200–1
Anthropology, difficulties of, in G.E. Africa, 53
Artistic aptitudes of Natives (see also Drawings), 36
Asiatic origin of African races, discussed, 12, 13
Assuan dam, the, lessons from for Germany, 413–5
Astronomical beliefs and customs, Yao, 184–5
Atlantic Ocean, historical density, 6
Axes, etc., bewitched, 210–12
Babies, see Children & Infants
Bagamoyo roadstead, 2
Bakeri of Zanzibar, 140, 142–3
Bangala river, Camp at mouth of, 208
Bantu imitation of the Masai, 118
origin, tribes of, 12, 53, 139
Baraza, the, 65,
described, 135
Bards, 170, 175
Bark-cloth, ceremonial uses of, 276–7, 313
manufacture of, 274 et seq.
Barnabas as artist, 367–8
Birth customs
Makonde, 281, 283
Yao (as to twins), 283
Black race, distribution of, explanation of, 13
Boots, question of, 71
Bornhardt on the geology of German East Africa, 66, 67–8
Botanical features (see also Bush), Masasi region, 69
Bows and arrows, 74
methods of using, 75–6
as toys, 285
Boys’ initiation ceremonies, see Lupanda, and Unyago
Brass-founding, native, 267–70
British Colonial Empire, comments on, 417
Burial customs,
Makua, 132
Yao, 194 & note
Bush and Scrub vegetation, 51, 52, 60
Bush-burning, 58–61, 255, 257
Bwalo, the, 231 & note

Calico, as dower, 306

over graves, 194, 214
Camp life, 83–4
sleeping discomforts, 119, 163, 164
Cape Banura, 24, 25
Guardafui, 14, 15
“Cape rubies,” 209, 210
Carnon, Archdeacon of Masasi, 45
hospitality of, 74
Carriers, see also Wanyamwezi,
difficulties with, 393
paying off of, and farewell to, 393–4, 400, 405–7
Cattle, Matola’s, 138,
stampede by, 164
Central Lukuledi Valley, lions in, 245
Chain-gangs, 28, 44,
native drawing of, 371
Charms (Dawa), 129;
used in Majimaji rebellion, 51
“Cherchez la femme!” 397–9
Child-life, native, G.E. Africa, 157–8 & note, 284 et seq.
Children, native, characteristics of, and aspect, 148
Chingulungulu, author’s stay at, 104 et seq.
description of, 134 et seq.
diseases noted at, 192
meaning of name, 104 note
native amusements at, 169
characteristics, 106
route to, from Mkululu, 126–7
water-supply at, 150–2