Lumbee English often goes deeper than simple labels.
Many words help to define a sense of community.
A "Lum."
That's just lingo, that's just belonging.
When you say you're a Lum, that's identity.
We were off at Chapel Hill the other Sunday for Oleana's graduation and they referred
to the alumni as alums.
I said, "How about that!
We're all alums!"
If you maintain your communities ties and stuff, if it's just coming home at Christmas
and for mother's day and Lumbee homecoming, stuff like that.
It's got to be some.
Some kind of way.
This Heather Locklear thing, Heather Locklear ain't no Lum, I don't care what nobody says.
I don't care if her grandaddy or great grandaddy or whatever it was came from here.
She's never lived as a Lum, she's never been involved in this community, she's never certainly
had to experience the things that are just going to be part of your life experience if
you're a Lum and you live in Robeson County.
So it's hard for me to see somebody like that as a Lum.
To me, it's got to be, you just gotta be a part of this community.
Even if it is from a distance.
So I guess what I'm saying is you gotta have the genetics and the culture.
An important part of the Lumbee accent is in the pronunciation, which is mostly Southern
with a few distinct vowel differences.
Like the vowel in word "side" or "ride."
Other language variations are found in Lumbee grammar, like the use of "bes" where other
dialects use "am," "is," and "are."
Another difference is the use of "I'm" where other dialects use "I have."
Lumbee speakers sometimes use "weren't" where other English speakers use "wasn't."
But Lumbee dialect is more than words and sounds.
It is a combination of verbal and non-verbal presentation that makes it an extension and
expression of Lumbee culture.
I would say that the larger percentage of the time, you can tell a Lumbee by their speech.
By certain words they use or pronunciations or just the style and tone of the conversation.
When you spot each other you kinda look, "Well, it looks like a Lum over there."
And then when they say something, you know.
You just know.
There's going to be something, even if it's not the sound itself, it's going to be an expression.
One of the most refreshing things happened when I went to the university and I had an
English teacher and she said, one of the first few sessions we had in class, she said that the
English or the words that you used, if it's used to communicate and if it communicates
with people, it's just as right, just as proper in that context as the proper English that
you would expect in Washington D.C.
But she said that the difference was was knowing when to use what kind of English.
Since 1887 there's been an attempt to standardize Lumbee English and they haven't been successful.
So there has to be something in terms of it being embedded in the culture, ingrained in
the culture, because you would think of a hundred years of public education that something
would have change, when in fact it hasn't.
Uncle Sam says we speak no native language.
He says we do not live in a "traditional" way.
Therefore, we cannot be Indian.
I say, for centuries, his ancestors made speaking our native language against the law.
Made practicing our traditions punishable by him.
For this reason, many of our languages have died.
Many of our own people know nothing of their culture and history.
But the Indian blood runs thick and strong through our veins.
We are Native Americans.
Indian by birth.