Latest revision-September 28, 2019, 10:17 AM
This pancocojams post presents information about the African concept of the power of the spoken word and information and examples of the 1980s [now retired] African American Vernacular English terms "Word is bond", "Word!", and "Word up!"
The content of this post is presented for linguistics and cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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INFORMATION ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF NOMMO
The full article and excerpts that are found below are given in no particular order. Numbers are added for referencing purposes only.
Full Article #1*:
From https://www.culturesofwestafrica.com/power-of-words/ The Power of Words, Daybo, 15 April 2018
The ‘word’ in West African cultures, once loosened from the lips as if drawing back the strings of a talisman pouch, diffuses a special force, the primal energy of creation itself.
To speak is to exhale an active essence, Oro according to the Yoruba of Nigeria and Benin. For the Mande — ranging from coastal rainforests to the sparse Sahel and Sahara — the spoken word embodies the occult, generative, productive power of Nyama.
With the talismanic power not only to protect but to alter the course of events, the word alone, by its very utterance, can cause change. Nommo, the conception that life, its very actualization, rests ultimately on the word, reverberates throughout West Africa; the ancient, residual echo of the Bantu who once lived there. Among the Tiv in Northern Nigeria the concept of vital force is known as tsav; and among the Fon of Benin it is se, both of which refer to ‘’the power to cause to happen.’’
The African child until publicly named, the incantation until given voice, the art or the craft until accompanied by speech is not truly “brought forth” to take its place in the natural world. It is what is explicit, what is said, that is powerful, prolific, procreant.
The generative and dynamic power of Nommo is given full breath and breadth, in the art of dialogue and conversation, so iconic of the African continent.
“Speech is not in people’s hands. People are in the hands of speech”
—Mande proverb
The sharing of words, the vitality of conversation and dialogue — the very emanation of the productive power of Nommo, Oro, Nyama to bring into being, illuminate, affirm, heal, rectify, and to change the world — is deeply intrinsic to the indigenous cultures of Africa. Discussion is “alive”, a breathing, vibrant, ongoing interaction that animates all levels of African society. “He who tells people what he does never suffers mishap” (Igbo proverb) and likewise, “Anyone who seeks public opinion does not enter into trouble” (Gokana proverb).
“From old mouths to new ears”
— Fula proverb
[inserted: Painting of two abstract figures talking.
Painting by Cecil Skotnes.]
If words are a measure of man, then nowhere are they given more value than when spoken by an elder, the repository of communal wisdom. An elder leads with words, as a bow guides an arrow, and for he who listens, according to the Igbo, it is as if he had consulted an oracle. Among the Efik, “The words of one’s elders are greater than amulets”. It is from a ‘Togu Na’ (house of words) somewhere along the Bandiagara Escarpement in central Mali, that a Dogon elder’s verbs respire; the vaporous breath of the amphibious ancestral spirits (also named Nommo) that give wisdom and order to the world.
Wise and nommo-infused words in traditionally oral societies, such as those in West Africa, must be continually re-called, re-created, re-interpreted. And so they are, through the rich and resilient traditions of story-telling, myth-making, proverb-creating, praise-singing, so prevalent and exemplary in these cultures.
“The word is the horse on which proverbs ride”
— Yoruba proverb
The collective wisdom of a people, the manner in which it perceives the human condition, the codes, values, and interrelationships that bestow its identity, are given voice by the panoply of words, adages and tales that it creates. Proverbs and stories are the horsemen, the escorts, the messengers of culture, traversing generations and the boundaries of time.
“It is the story … that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence. The story is our escort; without it, we are blind”.
— Chinua Achebe
Orature, whether dispersed by the Akan folk spirit of all knowledge of stories, Anansi, or transmitted musically by the traditional griots of West Africa, is dynamic. Unbound by the pen, words, proverbs, tales and then histories are in themselves living, ongoing dialogues … “in which the present seeks to find its roots in what is remembered, or invented, of the past”.
When West Africa exhales, magic emerges."
-snip-
I've presented this complete article except for drawings and reference citations.
Pancocojams Editor's Note:
Click https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nommo for information about the Nommo in Dogon (West Africa) cosmology/ mythology. I think that the Dogons are the source of the word Nommo as used by African American afrocentric professor Molefi Asante. If I'm incorrect about this, please correct this statement. Thanks.
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Article Excerpt #1
From Nommo: Self-Naming and Self-Definition - University of Missouri
web.missouri.edu
"Nommo, then, an African term which cultural theorist, Molefi Asante, calls "the generative and productive power of the spoken word," means the proper naming of a thing which in turn gives it essence (Asante 17). Particularizing the concept, Nommo, in the power of the word . . . activates all forces from their frozen state in a manner that establishes concreteness of experience . . . be they glad or sad, work or play, pleasure or pain, in a way that preserves [one's] humanity" (Harrison xx)."...
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Article Excerpt #2
From https://www.soulpreaching.com/nommo-creative-power-of-the-word Soul Preaching: Nommo, the creative power of the word by Sherman Haywood Cox II, no date given, retrieved on September 27, 2019
.... "Definition of Nommo
Nommo is an Afrocentric term employed by Molefi Asante that refers to the powers of the word to generate and create reality. Asante further sees it as a communal that event that moves towards the creation and maintenance of the community. Melbourne S. Cummings and Abhik Roy quote Asante as also seeing Nommo as the power of the word to create harmony and balance in disharmony.
Keys for Preachers
Nommo is holistic and not dualistic. It seeks to use the power of language to overstep dualities. Cummings and Abhik Roy referred to this idea being in the concept of rhythm.
Nommo points to the power of language to change reality. This idea is implicit in certain preachers that are called “transformational.” This is implied in the definition that says that Nommo is the creative power of the word.
Nommo points to the inability to separate form from truth. While some would say that you have truth and you drape it in words, especially some traditional preachers, Nommo comes from the perspective that words cannot be separated from form and that the form itself holds some truth.
Nommo points to the importance of speaking to a community rather than to individuals. The whole point of Nommo, as described above, is to build community. This is done through a communal experience with the spoken word.
Nommo points to a “participation” of the community in the word rather than just being passive listeners. The goal of Nommo is to bring about a unified community who are at one with the word that comes through repetition and in a form that is easily entered."
-snip-
Read #9 in the "Online Excerpts" section below for another comment about "Nommo".
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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE ABOUT "WORD!" AND RELATED AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR TERMS
"Word as bond", "Word!", and "Word Up!" have been retired from colloquial use in the United States since at least the late 1990s. However, as demonstrated in a section of this post, these terms may still be used to convey an old school flavor to one's speech.
A version of this post was published on pancocojams in January 2019 as Part I of a two part series. Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/01/online-excerpts-about-african-american.html for that post.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/01/cameos-1986-hit-record-word-up.html for Part II of this series. Part II showcases Cameo's 1986 Funk and Rock & Roll song "Word Up!".
Also click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/01/early-1960s-birds-word-record-by.html for a pancocojams post on the 1963 song "The Bird's The Word "and its 1963 cover "Surfin Bird" by The Trashmen. In those songs "the word" means "the best", and/or "cool" ("hip"). Those meanings are different from the later African American vernacular usages of "the word", "word up" etc.
I revisited this subject as a result of reading excerpts of a book on African oral traditions. That book is showcased in this September 2019 pancocojams post entitled "Excerpts From "Oral Literature In Africa" Book By Ruth Finnegan (Part I) https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/09/excerpts-from-oral-literature-in-africa.html.
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ONLINE EXCERPTS ABOUT "WORD AS BOND", "WORD", AND "WORD UP"
These online excerpts are given in no particular order, with numbers added for referencing purpose only.
I. From https://www.quora.com/When-someone-says-word-in-reply-what-does-it-mean
1. Trevor Paul Turner, Answered Apr 18, 2015...
"It means: yes, or I agree, or you've said something that appeals to me. It evolved from "word to your mother" which meant honestly: I swear to your mother it is true... Then evolved to "word up" which was a generic catch all positive reply to many types of questions or positive affirmations. it is a bit of old school that has kind of hung on probably because is sounds so street to say instead of "yes"."
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2. Ila Sajoir, Answered Jul 14, 2017...
"The phrase “word “comes from a few phrases the first being“word is bond”.. it means your word is your bond so anything you say you are bonded to. Its an old black american slang. Many old rappers used it in the 80s or 90s in their lyrics. If somebody said “word is bond” at the begining or ending of a phrase it means they mean 100 percent what they are saying and they are not lying or joking.
[Example]:….Did he really say that I dont believe it….- “word is bond. he yelled it in the street everybody heard it”. .. it kind of has the same meaning as “ I swear”..[ex2] are you really coming tomorrow I cannot wait all day if you are not coming, are you really coming{person2}. “word is bond”.
It then changed to other forms like word up, or word to the mother..( I swear to my mother) . And even just WORD.
“Word up that movie sucked.. same meaning as I swear that movie sucked. . .
It then came to also mean I agree. If two people swear on the same topic they normally agree..{example}you are in a group and somebody asks the group.. I heard that movie sucked is that true—[two people together ] “word”
So if your text was..” that was the best movie I seen all year”..
If the person says .”word.”. it means they agree..
or they give their word what they said before was true"...
-snip-
This comment is given as it was found in that discussion, except for the eclipses (...) at the end.
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II.
From https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/25086/what-are-the-meaning-and-possible-origin-of-word-and-word-up
1. Wulfhart, asked May 12 '11 at 17:37
"Several times, I have had conversations, all over instant messenger, finish with "word" or "Word up G".
As it ends a conversation, I am guessing it is like "goodbye".
My question is what is the meaning of "word" and "word up g"? Also, what is the origin?
I am more interested in the meaning as that will help with understanding its usage."
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2. Wulfhart May 13 '11
"I ended up asking the guy, he said it meant, "I agree". Thank you"
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3. phenry, answered May 12 '111
"Both are generally used to mean "I agree." The terms are from late 1980s hip-hop slang. As Ed Guiness notes, popular usage probably originated with the single Word Up! by Cameo."
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4. 5arx Jul 19 '12 at 23:17
"The expression was in common use loooong before that Cameo single."
-snip-
phenry would be correct if he or she had written that Cameo's record probably raised awareness of and increased the usage in the United States of the already existing African American Vernacular English use of "Word Up".
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9. Callithumpian, May 12 '11
"In his 2006 Roc the Mic Right: The Language of Hip Hop Culture, H. Samy Alim quotes Geneva Smitherman on this use of word:
The African American oral tradition is rooted in a belief in the power of the Word. The African concept of Nommo, the Word, is believed to be the force of life itelf.[sic] To speak is to make something come into being. Once something is given the force of speech, it is binding—hence the familiar saying "Yo word is yo bond," which in today's Hip Hop Culture has become WORD IS BORN. The Hip Hop expressions WORD, WORD UP, WORD TO THE MOTHER, and similar phrases all stem from the value placed on speech. Creative, highly verbal talkers are valued.
And the concept of someone's word being their bond is as old as dirt (or at least dates back to Shakespeare's time)"
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10. cobra libre Mar 7 '15
"See also Felicia M. Miyakawa, Five Percenter Rap: God Hop's Music, Message, and Black Muslim Mission, 2005: "... the affirmations 'word' and 'word is bond,' common to hip-hop argot of the 1980s and 1990s, derive from Five Percenter lessons."
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11. Dictionary treatments of 'word' and 'word up,' 1994–2005 [Note: This excerpt is from that same etymology discussion thread.]
Geneva Smitherman, Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner (1994) has two relevant entries, for word/word up and word is born:
WORD!/WORD UP! A response of affirmation. Also Word to the Mother! Word Up is also the title of a music magazine published in New Jersey. [Cross reference omitted.]
WORD IS BORN! An affirmative response to a statement or action. Also Word!, Word up!, Word to the Mother! A resurfacing of an old familiar saying in the Black Oral Tradition, "Yo word is yo bond," which was popularized by the FIVE PERCENT NATION [formed in 1964] in its early years. Word is born! reaffirms strong belief in the power of the word, and thus the value of verbal commitment. One's word is the guarantee, the warranty, the bond, that whatever was promised will actually occur. Born is a result of the A[frican] A[mrican] E[nglish] pronunciation of "bond"; [cross reference omitted].
Smitherman also has this entry for G:
G 1) A form of address for a male, usually one who is HIP or DOWN. Probably the AAE version of "guy." Also man (older term); money (newer term). 2) A woman a man has a relationship with.
I should note that Smitherman offers this reading of G while fully aware of the term OG, which has this entry in her book:
OG Original Gangster; a gang member who has earned PROPS because of his bold actions.
Clarence Major, Juba to Jive: A Dictionary of African American Slang (1994) has these entries:
Word interj. (1950s–1990s) affirmation spoken in agreement; the truth; street culture gospel. (T[erry] W[illiams], [The] C[ocaine] K[ids: The Inside Story of a Teenage Drug Ring (1989)], p. 138.) Example: "Word! I was there, I aw it with my own eyes." S[outhern] C[ity] U[se], P[imp and] P[rostitute] U[se], Y[outh] C[ulture] U[se], D[rug] C[ulture] U[se].
Word up! interj. (1980s–1990s) call for attention; used as an exression of one's word of honor. (W[illiam] K[.] B[entley and] J[ames] M[.] C[orbett], P[rison] S[lang: Words and Expressions Depicting Life Behind Bars (1992)], p.51.) Example: "Word up, the cops are down there right now busting Rickie." S[outhern] C[ity] U[se].
Major does not have an entry for G in the sense of "guy," although he does include entries for G as a noun meaning "a thousand dollars" (from the 1940s–1950s) and as a verb meaning "to have sexual intercourse with" (1990s). Major's entry for O.G. notes only its meaning (from the period 1900s–1950s) "Old Girl; mother." Smitherman dates "yo word is yo bond" to 1964, and Major dates "word" (as affirmation) to the 1950s. Nevertheless, Major's earlier Dictionary of Afro-American Slang (1970) has no entry for any form of word.
It's interesting that, publishing in the same year (1994), Professor Smitherman of Michigan State sees "Word" and "Word up" (and "Word is born") as essentially interchangeable expressions of agreement, while Professor Major of the University of California at Davis, sees "Word" as an expression of agreement but "Word up" as, in the first instance, a call for attention, and, in the second, an attestation along the lines of "I swear."
This inconstancy underscores an essential problem with defining slang words: Since they don't show up in popular use neatly predefined, they are subject to multiple interpretations by the people who hear and adopt them; as a result, it is not at all unlikely that a term may mean one thing in one locale and another in another. This phenomenon might serve as a caution to authors not to assume that a slang term's usage across a diverse but definable group (such as "African Americans") is settled and uniform—especially in its early years of propagation.
Robert Chapman & Barbara Kipfer, Dictionary of American Slang, third edition (1995) offers these relevant entries:
word 1 interj 1980s black teenagers An exclamation of agreement and appreciation, used when someone has said something important or profound: If it's really meaningful, "Word, man, word" should be used—["City Teen-Agers Talking Up a 'Say What?' Storm"] New York Times [(August 29, 1983)] 2 interj =WORD UP
word up interj 1980s black An exhortation to listen, to pay attention: Word up, fool. We be fresh tonight.—Carsten Stroud [Close Pursuit (1987)] {probably based on listen up}
Chapman & Kipfer cites instances from the 1980s that corroborate Major's claim that "word" and "word up" had different senses in at least some parts of the United States. Nevertheless, ten years later, Jeremy Sideris & Brittany McWilliams, From Grill to Dome: A Dictionary of African American Slang Words and Phrases (2005) indicates that the Smitherman view (that the terms "word" and "word up" have essentially the same meaning) has prevailed in the broader marketplace of African American English speech:
Word: Statement of agreement. See also booyah, down, fo' shizzle my nizzle, fo' zizzle my nizzle, really though, true dat, and word-up.
Word-up: Strong statement of agreement. See also booyah, down, fo' shizzle my nizzle, fo' zizzle my nizzle, really though, true dat, and word.
According to Sideris & McWilliams, the only difference between the two words is in the degree of strength implied in the statement of agreement.
A note on 'word is bond'
With regard to Smitherman's comment that "yo word is yo bond" is "an old familiar saying in the Black Oral Tradition," that familiarity may be due to the fact that the same essential idea has been a proverb in English since at least 1500."...
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EXAMPLES OF THE TERM "WORD" OR "WORD UP" FROM A YOUTUBE DISCUSSION THREAD FOR THE HIP HOP RECORD "THE SHOW" BY DOUG E. FRESH & SLICK RICK [Added September 27, 2019]
Pancocojams Editor: These comments are examples of the contemporary use of the terms "word" or "word up" that were used in a contemporary YouTube discussion thread. Equivalent meanings for those words are "That's right."; "I agree with everything you just said."
Note that African Americans have retired the vernacular terms "word"/"word up" (and other "word" phrases) have been retired from contemporary use. However, the commenters may have used those vernacular phrases as a way of honoring their use in the lyrics for the 1985 record "The Show"* and/or the commenters may be mimicking the vernacular terms that they or others used in the mid 1980s. Also notice the terms such as "Damn straight", "Amen", "true that", and "Ikr" that are used in these comment exchanges. I believe those contemporary (2019) terms have equivalent meanings to the 1980s retired vernacular terms "word" and "word up".
*Lines from "The Show":
"[Slick Rick]
Well, here's a little something that needs to be heard
Doug, I was going downtown (word, Rick?) Word!"
From http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-show-lyrics-doug-e-fresh.html http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-show-lyrics-doug-e-fresh.html
Numbers are added to these comments for referencing purposes.
Comments From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDkqz5C62SM
1. david starr, 2018
"Old school rap is way better than today's wack rap beats."
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REPLY
2. David Fullam, 2018
"AMEN!!!"
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REPLY
3. Phil Duclos, 2019
"You damn right! Amen!"
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REPLY
4. Oddysea Cat, 2019
"Shhh nobody needs 90’s people bashing our music ;-;
(Ps your only listening to the mainstream rappers there are better ones)"
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REPLY
5. VINNY VIN, 2019
"Damn straight💯"
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REPLY
6. Dino Yamraj, 2019
"Wurd!!!!
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7. Aisha Bailey, 2018
"Original hip hop anthem"
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REPLY
8. gradymorrrowjr37, 2018
"Ikr"
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ikr= I know right ["I know right" is a shortened form of "I know that's right".]
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REPLY
9. EnSabahNur, 2018
"That's word Sista!"
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REPLY
10. David Giezyng, 2018
"Word"
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11. chessdrummer, 2018
"Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" 1980 was another anthem. It was the first one to go big."
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REPLY
12. Paul Almodovar, 2018
"@chessdrummer sugarhill gang were posers...grandmaster Cas wrote the whole rhyme"
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REPLY
13. David Giezyng, 2019
"Word"
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14. Donald Pace, 2019
"I remember this from the inception word up"
-snip-
This comment was written in response to the question "Who remembered Doug E Fresh's & Slick Rick's "The Show" from when the record first was released of when it was included in the movie New Jack City.
"True that" is another African American Vernacular English phrase with the same meaning as "Word" that was used by one commenter in that same discussion thread. "True that" (also given as "true dat" means "That's true".
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