In the Wolof language of West Africa, hipikat means ‘one whose eyes are open’. As the etymon for hepcat meaning someone who is aware, in the know, with it, this makes way more sense than the drill instructor’s “hup two three four.”
There are plenty of other African words that survived into African-American Ebonics, so the idea is certainly plausible. Goober. Gumbo. Okra. Yam. Jazz. Jive. MOJO.
In Wolof, hipi is the verb ‘to open the eyes’ and -kat is the agentive suffix. This makes plenty of sense and would even account for the popularity of “cat” in hipster slang meaning a person. Similar to the Hindustani agentive suffix -vâlâ which in Indo-English slang has become an all-purpose word for a person, equivalent to “guy” or “dude”: wallah.
Jomo I’m sure you’re right that the origin of the word “hep” leading to “hip” didn’t come from the “hup” of the drill instructor. It was in print in 1903 as “hep” meaning “wise” in English.
But I would be curious to know where “jazz” came from in African, leading to the use of “jazz” in the sense of music.
As with “jive”, these words appeared in print in English in the first part of the 20th Century, while much other African-English appeared much earlier in print.
:::going out on a limb with a quick guess, which may prove later to be embarassing:::
This Bill Bryson fellow who seems to have a book discussing etymologies of some English words is more of an entertainer that a linguistic scholar. I guess a trip to Border’s is in the offing this weekend.
In “Bet the Devil Your Head,” Edgar Allen Poe has one character ask another, “are you hipped?”
Therefore I submit this as an earlier written record of the use of hip, comming from opium smokers lying on hip, than those origins cited in your column.
If you have some other reliable source, Jomo, please email me or list it here. I would be happy to investigate.
There is always a difficulty with tracking word origins, since the only record we have is the printed record. And, as noted, slang usage often did not find its way into print until after long, long usage. In our era of revisionist history, it is therefore pretty easy to make all sorts of claims that can’t readily be disproved. My take has always been, the burden of proof rests with the person making the claim; that person needs to prove his/her statement, I don’t need to disprove it.
The link Jomo provides claims that “OK” actually originated in Africa. I can only note that the origin as a joke term from “Oll Korrect” is pretty well documented, and was one of several such terms (including OW for “Oll Wright”). “OK” caught on, and the others didn’t. Any claims for an earlier and different origin need to be proved rather than simply asserted. Note Cecil’s column: What’s the origin of O.K.?
[Edited by C K Dexter Haven on 05-01-2001 at 10:39 PM]
“Hipped” has been around a long time and has had many a meaning. Try these:
ca1710** OED2** the earliest cite. Meaning: "affected with hypochondria or low spirits; dejected; bored, crossed, offended. Cites available well-into the late 19th Century.
OK, can’t resist citing a Dave Frishbeg lyric–“I’m Hip”. It can illuminate the last paragraphs of the staff report in its deathless line: “When it was hip to be hep, I was hep.” --N
Regardless of the etymology of OK, African or not, discussed in that message from the LINGUIST list (which was not the topic in this thread anyway), the case its author made for the Wolof origin of hepcat is the strongest I’ve seen. What else are you looking for? I linked to it because of its African etymologies for other words besides O.K. including hepcat, jive, dig, showing that several African words had survived the Middle Passage into American English.
As for jazz, the Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology says:
At Mojo’s request, I have made minor edits to fix italics.–Dex
[Edited by C K Dexter Haven on 05-06-2001 at 09:36 AM]
I’m inclined to believe it came from hup two three four after hearing Cab Calloway sing “Are you hep, are you hep? Are you keepin’ in step? Are you hep to the jive?” but that could have had more to do with the ryhme involved that with the origin of the word.
Mojo, yangiwakh wolof frere? Eh, ngadef? By the way, I have not forgotten your question, but I had a bit of a tiff with my tutor so I put this on the back burner.
Jomo, and a few other posters ultimately base their assumptions on the works of a D. Dalby, who, in 1972 offered linguistic links to modern words in English which probably/possibly came from African words. Among the words discussed were *jazz, jive, hip/hep, dig *.
While I am not a linguist, I do try to explore sources which seem written by scholars who do such work for a living. One such person is J.E. Lighter, who edited the most recent authoratative work on American slang in print. The work is Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Vol. I/II, ed. by J.E. Lighter. This is a monumental work which brings together all of the works on American slang which have been published in the last 100+ years.
In the case of the four words offered above, jazz, jive, hip/hep, dig Lighter is adamant that there is no credible evidence that these words came into common usage in the US from African origins. Could they have–of course. But the evidence is overwhelmingly against it.
I will quote Lighter on dig here–
And examples of earlier Black English in print in the mid-1800’s are quite plentiful and available-just not on these words.
I have no quarrel with your inclusion of the terms Goober, gumbo, yams, okra. They all pretty certainly came from African words. Notice they are all names of foods. Not slang terms. (Although “goober” came to be used that way later).
And just to lend credibility to Dr. Lighter, he agrees with you about mojo by saying