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From: gjerawlins@watdaisy.UUCP (Gregory J.E. Rawlins)
Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.nlang.africa
Subject: Re: Derivation of O.K.
Message-ID: <7329@watdaisy.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Jun-85 00:17:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdaisy.7329
Posted: Mon Jun 24 00:17:23 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Jun-85 05:19:26 EDT
Reply-To: gjerawlins@watdaisy.UUCP (Gregory J.E. Rawlins)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 54
Xref: watmath net.nlang:3256 net.nlang.africa:62

In article <8694@Glacier.ARPA> dmt@Glacier.ARPA (Mike Thornburg) writes:
>> I just read that the word "Okay" stems from the
>> Wolof word "wawkay", which means "by all means",
>> or "certainly."  The word was brought into American
>> English by slaves brought over from West Africa.
>> Does anybody know more about this?  Does anybody
>> know of any other possible sources of the use
>> of "O.K." in English?
>> 
>> Debra Ansen
>> inhp4!mhuxj!daa
>
>All I know about this comes from the book "Our Marvelous Native Tongue,"
>by Robert Claiborne (Times Books, New York; 1983).  In chapter 9
>(page 205 in my paperback copy) he states:
>
>		Easily the prize Africanism in American English, whence
>	it has passed into a dozen tongues around the world, is our
>	omnipresent "O.K."  For years, lexicographers grappled with this
>[....]

	The problem with words that enter the language orally rather
than through literature is that the etymologist is sometimes
faced with an embarrassment of riches of possible explanations
for how the word entered the language. This particular book (and
this particular word) was reviewed in "Verbatim" - the language
quarterly (vol 11 no 3 winter 1985) by Philip Howard (pg 22) from
which i quote:
"[....] consider the etymology of O.K. I can see that it is more
romantic to suppose that it is a word from the West African
language, Wolof, brought into the southern states of America by
slaves. But to state unequivocally: 'Its [i.e. O.K.'s] source was
unquestionably one of various West African expressions such as
o-ke or waw-ke' is to go too far. The serious historian and
scholar of language should indicate that there is no form of
acceptable documentation to support the wild conjecture. All
probability points to the jocular alteration 'orl korrect' as the
origin."
	I should point out that the review was on the whole positive
in that Mr. Howard thought Mr. Claiborne was "an enthusiast" etc.
but "He is a journalist, not an academic [...]".
	While i agree with Mr. Howard when he says that "[...] to
state unequivocally [....] is to go too far" i find Mr.
Claiborne's explanation quite captivating (the resemblance between
'o-ke' and 'O.K.'seems rather strong and the derivation is
certainly plausible) and so i submit that
even if no "acceptable documentation" (whatever that is) can be
found to support this "wild conjecture" (using an adjective like
that is straight out of Thouless's "Straight and Crooked Thinking"!)
that it be accepted as yet another _possible_ derivation of O.K.
	Greg.
-- 
Gregory J.E. Rawlins, Department of Computer Science, U. Waterloo
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