The ODAAE

Underway, the Oxford Dictionary of African American English. From Henry Louis Gates Jr., the editor-in-chief:

Every speaker of American English borrows heavily from words invented by African Americans, whether they know it or not. Words with African origins such as ‘goober,’ ‘gumbo’ and ‘okra’ survived the Middle Passage along with our African ancestors. And words that we take for granted today, such as ‘cool’ and ‘crib,’ ‘hokum’ and ‘diss,’ ‘hip’ and ‘hep,’ ‘bad,’ meaning ‘good,’ and ‘dig,’ meaning ‘to understand’ — these are just a tiny fraction of the words that have come into American English from African American speakers, neologisms that emerged out of the Black Experience in this country, over the last few hundred years.

To appear in 2025.

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