WI Afro-American Linguistic Diversity

So wasn't exactly sure what to call this but like many good ideas this came to me in the shower (no idea how my thoughts drifted to this). What if the various slave diasporas in the U.S maintained their respective languages and to a greater extent cultures. For example a cluster of counties in say Florida is known for be mostly Mandinka or other next to it could be famous for their Fula populations. In short you have various clusters of West African nations across the United States.
What does everyone else reckon about this idea? Do you think each of the states could end up having their own or multiple creoles being used instead of a handful like we have today like Gullah and AAVE?
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
The language used in slave colonies seems to have been decided more by the system of social relations, principally the ratio of black to white people in the colony, whether there was widespread plantation agriculture and the degree of social contact between black and white people. For example, southern Louisiana developed a French creole language due to its plantation economy and its high slave population, whereas New York and New Jersey Negerhollands seems to have been only slightly different from what was spoken by white Dutch speakers, as most slaves were resident in white households. The next factor in deciding the "depth" of the creole is social isolation over time, for example Gullah survived on the Sea Islands due to their long term isolation where as the creoles of the Virgin Islands are now in the later stages of what is called the "post-creole continuum" due to greater contact with other varieties. In extreme cases it is now difficult to tell whether a language was ever a creole, some people argue that AAVE was never a creole, for example, but I feel this is an oversimplification.

In short, I don't think the origins of slaves is a big factor in depth of creole, unless they are transferred from an already creole speaking area. However, there is scope for the survival of African languages in the Americas, the Koromantee level of the Maroon spirit language is based on Ashanti, and Ashanti itself probably only died out in Jamaican maroon communities in the late 19th century. Additionally, multi-racial groups speaking Native-American languages, like the Garifuna and the Seminoles are possible.

However, you need to ensure unity of origin for slaves to have African language survival, or at least predominance.
 
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