African American Vernacular English: A Comparative Analysis

Talking Black In America addresses how advanced, unique, and culturally important African American English is (Hutcheson and Cullinan, 2017).

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the variety previously known as Black English Vernacular or Vernacular Black English by sociolinguists, and commonly called Ebonics outside the academic community. However, some characteristics of AAVE are seemingly unique in its structure. It also includes a number of standard and nonstandard English varieties are spoken by the US and the Caribbean people. AAVE has been the core of many public debates and also the analysis of this variety has encouraged and sustained debates amongst sociolinguists.  Some speakers may use some special aspects of pronunciation and vocabulary. Nevertheless, the grammatical features are not connected with the variety. Several sociolinguists would reserve the term AAVE for varieties which are marked by the existence of specific distinctive grammatical features and some of them are discussed below. The history of AAVE and what language varieties it is related to are also a matter of argument. Some scholars confirm that AAVE developed out a connection between speakers of West African languages and speakers of vernacular English varieties. According to such an opinion, West Africans learnt English on plantations in the southern Coastal States from very few native speakers. Some say that this led to the development of a rudimentary pidgin, a very simple language which has been extended through a process of colorization later.

African American vernacular traditions have been around for many centuries and still cease to exist in their culture. The vernacular traditions of the African Americans started when slaves were existent in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. It is believed that the slaves spoke a mix of Creole and partial English, in which they had to create in order to communicate between them discreetly. The vernacular traditions originated from the way the slaves lived their lives and their creativity. The relationship between the slaves and their masters, were very weak because the master’s believed that the slaves were inferior to them. It is believed that African American

James Baldwin, in his essay, "If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me What Is?", wants to send and confirm to everybody that: Black English is a legitimate language. Several things he expressed in his essay demonstrated that is true and Black English need to be more accredited than it is. Firstly, this is the language stepped on from Black's slavery in the past many years ago, they came from many trials and that time, they met together, they were disposed and they underwent some racism. Thus, they form a language to connect each other, this language has rules, it can convey similar things with the others different language in the world. Secondly, the language of White American now would have gone on different way, if there was not

The article, Nobody Mean More To Me Than You And The Future Life Of Willie Jordan by poet June Jordan combines two stories she acknowledges as important memoirs that occurred during her career as an English professor. In this essay, Jordan mentions a class she taught on Black English and the other one concerning Willie Jordan, a young black student in the class trying to bring justice to a corrupt South Africa while facing the unexpected death of his brother who was killed by a Brooklyn police officer. Jordan’s essay demonstrates the importance of Black English and her effort to help students discover the commutative power and clarity of the language. Jordan successfully incorporates notable student examples and creative guidelines for a well written paper while still enlightening students about the difference between standard “Standard English” and “Black English”.

African-American writing is the collection of writing created in the United States by journalists of African heritage. It starts with the works of such late 18th-century essayists as Phillis Wheatley. Prior to the high purpose of slave stories, African-American writing was commanded via self-portraying profound accounts. African-American writing came to ahead of schedule high focuses with slave accounts of the nineteenth century.

Jarriett----How does Asante describe the future of African American Rhetoric? What kinds of approaches or topics does he advocate scholars use or pursue in the future?

Self-Reflection seems to be one of the bigger inner conflict that people of all ages seem find themselves struggling with. No one wants to genuinely look inside themselves and challenge their character, motives, and their actions. It seems much more tempting to run away and hide from all of our faults then to come face to face with them. Writers do a phenomenal job of exposing the struggle a person goes though trying to grasp an understand of a group of people from a different culture or society when they have yet to figure themselves out. A person can not answer why for someone else or for a group of people until they can answer the why in their own life. Both James Baldwin author of “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What

Linguists are people who study languages and their structures. Over time linguists have renamed Ebonics African American Vernacular English, or AAVE. Ebonics, however, is used more colloquially than AAVE. Linguists, for the most part, regard Ebonics as an English dialect. They also argue that Ebonics has its own grammatical structure and originated from the interaction between Niger-Congo slaves and European imperialists, to what linguists refer to as a pidgin language. A pidgin language is defined as a grammatically simplified form of a language, used for communication between people not sharing a common language (“What is Ebonics (African American English)?”).

Through out Savan's essay she talks about the originality and roots of where and how the black language was created. Savan explains that allot of

The reason why I use Ebonics in my everyday language is to show homage to my ancestors. Ebonics started because our ancestors was not granted the right to education so they used Ebonics as a way to communicate with each other. Ebonics is a historical way of speaking and many schools in the Philadelphia Public School district don't teach children to speak like this, but afrocentric charter schools make it their obligation to teach us to speak like that and allow it with in their classrooms. Not teaching allowing black americans to speak ebonics in the school is telling them to neglect their culture and History. Forcing them to

African American Vernacular English (AAVE), or more commonly known as Ebonics, is derived from the words ebony, meaning black, and phonics, meaning the science of sounds. In essence, Ebonics is the science of black speech and language (Baugh, 2000, p. 2). According to early linguistic scholars, as told by John Baugh (2000), Ebonics is, in simplicity, a mixture of African and European languages that formed with African slaves (p. 3). The term Ebonics was coined in 1973 by a group of African Americans scholars who felt “black English” was a discriminatory name and contributed to the low regard of the language (Baugh, 2000, p. 2). However, Baugh (2000) states, just changing the name to Ebonics, or more professionally AAVE, does not help to increase

The United States of America is one of the world’s most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations. Even though there is not an official national language, most Americans speak Standard American English (SAE). However, the most prevalent native English vernacular dialect in the United States is African American Vernacular English (AAVE). According to Sharon Vaughn, AAVE is “a dialect used by some African Americans” (110). In order to examine AAVE, one must explore the origins, grammatical features, and prominent resolutions, which created a precedent for educating students that speak dialects other than Standard American English.

This course focused on a numerous languages that were undergoing change. The simplest and most relevant for many Americans are the changes that are occurring in English. America is a great melting pot of different people and as such English’s multiple dialects reflect cultural diversity. One of the most studied and still not understood dialects is African American English. The point of contention between the ideas for the origin of African American English is whether it was based on an existing dialect in the south or if it was creole of English and different West African languages. Either way this is an example of a rapid language change that has persisted over time. It is illogical to believe that the slaves who were forced to learn English did not incorporate some of their own language. How else could they have communicated before they fully understood English. An example of slower language

It is arguable that African American English is a dialect of contemporary American English. While AAE is different and is easily distinguishable from Standard American English, the two dialects still share similarities and are forms of vernacular English. As AAE stems from and shares many linguistic patterns with Creole and other African languages, it is possible to argue that AAE is in fact not related to contemporary American English at all. However, I feel that the different influences on language are simple markers of regional variation and not enough to fully