African American Vernacular English

Until then, little to no people had ever heard of the term Ebonics. Coined in 1973 by Dr. Robert Williams, an African-American social psychologist, he amalgamated the words “ebony” with “phonics” in reference to “black sounds.” Dr. Robert Williams, as well as numerous African-American social scientists had previously discussed the psychological development of black children and ultimately were largely displeased with the term Black English and began to ponder on the alternatives, in which he subsequently found significance with the term Ebonics. He states that Ebonics must “define what people speak and to give clear definition to the language.” With the knowledge that ebony meant black and that phonics refers to speech sounds or science of sounds, he mingled the two words to codify the term.

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

In this essay, June Jordan primarily focuses on explaining what Black English and how it’s become oppressed by Caucasian Americans throughout the years. Jordan believes African Americans have been raised to modify Black English to Standard English in order to be accepted into the societal and scholarly norms of America. Jordan states early on her essay, “As we learn our way around this environment, either we hide our original word habits,or we completely

African-American adults do not have the ability or proper skills to read, write, or speak English correctly. African-Americans have the lowest level of literacy rates in

Ebonics, which stands for Ebony + Phonics is a new term that Linguistics use to describe Black Dialect or Black English or many of the other names that it has been given for more that 350 years.. has been in the news recently but it is definitely not a new topic. <br><br>Ebonics is a "language" that is a combination of "proper English" and a combination of African languages. Because of this combination a pattern was formed on how certain words are said such as this and that, would be pronounced dis and dat. In all words the "Th." sound sounded like a "D". There was also another pattern formed such as, no tense indicated in the verb, no "r" sound and no consonant pairs. These are just some of the many patterns that were created when

The main focus is to replace the 219 times the word "nigger" is used with "slave."

Savan explains how close yet how far apart the White and African American languages really are. She writes about how often black language is now being used in everyday “American talk”(381) by white people. She feels that the media has used so many words of African Americans that these words are now becoming part of “Standard English”(368). Although many words of blacks are becoming extremely accepted by white people the entire black language is not accepted. “December 1996, the Oakland, California, school board approved [a new way of teaching] African American students [in the classroom]’’(Savan 385). The school board approved the method of using ebonomics in several African American populated schools around the Oakland area. This new way of teaching created an uproar with the media and white people. Once again African American people were being scrutinized over their language and were being made fun of again. Many of the same white people/media using black language were mocking African American’s saying “to teach ebonomics [is wrong because blacks would be ignoring] standard english”(Savan 386). This is a very thoughtless statement because if blacks would be able to use their own black language in school it could help them understand the standard english system along with several

This language was a multitude of other languages put together so slaves could understand one another and its roots still linger to this day but in different forms. These hardships however led to runaway slaves and rebellions. “While never a large percentage of the slave population in any period before Civil War the, slaves, by running away, disrupted work routines on farms and plantations, undermined discipline among slaves, and exasperated managers of households in both the countryside and the cities.” (Campbell) While few slaves successfully escaped there wasn’t any work for them as they were black and outcast.

After states began passing laws to get rid of slavery. The people in the United States couldn’t figure out what to do with the slaves that were free. They thought about shipping all the African Americans back across the ocean, but that decision was never put into action. The United States decided it was time to ban the importation of slaves, and in 1808 an act was passed that abolished the African slave trade in the new world.

One-reason linguists don't use the term &quot;Ebonics&quot; very freely is that it is very unclear, and such questions are hard to answer. Generally we use the term &quot;African American Vernacular English&quot;, or AAVE. Linguists know very well that there are African Americans who cannot speak this language with fluency; that there are some non-African Americans who can; and that almost all African Americans have some control of other forms of English, including Standard American English. A large number of African American adults are absolutely fine with both AAVE and Standard American English, and are competent at using it in the suitable situations.

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.

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

African American English is diverging from Standard American English. As shown in Do You Speak American (2005), AAE originates from the time of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. English was introduced to trade ports in Africa by colonialists, resulting in the creation of pidgin - a mixture of English and African languages that is still in use today. More recently, African Americans who have moved from the South to the North have been more segregated, creating greater divergence between AAE and SAE. As many African Americans maintain ties to the South, such as continued contact with friends or family in the south, similarities between AAE and southern dialects remain. However, each group have selected features that are important, such as maintaining ‘r’ in the North or keeping certain features as a way of preserving history, resulting in different dialect patterns between the North and the South to develop.

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

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.