The Historical Contexts Of The African American Vernacular English

Music is a creative art form that allows the artist to construct something that expresses a purpose. It evolves over time and changes as the world changes, taking on many different motivations behind the melody and lyrics. In today’s society, anger, oppression, racism, and negative opinions rule the media and popular culture. I believe that African Americans need to show their self worth and not let white people hold them back. With the music in white culture often mocking African American culture and portraying negative stereotypes, African Americans have to find ways to gain respect. In acknowledgement of the negative portrayal of their culture, African Americans respond by creating songs and videos that express their pride in their culture and heritage, react to white oppression, and communicate their independence.

The film “American Tongues” documents a variety of English accents that are present across the United States and highlights a lot of the opinions people have about accents and people who speak these accents. A large majority of the people who express opinions about other peoples’ accents tend to express negative views, as they see their own accent as the superior one. The film focuses on showing the array of accents found in the U.S., but also how a lot of people who speak these “inferior” accents work to learn “Standard American English” to increase their chances of getting jobs and communicating in more official domains. Although the film was made in 1988, it expresses views still present in today’s society towards different accents, as people tend to continue judging others based not only on what they say, but also how they say it.

Ebonics is similar to the English dialect spoken in the American South; however, many features of Ebonics are used more frequently by black speakers, suggesting that they have their origins in black

This paper will discuss on the language used widely by Ali G. After reading and watching his video, it is quite apparent that he always used the Jamaican Creole to communicate with people. Basically, the section below will cover the phonological, lexical and grammatical analysis of Ali G speech on the basis of his video. Sebba (2007) mentioned that

Still between 1865 and 1876, there was a culture identity crisis for African Americans. We cannot explain the roots of African American culture without

Over the course of this semester, I was introduced to many people, ideas, writings, and discussions that sparked my interest and enlightened me on African American history. However, I feel like this was just the beginning of my journey of learning the history of my people, as there is still so much out there to be brought to the surface. Prior to taking this course, I was always ignorant on the topic of African American history and simply made the connection to slavery. Additionally, I was unaware of other black activist, movements, and struggles that I had the chance to witness for the first time in this class. I came to a realization of how deprived of this information I was, because other historic events have been deemed more important. A quote that stuck with me throughout the course that was made by Arthur Schomburg was, “... African history and negro history, are the missing pages of world history”.

There are distinctive patterns of language use among African Americans that arose as creative responses to the hardships imposed on the African American community. Slave-owners forced African Americans to create a language that allowed them to communicate effectively with one another. Slaves were not allowed the opportunity to read and write because most slave owners thought they would find a way to buy their freedom if they knew how to read and write. Significant numbers of people still speak some of the Creole languages they used to communicate so many years ago.

Africans first arrived in the area that later became the United States of America in around 1619 in the Chesapeake area. The large amount of fertile land in the area gave the settlers their biggest cash crop, which was tobacco. As time went by, more and more tobacco was being exported to England. Because of this, more labor was needed. This need for more labor was not only in the north, but in the south as well due to their mass production of cotton. This movement started the institution of slavery in America. Then, the colonies and other countries started to trade slaves and it became a business. The Royal African Company was the first slave trading company, which was started in 1672. The slaves were transported by the Middle

(1) The use of natural dialect can be seen throughout the slave narrative interviews through words and phrases used that were common during the period of slavery, but are not used today. One example can be seen in the dialect used by former slave Mama Duck, “Battlin stick, like dis. You doan know what a battling stick is? Well, dis here is one.” Through incomplete sentences and unknown words the natural dialect of the time can be seen. Unfamiliar words such as shin-plasters, meaning a piece of paper currency or a promissory note regarded as having little or no value. Also, geechees, used to describe a class of Negroes who spoke Gullah. Many examples can be seen throughout the “Slave Narratives”

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

South Carolina is known for many of its historical customs and treasures, one of them being the Gullah language and culture which has become a consistent characteristic of the Carolina coast and low-country. Gullah is identified as a language, culture, and way of life by many of the coastal residents who still identify and participate in it, and the presence of Gullah is a center of interest for those who travel to the sea islands of Charleston and Hilton Head to observe and learn more about it. While Gullah is spoken by at least 300,000 African Americans in coastal regions across South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, it has been, and remains, a distinctive and important part of the history, language, and culture of South Carolina (Taylor and

United States of America, small in history but large in diversity continues to face new challenges with language as time continues to turn. In the documentary “Do You Speak American?” Robert MacNeil analyzes the English language and reveals many dialects that culturally defines us. Regional dialect is one of the many strongholds of all cultures and now it has reached its’ zenith and today it is slowly declining because it does not possess the human nature of advancement. Optimistically, it allows people to learn how to cooperate with each other. In order to advance and adopt a person has to change; I believe that the acceptance of cultural adaptations, diversity, and industrialization can prove that the decline of speech does not cause a

English was first introduced in these sea islands and surrounding areas due to the large amount of West African slaves that were taken from their home country that had many different dialects (Wolof, Malinke, Mandinka, Bambara to name a few). Due to the difference in dialects a similar language was needed for them communicate so English was used as it was a prevalent and accessible language commonly spoken by slaveholders.

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

The African-American literary period of Realism, Naturalism, and Modernism, also referred to as the Age of Wright, was when the writers and artist would expose the realities and identities of living in America and the harshness of society. This African-American literary period would begin around the time the Great Depression ends and would end the year in the death of Richard Wright, which was 1960. One of the most notable writers of this period was, of course, Richard Wright. By his way of thinking and the way he wrote literature, “Wright [had] effectively executed his own blueprint by rejecting what Locke termed the ‘decadent aestheticism’ of Harlem Renaissance writers and by drawing on the presumably more ‘nourishing’ elixir of Marxism and social protest” (Gates, 97). Richard Wright’s Blueprint for Negro Writing appeared in the journal New Challenge that he and other African-American writers had published in 1937. Although Richard Wright’s Blueprint for Negro Writing was written before 1940, this literature work makes an excellent representation of Urban Realism. This text represents this literary period because it tells about the reality, but also the promotion of success in African-American literature by criticizing black culture and nationalism in literary works.