ipl-logo

African American English Language

1910 Words8 Pages

“AAVE” is an acronym used for African American Vernacular English. There is a variety of names for the specific term such as “AAE” African American English, or “BE” Black English and also” BEV” Black English Vernacular. In our community they are often interpreted as “bad English” “ebonics” . This is a combination of two words, ebony and phonics actually it is a coinage and it was created back in 1973. Despite being considered already bad, it has now turned into a ghetto talk (slur) and the “blackaccent” the accent of the black people that national public radio tend to prefer to use. This language is absolutely misunderstood due to the fact that it contains a full fledged grammar with detailed rules and it has the ability as a language …show more content…

The analysis of the study shows that the African- Americans during the 17th and 19th century toward the white settler many dialects that existed in the Southern American colonies that existed at the time. The black people who lived in America needed to use the language as a tool in their everyday life in order to communicate. As a result of that they acquired the language and transformed it adding their own elements in it so they can speak it easier. The study admits that AAVE was not a creole but a reconstruction of the dialects that existed in the southern colonials . The main three factors that AAVE was never a creole are: First, plenty of attributes such as “negative copula/perfect ain't, invariant don't, negative concord” were absorbed into the AAVEE without the slightest change from settlers dialects. This also was the case with a few phonological letters for example , “of /n/ for /ng” in participles and gerunds. Second, there is a majority of language features that are not complete. That happened because of their half …show more content…

The actual meaning of Ebonics is “ black speech” and that comes from two words Ebony and phonics which is a blend of two words. The term was created in 1973 by a group of black scholars who did not consider the Nonstandard Negro English which how it was called until then, respectful for their race. At that time black people began studying and going to universities as well and they were capable of taking actions. Despite their efforts, nobody accepted the change and continued calling the language “NNE”. However a positive situation showed up in December of 1996 when the Oakland (CA) School Board proclaimed it as the language that African Americans students spoke and attempted to teach them the academic or at least average English language. When linguistics want to mention the AAVE they refer to it either as “Black English” or as African American English (AAE) ,or as AAVE that is more polite. Theoretically scholars who prefer to emphasize the nationality of the black Americans and correlate their speech with countries such as Nigeria, Jamaica etc. Nevertheless, the most common term to use is the Ebonics. (Rickford, 2012)

Show More
Related
884 Words | 4 Pages

According to Matt Seitz, the word “Negro” started to fall out forty years ago. He mentions that “the word negro was easier for people

Read More
406 Words | 2 Pages

In discussing Black English, John McWhorter talks about the theories of the origin of the language. McWhorter talks about how people have made claims that Black English is related and comes from African languages. He also tells how their research on this subject is unreliable and “sketchy.” These people making these claims are outside of linguistics, meaning they practice things such as education and speech pathology. People like Dr. Smith, a teacher at a medical college, suggested that Black English is a mixture of African languages with English, where these African languages have altered English into a new language.

Read More
553 Words | 3 Pages

Creoles are a result of the interactions between Africans and Europeans. “ [They] first appeared at the trading feitorias or factories” established by the Europeans in Africa. Over time they were able to act as middlemen between Europeans and Africans and even established their own language called “Guinea speech”. Unfortunately, they lost their status as middlemen when they were enslaved. Though the experience of the enslaved varied they all had less control over their lives and many of their skills had become useless and over time they were “de-skilled by the process of enslavement.”

Read More
338 Words | 2 Pages

Baldwin stated that “Language is determined by the person that is speaking it.” The audience is anyone that doesn’t consider “Black English” a language, people that don’t use

Read More
365 Words | 2 Pages

1. What factors differentiate the history and experience of African Americans from those of Asian, Hispanic, and Native Americans? The factors that would separate African Americans from racial ethnic groups would be their involuntary immigration and initial enslavement. Other groups came in hopes of political freedom and economic opportunity. While African Americans history and experience were based upon economic exploitation, the denial of freedom, denied their language, history, culture, ancestral ties and homeland affiliation.

Read More
1077 Words | 5 Pages

Going from nigger to the contemporary “nigga” has produced a fluid, adaptable, postmodern, and urban construction of identity epitomizing numerous social and rhetorical flows. “Nigga” identity has been most expressed in hip-hop and rap culture, one end that presents a sense of masculinity, misogyny, as well as sexual violence then another side that attempts to locate an authentic self amidst the difficult life that has forever plagued blacks within urban America. This is a term used to bring African Americans together. The issue that lies through this metamorphosis is that African Americans have managed to establish the unspoken rule that it is not allowed for a white person to say the word “nigga.” PBS goes on to emphasize the point, “While usage of the word in African American culture is complex in that it can be used affectionately, politically, or pejoratively, the epithet is considered an abusive slur when used by white people.”

Read More
252 Words | 2 Pages

James Baldwin’s essay on “Black English” comes from the perspective of a distinguished black man, articulating the idea of “What is English”. Baldwin writes in an eloquent tone that creates an atmosphere supporting his argument on why black english is a language because of his racial background. In Order to further his claim he utilizes antecedent to explain how “black english” evolved over time. He also employs antithesis to compare different languages,African Americans and white people.

Read More
983 Words | 4 Pages

“If Black English Isn’t a Language Then Tell Me What Is” In the essay “If Black Isn’t a Language Then Tell Me What Is” (The New York Times, 1979) written by James Baldwin, the author asserts that the African American community has altered the English language into a new language during the last five centuries to accommodate the black experience in American history despite the white’s attempt to submerge it. To begin the essay he makes his argument clear by referencing the alterations the French made to their native language to describe how people will eventually “...evolve a language in order to describe and thus control their circumstances…”; furthermore he continues to analyze how the caucasian people of America have only accepted the black language when it came out of a white mouth; he ends the essay by reinforcing his position, elaborating on the racism black’s have faced when they were denied the right to an education unless it was for the white benefit. His liberal purpose is to bring light to the subtle racism that African Americans experience even after the Civil Rights movement and to acknowledge the cultural influence they have in America. His writing appears very personal and intimate like he’s voluntarily opening up to his audience by letting them know of his own struggles as an African American, targeting mostly minorities and people who feel oppressed by white America.

Read More
903 Words | 4 Pages

It was once believed that the languages that the Africans spoke varied drastically from region to region but in reality they were “local variations of a deeper-lying structural similarity” (Herkovits 79). This similarity allowed communicating in the New World to be easier than if the languages were all completely linguistically independent, “whether Negro speech employs English or French or Spanish or Portuguese vocabulary, the identical constructions found over all the New World can only be regarded as a reflection of the underlying similarities in grammar and idiom, which, in turn, are common to the West African Sudanese tongues” (80). Language then became an important part of African American culture, whether it be a “secret” language used to help slaves escape, or to tell stories and folklore to children to encourage and motivate them, or express African proverbs from generation to generation. There has been many times when other races seem not to understand what African Americans are saying because of the slang terms we create that then become popular terms, most recently has been the phrases “on fleek” and “twerking”, to name a few examples. Being proficient in verbal arts was prized in Africa and now a value has been placed on verbal expression in today’s culture through riddles and through preaching and teaching (Williams

Read More
897 Words | 4 Pages

In the early 1780’s, the phrase “nigger” has created criticism and disrespect which whites have an unwelcome rejection of blacks. The term has spread widely over many decades; the meaning of nigger is extended to “an ignorant person” (Nigger, 2018). In English-speaking land, this word in some cases can be misunderstood as an insult without people consent especially in today’s society. Nigger is commonly used in young generations because there are many jokes into the word. It depends on how people use the term in a positive or negative in black culture (Nigger, 2004).

Read More
145 Words | 1 Pages

Nigga has been so popularized by the media that it no longer holds much contempt to it. In fact people of color sometimes call each other "my nigga" to express a bond or a brothership. You also seem to forget we are in a minecraft server; we don 't know the ethnicity of the players therefore it really can 't be used to discriminate against a black person. And for the record, dehumanization certainly would not apply to a word like "nigga".

Read More
1494 Words | 6 Pages

Then, there are the blues, a type of song developed by African American originally that many white American tried to appropriate from African American to only increase their wealth and fame while at the same diminishing the culture of African

Read More
498 Words | 2 Pages

But on my opinion I think its because African Americans were called that back in years of the revoluntary war and I think some still use it to this day. African Americans was persecuted and murdered by others. No African Americans are not responsible for the plight in America. Many African-American men and women in America face the feeling every day that without having committed any wrong they are already suspects. When a man is arrested in Baltimore on a charge of carrying an illegal knife and ends up dead a week later, there is something desperately wrong.

Read More
2187 Words | 9 Pages

Moore states that “the word Negro is so saturated with filth, so polluted with the white man 's stereotypes, that there is nothing to be done but to get rid of it." He prefered the word "Afro-American" because of its "correctness, exactness, even elegance." He believed the adoption of the word will force European-Americans to reevaluate black people in terms of their history and culture. Afro-American was first used as an adjective in 1853 in a publication in Windsor, Ontario, Voice of the Fugitive. But the world did not know that the prefix “Afro” exist, but America knew the word as the popular 1970 's hairstyle

Read More
868 Words | 4 Pages

The story ”The Baddest Dog in Harlem” is written by Walter Dean Myers, the story is a fictional, non-fiction story, the composition is constructed chronologically and it takes place in Harlem. The story shows the readers the story of the black people’s life in Harlem, and what a tough environment they live in. The source is the text “The Baddest Dog in Harlem” This story is about how the black people lives in the city Harlem, how the police react on a gunman attack. In this story there’s a gunman who’s attacking Harlem, the police officers can’t find the man, but when a group of children saw something move in an apartment the police officers starts shooting into the apartment. In the apartment they killed a dog and a little black boy.

Read More

More about African American English Language

Related Topics

Open Document