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.
“Black English is the creation of the black diaspora. Blacks came to the United States chained to each other,
In James Baldwin’s essay titled “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me What Is?” Baldwin highlights his major argument by capitalizing the words in the title so that it can stand out to the readers. His main idea is that all languages are equal, and there is an inequality in society where one is judged by the way they speak. Baldwin wanted the readers to understand that all languages do serve a purpose no matter how a person articulates it. Baldwin also wanted to convey that there is racism that is placed upon a black person just because of the way they speak.
If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is? By James Baldwin explains to the reader what black English is and where black English comes from. Baldwin writes about how humans use language as a means of controlling the world around them. Baldwin explains that people may speak the same language in one area of the world, but then people who speak the same language elsewhere are no longer speaking the same language. Baldwin using French as an exampling, Baldwin compares french-speaking people from Quebec to people who live in Paris.
His goal as an author was to make his make his readers more conscious and aware of the social climate. For James Baldwin, he felt that literature should be an artistic creation, not used for a political agenda. Although
“If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” James Baldwin builds his argument around an idea similar to this one. James Baldwin’s first claim is that
In the article, “Nobody Mean More to Me than You,” by June Jordan, is informative and detailed because the author gives examples of Standard English and Black English and some of the rules for Black English. Jordan was a playwright, professor of English, essayist, and poet at the University of California, Berkley. Standard English and Black English are different and people are either taught one or the other, not both. Some people are so set in their ways that they do not want to learn anything other than Standard English or to be corrected when they are wrong. Are we afraid of the way society has let English become?
Baldwin uses an advanced vocabulary throughout the essay, but only uses slang terms when referring to African Americans. By using phrases like “But if I was a "nigger" in your eyes”, he shows the audience what the words culturally imply such as stupidity and ignorance. Since this is
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.
The era I chose to create my music video in is 1900-1919: Leading up to WWI. If I were in this time period and would want to make a video that accompanied a song, I would harness the use of stop-motion video, since it was a relatively new invention. The artist would start and stop the camera, make a very small adjustment, and then start and stop the camera again. This, when played back, captured the object moving very subtly, making it look like it was moving on its own.
“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.
Andrew Reitemeyer Professor Espinoza SOC 100 25 May 2018 Final Book Reflection I have learned a lot through this book and mainly how much power language has on people. The authors that wrote these essays in this book all have a common belief about how potentially harmful language and the attributes of it can be for children in the classroom that are growing up and adapting to their surroundings. The book’s three main points include “language and identity”, “language and political hierarchy”, and “language and cultural conflict”. Much of this book talks about the struggle for African American students and the ongoing debate surrounding Ebonics and how that affects them in the classroom.
Language can either separate someone from this larger identity or connect him or her to it. This essay shows that black people in America have been systematically and institutionally marginalized by white society that their creation of separate and distinct language was a necessity, and this essay brings to light the struggles my community ---------- the black community --------- had faced in an effort to break through stereotypes and erroneous assumptions .I personally enjoyed how Baldwin incorporated historical examples into his essay, such as the Irish and the Germans, because it showed me that African Americans were not the only ones who felt marginalized by the way they use
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
This language evolution and “feedback loop of white imitation” is still pervasive and prevalent in our society, as illustrated in the fact that young teenagers create their own versions of slang words to seem a part of a collective whole and to be considered hip (Leland 69). They enjoy the idea of feeling wanted or exclusive. However, the history of such evolution of language is lost on modern day teenagers; they do not know that slang was adapted as a means of survival for American slaves. More significantly, when kids create their own lingo, they are ignorant to the fact this type of language is rooted in “Black English,” which slaves used to survive in a white
