| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), also called Ebonics, Black English, or Black English Vernacular (BEV) is a dialect of American English. Strictly speaking, there is some controversy in the larger community about whether it should be considered a dialect, but this is based on difference of opinion about what it means to be a dialect. Among working linguists, there is no such controversy. Similar to common southern U.S. English, the dialect is spoken by many African-Americans in the United States. African Americans who speak AAVE exclusively are most commonly southern and rural, or those with working-class roots. Many African-Americans, however, regardless of their socioeconomic status, educational background, or where they may live, use AAVE in informal and intra-ethnic communication. AAVE shares many characteristics with various pidgin and creole English dialects spoken by blacks worldwide. AAVE also has grammatical origins in, and pronunciational characteristics in common with, various West African languages.
The term Ebonics, which is a portmanteau word of ebony and phonics, has been suggested as an alternative name for this dialect. However, that name is not widely used in linguistic literature, although it enjoys considerable common use as a result of the controversy surrounding it (see below). Robert L. Williams, a linguistics professor at Washington University, created the term Ebonics in 1973, then detailed it in his 1975 book, Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks . AAVE became the subject of contentious debate following the decision of the school board of Oakland, California, to declare Ebonics a unique language or dialect.
As a language develops, its use by isolated and diverging groups of people also becomes isolated and divergent. Pronunciational aspects of AAVE are in part based on the Southern American English variety, an influence that no doubt has been reciprocal as the dialects diverged. The traits of AAVE which separate it from standard English include grammatical structures that are traceable to West African languages; changes in pronunciation along definable patterns, many of which are found in Creole and pidgin dialects of other populations of West African descent; distinctive slangSlang is the non-standard use of words in a language of a particular social group, and sometimes the creation of new words or importation of words from another language. Slang is a type of sociolect aimed at excluding certain people from the conversation.; and differences in the use of tenses.
SociologistsSociology is the study of social rules and processes that bind and separate people not only as individuals, but as members of associations, groups, and institutions. A typical textbook definition of sociology calls it the study of the social lives of huma, linguistsBroadly conceived, linguistics is the study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. The study of linguistics can be thought of along three major axes, the endpoints of which are described below: Synchronic and diachronic Sy and psychologistsPsychology is the study of mind, thought, and behaviour. It is largely concerned with humans, although the behaviour and thought of animals is also studied; either as a subject in its own right (see animal cognition), or more controversially, as a way of generally believe that it is common for oppressed people (as, for example, African slaves in the Americas) to adopt a radically different dialect from their oppressors. This is done to subtly rebel against the oppressor and his culture, and to differentiate themselves, as well as to foster pride among their community. In the case of African-Americans, AAVE has remained pervasive through the centuries also as a result of segregation and social separation. Because of white supremacistThe white supremacy movement considers white people to be superior to people of other (and of mixed) races and/or ethnicities. Members often term the movement White Pride or White Power . Ideology White supremacists are vehemently opposed to racial mixing attitudes and prevailing cultural biases, whites commonly believed the aberrant English of slaves was due to inferior intellect. Such prejudices persist today. AAVE often is viewed by members of broader American society as an indicator of inferior intelligence or low educational attainment.Most speakers of AAVE are bidialectical in that they command Standard American EnglishStandard English is a general term for a form of written and spoken English that is considered the model for educated people. There are no set rules or vocabulary for "standard English" because, unlike languages such as French, English does not have a gov (SAE) to varying degrees in addition to AAVE, code-switchingCode-switching is a term in linguistics referring to alternating between one or more languages or dialects in the middle of discourse between people who have more than one language in common. Sometimes the switch lasts only for a few sentences, or even a between using SAE forms and AAVE forms, depending on social context.
In the late 1990sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s 2040s Years: Events and trends Computers, technology Explosive growth of the Internet; decrease in the cost of computers and other techn, the formal use of AAVE in education became a controversial subject in the U.S.. See: Ebonics.