Do Black Americans Have A Language/dialect?

[Sweetwhispers]

I was reading some book on a module of history i took this year on the spatial tophography(sp) of plantations. I am from England. The book basically said that slaves in America as oposed to other places in the Americas as a whole had to assimilate very quickly and so spoke standard english, not a creole language. However on another forum someone was talking about black people not being able to talk properly. Is this maybe them speaking a creole type language? Also the babymamma thread got me thinking also, as many people didn't like the term since it didn't sound like standard English. From this forum and movies (i know, i know :lol: ) it seems that standard English is the norm.

Was there ever a distinct dialect/language/syntax?( i am not a linguist so i do not know whether i am using the correct term)

Has it died out or is only spoken in a certain region?

Do you feel it should be gotten away with or do you think it should be preserved i.e people should write in it?

Have white americans or any other ethnic group taken on this dialect? ( as they have in other parts of the americas)

Should it only be used in private?

Does it have non english words or newly created words or is in the way sentences are constructed and words are used?

If there isn't one then disregard all of my questions.
Thanks in advance.

[mrsloh]

I think what it may mean is the fact that some black americans just don't use proper english. Then there are the terms that are used that are from the "hip hop" culture in black america. Here are some examples.


"oooh girl that skirt is bad!" - (used in the 60's and 70's this really means the skirt is cute)


"That chain is dope" - (used in Hip Hop culture, it really means the chain is nice)


"I ain't got no money" - (ain't is a word used by many Afro Americans that is really not a word. In this instance, it replaces "don't have any".


Some of these are really old but it's the best that I can do as I no longer speak this way, I don't watch videos and I don't allow my children to speak improper english.

I could go on and on but I won't. Some people also refer to this kind of speaking as ebonics or even illiteracy as some people not only speak this way but they write this way as well.

This is a really touchy subject within the black community because for the ones who speak proper english - they are often accused of trying to be white - and the for the blacks who don't, they are accused of being ghetto.

[Mae]

There is a whole body of research on Black English or Ebonics. Linguists understand that there is a distinct language there, but many lay people, including Black folks, don't want to accept it. There is also a Gullah dialect, spoken by people who live on the sea islands of Georgia and South Carolina.

[GalaxyGirl2012]

This is a really touchy subject within the black community because for the ones who speak proper english - they are often accused of trying to be white - and the for the blacks who don't, they are accused of being ghetto.
[/b]

exactly I remember getting into an argument with morrocan co-worker at my old job because she told me that I don't speak like a black person. I asked her what she meant (knowing exactly what she meant) and she said grammar. I then told her she doesn't act like muslims i see on tv who strap bombs to themselves and blow up buildings. Of course she got offended and never got the point of what I was trying to say.

i think that there's a difference between things like slang and a completely different language/different linguistics.

To the original poster woul you consider somethinglike East End London /cockney rhyming as a different language than english?
also in termsof slaves living in the US, we didn't all come from the same tribe so we didnt all speak the same languages to begin with, so there isn't such a thing as An African language like you can say there's German or Farsi. So add that to the fact that they werent learning proper English anyway being that it was against the law to educate slaves.

Creole is a mixture two or more languages mainly created out of European colonies that mixed together th language of the occupier with the languages of the native people's... so tha's not really an option here for your question.

I think what you're asking about is a mixture of using slang and bad grammar.

[Peaches]

Even though my phonics and grammar are standard, my pronunciation is different because of my race. I notice that Denzel Washington tends to use "d" in the place of "th" ("dat" instead of "that") and I catch myself doing that as well. It's just something that you have to be mindful of.

[Mae]

Here is an interesting site on types of American English. There is a link on Black English as well.

American English

Some interesting selections:

Dialect Myths and Reality
MYTH: A dialect is something that SOMEONE ELSE speaks.

REALITY: Everyone who speaks a language speaks some dialect of the language; it is not possible to speak a language without speaking a dialect of the language.

MYTH: Dialects always have highly noticeable features that set them apart.

REALITY: Some dialects get much more attention than others; the status of a dialect, however, is unrelated to public commentary about its special characteristics.

MYTH: Only varieties of a language spoken by socially disfavored groups are dialects.

REALITY: The notion of dialect exists apart from the social status of the language variety; there are socially favored as well as socially disfavored dialects.

MYTH: Dialects result from unsuccessful attempts to speak the "correct" form of a language.

REALITY: Dialect speakers acquire their language by adopting the speech features of those around them, not by failing in their attempts to adopt standard language features.

MYTH: Dialects have no linguistic patterning in their own right; they are derivations from standard speech.

REALITY: Dialects, like all language systems, are systematic and regular; furthermore, socially disfavored dialects can be described with the same kind of precision as standard language varieties.

MYTH: Dialects inherently carry negative connotations.

REALITY: Dialects are not necessarily positively or negatively valued; their social values are derived strictly from the social position of their community of speakers.



Observations about African American speech have never been far removed from the politics of race in American society, so that it is hardly surprising that the status of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) has been-and continues to be-highly contentious and politically sensitive.



Our dialect may reflect our ethnic background.
In some cases, our dialect may reflect our ethnic background. Within a particular area, working-class African-Americans can sound different from working-class European-Americans. In the middle class, this distinction is much less reliable. With middle or upper-class speakers, it may be impossible to tell anything about their ethnicity just from their dialect.
On the other hand, just as there is a vernacular dialect known as African-American English, spoken by many African-Americans across the country, there is also a standard variety of African-American English. This variety combines a standard English grammar with phonological features, intonation patterns and lexical items associated with African-American communities. Standard African-American English is used by many middle-class African-American speakers and indicates their social class or educational background without obscuring ethnic identity in their speech (so that they still “sound black”). The relationship between language and identity can be quite complicated


Code Switching is the alternating use of both languages, often within a single sentence or phrase
In most bilingual communities (regardless of the languages involved) there is also a third choice: code-switching, the alternating use of both languages, often within a single sentence or phrase, as in I’m going with her a la esquina (“to the corner”). Rather than being, as many people believe, a “broken” way of speaking, used by people who don’t know either language well, a number of studies have shown that code-switching is more likely to be done by people who are highly fluent in both languages. Code-switching occurs in bilingual communities all over the world, and seems to be a way of exploiting linguistic resources that comes naturally to the human brain. A fluent bilingual flowing back and forth between his or her two languages can sound almost musical. And even if people who aren’t used to code-switching find it amusing, it remains a symbol of bicultural identity and an important linguistic resource for the community.

[kurliehead]

Even though my phonics and grammar are standard, my pronunciation is different because of my race. I notice that Denzel Washington tends to use "d" in the place of "th" ("dat" instead of "that") and I catch myself doing that as well. It's just something that you have to be mindful of.
[/b]

I do that too. When at work I have to consciously say “this” instead of “dis.”

I minored in African Studies and remember one of my professors saying that this was one of the things we carried over. He said that there isn’t a “th” sound in any African language (I think he was mainly talking about the languages of West Africa) so saying "dis" instead of "this" is one of the many things we inherited from our ancestors. I also remember him talking about the use of “be” as in “he be working hard” as opposed to “he works hard” but I can’t remember any details. Maybe Mae can add some insight? :blush:


ETA: My father’s family is Louisiana Creoles and there is a large Creole influence in my SE Texas hometown so there are a lot of words we use that have French/Creole origins. The older generations can speak Creole French fluently but the younger generations can’t speak it and only know a smattering of words and phrases.

[GalaxyGirl2012]

i think there are more languages that dont have the "th" sound than the ones that do..

I've heard it pronounced as "z", "d" or "t"

[setarcos]

Also in termsof slaves living in the US, we didn't all come from the same tribe so we didnt all speak the same languages to begin with, so there isn't such a thing as An African language like you can say there's German or Farsi. So add that to the fact that they werent learning proper English anyway being that it was against the law to educate slaves.

Creole is a mixture two or more languages mainly created out of European colonies that mixed together th language of the occupier with the languages of the native people's... so tha's not really an option here for your question.
[/b]

I disagree.

GalaxyGirl, I think the reasons why a highly distinctive African American creole didn't evolve (apart from Gullah, which is something of an anomaly) is not for the reasons you stated. I think it is more to do with the fact that AA slaves weren't insulated or separated from white society.

For example, Haiti developed a Creole with highly distinctive features - it was the evolution of another language with it's own grammar, spelling, etc. And no, Haitian Creole IS NOT a mixture of French with a "native" Haitian language. The only native languages there belonged to the Amerindians, and they were wiped out. Instead, Haitian Creole evolved from a mixture of colonial French with African languages EVEN THOUGH the Africans imported to Haiti also came from different tribes (though possibly not as many as the US). One crucial factor is the fact that Haiti took its independence from France over 200 years ago, and the French were expelled, so the Creole language had a couple of centuries to evolve independently without any attempt by colonial governments to educate the people to speak "proper" French. African Americans have never had this luxury of separation, and are, in fact, a minority living among a majority of whites. This is quite different from say countries in the Caribbean where Creole languages emerged, as these islands were distant from the European colonial centres, and the vast majority of their populations are Black or mixed.

Insulation/isolation is the key. As you can see, in the US, a distinctive AA dialect (Gullah) developed on the sea islands of Georgia and Carolina, which have mainly Black populations.

[GalaxyGirl2012]

actually haitian is a mix of french./ some african languages AND some native languages as well.

Plus I didn't say all creoles were were based on european and native langauges just perhaps some of the main ones that people might think of that exist in Africa