how did african american vernacular english develop

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How did African American Vernacular English influence other dialects of English?

African-American Vernacular English has influenced the development of other dialects of English. The AAVE accent, New York accent, and Spanish-language accents have together yielded the sound of New York Latino English, some of whose speakers use an accent indistinguishable from an AAVE one.

What is African American Vernacular English?

As with most African-American English, African American Vernacular English shares a large portion of its grammar and phonology with the rural dialects of the Southern United States, and especially older Southern American English, due to historical connections of African Americans to the region.

When did African-American English begin?

African-American English began as early as the seventeenth century, when the Atlantic slave trade brought African slaves into Southern colonies (which eventually became the Southern United States) in the late eighteenth century.

Did the vernacular originate as a creole language?

However, a minority of linguists argue that the vernacular shares so many characteristics with African creole languages spoken around the world that it could have originated as its own English-based creole or semi-creole language, distinct from the English language, before undergoing a process of decreolization.

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Where did African American Vernacular English come from?

AAVE originated in the plantations of the American South, where African people were enslaved to work, and it shares a number of phonological and grammatical features with southern dialects of American English. Many African Americans are bi-dialectal in AAVE and Standard American English.

How did AAL develop?

The earliest and strongest Creole Hypothesis argues that AAL developed from a creole language that arose out of early contact between Africans and Europeans, resulting in a widespread creole in the antebellum South which later went through a process of decreolization (Stewart 1967; Dillard 1972).

How did AAE develop?

6) AAE in common with southern white English in the United States can have two modals within the same verb phrase. This is probably an inherited feature from Scots-derived dialects originally brought to the United States in the 18th century which then diffused into the language of the African-American population.

What is African American vernacular language?

In the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, African American Vernacular English, often shortened to AAVE, is “a nonstandard variety of English spoken by some African Americans.” Nonstandard is pretty vague, though, in the all-encompassing terms of language.

What are the features of African American English?

Having its own unique grammatical, vocabulary, and accent features, African-American Vernacular English is employed by Black Americans as the more informal and casual end of a sociolinguistic continuum; on the formal end of this continuum, speakers switch to more standard English grammar and vocabulary, usually while ...

How do African Americans speak English?

0:376:37Lessons from Lucy Laney: African American Vernacular English (AAVE)YouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipWe begin by hearing voices rich with innocent african-american vernacular English.MoreWe begin by hearing voices rich with innocent african-american vernacular English.

How did slaves learn to speak English?

So when slaves arrived in the U.S., they picked up English words from their masters and then organized those words based on the grammar they already knew.

Who invented Ebonics?

Dr. Robert WilliamsDr. Robert Williams, an African-American social psychologist, coined the term Ebonics in 1973.

Is African American English a dialect of English?

Ebonics, also called African American Vernacular English (AAVE), formerly Black English Vernacular (BEV), dialect of American English spoken by a large proportion of African Americans.

Is African-American Vernacular English real?

Today Ebonics is known as African American Vernacular English (AAVE). It is considered by academics to be a specific way of speaking within the larger categorization of African American English (AAE), or Black English.

When was AAVE created?

On December 18, 1996, the Oakland Unified School District passed a resolution for public schools to use AAVE as a tool in teaching standard English and to provide resources to help educators understand AAVE.

Why is Black English important?

Black English matters But Black English is a family of dialects as valuable and legitimate as any other. The language is a creative force that has contributed richly to cultural life and linguistic innovation throughout American history, whether it be in art, music, poetry, storytelling, or more recently, social media.

When was the term "ebonics" coined?

"The term 'Ebonics,' which was first coined in 1973 by a 'group of Black scholars...from ebony (black) and phonics (sound, the study of sound) (R. Williams, 1975)...is regarded by many if not most linguists as very ...

Where did AAVE originate?

AAVE originated in the plantations of the American South, where African people were enslaved to work, and it shares a number of phonological and grammatical features with southern dialects of American English. Many African Americans are bi-dialectal in AAVE and Standard American English.

Where did Creole language originate?

It is also indisputable that English-lexifier Creole languages developed and continue to flourish in the African diaspora —from coastal West Africa to coastal North America—and that the middle passage for some Africans brought to colonial America included exposure to these creoles (Kay and Cary, 1995; Rickford, 1997, 1999; Winford, 1997).

What is AAVE in English?

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is a variety of American English spoken by many African Americans.

Where did AAVE originate?

The roots of AAVE were established during the first century of the British colonization of America, in the Chesapeake Bay area (Virginia and Maryland), and later, in the Carolinas and Georgia.

Where does AAVE come from?

Abstract and Keywords. It is now widely accepted that most of the grammar of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) derives from English dialectal sources —in particular, the settler dialects introduced into the American South during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Who studied how racial segregation further pushed the development of AAVE?

On top of this, linguist William Labov studied how racial segregation further pushed the development of AAVE. He found that living in segregated communities (unsurprisingly) made for further divergence from Standard American English over time.

What is African American dialect?

African American Vernacular English is also known as Black English or Black Vernacular English (and historically as “Ebonics,” although we’ll get to that term later). This dialect has unique phonology, grammar and vocabulary, and these characteristics are conventionalized, meaning that they’re used and understood by the wider speech community. That said, you’ll also find that accents and some vocabulary in AAVE will vary from New York to New Orleans to Chicago, just as they would for any other geographically based dialects.

What is it called when you switch from AAVE to standard American English?

Black Americans also experience situations where we might switch from AAVE to Standard American English — also known as code-switching. This can happen in the workplace or in academia, or at any other point when speaking with a person who doesn’t understand our dialect.

What is AAVE in the Creole language?

The fact that AAVE shares many structural and pronunciation characteristics with other African-based Creoles around the world makes the Creole Theory intriguing for linguists. That said, AAVE also shares much of its grammar and phonology with rural dialects across the American South.

What is AAVE in English?

In the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, African American Vernacular English, often shortened to AAVE, is “a nonstandard variety of English spoken by some African Americans.”. Nonstandard is pretty vague, though, in the all-encompassing terms of language. What exactly is so “nonstandard” about this particular dialect of English?

When was the term "ebony" and "phonics" coined?

African American Vernacular English used to be called “Ebonics” (a portmanteau of “ebony” and “phonics”) when the term was coined in 1970s. It was created by the Black psychologist Robert Williams in the hope of changing the conversation around the dialect, which was often referred to as lazy ...

What is the sound change in AAVE?

There are some regular sound changes often observed in AAVE, in particular, something called metathesis. Metathesis involves switching around sounds within words. For example, “ask” could be pronounced “aks,” or “library” pronounced “libary.” TH-fronting is also a prominent feature of African American Vernacular English. For example, “those” and “doze” can sound nearly identical. Another common sound change involves dropping the R when it’s not followed by a vowel, which makes AAVE one of many non-rhotic dialects spoken in the USA.

What is black English?

Black English has a rich history that touches on everything from linguistics to literature to music—and, of course, the words we speak each and every day. Black English is also known as African American Vernacular English (AAVE), among other names, as discussed in the extensive historical usage note at its entry.

Where did the Creole language come from?

Linguists of this view say AAVE arose from a creole in West Africa that enslaved people already spoke before coming to the US.

How many present tenses are there in AAVE?

Scholars like Toni Morrison, writer and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, have spoken of five present tenses in AAVE. In reality it’s probably more than that, if you factor in stress.

Where did AAVE originate?

If you say it’s a language, though, you likely hold the Creolist Hypothesis view, that AAVE originated from a creole spoken on Southern plantations before the Civil War.

When did the school board adopt the Creolist view?

In fact, in 1996 the school board in Oakland, California proactively, and unanimously, adopted the Creolist view. After three hours of hearing the arguments, the board revised literature to explicitly call AAVE a distinct language from SAE, recognizing it as the native language of around 30,000 African-American students within the school district.

Is "I didn't see" a negative in AAVE?

The use of negatives in AAVE is also highly evolved. In Standard English two negatives equal a positive: I didn’t not see it means “I saw it.”. In AAVE, like in math, two negatives equal a negative. And, sometimes negation can be used for emphasis to mean a bigger, bolder No.

Is AAVE a dialect?

Interestingly, defining AAVE as either a dialect of English, or a separate language altogether, depends on how you believe it began.

When did African Americans start speaking English?

African-American English began as early as the seventeenth century , when the Atlantic slave trade brought African slaves into Southern colonies (which eventually became the Southern United States) in the late eighteenth century. During the development of plantation culture in this region, nonstandard dialects of English were widely spoken by British settlers, which probably resulted in both first- and second-language English varieties being developed by African Americans. The nineteenth century's evolving cotton-plantation industry, and eventually the twentieth century's Great Migration, certainly contributed greatly to the spread of the first of these varieties as stable dialects of English among African Americans.

What contributed to the spread of the first of these varieties as stable dialects of English among African Americans?

The nineteenth century's evolving cotton-plantation industry, and eventually the twentieth century's Great Migration, certainly contributed greatly to the spread of the first of these varieties as stable dialect s of English among African Americans.

What is nonstandard African American English?

Since the 1960s, however, linguists have demonstrated that each of these varieties, and namely African-American Vernacular English, is a "legitimate, rule-governed, and fully developed dialect". The techniques used to improve the proficiency of African-American students learning standard written English have sometimes been similar to that of teaching a second language. Contrastive analysis is used for teaching topics in African-American Vernacular English. Both the phonological and syntactic features of a student's speech can be analyzed and recorded in order to identify points for contrast with Standard American English. Another way AAE can be taught is based on a strategy, communicative flexibility, that focuses on language used at home and analyzes speech during dramatic play. Using this method, children are taught to recognize when SAE is being used and in which occasions, rather than conforming to the speech around them in order to sound correct.

What is the accent of Black Appalachian Americans?

These similarities include an accent that is rhotic, the categorical use of the grammatical construction "he works" or "she goes" (rather than the AAVE "he work" and "she go"), and Appalachian vocabulary (such as airish for "windy"). However, even African-American English in Appalachia is diverse, with African-American women linguistically divided along sociocultural lines.

What is the African American dialect?

African-American Vernacular (AAVE) is the native variety of the majority of working class and many middle class African Americans, particularly in urban areas, with its own unique accent, grammar, and vocabulary features.

What is the AAE in English?

For the minority group in Britain, see Black British. For the variety of British English, see Multicultural London English. African-American English ( AAE ), also known as Black English in American linguistics, is the set of English sociolects primarily spoken by most black people in the United States and many in Canada; most commonly, ...

from The South to The Mouth

So, What Exactly Is AAVE?

A Note on “Ebonics” and “Correctness”

• African American Vernacular English used to be called “Ebonics” (a portmanteau of “ebony” and “phonics”) when the term was coined in 1970s. It was created by the Black psychologist Robert Williams in the hope of changing the conversation around the dialect, which was often referred to as lazy or broken English by the white establishment. The term g...

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Aave in Today’S World