African American English/Ebonics"What It Is"

BENBEN: African American English/Ebonics

"What It Is"

Most Americans have come to realize that there is a difference between the average African-American's speech and that of the mainstream Standard English speaker, but many do not realize the true difference. If you ask an African-American English speaker what is the difference between her/his language and that of Standard English, one usually gets a deficit answer, (i.e. its deficit English, it's just black slang, etc). I have found these responses interesting, when at the same time a person of Polish, Hispanic or German descent may be asked the same question but give a different response (i.e., I speak different because my first language is Polish, Spanish, German, etc). Even though these individuals may respond giving a deficit response, their answers are also related to a language of origin (My English is not good because my first language is Polish, Spanish, German, etc.). 

So now let's go back and analyze the African-American's answer. First, let's begin by dispelling the myths regarding African-American English. Let's begin with the fact that there is no such thing as a deficit language. A language is developed by a group of people to meet their specific communication needs. Hence, no one can tell a group of people that their language is inadequate. For example, there exists a group of Eskimos who have fifty-seven words for snow. What right would anyone have of telling these people that they too many words for snow? That decision is left up to these Eskimos based on their need to communicate the concept of snow. So, if there is no such thing as a deficit language, then where did the idea of a deficit language come from? It is a sociopolitical phenomenon that is created by a dominate culture to "put down" and control a minority culture! For African-Americans, it is just another piece of the devaluating puzzle (i.e., your dark skin is bad, your hair is bad, your lips are too thick, etc). 

So, if African- American English is not a deficit then what is it? A better way to put it is ok, if African- American English is not deficit English there is something going on because it sounds really different from Standard English, so what is it? The difference you hear is the fact that African- American English still contains Africanisms, African grammar, an African sound system and African tonations and inflections. Hence, it sounds different and is indeed different. Please note that this difference is not based on a deficit but on a linguistic difference just like other individuals who come from other countries as in the examples stated above. 

So how did African-Americans develop African- American English and what are some of its specific forms? The following excerpts from my dissertation regarding African- American English should help you to understand its origin and some of its forms. 

AFRICAN-AMERICAN ENGLISH: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW 

African-American English or what is commonly know as "Ebonics" has its roots in the pidgin English spoken by West Africans during the slave trade During the time of slavery, it was commonplace and even advisable for Africans of different languages to work together on a single plantation, these Africans were hard pressed to develop a means by which to communicate with their slave owners and fellow Africans. Hence, African slaves developed a pidgin form of English. This pidgin English, as with other pidgin languages, had a limited function, in that; it was designed to meet only basic communication needs. While it had rules like other languages, its grammatical form was simple and there were no sentimental ties to it since it was no one's native language. As a result, the cognitive complexity of these Africans' first language was compromised towards a language of limited function and linguistic representation. 

The second generation of Africans who were born in slavery did not have at their disposal one single African language that was designated as their native African tongue. As a result, these offspring adopted their parents' pidgin English as their first language. Hence, pidgin English acquired a developmental form and became more grammatically expanded. This expanded form of pidgin English is classified as English Creole. In addition to pidgin English and English Creole, slaves who worked in their owners' homes or in close proximity to their owners acquired Standard English. Hence, by the 18th century, there were three varieties of English spoken by African slaves; West African pidgin English, plantation English Creole and Standard English. West African pidgin English and English Creole substituted English words for West African words but kept the same basic grammatical structure that characterizes West African languages. Hence, sentences like "He be talkn'" reflects the habitual "be" verb form that is commonly found in languages across the west coast of Africa. 

By the end of the 18th century, decreolization, i.e., the accommodation of English Creole towards Standard English, became prevalent as a result of African slaves' exposure to the language of the dominant culture. This exposure gave rise to our modern day African-American English. On the surface, African- American English appears quite different in comparison to its ancestral English Creole and Pidgin English forms. However, African-American English has the same underlying grammatical structures as its pidgin/Creole predecessors. Hence, African- American English, like any other language, is resistant to change within its linguistic core, this core being the grammatical system of West Coast African languages 

AFRICAN-AMERICAN ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL AND SOUND STRUCTURE 

The greatest difference between African-American English and Standard English exists within African-American English's verbal system. African-American English needs only one verb in a sentence or series of sentences containing several verbs to mark past or present tense ("He walked down the street to bring it to her"). Unmarked verb forms as past tense are also common ("He go" which is the positive inverse of "he ain go"). This past tense verb form tends to be confused by Standard English speakers as the incorrect use of the Standard English present tense "He is going". Present tense may be marked by "not" as in "He not goin" and past tense may be marked by "ain" as in "He ain go yesterday" (which is the negative of the past tense expression "He go yesterday") Hence, many expressions in African-American English may be erroneously translated in Standard English as current points in time when they are actually attempts by the African-American speaker to express past tense. 

African-American English also includes a verb category called "aspect". Aspect verbs mark ongoing, continuous and intermittent acts as opposed to the time of its occurrence. In this tense structure, African-American English speakers convey tense along with marking as to whether the action was continuous or momentary ("She got the ball and she thrown' it"). 

Another major difference that exists between the verb structures of African-American English and Standard English is the West African "be" form of the verb. This verb can be expressed either in its habitual form (*I be there all the time") or its future form (*I be there tomorrow") Hence, in the habitual "be" form, a long term illness would be expressed as "My mother be sick" verses a short term illness, "My mother sick", It should also be noted that "My mother sick" is not the omission of the Standard English copula "is" but is a separate verb form rooted in West African Grammar. 

The use of "is" in African- American English usually functions as a marker of emphasis or for questioning ("My mother IS sick!", "Is she sick?", 1 IS sick!". "Is they sick?", 1 IS right!"). The use of "been" is also utilized to express recent and remote past action, such as, "She been gone six months" and "I been known it". However, "been" can be used to show emphasis regarding time lapses, such as, . "He been there!" meaning that he has been at that place for a long time and everybody knows it so don't ask any more questions! 

African-American English utilizes three basic forms of negation that are not represented in Standard English namely, "ain'' "don" and "dit'n", ie.. "She dit'n see it yesterday." (negative past tense), *She ain go." (negative momentary action), "she ain' goin'," (negative progressive, not usually present tense) and "she don' be run." (negative with the habitual *be" referent denoting an extended length of time.). Negation may also be expressed utilizing multiple negators, "Ain nobody I don't know." know everybody) or partial negation "Don't but one movie interest me." 

Hypercorrection is a term used to denote an African-American English speaker's attempts at accommodating towards Standard English, such as, "I done went." instead of the purer African- American English form of "I done gone." Other hypercorrections also occur, such as, "Im am good" The "Im" is not the Standard English conjunction "I'm" (I am) but a substituted hypercorrection for "I" and is seen in forms like "Im is" and "Im am". 

Aside from the grammatical differences, African-American English speakers utilize variations the pronunciation of certain speech sounds. These sound variations are also derived from West African languages. For example, "f" is utilized for "th" in the middle and final positions of words ("baf" and baftub" for "bath" and bathtub", respectively), omission of the retroflex velor "r" in the medial and final position of words ("dough" for "door", "caot" for "carrot"), deletion of final consonant clusters ("gif" for gift", "clef" for "cleft") and "d" for "th" in the initial position of words ("dis" for "this*). 

Although the above examples of the African-American English grammatical system and sound variations are only a partial representation of the entire African-American English language system, the examples depicted above demonstrate the distinction between African-American English and Standard English. It is hoped that this sampling of the African-American English language system will shed light on the complexity of the difference in linguistic expression that may occur when an African-American attempts to communicate her/his issues and needs to a non-African-American English speaker. For example, an incorrect translation of the African-American English statement "My mother be sick" into the Standard English form "My mother is sick" would only fail to address the chronicity of the mother's illness via the listener's inability to understand the habitual "be" verb form. 

There are also some African- English forms that are so routed in African language that they have no English translation. For example the word "fitna" (He fitna go.) and the term "Here go" Here go my sister.) which is best translated as "Behold". 

Additionally, African words exist throughout the Standard American vocabulary but generally are listed as "origin unknown" in the dictionary. Examples are words of Bantu origin, such as, bozo, jazz, banjo, kook or kooky, yam, zombi, ruckus, boody, jubilee and Nana. Many readers may be familiar with the nursery rhyme: 

Here we go looby-loo 

Here we go looby-la 

Here we go looby-loo 

All on a Saturday night. 

Well, the "looby-loo, looby-la are African words that are still in common usage in the Republic of Zaire and mean "quickly" and "to shout", respectively. 

For those of you who are still wrestling with the fact that African-American English is not deficit English, I will leave you with a quote from The Linguistic Society of American regarding African-American English: 

"The variety known as: Ebonics", "African-American Vernacular English" (AAVE) and "Vernacular Black English" and by other names is systematic and rule-governed like all natural speech varieties. In fact, all human linguistic systems-- spoken, signed and written-are fundamentally regular. The systematic and expressive nature of the grammar and pronunciation patterns of the African American vernacular has been established by numerous scientific studies over the past thirty years. Characteristics of Ebonics as "slang", "mutant", "lazy", "defective", "ungrammatical", or "broken English'' are incorrect and demeaning." (January 1997) 

I find it interesting that the linguistic community has known this fact for at least thirty years ( and in my research longer than that) but that the African-American community is totally unaware of this information and continues to view their language as deficit.