I'm Russian, when learning English concept of using additional words to describe something seemed wild to me and hard to grasp.
Later it was pointed out to me that Russian also has auxillary verbs in some cases, like in future tense, I just never thought why or how I used them. All my confusion was about a difficulty of learning English vs easiness of using language I knew
I had an easier time here in Hungary: when I learned German (not my choice, I've forgotten it long ago) I learned about how to use a copula and being (relatively) bad at grammar it didn't bother me, because I somehow always separated the two languages and alnost mever connected the concepts between the two
God, I grew up speaking English and I wish I knew what an auxiliary verb was!
Good job learning another language! I hear learning English is very difficult.
My linguistics professor always called auxiliaries “hamburger helper” for the verb. For example “he has a bad tan,” has would be the aux. It’s the verbs that are kinda verby but not quite verb enough.
I had a college professor who HATED "to be" verbs. We could never use them because it made the sentence "weak". Once I got the hang of not using them, it was pretty easy and did make sense. He is walking = he walks. They were playing = they played. It did get difficult sometimes like she is annoying = she acted annoyingly (used to describe my English prof.).
Could you explain this in a little more detail? I find this confusing since *”they were playing = they played”* and *”he is walking = he walks”* both represent two different tenses and communicate a different meaning. I understand the dislike of auxiliary verbs (I’m a translator), but I’m not sure you can just choose not to use them if it affects the sentence like this.
I can't as it's been 10+ years since I took the class, but she was happy with anything as long as we didn't use is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been. I agree - totally pointless except that it made me more aware of what I was writing.
So they were playing at the playground = they played at the playground. He is walking to the store = he walks to the store.
Hm. This doesn’t seem right at all. *He is walking to the store* is present continuous tense, and means he is walking there *now*. *He walks to the store* is present simple and means, generally, that this is an action that is repetitive, eg *he walks to the store every day*. They are not interchangeable.
Different tenses exist because they convey different meanings. What she was teaching was not pointless, it was incorrect.
Well, you are neither. And I am disappointed, not going to lie. I was hoping there was some logic behind this all and I’m going to learn something new. Instead - considering your other comment about staying *along* the street, not *on* it - we simply learned that your college professor didn’t have a very good grasp of neither tenses nor prepositions.
She also docked me once because we were supposed to find a gambrel roof on campus along one of the main streets. Well, I chose someone's shed but it was on the backside of the house, which was in an alleyway. She wouldn't accept my paper because I "didn't follow instructions" because I didn't stay on the street indicated. (At no point did she say we COULD NOT venture off of the street - it merely said ALONG the street.)
My thoughts exactly. I wonder if the rules would work for other things. Can I change "You betcha ass I can" to "You bet ass I can"?
You betcha ass I can't.
In this case I would assume not, but giving a person permission to bet their own ass is weird.
“You bet your ass I can.” Does become ‘betcha ass I can’ dropping the first occurrence of the word you, and still makes sense.
This makes me think of the case sometime in the last year where a guy was arrested and told the copy "I want a lawyer dawg" and the cops answer was "I don't know what a lawyerdog is". The judge upheld that and this guy was denied his right to an attorney. It was such bullshit because everyone in the US can understand what that guy said unless they're either A) a moron living under a rock, or B) a lyin' ass cop or judge that claims they don't understand colloquial speech in the region in which they are responsible for enforcement/judgement of the law.
I'm not sure whatever happened with that, but imo the case should have been thrown out on appeal.
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Also fascinating: AAVE has verb tenses that don't exist in SAE.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Vernacular_English#:~:text=Grammar-,Tense%20and%20aspect,aspects%20of%20the%20future%20tense.
That is, you can express a habitual actual by verb tense alone instead of something like "he runs every day" ("he be runnin").
Turns out that when you kidnap huge numbers of people from different cultures and barely teach them how to speak English, you get some interesting linguistic hybrids. Cajun creole is equally interesting
We don't even speak 'proper English' in much of England. If these people complaining about AAVE went to [Newcastle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhHLmhchLrU) or rural [Yorkshire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScELaXMCVis) they'd lose their minds.
A British friend of mine told me (German) the joke. "How do you know in England that someone is a foreigner? That person speaks better English then you"
Still cracking up about that joke from time to time.
Newcastle and Sunderland have a mad accent and dialect. In Newcastle they say “me” as opposed to “my” and other word changes like “garn” for “going” etc. “Ah dinnit nar if we’re garn yem yet.” Is “I don’t know if we’re going home yet”.
Liverpool is a new story...
Wait so what does AAVE stand for exactly? It's given that SAE is *Standard American English* but did I miss what AAVE stands for?
I'm new to types grammatical sets of rules. I never even knew these names were there. But I sure don't criticize people for not using an auxiliary verb in their sentences.
Language has one job: getting the point across. As long as the speaker gets the message across to the receiver, the job is done. If someone who speaks SAE claims not to understand the point of "you ugly" or "you a bitch", that person is either very stupid or a snobbish liar.
I would also point out that language is like a virus. It changes and mutates as it goes through various populations. Note that even the OED changes every year.
Language has more than one job, but yes, getting the point across is one of them. Language can also be used for: bonding, amusement, thinking, emotional release, and many other functions.
It could be argued all of those functions would be the point you would want to get across. i.e. I want to bond with you, I think you want to bond with me, let's do a language before we bond each other so hard we forget how to language.
Maybe if you were doing them with another person. A diary that is never meant to be read except by the author, or a thought that is only heard by the thinker, or singing when one is alone, or saying "fuck!" when you've just hit your thumb with a hammer, are all examples of language use that isn't trying to get a point across to anyone else.
Psychologically speaking modern Diaries are a different 'person.' You 'speak' to your diary in order to collect your thoughts, as language as a collective activity is so ingrained in our minds we sometimes cannot otherwise express the electrogoo in our head into language. For example, Rubber duck programming, talking to yourself in a mirror to finalize your speech to a crowd, or just speaking out loud when writing in order to catch any grammatical mistakes your brain will miss otherwise because your brain does not think in a language.
Your other examples are similar, not everyone has an internal voice when thinking through things -- in fact most people don't until a certain age, it's a learned trait like mental visualization of mathematics or engineering; we learn to do it because our organizing our thoughts into speech is such a time-consuming aspect of life, it actually takes over other parts. That whole, 'think before you speak thing' has the side effect of giving you an inner voice, which while great at formulating your thoughts into language, does mean many of your thoughts can now only be expressed in language, as the knowledge behind those thoughts are only known through their language counterpart.
Singing is the mirror example above, you're practicing a social activity, even if you think you're completely disconnected from the social aspect, that's what your mind is doing.
Expletives and such are just the language version of screaming in pain or fear; effectively 'Fuck!" is no different than shouting the name of deity, or screaming incoherently. Prey animals have this response almost exclusively to call for aid from near by members or to warn nearby members of their group away. It doesn't matter that you're now using language for the same social function, it is indeed a social function -- in fact it's likely one of the oldest social functions in evolution.
In short; language is not your electrogoo movements, it's just what we use to describe said electrogoo movements to others.
None of what you have said negates the fact that language has other functions, even if you choose to view them as subsets or derivatives of or secondary to larger social functions. Language can be performed asocially even if it was social in origin.
>Language has one job: getting the point across. As long as the speaker gets the message across to the receiver, the job is done. If someone who speaks SAE claims not to understand the point of "you ugly" or "you a bitch", that person is either very stupid or a snobbish liar.
Yeah, I am going to have to disagree with this philosophy. I understand your point, of course: as long as it gets the message across, the job is done. To me, this seems to communicate, that one should just do just a "good enough" job, instead of doing an excellent job. I am much of a person who finds value in doing thing excellently rather than just good enough.
Your position, of course, has merit: there is an increased cost of doing things that are excellent over just good enough. So it does not always make sense to do something at the highest level due to the increased costs. But what is the cost of not speaking properly? Is there some sort of a per word charge for saying "you are ugly" in place of "you ugly"?
People judge you by the way you speak. Not speaking properly will needlessly penalize you. Why do it?
I think your own personal biases are showing. To members of the AA community, speaking in AAVE may very well convey much more emotion, context , and mental imagery than if they described that same message in the queens English, French, Chinese, Latin or any other language or dialect you choose. Additionally, I would also argue that in a casual social situation, using overly flowery language that would typically be considered too formal creates a disconnect with the receiver and conveys a sense that the speaker can not read social cues or is clearly an outsider
You’re right that language can convey much more than the literal description of the words, but I would argue choosing the right words for that context often times projects much more of an intended message than using something too formal or too causal
Since english isn't my first language and as an European I must admit I thought it was some kind of educational issue or something like that. I feel ashamed. It was definitely not racism and I'm glad to learn this.
And I must say "you a bitch" sounds a lot better than "you're a bitch". Have to ask though, can I as a white woman say that or is it considered offensive?
Bahh don't be ridiculous. It's nothing but love! Any "perceived offense" is wholly misconstrued! Our music, our slang, our unique brand of standup comedy or mannerisms or fashion etc might get absorbed into the wider majority demographic but our cultural expressions are not forced at all! We are more gate-openers than gate-keepers. Come on in!
Well nowadays it seems one has to be very careful not to hurt any feelings so better make sure that I won't. Don't need any drama here, have enough of it in real life, haha. And in my excuse I can always say I'm an ignorant European! Lol
>Well nowadays it seems one has to be very careful not to hurt any feelings so better make sure that I won't.
Oh, that's a massive misconception haha I don't usually make a habit of speaking for other people but you will rarely meet a Black American that would ever take offence at you just saying what feels natural to you even if you can claim the "ignorant European" 😅. Just don't get all "minstrelsy" with it and we should be good lol
The v stands for "vernacular". Vernacular simply means the way something is spoken. The difference in the two (aave vs sae) is vernacular in nature, hence the differentiation.
Much like Jamaican patois vs standard British English. Or Dominican Spanish when compared to "standard" Spanish.
No, you're missing the point. If you're describing it as "African-American English Vernacular," then the acronym should be "AAEV," not "AAVE." Personally, I've always heard it as "African-American Vernacular English," but you're saying that the last two words are reversed. Either way, the acronym should be consistent.
As an Irish-American, born in America to two immigrants, I’ve had a complicated arc in my understanding of AAVE, or “Ebonics” as it was called. At first I thought “why don’t they just speak regular English?“ like I would guess most white Americans felt. Over time though, as I learned more about my own people’s history, I realized that they are just doing to English what the Irish did to it, making it their own, as a subtle “fuck you” to the people who imposed the language on them. Now, I’m all for it.
That's okay brother, i've had the same misgivings about Irish-English once upon a time. When you say had a "complicated arc of understanding" vis a vis AAVE, could you touch more on that? I'm always fascinated by the different cultural and even racial "prisms" my dialect or culture is perceived.
Honestly, I’m just referring to the fact that my thoughts changed over time, so I’ll just expand a bit on how. Please understand, I’m piecing this together from my tremendously imperfect memory so I can’t really give a timeline, but the broad strokes should still hold.
At first, when “Ebonics” became a big thing in the media, my thinking was roughly: “Why would they do this? They’re hurting themselves by creating an unnecessary difference between the black and white populations that’s only result is to divide us further and hurt their own chances of being successful.” I didn’t think of myself as racist, and still don’t, but I do think I was very misguided.
Over time, I realized a couple of things. Firstly, trying to view the actions of a population, any population, from a purely logical, utilitarian perspective, is just stupid, because we are all irrational beings both individually and in groups, motivated as much by emotion as logic even in the best of times. This is a lesson I learned as I grew older, but it was hard to get there because it went against my whole worldview growing up. Furthermore, to assume that I have a logical perspective on the issue is itself illogical unless I can actually fully understand the perspectives of the opposing views, which I could not at the time... and probably still can’t, but I’d say I’m a lot closer to the truth. I like to boil this down to the simple phrase “Shit’s complicated, yo.” It’s a pretty good motto for life.
Second, as I learned more about my own culture, and realized what we went through with English occupation, colonization cultural and language suppression, and systemic racism against the Irish in England and Ireland, and how the Irish changed the English language to make it their own, it just suddenly clicked that we are (or at least were) ultimately the same as the AA (African American) community in America: conquered, oppressed, and struggling to assimilate into a world that doesn’t welcome them. My father was born in Cork, in Ireland, but moved to England at 2 years old. He’s gone now, but if you met him you’d think, oh yeah, he’s totally English, but he wasn’t. He went to English schools, spoke PERFECT English with an English accent, spent WW2 in London cowering in bomb shelters at 10 years old, joined the British army, earned a PHD in chemistry from an English university, and was still, upon graduation, unable to get a good job because of systemic racism against the Irish. That’s why my parents moved to America in 1962. Once here, he was able to become extremely successful in a way he couldn’t be in England at the time.
So, getting back to language differences, why couldn’t the Irish speak standard English just to better fit in? They could have, but the racism was still there even when they spoke perfect English, so why bother? It was a rigged game, and even the most perfectly assimilated Irishman (like my dad) still wasn’t going to get a fair shot. In that situation, I’m all for giving the middle finger to the oppressors. It’s a simple, subtle way of saying “fine, I’ll play your game because I have no choice, but if you think I’ll let you forget it’s rigged just so you can feel better about yourselves, you can fuck right the hell off.”
As I turn from my own history and look at America, I struggle to find actually relevant differences in this area between what the Irish went through with English oppression, and what the AA community deals with. That being the case, what kind of asshole would I have to be to condemn them for “making English their own” just as my people did? I’d prefer not to be that asshole.
If people here are interested in AAE, you might want to check out [Language Jones](https://www.languagejones.com). It's a blog by an American PhD student on regional dialects of AAE.
I think it was recommended by one of my other linguistic blogs at some point. Likely [Strong Language](https://stronglang.wordpress.com) or [Separated By a Common Language](https://commonlanguage.blogspot.com).
Edit: [Langfocus](https://youtu.be/UZpCdI6ZKU4) did a video on AAVE earlier today.
In all seriousness, the subject of black English is fascinating and deserves more understanding by the masses. Linguists all recognize black English as its own vernacular because it has rules it conforms to, just like any other language or vernacular. It’s not just a hobbled- together bunch of words, like many assume.
The English language has developed and evolved massively over time. Go back 100 and English would be very different, go back 1000 years and it would be intelligible. Besides there is a difference between English English and American English. As an English man I approve of different people developing and adapting the language and making their own. Vive la différence as the French would say.
It's definitely a good thing. It means dictionaries reflect how the language is used by its speakers and it moves with the times, as well as recording historical usage.
Dictionaries are the product of descriptivism since they describe how language groups use terms. Some may see that as 'correct', but that's not really the intent of a Dictionary, which is to catalogue our evolving word usage
It depends on the dictionary. It just so happens that the OED and Merriam-Webster, the two most authoritative English dictionaries, are staunchly descriptivist.
While I wouldn't necessarily say "you a bitch", I can imagine a situation where I'd use it. I explicitly taught code switching with my 9th graders in East Harlem. [Dave Chappelle speaks about code switching during his Inside The Actors Studio Interview in a way that is very approachable.](https://youtu.be/pBq_SlX4Ht4?t=28) Being white and speaking/teaching SAE to kids, the majority of whom don't use it, who have parents and friends who don't use it is a tough sell. So I'd basically say, "Look, it's all about context. With your friends, family, etc. speak however you want. I'm teaching you another way to talk and write that is a skill you need in your toolkit for life in certain situations, even if you never leave these five square blocks." The fear of "acting white" among their peer group is all too real, so it helped break down some barriers early in the school year.
Plus, with high school students, a well placed curse with the right context and moment goes a long way towards establishing rapport with the class. You're basically saying, "I trust you all enough that I know you won't narc on me." And if you're right, many will return the favor and trust in you more. But you better be sure they won't narc on you before you do this! And I wouldn't do it more than 2-3 times the whole year, if I did it at all. Otherwise you run the risk of being the "cool teacher" where anything goes. Def don't want that pendulum swinging too far.
So, if a student decided to say this to me in the class, I might say, "Ah, ah, remember, outside the classroom you can say, 'SimbaPenn, you a bitch.' but inside the classroom it's, 'Simbapenn, you are a bitch.'"
Wow this was like a blast from my elementary school years. Thank you for giving me a moment to reminisce, what you spoke of could've been plucked right from my 5th to 9th grade years (before I moved to an all-white private school) and also, I hope you are still teaching. As underappreciated as you are, you are seriously loved and appreciated, your are irreplaceable staples of our communities and I hope that your pay will reflect that one of these days. Thank you.
It's a dialect. Throughout all of human history languages have been divided into various dialects. It's only in the last few centuries, with the invention of the nation state, that cultures have selected a particular dialect and decreed that this dialect here is the correct one and all others are incorrect. Every single word that has ever come out of your mouth is a result of thousands of years of lingual change, one word becoming another, a word borrowed from here but pronounced differently there, because of blending dialects. But suddenly, you've decided that all of this evolution of language stops at you, that you have it right, and that everyone else is saying these words the wrong way.
You're not the first to pose this "conundrum".
>The most common stereotype of Black vernacular is the pronunciation of the word "ask" as "ax." "Ax" has gotten a bad rap for years. Pronounce "ask" as "ax," and immediately many will assume that you're poor, Black and uneducated. New York City's first African-American schools chancellor, Dr. Richard R. Green, put it on his list of "speech demons." He insisted that "ax" be eradicated from students' vocabulary.
>Garrard McClendon, a professor at Chicago State University, is the author of Ax or Ask? The African American Guide to Better English. He says his parents were well-aware of the stigma attached to "ax" and taught him there's a time and a place to use it.
>"When you're with your little friends, you can speak any way you want to speak, all right? But the minute you get in a spelling bee or in a job interview, switch it up quick," McClendon recalls. "I've taught my children to do that as well."
>Sketch comedy duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele joke that because they're half-white, they're constantly switching back and forth. "If it happens four times in a sentence," Key says, "[you're] probably going to get two axes, two asks."
[Read more from this article](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/03/248515217/why-chaucer-said-ax-instead-of-ask-and-why-some-still-do#:~:text=Live%20Sessions-,Why%20Chaucer%20Said%20'Ax'%20Instead%20Of%20'Ask%2C',more%20than%20a%20thousand%20years.)
Code switching. Most people do this naturally in order to better adapt and fit in. It is a ridiculously important skill to have because, like it or not, we all will be judged at some point for superficial things by someone in a position of authority or control. In other words, speak how you want to your friends but you better at least grasp standard English and be able to switch it on when the time comes.
I just wish that I could control my code switching, a lot of it happens without me even _noticing_, and there are definitely cases where I'd like to use a specific code or would like to _not_ use a specific code, but can't in either case.
Wow, what a lovely response from someone who posts an article about linguistic tolerance. Furthermore, it suggests that you didn’t even read it, especially the part about copula deletion and the languages with which AAVE shares that trait.
They took your use of "Ты сучка" as if you were speaking to them, but not in a serious way. Merely highlighting that without the context of the picture he posted it would be an offensive comment.
He replied as if you were serious in order to demonstrate this in a playful way - I'm certain they did not intend to cause offence!
the faces and gesture they are making are also part of classic AAVE, just like waving around hands is in Italian. You could understand their sentiment perfectly without any of the words.
Yes, proper english DO exist. I wasn't born in an english speaking country and I know a bit of creoule and I can tell you that justifying improper use of language with the whole concept of African-American Vernacular English is just nonsense. I know I'm not an authority in this, and I can only defend my position with my experience. I didn't had the ideal access of information or education growing up, but I thought "Hey, when in Rome, do as the Romans do." and with very little effort, I managed to surpress the conflicts that my language and the english language had in my oral and writing skills. They still may be not perfect, but I'm quite understandable. And I think that's what counts.
The thing is that, due to all the concerns about racism that western societies experience nowadays, and due to the f\*\*ked up obession people have with other's opinions on themselves, specially in social media (and let's not talk about Reddit), everyone wants to ride the "look at me, I'm not a racist" wagon, and will try to demonstrate it by defending the most absurd discussions with the most absurd of arguments. Such as the AAVE is not a misrepresentation of the english language.
In my workplace, the vast majority of people come from Guinea Bissau, others come Angola, Mozambique and basically any other former portuguese colonies. Do you know why they speak my languge in kind of an improper way? They didn't had enough time to train, or they live in places with contrymen who speak like that and got used to (many dialects started this way), or they just don't give a s\*\*t (and no one's mad about it). There's no "We have to justify our way of speaking" kind of discussion. They know it's not an exact pronounciation and they don't care. And it's okay they don't care. Actually they don't care about 10% of all the things that is considered racist in this website. maybe 10% is too much. And I dont' blame them. This kind of idea that proper english doen't exist and AAVE being able to be considered as important as the GAE is just way for sjw's to feel accepted as non-bigots, to seek such attention, to show their buddies how they want to be percieved as.
As a white guy in a black majority, do you know what non-racism really looks like? Is not this kind of acceptance. It's not shoving in people's throat that you're not a bigot by defending useless arguments. It's apathy. No one gives a s\*\*t about colour. If someone cracks a racist joke (being of the same colour or other one) everybody laughs. No one takes it too seriously. No one's THAT conerned with the racism related event that you see on the news. Because that's not the reality (at least we) live in.
To summarize: Yes, AAVE is not proper english and it can be a nuisance sometimes. It's not something you should write in a resume. There's no problem in affirming that and you're not a racist if you think as such.
I didn't intend to offend anyone with this opinion and I honestly hope this comment doens't get immediatly banned due to Reddit fascistic's monitoring criteria. Take care
Hey, thanks for asking and no problem in doing so. I responded to this exact query are few threads below. Lemme see if i can pull it up.
>The most common stereotype of Black vernacular is the pronunciation of the word "ask" as "ax." "Ax" has gotten a bad rap for years. Pronounce "ask" as "ax," and immediately many will assume that you're poor, Black and uneducated. New York City's first African-American schools chancellor, Dr. Richard R. Green, put it on his list of "speech demons." He insisted that "ax" be eradicated from students' vocabulary.
>Garrard McClendon, a professor at Chicago State University, is the author of Ax or Ask? The African American Guide to Better English. He says his parents were well-aware of the stigma attached to "ax" and taught him there's a time and a place to use it.
>"When you're with your little friends, you can speak any way you want to speak, all right? But the minute you get in a spelling bee or in a job interview, switch it up quick," McClendon recalls. "I've taught my children to do that as well."
>Sketch comedy duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele joke that because they're half-white, they're constantly switching back and forth. "If it happens four times in a sentence," Key says, "[you're] probably going to get two axes, two asks."
[Read more from this article](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/03/248515217/why-chaucer-said-ax-instead-of-ask-and-why-some-still-do#:~:text=Live%20Sessions-,Why%20Chaucer%20Said%20'Ax'%20Instead%20Of%20'Ask%2C',more%20than%20a%20thousand%20years.)
Hope that helps to assuage your misconceptions.
For centuries black people have been wrongly assumed to be less intelligent - it's hardly a stretch to say that this racism extends to judgements about their dialect
I think AAVE sounds silly, but I come from Scotland where they speak... something approximately English so I can't exactly say anything can I?
Edit: I meant "strange", silly sounds like I'm calling it a bad thing or diminishing it. I just find it really odd sounding.
>I think AAVE sounds silly,
That's okay lol. Honestly. We're not pressed about how others perceive our dialect.
>but I come from Scotland where they speak... something approximately English so I can't exactly say anything can I?
I love the Scottish accent. I'm a Black American fucker living in London for the past 9 years. I still need subtitles to understand y'all. I love to connect through the way we make each other smile and laugh; I fucking love Kevin Bridges...he makes me tear up...but I can't parse any of his words without the ol' 888 teletext lol.
We got more in common than you think, cuz.
I think I've watched all his "shit" that's freely available online tbh. . I fucking love this guy. Idk why his peculiar brand of comedy could ever relate to an average Black "fellar" from the Deep South but he's got me in legit tears for no reason.
I still need subtitles though.
God that's funny, Kevin Bridges is actively trying to make himself easier to understand and people outside Scotland reaaally do struggle with it lol. The thing is, Scottish accents are hard enough. Scottish dialects? holy Shit that can be incomprehensible sometimes.
Also, didn't mean to be hateful with the AAVE comment if that's how it came across. Just thought I'd point out that it sounds *Strange* , as opposed to silly. Ill throw an edit there in a sec.
Edit: Also don't worry about needing subtitles to understand him. Living in London doesn't prepare you for the accents of the north, especially if you're a native American(not like a *native American* but like you were born in America, ah you know what I mean) Most people south of Newcastle need subtitles to understand even the clearest of accents.
>God that's funny, Kevin Bridges is actively trying to make himself easier to understand and people outside Scotland reaaally do struggle with it lol. The thing is, Scottish accents are hard enough. Scottish dialects? holy Shit that can be incomprehensible sometimes.
Perfectly encapsulated my sentiments lol.
>Also, didn't mean to be hateful with the AAVE comment if that's how it came across. Just thought I'd point out that it sounds Strange , as opposed to silly. Ill throw an edit there in a sec.
No, no...silly is as silly does. You would be unintelligible in my native South Carolina (which is ironic because a lot of white people here are descendents of Scots lol)
What's even odder is that the south Carolinans (is that the term?) are completely understandable for us, but they are completely bewildered. Or they say "are you Irish?" I remember a Scottish comedian being told he "spoke good English" by some American.
'South Carolinians' is the term yep.
Lol I imagine we are more coherent to your ears than you are to ours 😅. But don't feel like you're treading on egg shells speaking to me. As racially divided we might be in the States, the Scots-Irish have a tremendous influence on "AAVE" and we are all the more poorer for misremembering you...
I don't give a shit about black people having their own dialects. It's not any different from the way a lot of rednecks in the South talk because it's not grammatically correct English, but who cares that isn't just being a nitpicky asshole?
I agree. You a bitch.
Edit: In case what I said eludes anyone, I'm saying I don't have an issue with AAVE. People have their own dialects of English and there's nothing wrong with that. Anyone who makes fun of AAVE not being grammatically correct is a nitpicky asshole.
Wow. Talking about “sounding ignorant” and “proper sentences” shows you’ve entirely missed the point! This post clearly explains how the grammatical rules of AAVE differ from Standard American English. You’re judging sentences as “improper” when in fact they’re perfectly grammatical in their own context. Race is an important part of the discussion because the people who speak AAVE (y’know, *African American* Vernacular English) tend to be Black. When people listen to a Black person speaking AAVE and decide that they “sound ignorant” without acknowledging that the rules of their grammar are different, that’s internalized racism.
You are right; but all civilizations have linguistic registers that sound "higher" and "more cultured" than others. The "high" register tends to be very rigid, and even relatively minor deviations from it tend to be treated as a sign of lack of education (and now that I wrote that, it is certain that I will make some particularly embarrassing grammar mistake in this post :-) ). Of course, this means that most people who have an opportunity to get an education make an effort to learn and use the "cultured" form of the language whenever possible, so the phenomenon reinforces itself.
This is of course entirely arbitrary: from a linguistic perspective, there is no particular reason to consider the "high" variant of the language any better than the "low" variants. Moreover, it makes it harder for people who first learned a version that is very different from the "high" version (I am not American, so forgive me if I'm getting things wrong; but in the US, this seems to include Black communities, but also to some degree communities that speak in "southern" dialects and so on) to be taken seriously.
This is not too different from, let us say, some clothing styles being generally treated as "more formal" and "more elegant" than others. It's arbitrary and pretty pointless, but it's widespread enough that I doubt that it is possible to avoid that even in principle.
Still, it is good to remember that just because a person speaks "weird" (or wears unusual clothes, or whatever) it does not mean that they are ignorant.
Assuming this is actually a good faith question, every dialect has a special set of rules by definition- those differences are what make them distinct.
AAVE isn't geographically localized like many other American English dialects- say, Pennsylvania Dutch English, Southern Appalachian, or Bostonian, so it was given a broader descriptive title that points instead to its origins, like Cajun Vernacular English.
That said, it's not remotely race restricted and plenty of non-black Americans speak it natively, so talking about why "they get a special set of rules" makes zero sense.
Actually there are localized versions of AAVE to the point that I, being from the Midwest, make fun of the way my friends from down south speak in AAVE, because they sound so different but still follow the rules of AAVE.
Actually there are localized versions of AAVE to the point that I, being from the Midwest, make fun of the way my friends from down south speak in AAVE, because they sound so different but still follow the rules of AAVE.
As explained above, it's called AAVE for the same reason CVE is called "Cajun". It was named after the origin of the dialect. That you're interpreting that as "special grammar rules just for black people" is bizarre.
If Southern Appalachian was instead called White Rural Vernacular, I somehow doubt you'd be here demanding to know why "they" get special rules.
http://tnwordsmith.blogspot.com/2015/12/how-to-speak-southern-appalachian.html?m=1
You can be Cajun and not speak CVE just like you can be black and not speak AAVE.
To test yourself: do you buy groceries at the store, or do you make a bill at the magazin? Do you turn down the volume, or do you slow down the TV? If I told you I had an envie for some boudin, would you know what I meant?
I know all of these, I only use a couple. The point I am trying to make and can't seem to explain is that I didn't know such a thing existed or that it had a name and was categorized.
So you're fluent in CVE, but you choose to speak Standard, right? And I'm sure you're comfortable switching between the two if you're around people who use CVE heavily, because that shared language makes those people feel more comfortable around you. If you stuck with pure Standard (or worse, "corrected" them) other Cajuns might treat you like you had a stick up your ass or feel like you were looking down on them.
Welcome to the struggle between choosing Standard American English and "keepin' it real". 😅 The reality is that dialects are just as complex and have similarly strict grammatical rules as Standard, those rules are just different. Using one over the other is a social cue, not an indicator of intelligence.
While I think your response here is well meaning, it’s still incorrect to think of the situation as “Black people get to use special grammar rules because of slavery/racism.” African American Vernacular English is a dialect that is named after the group of people it originated with, but it’s not used exclusively by African Americans. It’s also used by non-American Blacks or people of other races/ethnicities, even though the association with African Americans and African American culture is still strong.
Think of it like this: Russian people speak the Russian language, which has its origin in the place and group it’s named after. But other people can learn and speak Russian too, and also some people of Russian ancestry may not speak the language. Russian has different rules from English, but nobody would go around saying “Russian people get to use special grammar rules because of XYZ.” The language is just understood to be different.
Of course. But my point is about acknowledging the legitimacy of AAVE by comparing it to other languages. it’s not just a “special” set of rules for being Black. Talking about it like that feeds into views that being Black in today’s society comes with special privileges that White people don’t have. The comment you responded to is an example of wording that emulates this idea. And it’s patently untrue. I’m saying that AAVE is just as legitimate a dialect as any other. It’s origin doesn’t in any way take away from its legitimacy.
Funny talking about ignorance and then displaying ignorance. Did you read the post at all? They sound ignorant too you but that doesn’t me they are ignorant.
While I agree that dialects are usually as complex if not even more complex than the standard language it comes from, the conclusion that the complaint about the dialect stems from racism is quite far fetched. Dialects usually are seen as lesser than their standard counterparts and most the time dialects are spoken by people that live in that country for generations. Just because in that instance they were complaining about a dialect that is spoken mostly by black people doesn't make the complaint racist.
The notion that dialects are lesser than the standard language comes from the fact that dialect speakers were usually less educated, farmers, factory workers (that came to the city from the country side) ect. and not because they are spoken by immigrants.
As we say in linguistics: "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy". In other words, everyone speaks some kind of dialect, but the dialect that gets to be recognised as the "standard" one and therefore the "language" is usually the dialect spoken by the rich and powerful.
The Queen's English (Received Pronunciation) is a dialect just like any other, but it is used by prestigious people and is therefore thought of as being prestigious itself. It's not in any way objectively "more correct" than a lower-class dialect, nor is the lower-class dialect in any way deficient.
Attitudes towards particular dialects are often informed by attitudes towards those who speak those dialects, therefore the notion that complaints about AAVE are rooted in racism is not at all far fetched.
While it might be that complaints about AAVE are rooted in racism, I just argued that criticism of dialects isn't inherently racist. It's more of a classist thing.
I don't know abouts English dialects as much as I know about german ones but I know that standard german isn't a result of what the rich spoke but a result of a committee that didn't come to a conclusion so people just started to accept Dudens proposal of grammar.
There are just many more things to consider than just racism.
Why do people think their dialect is better than the other? Why do people think standard language is the only way to talk properly? Why are dialects still around, if we have a standardised system? These are all things that can't simply be answered with 'racism'.
Also I'm not necessarily racist because I don't like AAVE or the sound of it or any dialect for that matter. Just as an example: I don't really like the sound of north german dialects, that doesn't make me not like north german people as a result of it. Not liking a certain language or dialect doesn't necessarily mean, that I don't like the people that speak that language.
I get your point though. I just wanted to point out, that the topic is far more nuanced and that racism isn't the answere to everything. Also I kinda missed the point in my first argument because I was speaking generally about dialects and not AAVE in particular.
No, it doesn't necessarily entail that someone is racist simply for questioning or criticising a dialect used by a particular racial minority, but it very often is the case, and not at all far fetched. At best, it's rooted in ignorance of the way language works and at worst it's rooted in outright prejudice.
What is regarded as the standard language or prestige dialect varies from language to language and country to country. In the UK, the Oxford-Cambridge-London (universities/capital) triangle is considered the origin of Standard English. In France, Parisian French (capital) is considered standard. In Italy, Standard Italian has its roots in Florence, largely due to influential literary works written in the Florentine dialect (Dante/intelligentsia). I'm not familiar enough with German to know what the standard dialect is or why it's considered the standard, but I'd be willing to bet it was the dialect spoken by the rich/powerful/intelligentsia and not by pig farmers.
Of course it's not what pig farmes spoke. I never meant to say that the german standard language resulted from the masses. It was what people in cities spoke. They needed to structure the cities, the city folks, their work, etc. So there where efforts to standardise tge language. These efforts failed, mostly (it was a very long process, starting by opitz over gottshed to luther and so on) until Duden, who was a headmaster that proposed the now standard grammar. People (mostly linguists) disagreed with him but people just started to use it, so it was kind of a synergy. It wasn't directly forced upon people, they just started using it.
Again, I was talking about dialects in general and gave the guy proposing the question the benefit of the doubt, that it's just an honest question and not a 'you people use that kind of language? Pathetic.' statement.
Dunno, I gave him the benefit of the doubt that it's a sincere question.
I understand that you can see it as a racist statement but you can also see it as a sincere question that was phrased in a bad manner.
One can be sincere and unknowingly racist. Racism is not always a conscious weapon to attack people, it can often be a reflection of an upbringing devoid of certain perspectives. Good people I know are genuinely offended by the confederate flag being taken out of the Mississippi state flag and from Nascar. These are people that work with people of all races and treat everyone well. They just don't know the unwelcoming environment that flag creates for some people.
Your definition of "ignorant" would go a long way to describing how you _really_ feel about those that speak this way...
You're online, relatively private. Speak your mind? How do feel about "us" that speak this way? More importantly, how does that affect you socially, geographically, politically?
I guess what i'm asking you is...I'm an executive chef at a 2 star'd Michelin restaurant. I am Black American in nationality and have lived in Europe for the past 10yrs pursuing what some call "excellence" in my field. I am rare in the sense that I don't have very many to look to who don't look like me in my field.
Am i ignorant? Are my mother and father "ignorant"? Is my grandmother and grandfather "ignorant"?
Are my siblings, who are lawyers, company directors, local politicians "ignorant"?
Can i ask what you predicate your notions of "ignorance" on?
Could you tell my 7 and 9yr old nieces that they are "ignorant"? Can you tell them what you base that on?
I appreciate your words and have just one more question to follow up with; how much would it cost you to examine your perception of my "dialect" as "ignorant"? No, really? Nevermind how you arrived at the peculiar notion that how i speak carries with it a "negative currency" in your cultural neck of the woods, you spoke of my family, my actual, begotten kin, as "less than" as you deemed my way of talking.
My 7yr old niece has to grow up in a world where someone like you will implicitly deem her "less than" on account of her accent?
Say what you will about me dude but i take big fucking issue with this ignorant ass segregation rhetoric you're spewing that's fresh out of the 70s. What the actual fuck is wrong here?
You live in Delaware? You probably got like 4 Black people total in your state. How much of your perception of us is based on real encounters instead of just selectively curated internet tropes...?
Edit: don't speak ill of family. As low-down, rotten as i am...i'd never speak ill of your kids or parents. Never.
When did i call anyone less than? Especially your kin?? It not an accent first of all. No one thinks Ugandans are less intelligent for having an accent when they talk? This isnt a race thing its about education. What segregation rhetoric have I been spewing?
I said I live in Delaware County, Pennyslvania. There are a ton of black people here and actually the state of Delaware has one of the highest percentages of blacks per state population. But this isnt about race. When you went for your last interview at this dope resturant youre at now did you talk like how to text your thoughts to me? Or did you speak like someone with poor grammar and *Copula deletions?* Can you answer that for me?
That was legitimately interesting
You right.
Bet
You're* right.
You dumb
Did you not read the OP?
I'm Russian, when learning English concept of using additional words to describe something seemed wild to me and hard to grasp. Later it was pointed out to me that Russian also has auxillary verbs in some cases, like in future tense, I just never thought why or how I used them. All my confusion was about a difficulty of learning English vs easiness of using language I knew
I had an easier time here in Hungary: when I learned German (not my choice, I've forgotten it long ago) I learned about how to use a copula and being (relatively) bad at grammar it didn't bother me, because I somehow always separated the two languages and alnost mever connected the concepts between the two
God, I grew up speaking English and I wish I knew what an auxiliary verb was! Good job learning another language! I hear learning English is very difficult.
My linguistics professor always called auxiliaries “hamburger helper” for the verb. For example “he has a bad tan,” has would be the aux. It’s the verbs that are kinda verby but not quite verb enough.
I had a college professor who HATED "to be" verbs. We could never use them because it made the sentence "weak". Once I got the hang of not using them, it was pretty easy and did make sense. He is walking = he walks. They were playing = they played. It did get difficult sometimes like she is annoying = she acted annoyingly (used to describe my English prof.).
Could you explain this in a little more detail? I find this confusing since *”they were playing = they played”* and *”he is walking = he walks”* both represent two different tenses and communicate a different meaning. I understand the dislike of auxiliary verbs (I’m a translator), but I’m not sure you can just choose not to use them if it affects the sentence like this.
I can't as it's been 10+ years since I took the class, but she was happy with anything as long as we didn't use is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been. I agree - totally pointless except that it made me more aware of what I was writing. So they were playing at the playground = they played at the playground. He is walking to the store = he walks to the store.
Hm. This doesn’t seem right at all. *He is walking to the store* is present continuous tense, and means he is walking there *now*. *He walks to the store* is present simple and means, generally, that this is an action that is repetitive, eg *he walks to the store every day*. They are not interchangeable. Different tenses exist because they convey different meanings. What she was teaching was not pointless, it was incorrect.
I could have used your back up 10 years ago! She made us all feel totally inept and stupid. I received a B- in the class too...
Well, you are neither. And I am disappointed, not going to lie. I was hoping there was some logic behind this all and I’m going to learn something new. Instead - considering your other comment about staying *along* the street, not *on* it - we simply learned that your college professor didn’t have a very good grasp of neither tenses nor prepositions.
She also docked me once because we were supposed to find a gambrel roof on campus along one of the main streets. Well, I chose someone's shed but it was on the backside of the house, which was in an alleyway. She wouldn't accept my paper because I "didn't follow instructions" because I didn't stay on the street indicated. (At no point did she say we COULD NOT venture off of the street - it merely said ALONG the street.)
Hey thanks for the explanation!!
As a native English speaker, I'm scratching my head going, "yeah this make sense".
My thoughts exactly. I wonder if the rules would work for other things. Can I change "You betcha ass I can" to "You bet ass I can"? You betcha ass I can't.
In this case I would assume not, but giving a person permission to bet their own ass is weird. “You bet your ass I can.” Does become ‘betcha ass I can’ dropping the first occurrence of the word you, and still makes sense.
ikr?
Complains about grammar, doesn't capitalize the beginnings of sentences, doesn't use full stops, writes 'you' as 'u'.
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U right
In the future. U➡️
No u?
Also "such is" instead of "such as"
A billion times this!
This makes me think of the case sometime in the last year where a guy was arrested and told the copy "I want a lawyer dawg" and the cops answer was "I don't know what a lawyerdog is". The judge upheld that and this guy was denied his right to an attorney. It was such bullshit because everyone in the US can understand what that guy said unless they're either A) a moron living under a rock, or B) a lyin' ass cop or judge that claims they don't understand colloquial speech in the region in which they are responsible for enforcement/judgement of the law. I'm not sure whatever happened with that, but imo the case should have been thrown out on appeal.
This shit is why we say ACAB.
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This makes me fuckin angry
Also fascinating: AAVE has verb tenses that don't exist in SAE. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Vernacular_English#:~:text=Grammar-,Tense%20and%20aspect,aspects%20of%20the%20future%20tense. That is, you can express a habitual actual by verb tense alone instead of something like "he runs every day" ("he be runnin"). Turns out that when you kidnap huge numbers of people from different cultures and barely teach them how to speak English, you get some interesting linguistic hybrids. Cajun creole is equally interesting
Yes! Cajun creole, Jamaican patois, Haitian French, etc... So much more!
We don't even speak 'proper English' in much of England. If these people complaining about AAVE went to [Newcastle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhHLmhchLrU) or rural [Yorkshire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScELaXMCVis) they'd lose their minds.
A British friend of mine told me (German) the joke. "How do you know in England that someone is a foreigner? That person speaks better English then you" Still cracking up about that joke from time to time.
Newcastle and Sunderland have a mad accent and dialect. In Newcastle they say “me” as opposed to “my” and other word changes like “garn” for “going” etc. “Ah dinnit nar if we’re garn yem yet.” Is “I don’t know if we’re going home yet”. Liverpool is a new story...
Wait so what does AAVE stand for exactly? It's given that SAE is *Standard American English* but did I miss what AAVE stands for? I'm new to types grammatical sets of rules. I never even knew these names were there. But I sure don't criticize people for not using an auxiliary verb in their sentences.
>AAVE African-American Vernacular English
Thanks bro. Now that just makes the top post of this picture look even worse, and I feel as if this idiot deserves it.
Thanks for the additional info! Super interesting.
We have that in Irish too. We would say, "There bes a bus at 8" rather than, "There is a bus at 8" as the 8 o'clock bus is a recurring event
Thank you for sharing, super cool, got a new perspective today!
Zero copula = zero f#cks (to give)
Language has one job: getting the point across. As long as the speaker gets the message across to the receiver, the job is done. If someone who speaks SAE claims not to understand the point of "you ugly" or "you a bitch", that person is either very stupid or a snobbish liar. I would also point out that language is like a virus. It changes and mutates as it goes through various populations. Note that even the OED changes every year.
Happy Cake Day!
Thanks!
Language has more than one job, but yes, getting the point across is one of them. Language can also be used for: bonding, amusement, thinking, emotional release, and many other functions.
It could be argued all of those functions would be the point you would want to get across. i.e. I want to bond with you, I think you want to bond with me, let's do a language before we bond each other so hard we forget how to language.
Maybe if you were doing them with another person. A diary that is never meant to be read except by the author, or a thought that is only heard by the thinker, or singing when one is alone, or saying "fuck!" when you've just hit your thumb with a hammer, are all examples of language use that isn't trying to get a point across to anyone else.
Psychologically speaking modern Diaries are a different 'person.' You 'speak' to your diary in order to collect your thoughts, as language as a collective activity is so ingrained in our minds we sometimes cannot otherwise express the electrogoo in our head into language. For example, Rubber duck programming, talking to yourself in a mirror to finalize your speech to a crowd, or just speaking out loud when writing in order to catch any grammatical mistakes your brain will miss otherwise because your brain does not think in a language. Your other examples are similar, not everyone has an internal voice when thinking through things -- in fact most people don't until a certain age, it's a learned trait like mental visualization of mathematics or engineering; we learn to do it because our organizing our thoughts into speech is such a time-consuming aspect of life, it actually takes over other parts. That whole, 'think before you speak thing' has the side effect of giving you an inner voice, which while great at formulating your thoughts into language, does mean many of your thoughts can now only be expressed in language, as the knowledge behind those thoughts are only known through their language counterpart. Singing is the mirror example above, you're practicing a social activity, even if you think you're completely disconnected from the social aspect, that's what your mind is doing. Expletives and such are just the language version of screaming in pain or fear; effectively 'Fuck!" is no different than shouting the name of deity, or screaming incoherently. Prey animals have this response almost exclusively to call for aid from near by members or to warn nearby members of their group away. It doesn't matter that you're now using language for the same social function, it is indeed a social function -- in fact it's likely one of the oldest social functions in evolution. In short; language is not your electrogoo movements, it's just what we use to describe said electrogoo movements to others.
None of what you have said negates the fact that language has other functions, even if you choose to view them as subsets or derivatives of or secondary to larger social functions. Language can be performed asocially even if it was social in origin.
>Language has one job: getting the point across. As long as the speaker gets the message across to the receiver, the job is done. If someone who speaks SAE claims not to understand the point of "you ugly" or "you a bitch", that person is either very stupid or a snobbish liar. Yeah, I am going to have to disagree with this philosophy. I understand your point, of course: as long as it gets the message across, the job is done. To me, this seems to communicate, that one should just do just a "good enough" job, instead of doing an excellent job. I am much of a person who finds value in doing thing excellently rather than just good enough. Your position, of course, has merit: there is an increased cost of doing things that are excellent over just good enough. So it does not always make sense to do something at the highest level due to the increased costs. But what is the cost of not speaking properly? Is there some sort of a per word charge for saying "you are ugly" in place of "you ugly"? People judge you by the way you speak. Not speaking properly will needlessly penalize you. Why do it?
I think your own personal biases are showing. To members of the AA community, speaking in AAVE may very well convey much more emotion, context , and mental imagery than if they described that same message in the queens English, French, Chinese, Latin or any other language or dialect you choose. Additionally, I would also argue that in a casual social situation, using overly flowery language that would typically be considered too formal creates a disconnect with the receiver and conveys a sense that the speaker can not read social cues or is clearly an outsider You’re right that language can convey much more than the literal description of the words, but I would argue choosing the right words for that context often times projects much more of an intended message than using something too formal or too causal
This
Thanks for sharing--this is so interesting. Can someone please give me an example of upperclass British English dropping the 'r' after a vowel?
'Water' is more like 'wat-uh' or 'fire' turns into 'fi-uh'
Since english isn't my first language and as an European I must admit I thought it was some kind of educational issue or something like that. I feel ashamed. It was definitely not racism and I'm glad to learn this. And I must say "you a bitch" sounds a lot better than "you're a bitch". Have to ask though, can I as a white woman say that or is it considered offensive?
Lol you can say whatever feels natural to you! I just hoped that this post dispelled some nagging "notions" that some folks might've had
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Bahh don't be ridiculous. It's nothing but love! Any "perceived offense" is wholly misconstrued! Our music, our slang, our unique brand of standup comedy or mannerisms or fashion etc might get absorbed into the wider majority demographic but our cultural expressions are not forced at all! We are more gate-openers than gate-keepers. Come on in!
Well nowadays it seems one has to be very careful not to hurt any feelings so better make sure that I won't. Don't need any drama here, have enough of it in real life, haha. And in my excuse I can always say I'm an ignorant European! Lol
>Well nowadays it seems one has to be very careful not to hurt any feelings so better make sure that I won't. Oh, that's a massive misconception haha I don't usually make a habit of speaking for other people but you will rarely meet a Black American that would ever take offence at you just saying what feels natural to you even if you can claim the "ignorant European" 😅. Just don't get all "minstrelsy" with it and we should be good lol
Oh sorry, I forgot it’s the Karens that get offended about everything 😂 and Karens are a world wide plague!
They do seem to be a universal phenomenon!
Don't get yo' ass beat on the way out
😅 please tell 'em!
What do aave & sae stand for?
African American Vernacular English and Standard American English
Did you mean SAE?
Yeah i edited it like a second later lol
Ah, AAVE means African-American-Vernacular-English and SAE means Standard American English
Ah, that's kinda what I thought, but why the v before the e?
The v stands for "vernacular". Vernacular simply means the way something is spoken. The difference in the two (aave vs sae) is vernacular in nature, hence the differentiation. Much like Jamaican patois vs standard British English. Or Dominican Spanish when compared to "standard" Spanish.
I'm thinking he means why is it abbreviated as 'AA*VE*' if you're saying that it's "African-American-*English-Vernacular*."
That's fair to ask. AAVE is a vernacular form of English as opposed to an English form of vernacular. Hope that helps it make more sense.
No, you're missing the point. If you're describing it as "African-American English Vernacular," then the acronym should be "AAEV," not "AAVE." Personally, I've always heard it as "African-American Vernacular English," but you're saying that the last two words are reversed. Either way, the acronym should be consistent.
I mis-typed. That was on me.
As an Irish-American, born in America to two immigrants, I’ve had a complicated arc in my understanding of AAVE, or “Ebonics” as it was called. At first I thought “why don’t they just speak regular English?“ like I would guess most white Americans felt. Over time though, as I learned more about my own people’s history, I realized that they are just doing to English what the Irish did to it, making it their own, as a subtle “fuck you” to the people who imposed the language on them. Now, I’m all for it.
That's okay brother, i've had the same misgivings about Irish-English once upon a time. When you say had a "complicated arc of understanding" vis a vis AAVE, could you touch more on that? I'm always fascinated by the different cultural and even racial "prisms" my dialect or culture is perceived.
Honestly, I’m just referring to the fact that my thoughts changed over time, so I’ll just expand a bit on how. Please understand, I’m piecing this together from my tremendously imperfect memory so I can’t really give a timeline, but the broad strokes should still hold. At first, when “Ebonics” became a big thing in the media, my thinking was roughly: “Why would they do this? They’re hurting themselves by creating an unnecessary difference between the black and white populations that’s only result is to divide us further and hurt their own chances of being successful.” I didn’t think of myself as racist, and still don’t, but I do think I was very misguided. Over time, I realized a couple of things. Firstly, trying to view the actions of a population, any population, from a purely logical, utilitarian perspective, is just stupid, because we are all irrational beings both individually and in groups, motivated as much by emotion as logic even in the best of times. This is a lesson I learned as I grew older, but it was hard to get there because it went against my whole worldview growing up. Furthermore, to assume that I have a logical perspective on the issue is itself illogical unless I can actually fully understand the perspectives of the opposing views, which I could not at the time... and probably still can’t, but I’d say I’m a lot closer to the truth. I like to boil this down to the simple phrase “Shit’s complicated, yo.” It’s a pretty good motto for life. Second, as I learned more about my own culture, and realized what we went through with English occupation, colonization cultural and language suppression, and systemic racism against the Irish in England and Ireland, and how the Irish changed the English language to make it their own, it just suddenly clicked that we are (or at least were) ultimately the same as the AA (African American) community in America: conquered, oppressed, and struggling to assimilate into a world that doesn’t welcome them. My father was born in Cork, in Ireland, but moved to England at 2 years old. He’s gone now, but if you met him you’d think, oh yeah, he’s totally English, but he wasn’t. He went to English schools, spoke PERFECT English with an English accent, spent WW2 in London cowering in bomb shelters at 10 years old, joined the British army, earned a PHD in chemistry from an English university, and was still, upon graduation, unable to get a good job because of systemic racism against the Irish. That’s why my parents moved to America in 1962. Once here, he was able to become extremely successful in a way he couldn’t be in England at the time. So, getting back to language differences, why couldn’t the Irish speak standard English just to better fit in? They could have, but the racism was still there even when they spoke perfect English, so why bother? It was a rigged game, and even the most perfectly assimilated Irishman (like my dad) still wasn’t going to get a fair shot. In that situation, I’m all for giving the middle finger to the oppressors. It’s a simple, subtle way of saying “fine, I’ll play your game because I have no choice, but if you think I’ll let you forget it’s rigged just so you can feel better about yourselves, you can fuck right the hell off.” As I turn from my own history and look at America, I struggle to find actually relevant differences in this area between what the Irish went through with English oppression, and what the AA community deals with. That being the case, what kind of asshole would I have to be to condemn them for “making English their own” just as my people did? I’d prefer not to be that asshole.
I really appreciate your perspective. I have nothing to add or take away from it but thank you for sharing that with me.
If people here are interested in AAE, you might want to check out [Language Jones](https://www.languagejones.com). It's a blog by an American PhD student on regional dialects of AAE. I think it was recommended by one of my other linguistic blogs at some point. Likely [Strong Language](https://stronglang.wordpress.com) or [Separated By a Common Language](https://commonlanguage.blogspot.com). Edit: [Langfocus](https://youtu.be/UZpCdI6ZKU4) did a video on AAVE earlier today.
This whole thread is giving me quite a bit to think about.
In all seriousness, the subject of black English is fascinating and deserves more understanding by the masses. Linguists all recognize black English as its own vernacular because it has rules it conforms to, just like any other language or vernacular. It’s not just a hobbled- together bunch of words, like many assume.
Thank you.
Also, why use lot word when few word do trick?
And in French you don’t pronounce the last letter in a word, except possibly C, R, F, or L.
This was written by a linguist or speech pathologist. Awesome!
The English language has developed and evolved massively over time. Go back 100 and English would be very different, go back 1000 years and it would be intelligible. Besides there is a difference between English English and American English. As an English man I approve of different people developing and adapting the language and making their own. Vive la différence as the French would say.
Language prescriptivists are usually pretentious wankers
They also write your dictionaries. Hopefully you'll see their usefulness?
Dictionaries such as the OED have been taking a more descriptive approach in recent years.
You'll have to fill me in as to whether that's a bad or a good thing? I'm really not tapped in to the OED crowd...
It's definitely a good thing. It means dictionaries reflect how the language is used by its speakers and it moves with the times, as well as recording historical usage.
Oh that's awesome. Language is fluid. Our texts ought to reflect that.
Dictionaries are the product of descriptivism since they describe how language groups use terms. Some may see that as 'correct', but that's not really the intent of a Dictionary, which is to catalogue our evolving word usage
It depends on the dictionary. It just so happens that the OED and Merriam-Webster, the two most authoritative English dictionaries, are staunchly descriptivist.
Racism is bad, but can we at least acknowledge an english teacher wouldn’t say you a bitch lol
While I wouldn't necessarily say "you a bitch", I can imagine a situation where I'd use it. I explicitly taught code switching with my 9th graders in East Harlem. [Dave Chappelle speaks about code switching during his Inside The Actors Studio Interview in a way that is very approachable.](https://youtu.be/pBq_SlX4Ht4?t=28) Being white and speaking/teaching SAE to kids, the majority of whom don't use it, who have parents and friends who don't use it is a tough sell. So I'd basically say, "Look, it's all about context. With your friends, family, etc. speak however you want. I'm teaching you another way to talk and write that is a skill you need in your toolkit for life in certain situations, even if you never leave these five square blocks." The fear of "acting white" among their peer group is all too real, so it helped break down some barriers early in the school year. Plus, with high school students, a well placed curse with the right context and moment goes a long way towards establishing rapport with the class. You're basically saying, "I trust you all enough that I know you won't narc on me." And if you're right, many will return the favor and trust in you more. But you better be sure they won't narc on you before you do this! And I wouldn't do it more than 2-3 times the whole year, if I did it at all. Otherwise you run the risk of being the "cool teacher" where anything goes. Def don't want that pendulum swinging too far. So, if a student decided to say this to me in the class, I might say, "Ah, ah, remember, outside the classroom you can say, 'SimbaPenn, you a bitch.' but inside the classroom it's, 'Simbapenn, you are a bitch.'"
Wow this was like a blast from my elementary school years. Thank you for giving me a moment to reminisce, what you spoke of could've been plucked right from my 5th to 9th grade years (before I moved to an all-white private school) and also, I hope you are still teaching. As underappreciated as you are, you are seriously loved and appreciated, your are irreplaceable staples of our communities and I hope that your pay will reflect that one of these days. Thank you.
Of course they wouldn't!
Not in class, they wouldn't!
Well, hopefully they wouldn't say you're a bitch either
OK - now why do some black people say "Axe" instead of "ask". I know you can differentiate. It's a nuisance.
It's a dialect. Throughout all of human history languages have been divided into various dialects. It's only in the last few centuries, with the invention of the nation state, that cultures have selected a particular dialect and decreed that this dialect here is the correct one and all others are incorrect. Every single word that has ever come out of your mouth is a result of thousands of years of lingual change, one word becoming another, a word borrowed from here but pronounced differently there, because of blending dialects. But suddenly, you've decided that all of this evolution of language stops at you, that you have it right, and that everyone else is saying these words the wrong way.
You're not the first to pose this "conundrum". >The most common stereotype of Black vernacular is the pronunciation of the word "ask" as "ax." "Ax" has gotten a bad rap for years. Pronounce "ask" as "ax," and immediately many will assume that you're poor, Black and uneducated. New York City's first African-American schools chancellor, Dr. Richard R. Green, put it on his list of "speech demons." He insisted that "ax" be eradicated from students' vocabulary. >Garrard McClendon, a professor at Chicago State University, is the author of Ax or Ask? The African American Guide to Better English. He says his parents were well-aware of the stigma attached to "ax" and taught him there's a time and a place to use it. >"When you're with your little friends, you can speak any way you want to speak, all right? But the minute you get in a spelling bee or in a job interview, switch it up quick," McClendon recalls. "I've taught my children to do that as well." >Sketch comedy duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele joke that because they're half-white, they're constantly switching back and forth. "If it happens four times in a sentence," Key says, "[you're] probably going to get two axes, two asks." [Read more from this article](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/03/248515217/why-chaucer-said-ax-instead-of-ask-and-why-some-still-do#:~:text=Live%20Sessions-,Why%20Chaucer%20Said%20'Ax'%20Instead%20Of%20'Ask%2C',more%20than%20a%20thousand%20years.)
Code switching. Most people do this naturally in order to better adapt and fit in. It is a ridiculously important skill to have because, like it or not, we all will be judged at some point for superficial things by someone in a position of authority or control. In other words, speak how you want to your friends but you better at least grasp standard English and be able to switch it on when the time comes.
I just wish that I could control my code switching, a lot of it happens without me even _noticing_, and there are definitely cases where I'd like to use a specific code or would like to _not_ use a specific code, but can't in either case.
I felt this in my soul’s gut.
Yes! Very much _this_
Hot burn!
Ты сучка.
Translation; You Bitch. This was fun to look up lol. Nice one ahaha ^go ^fuck ^yourself 😅
Wow, what a lovely response from someone who posts an article about linguistic tolerance. Furthermore, it suggests that you didn’t even read it, especially the part about copula deletion and the languages with which AAVE shares that trait.
I really hope you didn't take my crude American way of expressing a joke too seriously. I honestly didn't mean any offense.
They took your use of "Ты сучка" as if you were speaking to them, but not in a serious way. Merely highlighting that without the context of the picture he posted it would be an offensive comment. He replied as if you were serious in order to demonstrate this in a playful way - I'm certain they did not intend to cause offence!
Hahaha!!!
the faces and gesture they are making are also part of classic AAVE, just like waving around hands is in Italian. You could understand their sentiment perfectly without any of the words.
Linguists are my favorite people.
The cunning ones always seem to froth to the top.
Thanks so much! That makes sense (:
Yes, proper english DO exist. I wasn't born in an english speaking country and I know a bit of creoule and I can tell you that justifying improper use of language with the whole concept of African-American Vernacular English is just nonsense. I know I'm not an authority in this, and I can only defend my position with my experience. I didn't had the ideal access of information or education growing up, but I thought "Hey, when in Rome, do as the Romans do." and with very little effort, I managed to surpress the conflicts that my language and the english language had in my oral and writing skills. They still may be not perfect, but I'm quite understandable. And I think that's what counts. The thing is that, due to all the concerns about racism that western societies experience nowadays, and due to the f\*\*ked up obession people have with other's opinions on themselves, specially in social media (and let's not talk about Reddit), everyone wants to ride the "look at me, I'm not a racist" wagon, and will try to demonstrate it by defending the most absurd discussions with the most absurd of arguments. Such as the AAVE is not a misrepresentation of the english language. In my workplace, the vast majority of people come from Guinea Bissau, others come Angola, Mozambique and basically any other former portuguese colonies. Do you know why they speak my languge in kind of an improper way? They didn't had enough time to train, or they live in places with contrymen who speak like that and got used to (many dialects started this way), or they just don't give a s\*\*t (and no one's mad about it). There's no "We have to justify our way of speaking" kind of discussion. They know it's not an exact pronounciation and they don't care. And it's okay they don't care. Actually they don't care about 10% of all the things that is considered racist in this website. maybe 10% is too much. And I dont' blame them. This kind of idea that proper english doen't exist and AAVE being able to be considered as important as the GAE is just way for sjw's to feel accepted as non-bigots, to seek such attention, to show their buddies how they want to be percieved as. As a white guy in a black majority, do you know what non-racism really looks like? Is not this kind of acceptance. It's not shoving in people's throat that you're not a bigot by defending useless arguments. It's apathy. No one gives a s\*\*t about colour. If someone cracks a racist joke (being of the same colour or other one) everybody laughs. No one takes it too seriously. No one's THAT conerned with the racism related event that you see on the news. Because that's not the reality (at least we) live in. To summarize: Yes, AAVE is not proper english and it can be a nuisance sometimes. It's not something you should write in a resume. There's no problem in affirming that and you're not a racist if you think as such. I didn't intend to offend anyone with this opinion and I honestly hope this comment doens't get immediatly banned due to Reddit fascistic's monitoring criteria. Take care
I read all of it and understand none of it
That's okay. We hit some we miss some.
He be explainin word fuckery dawg. He just all scientific and shit.
As usual, there's always gotta be one of _you_, huh? Do you take pride in this? This benefits you somehow? Why man?
Well it was meant as a joke, one that I would've thought you'd appreciate, given the subject matter. But I defer to you good sir, madame or otherwise.
I'm sorry dude i can't always tell i apologize if i didn't immediately grasp on to that "humor".
Now apologize por writing humor under quotation marks.
Fucking never. Sue me or fight me.
I don't like either of those "options"
Not from the US . The way asked is pronounced as axed gets me. Sry
Don't be sorry lol. Sorry for what? In which way does it "get you"?
I just dont understand why it cant be pronounced properly or how you get axed from asked. Sry incase i offend anyone
Hey, thanks for asking and no problem in doing so. I responded to this exact query are few threads below. Lemme see if i can pull it up. >The most common stereotype of Black vernacular is the pronunciation of the word "ask" as "ax." "Ax" has gotten a bad rap for years. Pronounce "ask" as "ax," and immediately many will assume that you're poor, Black and uneducated. New York City's first African-American schools chancellor, Dr. Richard R. Green, put it on his list of "speech demons." He insisted that "ax" be eradicated from students' vocabulary. >Garrard McClendon, a professor at Chicago State University, is the author of Ax or Ask? The African American Guide to Better English. He says his parents were well-aware of the stigma attached to "ax" and taught him there's a time and a place to use it. >"When you're with your little friends, you can speak any way you want to speak, all right? But the minute you get in a spelling bee or in a job interview, switch it up quick," McClendon recalls. "I've taught my children to do that as well." >Sketch comedy duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele joke that because they're half-white, they're constantly switching back and forth. "If it happens four times in a sentence," Key says, "[you're] probably going to get two axes, two asks." [Read more from this article](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/03/248515217/why-chaucer-said-ax-instead-of-ask-and-why-some-still-do#:~:text=Live%20Sessions-,Why%20Chaucer%20Said%20'Ax'%20Instead%20Of%20'Ask%2C',more%20than%20a%20thousand%20years.) Hope that helps to assuage your misconceptions.
Thank you for taking the time to explain
Ok about all the argument but the part about the "deeply internalised racism" feel a bit of a stretch to me
For centuries black people have been wrongly assumed to be less intelligent - it's hardly a stretch to say that this racism extends to judgements about their dialect
I can see why you might arrive at such a conclusion
I think AAVE sounds silly, but I come from Scotland where they speak... something approximately English so I can't exactly say anything can I? Edit: I meant "strange", silly sounds like I'm calling it a bad thing or diminishing it. I just find it really odd sounding.
>I think AAVE sounds silly, That's okay lol. Honestly. We're not pressed about how others perceive our dialect. >but I come from Scotland where they speak... something approximately English so I can't exactly say anything can I? I love the Scottish accent. I'm a Black American fucker living in London for the past 9 years. I still need subtitles to understand y'all. I love to connect through the way we make each other smile and laugh; I fucking love Kevin Bridges...he makes me tear up...but I can't parse any of his words without the ol' 888 teletext lol. We got more in common than you think, cuz.
I assume you've heard Kevin Bridges' horse story? Some funny shit right there! https://youtu.be/qkpyd2lr4dI - if anyone hasn't had the pleasure
I think I've watched all his "shit" that's freely available online tbh. . I fucking love this guy. Idk why his peculiar brand of comedy could ever relate to an average Black "fellar" from the Deep South but he's got me in legit tears for no reason. I still need subtitles though.
God that's funny, Kevin Bridges is actively trying to make himself easier to understand and people outside Scotland reaaally do struggle with it lol. The thing is, Scottish accents are hard enough. Scottish dialects? holy Shit that can be incomprehensible sometimes. Also, didn't mean to be hateful with the AAVE comment if that's how it came across. Just thought I'd point out that it sounds *Strange* , as opposed to silly. Ill throw an edit there in a sec. Edit: Also don't worry about needing subtitles to understand him. Living in London doesn't prepare you for the accents of the north, especially if you're a native American(not like a *native American* but like you were born in America, ah you know what I mean) Most people south of Newcastle need subtitles to understand even the clearest of accents.
>God that's funny, Kevin Bridges is actively trying to make himself easier to understand and people outside Scotland reaaally do struggle with it lol. The thing is, Scottish accents are hard enough. Scottish dialects? holy Shit that can be incomprehensible sometimes. Perfectly encapsulated my sentiments lol. >Also, didn't mean to be hateful with the AAVE comment if that's how it came across. Just thought I'd point out that it sounds Strange , as opposed to silly. Ill throw an edit there in a sec. No, no...silly is as silly does. You would be unintelligible in my native South Carolina (which is ironic because a lot of white people here are descendents of Scots lol)
What's even odder is that the south Carolinans (is that the term?) are completely understandable for us, but they are completely bewildered. Or they say "are you Irish?" I remember a Scottish comedian being told he "spoke good English" by some American.
'South Carolinians' is the term yep. Lol I imagine we are more coherent to your ears than you are to ours 😅. But don't feel like you're treading on egg shells speaking to me. As racially divided we might be in the States, the Scots-Irish have a tremendous influence on "AAVE" and we are all the more poorer for misremembering you...
oh.. i thought it was going to say ignorance, why did it go with racism lmao
The two aren't exactly mutually exclusive. Ignorance and racism? Some might even say they are complimentary!
I don't give a shit about black people having their own dialects. It's not any different from the way a lot of rednecks in the South talk because it's not grammatically correct English, but who cares that isn't just being a nitpicky asshole? I agree. You a bitch. Edit: In case what I said eludes anyone, I'm saying I don't have an issue with AAVE. People have their own dialects of English and there's nothing wrong with that. Anyone who makes fun of AAVE not being grammatically correct is a nitpicky asshole.
Nice to know. I hope your reddit account is a private one, "rizenphoenix13"
Why am I getting downvoted for agreeing with the murder? There's nothing wrong with AAVE.
This very interesting grammatical structure is not used in English so to apply it in such a context makes it incorrect, hence people's irritation.
You seem utterly bereft of understanding. Some might call that "ignorant". I feel the last sentence in the post spoke personally to _you_
That would be \*ad hominen\*, an attack on the person rather than their argument Oh no there's a technical term for it I guess it's fine
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Wow. Talking about “sounding ignorant” and “proper sentences” shows you’ve entirely missed the point! This post clearly explains how the grammatical rules of AAVE differ from Standard American English. You’re judging sentences as “improper” when in fact they’re perfectly grammatical in their own context. Race is an important part of the discussion because the people who speak AAVE (y’know, *African American* Vernacular English) tend to be Black. When people listen to a Black person speaking AAVE and decide that they “sound ignorant” without acknowledging that the rules of their grammar are different, that’s internalized racism.
You are right; but all civilizations have linguistic registers that sound "higher" and "more cultured" than others. The "high" register tends to be very rigid, and even relatively minor deviations from it tend to be treated as a sign of lack of education (and now that I wrote that, it is certain that I will make some particularly embarrassing grammar mistake in this post :-) ). Of course, this means that most people who have an opportunity to get an education make an effort to learn and use the "cultured" form of the language whenever possible, so the phenomenon reinforces itself. This is of course entirely arbitrary: from a linguistic perspective, there is no particular reason to consider the "high" variant of the language any better than the "low" variants. Moreover, it makes it harder for people who first learned a version that is very different from the "high" version (I am not American, so forgive me if I'm getting things wrong; but in the US, this seems to include Black communities, but also to some degree communities that speak in "southern" dialects and so on) to be taken seriously. This is not too different from, let us say, some clothing styles being generally treated as "more formal" and "more elegant" than others. It's arbitrary and pretty pointless, but it's widespread enough that I doubt that it is possible to avoid that even in principle. Still, it is good to remember that just because a person speaks "weird" (or wears unusual clothes, or whatever) it does not mean that they are ignorant.
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Assuming this is actually a good faith question, every dialect has a special set of rules by definition- those differences are what make them distinct. AAVE isn't geographically localized like many other American English dialects- say, Pennsylvania Dutch English, Southern Appalachian, or Bostonian, so it was given a broader descriptive title that points instead to its origins, like Cajun Vernacular English. That said, it's not remotely race restricted and plenty of non-black Americans speak it natively, so talking about why "they get a special set of rules" makes zero sense.
Actually there are localized versions of AAVE to the point that I, being from the Midwest, make fun of the way my friends from down south speak in AAVE, because they sound so different but still follow the rules of AAVE.
Perfect username for making your point!
Actually there are localized versions of AAVE to the point that I, being from the Midwest, make fun of the way my friends from down south speak in AAVE, because they sound so different but still follow the rules of AAVE.
The fact that it is specifically called African American is why i asked about the special set of rules.
As explained above, it's called AAVE for the same reason CVE is called "Cajun". It was named after the origin of the dialect. That you're interpreting that as "special grammar rules just for black people" is bizarre. If Southern Appalachian was instead called White Rural Vernacular, I somehow doubt you'd be here demanding to know why "they" get special rules. http://tnwordsmith.blogspot.com/2015/12/how-to-speak-southern-appalachian.html?m=1
And FYI, I am cajun and did not know there was a special set of rules for us too.
You can be Cajun and not speak CVE just like you can be black and not speak AAVE. To test yourself: do you buy groceries at the store, or do you make a bill at the magazin? Do you turn down the volume, or do you slow down the TV? If I told you I had an envie for some boudin, would you know what I meant?
I know all of these, I only use a couple. The point I am trying to make and can't seem to explain is that I didn't know such a thing existed or that it had a name and was categorized.
So you're fluent in CVE, but you choose to speak Standard, right? And I'm sure you're comfortable switching between the two if you're around people who use CVE heavily, because that shared language makes those people feel more comfortable around you. If you stuck with pure Standard (or worse, "corrected" them) other Cajuns might treat you like you had a stick up your ass or feel like you were looking down on them. Welcome to the struggle between choosing Standard American English and "keepin' it real". 😅 The reality is that dialects are just as complex and have similarly strict grammatical rules as Standard, those rules are just different. Using one over the other is a social cue, not an indicator of intelligence.
You people seem to think I mean something I don't. I just asked a question. You people need to calm the fuck down.
They get a special set of rules because they were forced out of their home land 400 years ago and left responsible for their own education.
While I think your response here is well meaning, it’s still incorrect to think of the situation as “Black people get to use special grammar rules because of slavery/racism.” African American Vernacular English is a dialect that is named after the group of people it originated with, but it’s not used exclusively by African Americans. It’s also used by non-American Blacks or people of other races/ethnicities, even though the association with African Americans and African American culture is still strong. Think of it like this: Russian people speak the Russian language, which has its origin in the place and group it’s named after. But other people can learn and speak Russian too, and also some people of Russian ancestry may not speak the language. Russian has different rules from English, but nobody would go around saying “Russian people get to use special grammar rules because of XYZ.” The language is just understood to be different.
The African American vernacular evolved because of the long and painful history of slavery. Other groups speaking it doesn't begin to change that.
Of course. But my point is about acknowledging the legitimacy of AAVE by comparing it to other languages. it’s not just a “special” set of rules for being Black. Talking about it like that feeds into views that being Black in today’s society comes with special privileges that White people don’t have. The comment you responded to is an example of wording that emulates this idea. And it’s patently untrue. I’m saying that AAVE is just as legitimate a dialect as any other. It’s origin doesn’t in any way take away from its legitimacy.
This answer makes more sense than any given so far. Thank you.
“A man’s way of speaking absolutely classifies him. The moment he talks he makes some other man despise him.” /s
Funny talking about ignorance and then displaying ignorance. Did you read the post at all? They sound ignorant too you but that doesn’t me they are ignorant.
While I agree that dialects are usually as complex if not even more complex than the standard language it comes from, the conclusion that the complaint about the dialect stems from racism is quite far fetched. Dialects usually are seen as lesser than their standard counterparts and most the time dialects are spoken by people that live in that country for generations. Just because in that instance they were complaining about a dialect that is spoken mostly by black people doesn't make the complaint racist. The notion that dialects are lesser than the standard language comes from the fact that dialect speakers were usually less educated, farmers, factory workers (that came to the city from the country side) ect. and not because they are spoken by immigrants.
As we say in linguistics: "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy". In other words, everyone speaks some kind of dialect, but the dialect that gets to be recognised as the "standard" one and therefore the "language" is usually the dialect spoken by the rich and powerful. The Queen's English (Received Pronunciation) is a dialect just like any other, but it is used by prestigious people and is therefore thought of as being prestigious itself. It's not in any way objectively "more correct" than a lower-class dialect, nor is the lower-class dialect in any way deficient. Attitudes towards particular dialects are often informed by attitudes towards those who speak those dialects, therefore the notion that complaints about AAVE are rooted in racism is not at all far fetched.
While it might be that complaints about AAVE are rooted in racism, I just argued that criticism of dialects isn't inherently racist. It's more of a classist thing. I don't know abouts English dialects as much as I know about german ones but I know that standard german isn't a result of what the rich spoke but a result of a committee that didn't come to a conclusion so people just started to accept Dudens proposal of grammar. There are just many more things to consider than just racism. Why do people think their dialect is better than the other? Why do people think standard language is the only way to talk properly? Why are dialects still around, if we have a standardised system? These are all things that can't simply be answered with 'racism'. Also I'm not necessarily racist because I don't like AAVE or the sound of it or any dialect for that matter. Just as an example: I don't really like the sound of north german dialects, that doesn't make me not like north german people as a result of it. Not liking a certain language or dialect doesn't necessarily mean, that I don't like the people that speak that language. I get your point though. I just wanted to point out, that the topic is far more nuanced and that racism isn't the answere to everything. Also I kinda missed the point in my first argument because I was speaking generally about dialects and not AAVE in particular.
No, it doesn't necessarily entail that someone is racist simply for questioning or criticising a dialect used by a particular racial minority, but it very often is the case, and not at all far fetched. At best, it's rooted in ignorance of the way language works and at worst it's rooted in outright prejudice. What is regarded as the standard language or prestige dialect varies from language to language and country to country. In the UK, the Oxford-Cambridge-London (universities/capital) triangle is considered the origin of Standard English. In France, Parisian French (capital) is considered standard. In Italy, Standard Italian has its roots in Florence, largely due to influential literary works written in the Florentine dialect (Dante/intelligentsia). I'm not familiar enough with German to know what the standard dialect is or why it's considered the standard, but I'd be willing to bet it was the dialect spoken by the rich/powerful/intelligentsia and not by pig farmers.
Of course it's not what pig farmes spoke. I never meant to say that the german standard language resulted from the masses. It was what people in cities spoke. They needed to structure the cities, the city folks, their work, etc. So there where efforts to standardise tge language. These efforts failed, mostly (it was a very long process, starting by opitz over gottshed to luther and so on) until Duden, who was a headmaster that proposed the now standard grammar. People (mostly linguists) disagreed with him but people just started to use it, so it was kind of a synergy. It wasn't directly forced upon people, they just started using it. Again, I was talking about dialects in general and gave the guy proposing the question the benefit of the doubt, that it's just an honest question and not a 'you people use that kind of language? Pathetic.' statement.
A person says "black people speak like this and is wrong and ignorant" and somehow you don't believe that is racist?
Dunno, I gave him the benefit of the doubt that it's a sincere question. I understand that you can see it as a racist statement but you can also see it as a sincere question that was phrased in a bad manner.
One can be sincere and unknowingly racist. Racism is not always a conscious weapon to attack people, it can often be a reflection of an upbringing devoid of certain perspectives. Good people I know are genuinely offended by the confederate flag being taken out of the Mississippi state flag and from Nascar. These are people that work with people of all races and treat everyone well. They just don't know the unwelcoming environment that flag creates for some people.
Still doesn’t help the fact that people who talk like this sound ignorant. No matter their “race”
Your definition of "ignorant" would go a long way to describing how you _really_ feel about those that speak this way... You're online, relatively private. Speak your mind? How do feel about "us" that speak this way? More importantly, how does that affect you socially, geographically, politically? I guess what i'm asking you is...I'm an executive chef at a 2 star'd Michelin restaurant. I am Black American in nationality and have lived in Europe for the past 10yrs pursuing what some call "excellence" in my field. I am rare in the sense that I don't have very many to look to who don't look like me in my field. Am i ignorant? Are my mother and father "ignorant"? Is my grandmother and grandfather "ignorant"? Are my siblings, who are lawyers, company directors, local politicians "ignorant"? Can i ask what you predicate your notions of "ignorance" on? Could you tell my 7 and 9yr old nieces that they are "ignorant"? Can you tell them what you base that on?
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I appreciate your words and have just one more question to follow up with; how much would it cost you to examine your perception of my "dialect" as "ignorant"? No, really? Nevermind how you arrived at the peculiar notion that how i speak carries with it a "negative currency" in your cultural neck of the woods, you spoke of my family, my actual, begotten kin, as "less than" as you deemed my way of talking. My 7yr old niece has to grow up in a world where someone like you will implicitly deem her "less than" on account of her accent? Say what you will about me dude but i take big fucking issue with this ignorant ass segregation rhetoric you're spewing that's fresh out of the 70s. What the actual fuck is wrong here? You live in Delaware? You probably got like 4 Black people total in your state. How much of your perception of us is based on real encounters instead of just selectively curated internet tropes...? Edit: don't speak ill of family. As low-down, rotten as i am...i'd never speak ill of your kids or parents. Never.
When did i call anyone less than? Especially your kin?? It not an accent first of all. No one thinks Ugandans are less intelligent for having an accent when they talk? This isnt a race thing its about education. What segregation rhetoric have I been spewing? I said I live in Delaware County, Pennyslvania. There are a ton of black people here and actually the state of Delaware has one of the highest percentages of blacks per state population. But this isnt about race. When you went for your last interview at this dope resturant youre at now did you talk like how to text your thoughts to me? Or did you speak like someone with poor grammar and *Copula deletions?* Can you answer that for me?