I've been wondering lately if we have any black people here at JoeU. I don't know that there are.

the reason why I bring that up of course is because it's mostly black people (African Americans? what's the latest politically correct term now?) who use Ebonics.

As a whiter than white dude, a redneck, a honkey, a whitey, a hick, a hillbilly, a man with no jive, a man who can't jump or dance... I can honestly say this... Ebonics is a bastardization of the English language. Of course it is. Just like French, Italian, and Spanish could be considered bastardizations of Latin. (they all were derived from Latin, as I'm sure you know)... only time will tell if Ebonics is going to become a language or not. This is the information age, so everything from forming a nation to designing a fighter jet to giving birth to a new language takes less time than it used to...

It's hilarious to me that all of us white folks post comments on this thread talking about how Ebonics pisses us off. And yet we all use slang of our own at times... I mean, who's not guilty of abusing the English language at one time or another?

Mostly I think white people are just mad because we can't understand these parlayers of another language. We conduct studies on linguistics in our Ivy League institutions and spend years trying to master the English language... we hold the masters like Thoreau, Emerson and Hawthorne in high regard, and yet Mark Twain, who often wrote characters in their 'native language' is considered a literary genius as well.

We allow artists to have 'poetic right', in order to make a lyric rhyme, but we get mad when Snoop Dogg says 'fuh shizzle'... my question is, where do you draw the line? I know white people who have no problem whatsoever with Merle Haggard singing:

"Take all the money in the bank,
I think I'll just stay here and drink..."

and yet they get mad when someone says: "why you dissin' a brotha'?" or something considered equally offensive by us white folks...

I hope I'm not misunderstanding things here... I guess what I'm trying to say is that bastardization or not, Ebonics is a part of our culture, and we might as well accept it. As long as there are people buying a million copies of Outkast's, Snoop Dogg's or Eminem's latest albums, there are going to be Cadillac Escalades with 20s, Bose surround sound and neon lights circling the underside. And the people driving those Caddys are going to be speaking a language that you're going to have to work to understand...

rather than a dialect, i believe the usage forms collectively referred to as ebonics are more accurately described (or have now evolved into) what's known as a sociolect. dialect generally describes a regional use whereas a sociolect is broader and associated with members of a particular socioeconomic group. ebonics is rooted in a confluence of elizabethan english that lingered on in what are now the southern states (some expressions & pronunciations of which remain in fairly common usage there) and 'bastardizations" of languages native to africans brought in chains to those same areas and forced to learn english without benefit of formal education. until relatively recently, much of what is now associated with ebonics (pronunciations such as 'ax' and nonstandard juxtapositions of predicates/objects) were successful defensive strategies in areas where more 'learned' usages--as well as any other indication of formal education--put the speaker at risk of bodily harm on the basis of being 'uppity.'

imajinit's insightful comment wasnt visible to me while i was entering mine. it did remind me of something as well. should anyone have a need for an "english" to (redneck, moron, hacker, etc.) online translator, you can find it here:

dammit i cant get the link thing to work. Translator

Ebonics is a part of our culture, and we might as well accept it.

And I agree. My point was the it's labeled a 'language' and it's really not. It's slang, a dialect, not a fully formed language yet. I have no porblem with slang, pretty much everyone uses it. I just think that you should call things as they are.

Good article.

..... Yeah, Yeah, Yeah! When it comes right down to it ....
A man walks into the doctor's office for his vasectomy wearing a 3 piece suit.
The Doctor ax hymn why he is all dressed up. He said "If I goin' to be impotent, I goin' to look impotent."
Sorry, I loved the article. Couldn't help myself!

Much of the so-called "dialect" is actually common English phases mutated in a fast-forward way. The phrase "mad props" comes from two English phrases...

1. To give proper respect to one's superiors or elders -> give proper's -> props
2. Mad is a derivative of very and of cool (which is a derivative of good)

Thus, to give mad props is to pay a great amount of respect to the object of your admiration (peeps, homeys, etc)

While this may be a dialect, in many cases it is a contrived (fo' shizzle) and deliberately adopted dialect which makes it different from Southern, Cajun, Appalachian, Minnesotan, or even Surfer or Valley Girl. This more than anything else is why so many of us look down on those who speak it. We don't all have to use the Queen's English. However, when we deliberately choose not to and we are completely able to speak "prescriptive" English, then that is offensive.

I support accents and dialects. I speak Southern English, make a stab at Southern French and Southern Spanish, and have been known to understand Southern German ("straaahhhhzee" for "straße"). Appalachian accents are music to my ears. But when in company, it's always the Queen's English with as little accent as possible and words direct from the dictionary.

-- Mr. Perky

Personally I feel that the attempt to legitimize so-called Ebonics should be insulting to blacks in general. It is a subtle insult by liberals towards blacks. "They talk that way because they can't help it." or "That's the way they are, thay can't speak english the way the rest of us can"

Even blacks, at least the ones I know personally, find ebonics to be nothing more than slang, or , as one of my friends put it, "just too lazy to talk right". I have quite a few black friends, and none of them speaks in ebonics. They speak english the same as everyone else.

It's no different than the way many people here in the south speak. No, we don't always use correct english. We have certain words and phrases that aren't a part of the english language. They are mostly contractions or mispronunciations. We know this. We don't expect it to become it's own language. If there were some attempt to make "southonics" a legitimate language we would be very insulted. It would be saying, "they can't help it. they can't speak like the rest of us"

It's just plain stupid.

Great Article. I have no problem with slang but when they start all of this fo' shizzle stuff, it makes no sense in my mind. This sounds like someone sitting around drinking decided to make up their own language. I know that alot of kids do this but these are teens and adults using these words. It just baffles me completely. but then I'm just a hick, (aka redneck) from Nebraska.

Not around you, they dont. You may be surprised, though, if you could observe them in a segregated social event

Hate to bust your bubble, but not all (or even most) blacks choose to speak that way. My friends and I have had conversations on this very subject. They view the "ebonics" thing as a degeneration of the language as do I. They feel it's embarassing. Perhaps it's more of an inner city thing, I don't know. I do know that the only people around here that speak this way are the young blacks who are trying to emulate the "gangsta" image. An image that doesn't go over very well around here with blacks or whites.

All the african americans I associate with are either active duty military or dependant military, so most of them refrain from using ebonics. There are the standard exceptions to this rule, however...one girl in particular I avoid like the plague because I have to ask "excuse me?" after each of her sentences because I can't understand a damn word she says!  "I's gunna git m'hurrrr did"....I can manage to decipher that, but some of it is really beyond me.

after reading this entire thread all the way through one more time, it occured to me that there are two different things being discussed here. one (using different than standard verb tenses and persons, non-standard accented syllables or use of hard vowel sounds) is ultimately rooted in southern idiom common to all races in the southern states. its been transported and become stylized as it moved elsewhere. my maternal grandmother (who could trace her ancestry back to pre-revolution new england) would flip if she heard how easily and frequently i lapse into corruptions like 'yall' that ive picked up along the way.. the other (word fragments, ironic reversal or distortion, onomatopoeia, alliteration, etc.) adds the 'code' effect that several people mentioned. its no different than 'jive' --also decried by mainstream white populations until it began crossing over--or its precedents. there were precedents and they were codified because it was the only way slaves could speak their minds without offending their masters. its a cultural tradition that worked as effectively during jim crow and into the 60s. it might be worth considering that when its no longer useful, itll die out the same way that 17th century scot, irish and english anacronisms have pretty much vanished even in appalachia.

Mr_Frog uttered:

I take it none of you have been to the bayou country. You think Ebonics is difficult to follow? Try figuring out what one of the swamp-dwellers from Louisiana is saying!

I'm late responding here, but I gotta chime in with the frogster. I had the goo...the fortun....I was in New Orleans for about 3 years. During one excursion into the city, a lady (*cough*) "axed" me "Can you tell me how t' git t' Genitalia street?

I beg your pardon ma'am?

I said, can you tell me how t' git t' Genitialia street?

Imagine my amusement when a friend of mine who had been there longer and could "hear in Cajun" clued me in that the lady needed directions to General Taylor Street.

Just a funny I thought I'd share. I return you respectfully to Dharma's blog which is already in progress.

Just a funny I thought I'd share. I return you respectfully to Dharma's blog which is already in progress

That was really funny, and a welcome addition to the thread!

 

As a child of Appalachia and the South, I think we all have the right to vernacular. It is the language of our souls.

That said, we don't need for it to be taught to us. On the contrary, we need to be taught to communicate with other people. I don't think vernacular should be crushed or promoted, it is what it is. Every teacher I ever had that told me not to say the word "ain't" immediately got "no" spat back in their face. I was punished for the insubordination many times, but I understand my 'volk'. No one will tell me how to speak, and I'll suffer the consequences.

They never had the pleasure of finding the word "ain't" on any of my work, though. You have to be able to do both well and know when it is necessary to use a more universal voice. To say that African American kids shouldnt' be expected to learn anything but their vernacular is both insulting to their intelligence and destructive.

Instead, teach them to appreciate where they come from and do whatever they need to do to excell and communicate well.