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A couple of well known examples of the link between northern British/Irish dialects and AAVE are the words, 'Y'all', and the use of 'habitual be' which is the phenomenon of uninflected use of the word 'to be' as in:
I be
You be
He/She/It be
We be
Y'all be
They be
I've never heard this. It's intriguing if true.
Do you have a link to a source that makes this claim?
BTW, "disrespect" as a verb is viewed as legitimate in White English by a 1925 M-W Unabridged. In my limited experience, one should be very cautious in denigrating the locutions of both Black and White Southerners to whom one might be inclined to feel superior.
It's not an imagined dialect. It actually exists. It was created from our experience.
I don't understand the strong negative opinions people have about AAVE.
We aren't the only people in the world that historically spoke a non-standard English dialect. The very same documentary has an episode on Scots English, yet nobody's speaking low of them and their dialect. Nobody is running around calling them ignorant for daring to have their own way of speaking English.
It is not a true dialect equivalent to Scots English or other true regional ethnic dialects. Its proper equivalents are the sort of "hillbilly" speak you might hear among Americans of European descent in rural deep south, or of lower class Americans of Italian descent in the NY metro area.
Neither larger group would regard those linguistic characteristics as legitimately ethnic dialects, worthy of any regard or defining their ethnic identity. Indeed they would reject the notion rather vigorously.
This romanticized fascination with the so called AAVE is misguided in its desire to elevate it to something that it is not and never actually was.
This romanticized fascination with the so called AAVE is misguided in its desire to elevate it to something that it is not and never actually was.
What's misguided about it?
It exists and it has a history that's worthy of being studied. That's all the documentary is acknowledging.
Haitians have codified their creole language and are proud of it, Jamaicans have their patois, what is wrong with recognizing the dialect of American black folk?
On the bold, I get it and I initially mis-understood you.
I agree with the bold. I do not agree with any WASP educators teaching children BVE at all. IMO it is not something that needs to be taught to young children in particular and belongs only in a history of English course.
But my family did object to using it at home, the older generations. I remember I was threatened to be slapped for talking back (lol) because I asked why I couldn't say some word/phrase I can't remember when my great grandmother said the same thing on the phone with her friend lol. She threatened to slap me and I apologized lol. We were not allowed to use any BVE in her presence or my great grandfather. They felt it was of no good for us to do so.
By the time you were in school, your older generations probably did not trust that your teachers were doing the job of making sure you knew standard English.
Did you see my post in another thread relating my initial experience in an integrated classroom?
It exists and it has a history that's worthy of being studied. That's all the documentary is acknowledging.
Haitians have codified their creole language and are proud of it, Jamaicans have their patois, what is wrong with recognizing the dialect of American black folk?
As Residinghere2007 said earlier, it's fine in a History of the English Language course.
Otherwise as I said earlier, we do not need WASP educators "supporting" black vernacular, because they don't know how to handle it to our benefit.
By the time you were in school, your older generations probably did not trust that your teachers were doing the job of making sure you knew standard English.
Did you see my post in another thread relating my initial experience in an integrated classroom?
Honestly, I don't believe that my elders had any mistrust of my teachers. We had a large amount of black teachers at the schools I went to and many of them were friends of my grandparents and great grandparents as even though blacks are over 1/4 the population of the city I'm from, from the 1930s forward, black families here know each other or of each other due to church and involvement in other "black" clubs/groups in the city. A lot of my older family members are also educators themselves (some ended up at principals) and so they knew my teachers for the most part.
But I do think that they agree with you as well in that BVE is not something that should be taught in school. I personally don't think it belongs in any class except a history of the English language class and honestly don't understand white America's fascination with it based upon a lone story about "Eboncis" from the 1990s. No one ever taught "Ebonics" and black people would have been the main ones to object over it being taught in schools for reasons you have mentioned.
I also agree that it is silly to think that all black people speak BVE all the time when all of us don't and we know how to speak standard American English.
It exists and it has a history that's worthy of being studied. That's all the documentary is acknowledging.
Haitians have codified their creole language and are proud of it, Jamaicans have their patois, what is wrong with recognizing the dialect of American black folk?
American blacks do not in fact have a separate dialect that is an equivalent of creole or patois. This is what I meant by a misguided attempt to elevate it to something that it is not and never was. Its true equivalents are what I noted in an above post.
I understand that there is a desire to have something that is ethnically distinct. But in this instance it has led some people to exaggerate and distort things far beyond what it actually is.
American blacks do not in fact have a separate dialect that is an equivalent of creole or patois.
This exists. You deny it because of your own ignorance.
The American slaves spoke a distinct dialect with its own consistent grammar and not standard English. It's hundreds of years old and had its origin in pidgin english that was spoken by West Africans.
Its still around today albeit not as removed from Standard English as it once was.
This is a real phenomenon. It's not a fabrication.
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