how do black people come up with street slang?

Question

where do words like: dubs, shizlle, grillz, phat and the rest of ebonics come from??? .... I don't understand it ..... What ever happened to normal english? ... I find it to be stupid and with no class

And what's up with the head shaking and finger snapping when they're pissed??

What the hell does CRUNK mean??

What's up with the stop "hatin' fool" just say HATING ...

Answer 1

I totally agree!! And in addition to that they live on the same street and go to the same schools I do! It is stupid. My biggest peeve is when they say. you feel me? And they ask it 5 F&^kin times! Why would I feel em? I heard them the first time! Some of my best friends are black and they don't talk like that! I am curious to hear some of the responses.

Answer 2

1. Slang develops as a way to communicate to a distinct group. Its a way of excluding other people from a conversation. When the code gets broken, new slang words evolve. By the time pop culture takes slang into the mainstream, it loses this function and can sometime become incorporated into that "normal" English you were talking about.

2. Slang is a way of identifying within a group. It identifies you as being part of a distinct community. If you can't understand it, then chances are you're not going to come across people who'll talk to you that way. So why be bothered by it?

3. RE: "stupid and with no class"... Inventing a word and having people actually find a use for it shows intelligence (just not the kind you may be used to). As for "no class," just take it as someone else's way of saying things and hold off on judging people by how they say things. Generally, making class distinctions say more about the person making them than the ones being referred to.

Answer 3

Some cultures are more expressive and choose to be creative with language. With this question, you pal, are the personification of all that is wrong with the world. You assume that your way of doing things is the only way or the best way. Yes, there is such a thing as standard language. To maneuver effectively in a nation yes, one should know how to speak that standard language.

Okay, you have your opinion that Ebonics is stupid and classless. Fine, but do not turn your nose up at someone just because that person is rolling their neck or speaking words that you have never heard or using words in a nonstandard manner. Sure, that person may be a blathering illiterate idiot or that person could be an intelligent professional. You do not know until you get to know that person. That is the beauty of it all; one can know how to maneuver in both worlds.

I am not denying the fact that some people are just plain stupid. Many people who speak the standard language are stupid and classless. I am just saying as an individual who is creative and expressive it is my artistic license to use and create words as I see fit and to talk with my whole body if I choose to. Am I void of class? No; I have 2 degrees from universities, I dance classical ballet, I love fine music, art, & food, and I have manners.

Answer 4

I really think that is an ignorant question, I work and live in an multi-cultural environment and I have come to realize that all races have their slang that they speak. We (black people) are very educated and yes... contrary to the fact we do know how to speak correct English. Your question is very, very racist do people ask why do some white people say cool, radical, dude and so on and why most white kids are into the gothic fad... for the record I've been many places where they really wear grillz and there are many other races especially white that are wearing our fads and speaking our slang.

Answer 5

First of All ...Wow... You Are Midly Stupid but I'm gonna help you... There actually is a dialect of English called BEV or AAVE it is called Black English Vernacular or African American Vernacular English words that you said DO NOT FALL IN THE BEV OR AAVE that means that they fall into the slang category slang unlike BEV/AAVE is not a dialect of English but merely informal speech within a language which cannot be attributed to only one race in other words slang is not spoken only by black people and black people are not the only ones who speak or generate slang words if they do speak it...Secondly About the head shaking and finger snapping I've seen White Gay men do this too so I don't think that you can attribute that purely to African Americans and generalizing when it comes to a significantly large group of people is always problematic... NOW Thirdly I hope you read all of this so you will be a little less ignorant than you are now. STAY BLACK!!!

Answer 6

When they were brought over here to be slaves, they were stolen from their own cultures and got mixed and lost...
They having been making up slang for centuries based on their old terms and mixed with some poor English.
Meaning English used improperly, not poor in wealth.
A lot of Hispanics do this too. Spanglish...
Each new generation tries to make up something they can IDENTIFY with...you would not want to use your granny's or gramps' slang would you? No one would know what you meant.
So they make up their own SLANG...it is a need for IDENTIFICATION and to be unique.
Yes it does seem to carry a stigma of having lower education than most, but that is their choice, you have yours to speak properly as you do, that is you.
What is very right to you is not right to others, but it is YOUR WAY.
NORMAL English was broken up years ago, when more and more people came into the USA speaking different dialects and languages.
Also they feel sort of intimidated hearing all the LINGO out here so many people speaking different languages, and they cannot understand it...so maybe they make up their own so They cannot be understood, to even it up.
??????

WHAT I DON'T LIKE is them speaking SO LOUD!
YELLING at times...
to each other and then you look because you got startled and then they say...
"WHA CHA LOOKIN AT FOO!"
I hate loud talking people!
I don't talk loud enough so everyone can hear everything.

CRUNK means entertaining, FUN, wild times, good times:
"I CAN ASURE YOU TONIGHT the concert will be mad crunk!"

Answer 7

How - and why - they come up with it is hard to say (is it to create an out-group and an in-group?), but I think it's so inventive and creative. It's incredible. Do you think you could have managed to create a quasi-new language to define and describe your own world? I know I couldn't. Ebonics is poetic and expressive. (what happened to "jive"?) Also - see the art of the blacks, esp. music and dance, so innovative and great, and difficult, although the artists make it look so smooth and easy.. The whites only make poor imitiations - when that music/dance is "safe" and accepted - and then take all the credit, like Elvis Presley. Everly Brothers, Bill Haley, Eminem, etc etc. etc. etc.
And why is it imitated? Because it's so darn good and cool.

Answer 8

I doubt you would understand even if I explained it to you in detail.

but here it is in brief.

But there are some ideas and emotions that the English language does not effectively convey for Black people. And because White people intentionally erased the mother tongues
from our collective memory, black people had to adapt the English language to fit some of our more complex cultural ideas.

But like I said it's a black thing, you wouldn't understand.

Black english is more precise than you know.

It may surpise you to know that most of the slang is not made up. Most of it is recycled. Either they are really old slang words that are reborn, or they are words borrowed from other contexts.

Answer 9

I think most of the "slang" terms are just that slang. When we were in school there were slang terms big deal. Most of my family is from the South and I've picked up on some of their terms. Does it make it bad or just to African American(blacks) only no I don't think so. I think each culture has it's own set of "street slang" that we hope they will grow out of. Oh yes, I am Afro-American(black) and I use what you consider normal English.

Answer 10

It is a dialect that is used to keep WHITE people out of our business. Funny thing is that white people try to emulate and talk the same way. (trailer park trash).
It's not a form of ignorance. Especially when it's something you don't understand we understand it and that's all that matters.
Every culture has its own dialect. Every race has its own dialect. Every community has its own dialect.
We are intelligent enough to have our own form of language and because you don't understand it you call it stupid and say it has no class. Truth of the matter is it is above your understanding.

The saying is true "Hatred comes from ignorance!" HATER!

Answer 11

Actually it was not the blacks that came up with Ebonics it was actual the whites, black people just wasn't afraid to use it in public and look how much publicity they have receive, got you wondering now uh its just another way that something negative to hold down blacks has back fired on the whites even their little white kids are wanting grillzs ironic isn't it!