is ebonics an officially recognized language?

Question

i saw a professor on t.v say that he considers ebonics a language. I wasnt sure if it was officially recognized. If its no i guess its because of racism

Answer 1

First off, "ebonics" is a catchphrase invented by the Oakland, California school board some years ago. They tried to pass a resolution declaring that all their black students spoke a foriegn language in order to get more money from the state. When linguists talk about this variety of language at all, they call it "African American Vernacular English" or AAVE. Therefore, this professor you saw on television was probably not a linguist, and therefore has no authority to decide what is and isn't a language.

AAVE is a variety of English, as the name suggests. It does have some distinct traits that may have been influenced by West African languages early in its history, but it's been just as strongly influenced by the dialect of Southern American English (and the SA dialect has been reciprocally influenced by AAVE). AAVE is certainly different from Standard American English, but AAVE and SAE are still more similar to one another than, say, some dialects of German are to the standard German (Hochdeutsch).

The original motive for trying to call AAVE a different language was that any child who grows up speaking a strong dialect (whether they're black, or from the Bronx, or whatever) often has trouble learning to read and write in school. It's because they're having to learn to deal with SAE at the same time, and usually without any kind of explicit instruction--"Yeah, I know at home you say X, but when we write we have to write Y." That kind of explanation actually does help a child learn to negotiate SAE, but it's not considered appropriate in a normal English classroom. So the idea was to turn those kids into English as a Second Language classes, where schools could justify having a teacher explain the differences between how the kids talked at home and how they were expected to talk at school.

I hope this makes answer makes sense. I know it's a little technical and abbreviation-riddled. But the issue is very complicated and the news has never explained it very well.

Answer 2

It isn't a language, it's a variety of English -- not that there's a hard and fast distinction, here. But it shares way too much with other varieties of English, such as standard American English, to be considered a distinct language.

Either the prof didn't know what he was talking about, or he was saying that it is a legitimate form of English, with somewhat different rules from other forms.

BTW, a lot of people in England claim that what we in the US speak is "bad English" -- that is, they're doing the same thing as people who consider (I HATE the word "ebonics") Black American English "bad."

It's a different variety, with some different syntactical rules, a different accent, and different uses for some words from other forms.

The debate some years ago was whether kids who were raised speaking it should be explicitly taught the differences between their speech and Standard American English (SAE), as a more effective way to teach them SAE.

Everyone speaks the way they do for exactly the same reason -- whether you speak BBC English, Aussie, or Black American English, Irish English, or Jamaican English -- it's the language spoken by those around you when you were the prime language-learning age.

Yes, most Americans consider it wrong, ignorant, dumb, etc. (which is why people were pushing for more effective ways to teach SAE, so those kids wouldn't be penalized all their lives for not knowing SAE), and, yes, racism does have something to do with this.

(I once heard that linguists don't consider Norwegian and Swedish to be distinct languages -- which deeply offends Norwegians and Swedes -- because speakers of both are intelligible to each other. This would be a borderline case of "different languages/different varieties" distinction.)

Answer 3

If Ebonics is ever recognized as a language, then all conversation by people who have a strong accent should be consideres foreign languages. In other words, if a person comes fron China, and speaks English with a strong accent, using horrible grammer and pronunciation. He is not speaking either Chinese or English. Perhaps his bad English could be considered a foreign language. We could call it bambooics.
The same for all other languages. Bad English certainly is not a foreign language. In fact, it is not a language at all, it's just bad English. If Ebonics is ever considered a language, the name ebonics would surely fit it. Ebony is a type of wood, so the language is just right for block heads.

Answer 4

There is no such thing as "officially recognized" in the United States. Linguists are universally agreed that "Ebonics" or "African-American Vernacular English" is NOT a separate language from English, but is simply another dialect. Only politicians call it a separate language.

Answer 5

No, Ebonics isn't a language. Ebonics is a creation that dates back to Oakland, CA and the failing college gadget that permiates no longer basically Oakland, CA yet all significant cites accross the u . s .. Ebonics is an excuse created by using a few liberal ******** that replaced into designed to deflect grievance removed from a failing college gadget and underperforming black youthful people. We have been informed that undesirable blacks have been failing because of the fact they could no longer understand the language. hi - final time I checked California replaced into nonetheless area of the U.S. and English is the default language. this isn't any longer my fault that the colleges are preocupied with coaching crap like self-information and subscribing to this result based coaching nonsense the place 2+2 can equivalent any quantity that makes you experience good. in case you're taking any baby, black, white, or something in between and fail to tutor them a thank you to a minimum of communicate, then stay with the outcomes. do no longer blow smoke up my A$$ and tell me that we could desire to tutor yet another form of bastardized English to help black babies gain. perhaps in case you liberal racists think of that black babies will basically advance up and prepare dinner fries at McDonalds or %. up lifeless animals from the highways for CALDOT then shop doing what you're doing. in case you particularly need to work out all little ones initiate out on a similar footing, then tutor them English. Accepting Ebonics as yet another language will basically serve to perpetuate and encourage yet another technology of race-baiters like Jackson and Sharpton. Plus, as quickly as Mexico takes over California, do you think of they would be accepting of this Ebonics crap? Odds are they wont. study Spanish or die.

Answer 6

I don't think it's an official language and it has nothing to do with racism. Personally, I don't recognize ebonics. I call it slang and sounding ignorant.

Answer 7

It's not an official language, it is more of a variety, like an accent or some local vocab.

Answer 8

I know about 10 or 15 years ago they wanted to make it a language in L.A , Calif. I don't think they ever followed through w/it