Why do a lot of English black people tend to pronounce the word "ask" as "axe"?

Question

I don't think this is a "race" thing at all - American black people don't seem to. Is it just a London thing, or a West Indies accent coming through?

This is a question about accents, that's all. No stupid racist answers like a few which have appeared already below, thanks (at least two of which I'm going to report).

Answer 1

i no wat u mean but i dont no why, strange isnt it?

Answer 2

It's become a cultural thing where certain people prefer to say it like that. I had an English student who learnt English in Miami (I was in Colombia at the time) and he wrote ask as aks, because he'd picked up the language by talking.

My guess is it probably came about from immigrants using the language since ks is far easier to pronounce than sk. That said, it may well be remnants of middle english

Answer 3

It is not just the English Blacks, but this pronounciation is in many parts of the world. The mother tongue or the language spoken often takes the precedence.

If u r an English person and I ask u ro pronounce an Hindi word, u may not be able to as required, as the native language takes the precedence.

Answer 4

Good question but you dont need to worry about being thought a racist - its not even a black thing - its a Brooklyn thing - you must not watch enough american TV. White americans there say it, too.

I remember reading an explanation of it in the Jeffery Deaver novel the Hanged man but I'm sorry I dont recall the details.

Answer 5

I know your saying this is not a race question and you'll report people but in fairness you left yourself open to that alot of people on here are just weird, anyway yeah I think its the accent coming through and blending with the cockney

Answer 6

I'm American and people here are always saying that American blacks use the word 'axe' rather than 'ask'. It seems to be considered a 'white trash' thing also. I've actually never heard that it was being said outside the US as well. I always thought it was a Southern US thing similar to "y'all" and "ain't"

*Though I live in NYC and I hear it here all the time

Answer 7

Haven't really noticed to be perfectly honest, my black English friends don't!

I think theres probably a lot of things British people in general say differently, i think it depends on where they live! Just like in the USA.

I could say why do Americans say yogurt 'yow-gurt' where as the Brits say 'yog-urt', that's the beauty of language my friend! I think every single Brit has their own way of pronouncing certain words!

Answer 8

It's just dialectical, and if you really want to know, the spelling of "ask" genuinely used to be "ax" in Middle English.

"ax2 (ăks)
v. Nonstandard., -ed, -ing, -es.
Variant of ask.

Our Living Language Ax, a common nonstandard variant of ask, is often identified as an especially salient feature of African American Vernacular English. While it is true that the form is frequent in the speech of African Americans, it used to be common in the speech of white Americans as well, especially in the South and in the middle sections of the U.S. It was once common among New Englanders, but has largely died out there as a local feature. The widespread use of this pronunciation should not be surprising since ax is a very old word in English, having been used in England for over 1,000 years. In Old English we find both āscian and ācsian, and in Middle English both asken and axen. Moreover, the forms with cs or x had no stigma associated with them. Chaucer used asken and axen interchangeably, as in the lines “I wol aske, if it hir will be/To be my wyf” and “Men axed hym, what sholde bifalle,” both from The Canterbury Tales. The forms in x arose from the forms in sk by a linguistic process called metathesis, in which two sounds are reversed. The x thus represents (ks), the flipped version of (sk). Metathesis is a common linguistic process around the world and does not arise from a defect in speaking. Nevertheless, ax has become stigmatized as substandard—a fate that has befallen other words, like ain't, that were once perfectly acceptable in literate circles."


Check here: http://www.answers.com/topic/axe-1

Answer 9

As far as I am aware the pronunciation and spelling of the word ask in the middle ages (at the beginning of what we refer to as the modern english language) was 'aks', and that over time it migrated to 'ask'. This explains why many people the world over say 'axe'.

Answer 10

It is not just English people I have noticed the same thing on MTV base where the black rappers do it. also on American TV programmes. No idea why I take it, it must just be becasue they are total morons

Answer 11

It depends where you are from. The traditional way of speaking would mean the sound of ahhh is rounded and smooth but the more modern way is a sharp and harsh sound of ahhh. Traditional ah is like bah bah black sheep but the modern ahh is like the ay in plate.