Is "ebonics" a language or not?

Question

I think there is more than one "ebonics" at least two. There is black vernacular English which you here spoken in Hip Hop, ect. And then there is just Black English which has some rules that even black people themselves dont understand.

Black english is basically the english vocabulary fit into African idomatic structure (forgive me if this is over your head)

Here are some things black english has in common with many African languages

1. Invariant verb "to be"
-- Saying: I be, you be, we be (as opposed to I am, you are, we are)

2. Copula deletion
-- saying: what you talking about (as opposed to what ARE you talking about) also common in Arabic in russian languages.

3. non-pronunciation of dipthongs
-- dipthings are generally absent in African languages. So "that" becomes "dat" "three" becomes "tree" and "fifty" become "fitty"

So is so called "ebonic" a seperat language or a dialect?

BTW. "proper" english is not spkon in america.

Answer 1

.02 You should have known better than to ask an intelligent question like this one to the people here on Y!...

In response to the first answerer; there is no such thing as "improper English," the language is not something that is in and of itself either proper or improper so what you should have said is that "they do not speak English properly." If you are going to judge other people's use of a language you may want to get it right yourself Elizabeth, but I digress.

.02 Ebonics is a dialect, like any other in the English language. The truth is that as Mark Twain said, "even the angels speak English with an accent." However, this is America and a great deal people are prejudice. If these people can't find a legitimate reason they will simply conjure one up, and will judge you based on the most inconsequential things imaginable.

The truth is, that if white America started speaking Ebonics, that would be the new standard and any other way of speaking would be looked down upon. Black people, Southerners, Northerners, New Yorkers, and Surfers, we all have our own unique manner of speaking. For some strange reason it is only the black man's speaking that gets hailed as uneducated and low class.... Funny Ain't It?

Answer 2

No, Ebonics is not a language. Ebonics is a creation that dates back to Oakland, CA and the failing school system that permiates not only Oakland, CA but all major cites accross the USA.

Ebonics is an excuse created by some liberal ******** that was designed to deflect criticism away from a failing school system and underperforming black youth. We were told that poor blacks were failing because they couldn't understand the language. Hey - last time I checked California was still part of the U.S. and English is the default language. It's not my fault that the schools are preocupied with teaching crap like self-awareness and subscribing to this outcome based education nonsense where 2+2 can equal any number that makes you feel good.

If you take any kid, black, white, or anything in between and fail to teach them how to at least communicate, then live with the results. Don't blow smoke up my A$$ and tell me that we need to teach another form of bastardized English to help black children achieve. Maybe if you liberal racists think that black children will only grow up and cook fries at McDonalds or pick up dead animals from the highways for CALDOT then keep doing what you're doing. If you really want to see all kids start out on the same footing, then teach them English.

Accepting Ebonics as another language will only serve to perpetuate and encourage another generation of race-baiters like Jackson and Sharpton.

Plus, once Mexico takes over California, do you think they'll be accepting of this Ebonics crap? Odds are they wont. Learn Spanish or die.

Answer 3

Ebonics was classified as a foreign language so that school districts could use extra federal money in programs to teach proper english (essentially using English as a Second Language program). It's an artificial creation necessitated by bureaucracy.

Hope this helps

Edit:
I don't mean proper like Henry Higgens and Liza DoLittle. There are kids who can't communicate clearly. This is largely evident in their written documents. The declaration of Ebonics as a seperate language was to get additional resources to teach these kids to communicate clearly.

Answer 4

Some thoughts:

1.) I don't understand Japanese. If someone I am speaking with knows both Japanese and English but refuses to use the shared language of English, I consider that to be rude - If I knew Japanese, I'd be happy to speak it.

2.) I don't understand the cockney accent (a dialect) found in Britain. If I am speaking with someone who speaks with a cockney accent, I'm not going to hold it against them that I can't understand most of what they say. I expect the same in return.

3.) Star Trek has brought us a new language called Klingon. For real, there are people that have developed a vocabulary, sentence structure, dictionary, pronunciation etc - a full born language.

Very few people that it seriously because its use not to communicate but to be different and to be special. Its the creation of a language not for the purpose of communication but as a symbol of lifestyle and a tool to connect with others of that same lifestyle.

4.) Ebonics seems to have similar characteristics to cockney - its more of a dialect than a language in my opinion, but has origins and purpose similar to Klingon as well.

I've had conversations where someone understands the English I'm speaking regardless of what dialect you would call it. The same person is not understood by me at all. I have to ask them to please repeat them self and they do in the same dialect I'm using. Somehow I'm the asshole. (shrugs)

I know that when I get caught using geek speak with people who are not engineers, I'll feel bad for it and change my speaking to avoid words and concepts that are not in the listener's lexicon. DNS (internet phonebook), Firewall (security guard), syntax error (typo in the code), RJ-45 (the fat phone jack for your computer)

Language is useless if it doesn't facilitate communication. There are a number of languages that have developed and changed over the eons but to whip one up and claim a new language out of now-where seems like a step away from communication to me.

As long as I understand what someone is saying and understands what I am saying, I don't care what language/dialect they use or about any accent they have. Its only an issue when these things get in the way of understanding.

Why use a dialect you know is not shared when you are perfectly capable of using a different dialect at least in the moment with that individual? I think people do this all the time without realizing it and that's ok. Its when its not acceptable by someone to be misunderstood - that is a problem - wouldn't I be an *** if I expected non-engineers to teach themselves to be engineers just to understand me when I'm perfectly capable of changing my dialect and refuse because I see it as a slap to geek culture?

Wouldn't I be an *** if I demanded to get public funding to recognize geek speak as my first language so I can be catered to in school and in society as a non-native English speaker? What if I tried to do that with Klingon? What about cockney?

Answer 5

Ebonics would be closer to a dialect of English versus its own language. For it to be its own language, it would have to have specific rules in place. Ebonics is generally a series of words or phrases to replace the correct English equivalent.

Answer 6

The language spoken by historic Egyptians replaced somewhat by the years. rather, the Egyptian language got here from the languages spoken to the east of Egypt, Semitic languages like Hebrew, and languages spoken to the south, Hamitic languages like Somali. The words in this language are customarily created from consonant sounds, in assessment to the vowel sounds we use in the present day in English. previous Egyptian is the language that scientists have self assurance grew to become into being spoken on the time while the pyramids have been outfitted. midsection Egyptian got here somewhat later and has been chanced on on many those days chanced on enterprise and government records. Coptic is the final difficulty-free point of the classic Egyptian language. It used an outstanding sort of the Greek alphabet, with in basic terms some added letters from the older Egyptian languages. Coptic grew to become into specially used by the Egyptian Christians in direction of the tip of the time of the classic Egyptians. Now they talk in Arabic, to not be wrong with Farsi nevertheless. Hieroglyphs is the written language for the duration of the classic cases.

Answer 7

Since ebonics is different, but not mutually unintelligible (i.e. though they may think the other speaks oddly, they can still get the general gist of things), I'd say ebonics is a dialect, not a language in itself.

Answer 8

Proper English IS spoken in America, it's different than British English, Australian English, etc. They're all dialects, which is what "Ebonics" (once called "Black English") is.

Answer 9

It's a form of dialect, just like the people from the Islands. They speak English in the cayman islands for example, but they use a different form of dialect and their accent is different.

Answer 10

if you come from Africa, and you simply use their sentence structure, then i would say that it is a dialect, and possibly a
different language entirely. this would usually also be offset with an accent.

if you were born and raised in America, it is just street slang, and to the large majority of people it will make you sound ignorant and uneducated.