Is black people sounds diferent than white,latin(born in da USA),asian(born in da USA),etc spoken english?

Question

I have been six month whatching american tv and all the people from texas has the same way to talk and all sounds alike but black people sound to me very very very diferent I dont know if I think it 'cause they have a diferent voice because they are black and black people in all the world sound diferent I DID WRITE DA BECAUSE "THE" IT'S VERY LARGE AND I CAN'T WRITE IT

Answer 1

David - It's a mistake to ascribe differences in language to race. FWIW, I've heard blonde Americans sound like they're black, and black people with zero-accent speech.

It's a matter of culture, not race. Language derives from culture. Hence, if your culture values hip-hop style, your language will become gangsta rap speech. And if your culture values university-level educated speech, your speech will be indistinguishable from Bill Buckley.

If you can get PBS Newshour, watch for Gwen Ifill. She is a professional reader, but language is language. Bill Clinton has a country accent that he can turn up or down. And I never quite understood Dubya. He was raised on the east coast, yet he sounds like a good ol' bwah frum Dusty, Texas.

Extreme examples aside, regional dialects exist. If you can get Robert McNeil's "Do You Speak American?" you'll see several distinct examples. "Regional" is another way of saying "cultural." Black English Vernacular is a linguistically-distinct speech from standard English. In the USA, there is a distinct black culture. It should be no surprise that a distinct black language goes along with the culture.

Answer 2

There are plenty of educated black Americans who speak proper English, including myself. The images on TV you can not use as examples because that is classifying a entire group. There is a high concentration of poor, and uneducated white people but they usually are located out of the inner cities where as the opposite for black americans. If you do a little research you will find there are more white americans on welfare than are blacks but you would not know that due to this society we live in and most of us buy into these stereo types even blacks do the same.

Answer 3

In the U.S. there are many different types of accents. People from one part of the county are going to have a different accent then someone from another. This goes the same for different races too. A black from California may not have the same accent as a black person from Louisiana.

And don't relied on T.V.'s image of black people or anyone too much. It's not always right.

edit
and to Bartolom It all depends on what you mean by "uneducated speech" Many of the white people in this country don't sound like they just stepped off their private Yacht. Dose the phase "we fixin da go" mean anything to you?

Answer 4

Yes, they do. Many black people have an accent that is mixed between the Southern accent and the Northern accent. Because their community is very close, due to segregation (legally established or socially imposed), they have kept this form of accent flourishing. You'll find that people from different regions of the US have different accents. On tv, they try to use the "standard" accent like they do on spanish tv, italian tv, etc., but there are differences. People who are from outside of California very quickly grasp my accent being Californian.

Answer 5

Even though we no longer have segregation laws here in the United States, the effects of centuries of segregation have taken its impact on the Black-American community.

Sadly so many Black Americans are under-educated and speak what some have coined as "Ebonics". There are however under-educated White Americans who speak this way also, however their numbers are sparingly low compared to those of Black-American communities.

Likely the Blacks you see on TV are common citizens. You will likewise see ignorant speech of common citizens who are of other races.

I guarantee you however that if given the opportunity to be educated, Blacks can speak just like educated Whites do. It is NOT true that "Blacks have a different voice than other races".

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EDIT to CJ: If you had read my post in it's entirety you would have noticed that I made no such claim to exclusive ignorance to the Black community. As a Black man it would be foolish of me to make such a claim. My statement has nothing to do with accents, rather it has to do with grammar and spelling.

I aint, who you is... etc are examples of ignorant speech. Again, I never claimed that us Blacks are the only people who use such ignorant speech.

I assume that "We fixin ta go" is similar to the Ebonics "We fittin ta...". If that is the case, it is equally atrocious.

Answer 6

Black Americans speak Ebonics, which is actually some kind of southern hill billy dialect of English that they copied.

Answer 7

"da" is not a word in English, whichever EXCUSE YOU WANT TO SHOUT about it.

The word is "the".

Answer 8

no that's just you and this is a racist question i don't sound different and neither did my dad or my half brothers and sisters
it depends on where you grow up and what language you speak!

Answer 9

they do? i never noticed