African American Vernacular English

Table of Content

1.  Introduction  3

2.  History  3

3.  Features  6

3.1Phonology........................................................................................................   6

3.1.1Vowelsystem   6

3.1.2Consonantsystem   7

3.1.3Stress   9

3.2Grammar   9

3.2.1Timereference   9

3.2.2Negation   11

  3 2 3Othergrammaticalfeatures  11

3.3Vocabulary.....................................................................................................   12

4.  Summary  13

5.  Sources  14

  Literature:  14

  Internet:  15

6.  Abbreviations  15

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1. Introduction

The majority of the USHcitizens of African ancestry speak a

characteristicvarietyofEnglishthathasbeenreferredtobyseveralnames. It has variously been called NonHStandard Negro English, Negro Dialect ¹ , Black English Vernacular, Black English, African American English, African AmericanVernacularEnglish,Ebonics,etc.Inthispaper,Iwillusetheterm African American Vernacular English, abbreviated AAVE, because it is the termmostcurrentamonglinguiststoday.Theterm“vernacular”refersto NoothervarietyinsidetheUnitedStateshasbeenstudiedasmuch

the everyday language spoken by a speech community, often a nonH standardvariety. ² as AAVE. During the last fourty years, many works have been released concerningthistopic.ThispaperisanoverviewofAAVE.Itstartswiththe historical backgrounds of the variety by discussing the major theories concerning its origin. The main part of this paper deals with AAVE’s linguistic features in comparison to Standard American English. The features are subdivided into the subHchapters phonology, grammar and

2. History

vocabulary.Asummaryformsthefinalchapterofthispaper.

TherearethreemajortheoriesabouttheoriginofAfricanAmerican

VernacularEnglishandthereasonswhyitdiffersfromStandardAmerican EnglishaswellasothervarietiesofEnglish.ThefirsttheoryisthatAAVEis

1

RalphW.Fasold/WaltWolfram:“SomeLinguisticFeaturesofNegroDialect”,in: PaulStoller[editor],BlackAmericanEnglish.ItsBackgroundandItsUsageinthe

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descended from a creole, which derived from an EnglishHbased pidgin itself. ³

Thosewhosupportthecreolisthypothesismaintainthatthecreoleupon whichAAVEisbasedwasfairlywidespreadintheantebellumSouth.They observethatthiscreolewasnotuniquetothemainlandSouthbutrather showsanumberofsimilaritiestowellHknownEnglishHbasedcreolesofthe African diaspora such as Krio, spoken today in Sierra Leone along the coast of West Africa, as well as EnglishHbased creoles of the Caribbean such as the creoles of Barbados and Jamaica. Its vestiges in the United StatesarestillfoundtodayinGULLAH,morepopularlycalled“Geechee,” thecreolestillspokenbyasmallnumberofAfricanAmericansintheSea IslandsoffthecoastofSouthCarolinaandGeorgia.Itismaintainedthat this creole was fairly widespread among the descendants of Africans on Southernplantationsbutwasnotspokentoanyextentbywhites. ⁴

JudithRodby(1992)outlinesthepossibledevelopmentofAAVEasfollows:

The roots of contemporary BEV ⁵ are found in the seventeenthHcentury slave trade. Historically, slave owners had organized the slaves’ social universesothatitwasdifficultforthemtocommunicate.TheIbo,Hausa, Yoruba, Mandingo, and Wolof tribes, for example, lived together even though they spoke languages that were only minimally mutually intelligible.Theseslaveswhodidnotspeakthesamelanguageanddidnot have the opportunity to learn English developed a pidgin language to communicate with each other and with whites. Gradually, the pidgin became creolized; it was regularized, expanded, and passed from one generationtoanotherasamothertongue.Slavecreolewasbasedlargely

³ Tottie(2002),p.227.

⁴ Wolfram&SchillingHEstes(1998),p.175.

⁵ BEV,i.e.BlackEnglishVernacular,meaningAAVE.

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on the syntax of West African languages and the lexicon of English and

wasthehistoricalantecedentofcomtemporaryBlackEnglish. ⁶

Overtime,throughlanguagecontactwithsurroundingdialects,thiscreole

was modified in a process referred to as decreolization to become more

likeothervarietiesofEnglish. ⁷

“What speaks for a creole origin is above all the rich and varied

aspect ⁸ systemofAAVE,aswellastheexistenceofmoreAfricanloanwords

inAAVEthanwaspreviouslythought.” ⁹

The alternative theory is that AAVE is an English dialect based on

the varieties that the slaves picked up from white speakers. This one is

calledthedialectologisttheoryortheAnglicisthypothesis ¹⁰ and“[s]cholars

who support the dialectologist position see AAVE as a dialect of English,

based on the dialects that the black slaves picked up from their white

masters and especially from white farm employees. There is plenty of linguisticandhistoricalevidence ¹¹ tosupportthisview.” ¹²

The third and last theory says that AAVE is derived from West Africanlanguages.Itssupportersoftenusetheterm“Ebonics” ¹³ insteadof AAVE.This“...theoryisnotacceptedbyprofessionallinguistsbutithashad 6

JudithRodby:“APolyphonyofVoices:TheDialecticsofLinguisticDiversityand

Unity in the TwentiethHCentury United States”, in: Michael D. Linn [editor], Handbook of Dialects and Language Variation [2. edition], Academic Press, San Diego1998,pp.447H474,p.464. ⁷ Wolfram&SchillingHEstes(1998),p.175. ⁸ “Aspect is often contrasted with tense to make useful distinctions. Tense situatesaneventintime,asinBruceran,inwhichtherunningtookplaceatsome

pasttimebeforethesentencewasuttered.Aspect,ontheotherhand,refersto duration,completionorhabitualoccurrence.Theprogressiveordurativeaspectis

expressed on the verb running (as in Bruce is running), in which the running activityisdurative,indicatingcontinuingaction,orthattheactivityisinprogress”

(Green(2002),p.45). 9

Tottie(2002),p.227. 10

Wolfram&SchillingHEstes(1998),p.175. 11