African American English and White Southern English - segregational factors in the development of a dialect

Content

Content 2

I Preface 3 II AAVE and AWSE develop in parallel 4

III African American Vernacular language as a distinct minority feature 6

IV Conclusion 9

V Bibliography 10 VI Online Sources 11

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I Preface

In 1619 the first Black People were violently taken to Virginia, United States. Many more Blacks were to follow and hence had to work as slaves on the plantations in the south, fueling the trade of an emerging economic power. Families and friends were separated and people from different regions who spoke different African dialects were grouped together. This was to make sure that no communication in their respective native languages would take place in order to prevent mutinies. Thus the Africans had to learn the language of their new surroundings, namely English. Today the English of the Blacks in America is distinguishable as African American Vernacular English (AAVE). AAVE and American White Southern English (AWSE) were very similar in colonial times, and according to Feagin 1 AWSE still has features of AAVE, such as the non-rhoticism and falsetto pitch 2 , which is supposed to add to the apparent musicality of both AAVE and AWSE today. Many commonalities can be attributed to the coexistence of the two cultures for almost 200 years, while many differences are claimed to be due to segregation. Crystal claims that first forms of Pidgin English spoken by Africans already emerged during the journey on the slave ships, where communication was also made difficult due to the grouping of different dialects in order to prevent mutiny. The slave traders who often spoken English had already shaped the new pidgin languages on the ships and helped shape a creole that was to be established in the Carribean colonies as well southern US colonies in the 17 th century. 3 It is still often believed that Black English or African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is a faulty and deviant form of Standard English. African American English was even attributed to inferior intelligence and cultural deprivation of African Americans. 4 The American scholar Krapp and many of his followers believed that the African dialects had no influence on American English and were totally lost as “Krapp’s law” states that “[…] whenever two languages come into contact where one was representative of a high level of culture and sophistication and the other of a low

1 Feagin, Crawford 1998. „The African contribution to southern States English : pitfall and solutions” in Bronstein (ed.) pp. 78-95

2 “[…]The frequency of vibrations in falsetto phonation is noticeably higher than in modal voice. The vocal folds are stretched longitudinally, thus becoming relatively thin. Consequently, the vibrating mass is smaller and the generated tone higher.The adduction of the folds is high and the medial compression is also strong[…] (http://www.ims.uni-stuttgart.de/phonetik/EGG/page10.htm), visited 20-05-2004

3 Crystal 2003, “The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language”, 2 nd Edition, p. 96

4 Fromkin / Rodman / Hyams 2003, „An Introduction to Language“ pp. 459 - 460

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level, the latter yielded and adapted to the speech patterns of the former. Little or nothing happened in the reverse direction.” 5 According to this myth AAVE could just

be called a faulty and deviant form of English due to bad imitation. Some linguists even argued that the language of the black community was deviant due to isolation and that the Blacks sticked to their archaic form of English due to social backwardness. 6

Of course these ideas can be abandoned as nonsense. All differences between AAE and Standard English are rule based and thus AAE can be referred to as a dialect of English. It seems surprising though that AAE is not clearly outlined by Isoglosses 7 ,

like other regional dialects of the USA. I will show how AWSE and AAVE have influenced each other and how they drifted apart due to segregation and why AAVE has stayed quite homogeneous across the United States. I am going to argue that AAVE thus serves as a minority language that holds up and distincts the minority status of Blacks in America.

II AAVE and AWSE develop in parallel

Today AAVE is a homogeneous dialect that is spoken across the United States, still having many qualities of the English spoken in the rural south – AWSE. This can be corresponded to the relative closeness of the two languages between 1875 and the beginning of the 1900s, when most distinct features of AWSE and AAVE were similar 8 , which was a period when 90 % of the African Americans still lived in the south 9 . The close contact explanation is often used as an explanation to the similarity of Black English to Southern English and is also put forth by Crystal. 10

Due to a relatively high concentration of white men and a lack of women in the south in the early stages of colonization the mulatto phenomenon can be explained. It is very well possible that the shaping of AAVE is also largely due to these inter racial relationships. Even though the segregation laws (1877) of Jim Crow were

5 Krapp, G.P. 1924 ,“The English of the negro” as quoted in Harrison / Trabasso 1976, “Black English – A seminar” p. 106

6 Dunn “The Black-Southern White Dialect Controversy – Who Did What to Whom ?” in Harrison / Trabasso 1976, “Black English – A seminar” p.107

7 „A geographic boundary that separates areas with dialectal differences, e.g. a line on a map on one side of which most people say faucet and on the other side of which most people say spigot.” (Fromkin / Rodman / Hyams 2003 “An introduction to Language” p. 585

8 Mufwene / Rickford / Bailey / Baugh – „African-American English – Structure, history and use” p. 105

9 ibid. p. 100

10 Crystal 2003, „The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language“, 2 nd Edition, p. 97

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