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A lot of people don't realize that Black English (BE) actually shares a lot of similar grammatical structures to "prestigious" languages.
So, here's my 87590th thread on AAVE (African American Vernacular English)/Black English (BE).
So, here's my 87590th thread on AAVE (African American Vernacular English)/Black English (BE).
BE (my native dialect) is the epitome of how a perfectly normal (and valid) way of speaking can have a huge impact on people’s lives. WITH POSITIVELY NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS, linguistically consistent grammatical features in BE like double negatives,
perfective like “she done did it,” or
habitual be, e. g. “he be talkin’,” have heavily stigmatized the speakers of BE as unintelligent, uneducated, or linguistically backward.
habitual be, e. g. “he be talkin’,” have heavily stigmatized the speakers of BE as unintelligent, uneducated, or linguistically backward.
The speech of Black people in the U. S. Black speech has historically been (and often still is) scorned as just being "broken" English, but this is not only unfair, but it's WRONG.
The majority of many of BE's primary grammatical structures are found in many other languages. Those who consider themselves culturally aware might be amazed that last year Boris Johnson quoted Homer in the original Greek during an interview.
In that clip, the Greek lines he quotes actually use the double negative construction used as emphasis. Then there's the rather normal way to express a negative in oh-so-fancy French with two negative elements (ceci n’est pas une négation, par exemple).
It's absolutely wild to me that these very same grammatical elements in influential foreign languages that are culturally valued by mainstream society are usually the exact same systematic structures that many HATE in more distinct or less "prestigious" dialects of English.
So many instances around the world from Spanish to Russian to Chinese and many more, what becomes the standard way of speaking in a language is just one dialect out of many "with an army and a navy."
Said dialect acquires legitimacy and prestige as a valid, socially accepted language, through things like print, pop culture, and--often--geopolitical means.
In the case of Russian in particular, what is now known as Ukranian was once considered the standard Russian. Mandarin is considered the official Chinese because of Mao, even though NUMEROUS dialects exist in the country.
Things change.
Things change.
This is also what happened to standard English, which at one point was just a nonstandard creole of varying linguistic influences.
So why not Black English? The dialects of any speech community have a right to be respected.
So why not Black English? The dialects of any speech community have a right to be respected.
All human speech is valid. Sure, perhaps some are better suited for certain needs, but all human speech is okay.
What makes one way of speech a language and another way of speech a dialect, and what makes a dialect or accent be looked down upon or even considered "broken" speech is SUBJECTIVE and POLITICAL!!!!!
BE is not just some monolithic dialect spoken by millions from L. A. to Atlanta, to Chicago, to Baltimore.
There are regional--and even class--differences with stories centered around migration, and there are some BE/AAVE dialects that grew to eventually have more standard and vernacular forms.
Almost all the cool slang words in American English come from Black English...including this usage of the word "cool". 
Lol, the gag is that this whole time, standard American English (SAE) has been convincing everybody in the U. S. that it was a superior dialect, but it’s Black English that’s been the true cultural and linguistic force in society today. SAE actually owes a LOT to Black English.
The irony is that Black English is still largely dismissed and devalued as being linguistically broken, yet is simultaneously one of the richest sources of lexical innovation in the English language.
Black English has left a HUGE mark on pop culture. It's everywhere: social media, art, storytelling, slang, music, etc.
Arguably, no other variation of speech has been as significant, influential, or innovative to the evolution of Standard American English like Black English.
Arguably, no other variation of speech has been as significant, influential, or innovative to the evolution of Standard American English like Black English.
Black English speech and verbal expressions have crossed over into mainstream speech, including in media and journalism. Also, common stuff like “you’re the man,” “brother,” “cool,” and “high five” entered Standard American English from Black English.
Black English words have always entered SAE throughout the eras of slavery to civil rights, from the Jazz Age to hip-hop.
Language and oral tradition are an integral part of the Black American experience.
Language and oral tradition are an integral part of the Black American experience.
One linguist wrote, “the disguise language used by enslaved Africans to conceal their conversations from their white slave masters to the lyrics of today’s rap music, [the magical power of] the word has been shaped by a time when,
as observed by Harlem newspaper writer Earl Conrad, ‘it was necessary for the Negro to speak and sing and even think in a kind of code.'”
Even though Black English has always had such “low prestige,” there’s actually a kind of covert prestige to using Black Engkish. It’s usually seen as cool for people to use these expressions.
It’s a clear sign of a strong linguistic culture, tradition, and community when said community’s linguistic contributions and innovation are so consistently and widely spread and end up having such a gigantic impact on the standard language.
“African American culture is an especially important source of lexical innovation […]. Although African Americans are somewhat overrepresented on Twitter compared to the general population […], they are still clearly in the minority, whereas
three of our five common patterns of lexical innovation appear to be primarily associated with African American English, showing the inordinate influence of African American English on Twitter.”
Source: https://bit.ly/31NH6Sq
That was from a corpus study done recently on lexical innovation in social media ( https://bit.ly/31NH6Sq ), and it showed that Black American users had a very strong cultural impact on how language changes in the U. S.
There’s this beautiful, sort of non-stop creativity to the linguistic innovations found in Black English. Linguists agree there’s a lot that Black English speech can teach about language in general. BE has contributed a LOT to American cultural life, both past and present.
