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Thread: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

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    BrunetteGoddess
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    Default Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    Since BlackSheep's car post started such a stir and I actually thought it would be interesting to hear other's opinions:

    What do you think of ebonics?

    Do you think of it as a real language?

    Do you think it makes the people speaking it sound like they're trying to sound stupid or "ghetto" on purpose?

    Discuss.

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    God/dess Taylorlila's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    I don't really think its a language...more like slang I guess. When white boys with their hats with the stickers still on, big chains with huge crosses or pot leafs and shirts that could double as a dress...yeah it sounds pretty silly. Actually...these little white boys annoy the shit outta me...they grew up in Maine. They don't speak this way because they grew up hearing it, they do it because they saw it on TV and they wanna sound all "bad ass." Seriously we have "street gangs"...like the "Brooke Street killers" and stuff. It makes me giggle.


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  3. #3
    Kaylinn
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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    LOL.

    Guess you already know my opinion......

    I do not think people speak it to try to sound stupid on purpose...if you grew up around that manner of speaking..it's just like any other regional slang..

    Like Pittsburghese. People from Pittsburgh have a certain manner of speaking that is unique to the res tof the country. It's not a real language, and neither is ebonics.

    And Pittsburghese soudns uneducated. It just sounds liek a buncha kicks and hillbilly's talkin. I have tried my hardest to not let that come out when I speak...but sometimes..it slips out. When you've grown up around a manenr of speaking, it's only normal yuo would speak that way to.


    But I do think that people who talk ghetto sound uneducated when they really arent, and that does bother me. I also think that the way rappers try to create new slang words in their songs as their trademark....and young kids start using these words to sound cool like their favorite rapper....
    And kids start speaking like that because they idolize that rapper or artist....
    but it's a bad thing, IMO. It's real hard to be taken seriously or get hired for a job when you speak slang that other people cannot understand.



    Damn. I am just highly opinionated lately. I really should try to reign that in a bit....

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    Quote Originally Posted by Taylorlila View Post
    I don't really think its a language...more like slang I guess. When white boys with their hats with the stickers still on, big chains with huge crosses or pot leafs and shirts that could double as a dress...yeah it sounds pretty silly. Actually...these little white boys annoy the shit outta me...they grew up in Maine. They don't speak this way because they grew up hearing it, they do it because they saw it on TV and they wanna sound all "bad ass." Seriously we have "street gangs"...like the "Brooke Street killers" and stuff. It makes me giggle.
    Lol. I see that in my club all the time. Even though my club serves alcohol we are still an 18 and over club. I swear some of these kids must come in with fake IDs. They are rural and suburban white and Asian Ohio boys who think that they are so "down" and "bad". They know every lyric ever made by Tupac and Young Joc. They go to strip clubs to pretend that they are in a BET rap video. They absolutely love me since I am one of the few black girls in my club.

    Back to the OPs questions. I don't think it is a language, it's just more of a way of speaking. There is no definite and true way of speaking English unless you are maybe British. And even in England there are many different ways of talking. British people can tell what social class and what geographical area someone is from simply from the way they talk. And then you have Scottish and Irish accents as well. I remember there was this Irish guy in a bar the other day and I literally had no idea what he was saying and neither did anyone else.

    And even in North America, New Yorkers speak differently than people from Boston or New Jersey. Midwesteners may have a bit of the Fargo thing going on. And then there is the South. Eastern Canadians have the "eh" thing going which still makes me smile.

    For me, I can't speak ebonics even if I tried and I speak in a very generic, commercial, American accent. Many people that I know who do speak ebonics can also switch to a generic, commercial accent if it suits them (ie at their job) and then can switch back again.

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    I think it's pretty much just slang. As long as I can communicate with a person, the language doesn't matter, yo. But like don't even front and try push that rap on my shorty,yo.

    I was just watching Airplane and those guys were speaking jive. It's sort of the same thing, right?

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    Like Hawaiian Pidgin, it goes beyond slang. I would classify true Ebonics as another language. However, in order to ensure successful communication it's important for the speaker's ability to code switch to standard English.


  7. #7
    cameron_keys
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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    It's not a language. It's slang..or at most a regional dialect.

    Honestly..I hate it. It sounds low class and uneducated. And when you consider that, like said above, most of the kids speaking this arent actually from the ghetto or that particular region..they are just posers copying what they see on MTV....it's just retarded.

    I mean..people STRIVE to become and sound educated to distance themselves from that life so they can have a better life for themselves...and these kids are TRYING to sound lowbrow? I just want to smack them.

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    Perhaps I'm confusing Ebonics with Creole...from which I thought Ebonics was derived.


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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    A little historical perspective here...

    "Ebonics" was the creation of a school district in California, seeking federal funding that could be provided to schools/districts which had a large ESL population (or something like that). It was basically a political ploy which backfired because of the accompanying PR disaster.

    So it's not a language, that notion should be disspelled. At most, it's a dialect of English.

    I think it sounds horribly uneducated, but it's especially annoying when affected by white kids trying to sound ghetto. Jesus, sometimes I'd like to just up and smack some of the idiots I see putting on a fake "ghetto" persona.

    I can see if you grew up around it and don't know better...it still sounds bad but it's kind of not their fault. It would be a good thing for schools to teach black children to speak properly (which partially was what the original grant proposal was intent on doing).

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    Quote Originally Posted by CorsicaFire View Post
    What do you think of ebonics?

    Do you think of it as a real language?

    Do you think it makes the people speaking it sound like they're trying to sound stupid or "ghetto" on purpose?


    In 1996, the Oakland, CA school board introduced a controversial proposal to incorporate so-called "Ebonics," or African-American diction, into the classroom. My sister-in-law is a college professor who teaches sociolinguistics, and she argued with anybody who would listen that it was a good idea (in much the same way that ESL classes assist Spanish speaking students). Oakland's black community turned on Rev. Jesse Jackson after he opposed the idea, and he visited Oakland--after the proposal was defeated--to do damage control.

    "Ebonics" comes from the words "ebony" and "phonics". As a multiracial immigrant who adapted to American life by learning to speak Ebonics, I believe that the path to success for black youth is to master the "dual dialect" (Ebonics AND "proper" English) in order to shift seamlessly between social/professional environments.

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    Quote Originally Posted by cameron_keys View Post
    It's not a language. It's slang..or at most a regional dialect.
    Thank you, Cameron! Yes, it's a dialect. Or rather an ethnolect, since it's not really restricted by geography. In linguistics, it used to be called Black English, and is now referred to as African American Vernacular English.

    As to CorsicaFire's OP, I find those questions a little odd. First of all, if people speak it and communicate with others in it, of course it's a "real" dialect or language. Academically, it has been accorded the status of a dialect because it does not differ so drastically from English that it is another language.

    Suggesting that African Americans who speak that particular variety of English are "trying to sound stupid or 'ghetto' on purpose" is unbelievably offensive, ignorant, classist and racist. If that's the language they know that's the language they speak. If it isn't their main dialect then they might switch to it when it's socially appropriate, much as my talk gets more Texan when I'm in the south.

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    Believe it or not, when I went to college, they actually offered a class in Ebonics! It might come in useful if someone is speaking "jive" on an airplane and they get food poisoning.

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    I think it's a silly way of speaking. But I guess anyone could say the same how other people talk, but it's not my cup of tea. If I hear someone talking like that I'll think they are 1) fake 2) uneducated and I would never waste time like that on someone in the club. It's just not my style and we wouldn't get along anyways.

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kaylinn View Post
    Damn. I am just highly opinionated lately. I really should try to reign that in a bit....
    haha, i was thinking the same thing about myself!

    as for the question. i hate it. i just hate it. i do think it sounds uneducated and like youre trying to make yourself out to be all 'gangsta' like. and i feel like on some people it looks more natural, while on others it looks forced and that's when it bothers me the most.

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    i think it's an insult to the black community AND all taxpayers in general.

    i don't see "chinglish", "spanglish", "chinbonics", or anything else along those lines. why does "ebonics" deserve special consideration? imho, it's a political/gov't funding bunch of bs/pork barreling.

    should individual students be afforded different methods of teaching/training language skills due to varying native tongues? sure, sounds great.

    but then be prepared for the onslaught of 500+ major language dialects to do so rather than typical ESL gov't funded classes. frankly, "ebonics" would be considered a "minor dialect", and if so be prepared for 1000's of such considerations.

    why should "ebonics" get more funding than "hisponics"?

    politics. *retch*

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    Quote Originally Posted by cameron_keys View Post
    It's not a language. It's slang..or at most a regional dialect.
    It's definitely not "slang." It's also not a "regional dialect," as AAVE is spoken across the U.S. as well as in parts of the Caribbean and other islands.

    Just for the record (here we go again), AAVE is a highly-complex, rule-based dialect of Southern American English. It has grammatical, lexical, semantic and phonetic rules that rival those of Standard American English (SAE), as well as a rich vocabulary. In many cases, AAVE can capture and convey ideas much more efficiently than can SAE. In other words, AAVE is not only a legitimate dialect of SAE, in many ways it's a much more complex one to master.

    Populations that speak dialects that differ from the more broadly-accepted standard language are almost always ridiculed by speakers of the standard dialect in the belief that the other dialect is "wrong," or "lazy." This happens in many cultures. This is mistaken in two important ways. First, all spoken language, to the extent that it is mutually intelligible within a population, is always a legitimate language. It is the very definition of what language is -- a form of communication created by the people themselves and only later codified by arbitrary agreement between a bunch of linguists who decide what goes into the dictionaries (trust me on this because it's one of the things I do). The interesting point here is that the decisions on legitimate usage are based entirely on the language as used by the speakers of that dialect. Second, AAVE as well as the regional dialects make important contributions to SAE because language, being brutally efficient, will always favor expressions that convey the most meaning efficiently. It's why hip-hop and rap lyrics are so beautifully concise and complicated at the same time, and why eventually they find their way into SAE.

    Educated African Americans are often bilingual and can easily code-switch between SAE and AAVE with little trouble. So far from being "lazy" or "stupid," those bilinguals who speak both SAE and AAVE have the ability to move freely and fluently in two slightly different cultures.

    The importance of teaching SAE in the US school system is economic, not linguistic. It is the most broadly accepted dialect in US society and pretty much the key to social and economic upward mobility. But that is an accident of predominant population. There are nations with black majority rule where a dialect much closer to AAVE is in fact the official dialect, and any individual speaking SAE would be looked on as either foreign or uneducated.

    There is also a rich variability in regional dialects in the U.S., where usage varies considerably in regions just 50 miles apart. No real linguist EVER corrects spoken English -- it's the spoken form of the language that is "real" -- but rather tries to learn the subtle differences and why they are there. I recently knew a girl who spoke the most adorable South-Central Virginia dialect that would bring a smile to my face every time. The dialect involved the most interesting uses of the past and past progressive tenses, and employed words whose definitions had nothing to do with how they were used in SAE. The sad part of this story is that she had always felt terrible and self-conscious about it, ridiculed by teachers who sure as hell ought to have known better. It rarely crept into her writing, but was an important part of her family life and cultural identity.

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    Quote Originally Posted by cameron_keys View Post
    I mean..people STRIVE to become and sound educated to distance themselves from that life so they can have a better life for themselves...and these kids are TRYING to sound lowbrow? I just want to smack them.
    So true, CK!

    IMO, the "dumbing down" of America has also been accelerated by the entertainment media. It's ironic that while parents are working hard to provide their children with the "better life" and education, Jack & Jill are learning from hard-earned iPods and home theater systems how a "real G. spits 'motherfucker'..."

    My oldest son is a star basketball player with an excellent vocabulary. Nonetheless, when his traveling team is in Las Vegas, Nashville or other cities, he and his teammates occasionally trade gutter insults with opponents who "aren't feelin' these Cali $#@*!" In response, I require him to learn a new word from Merriam-Webster's College Dictionary every day in order to offset the gametime vernacular...

    Quote Originally Posted by The Other Owner View Post

    Educated African Americans are often bilingual and can easily code-switch between SAE and AAVE with little trouble. So far from being "lazy" or "stupid," those bilinguals who speak both SAE and AAVE have the ability to move freely and fluently in two slightly different cultures.

    The importance of teaching SAE in the US school system is economic, not linguistic. It is the most broadly accepted dialect in US society and pretty much the key to social and economic upward mobility. But that is an accident of predominant population. There are nations with black majority rule where a dialect much closer to AAVE is in fact the official dialect, and any individual speaking SAE would be looked on as either foreign or uneducated.
    Precisely, TOO!

    I assume that your observation regarding "the ability to move freely and fluently in two slightly different cultures" is based on the assumption of parallel socioeconomic class. I believe that mastery of the dual dialect has given me an advantage socially and professionally, although I occasionally encounter the odd dissenter. Human beings are naturally adaptive creatures, and our language is an extension of this evolutionary trait...
    Last edited by Budai; 08-18-2007 at 11:56 AM. Reason: Response to TOO

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    In my mind, it's a legitimate dialect. But I think the reason why some people don't believe it is is not because it's the "dumbing down of English" but rather its constant evolution is largely based upon what's hot in todays popular culture (which explains why many believe it's nothing more than slang).

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    I would have to say its dialect, as it was mentioed before, other cities, geogrpahical areas have different versions of English for example. Peeple in Boston vs Maine, vs everywhere else in the US/Canada.

    Also,more broadly Canadian French is not the same as (France) French. Chinese and Japenese use the same symbols, but, are 2 entirely different langauges.

    Moreover I would say it is more-so geographiocally limited to the socio-ecomonilcay "low-class" which is mostly found in the inner-cieites. And that is why you see it spoken freely in the cities.

    I think overall it hurt people in general when all they can speak is Ebonics. My company is a call center, and yes, while some of the population speaks ebonics, not all of it does. It seems to me to limit job oppurtunities.

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    Veteran Member Ferret's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    I cast my vote for those who support a written prescriptive grammar. Although I'll admit that the success of a spoken language depends on how effectively ideas are communicated to a listener, my opinion is that both order and reasoning fail the test of consistency in most spoken languages.

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    legitimate? sure.....proper English? Oh hell no....Ever talk to a Welsh person or a Cockney? They're speaking English, but it's a bastardized form....sort of like Latin America Spanish differs so much from Spain Spanish....Nosotros, anyone?

    I've taken a few Linguistics courses (my SO has his Master's in the subject) Ebonics drives most of them crazy......it's something to study, to understand it's roots, it's certainly a dialect, but it's not a separate language. I don't believe we should teach it, it's just going to make young people lose more of the proper English language. This is just a shame! How you speak to your friends (or type on message boards, ha!) is your thing, no harm, no foul. However, if we treat these local vernaculars as a form of language; people become unmotivated to speak true English or proper language of any type.

    That's how languages die, we let them fall apart. I think our education system really MUST emphasize proper use of English....if you don't use it, you'll lose it! I'm fine with slang, so long as you *can* speak proper English when it's appropriate.

  22. #22
    madmaxine
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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    I always thought AAVE had its roots in the version of English that poor Scots-Irish immigrants to the US brought with them....

    I thought this because my mom did a wicked Arkie drawl (her first husband was from Arkansas) even thought English wasn't her first language. (Spanish was...) So I associated some the patterns of "Ebonics" with Southern dialects.

    In the movie "Airplane" there's a scene where two black guys are having a "jive" conversation and subtitles are at the bottom of the screen (much like the subtitled Scottish in "Trainspotting.")

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    i agree with too that it's economic not linguistic. my point wasn't that dialects shouldn't be allowed to evolve but rather should we be funding such divergences?

    SAE is the accepted "norm". it's unlikely ebonics or spanglish or chinglish will be accepted as anything other than ridicule in business/RL/entertainment/academic worlds.

    teach SAE, fund SAE, but if people choose to pronounce it differently at home or speak a dialect of it that's fine with me (very similar to the taiwanese/mandarin situation in taiwan). but don't expect funding for every tim, dyck, or larry versions.

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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    i dont really count it as a lnaguage..,more like slang, or dialect.

    i dont think theres anything wrong with it...thats jus how some people talk.

    now little 13 year old white boys from the suburbs whos rich mothers buy them sean john wear using "ebonics" is jus........weird. haha.

    i mean here in hawaii we have "pidgin" and some people count it as a language. but i duno i dont really think it is. jus a way of talking of people from here and who live here.

    i dont tihnk its a big deal. people jus talk from the wya they were brought up and grew up at....it dont matter. i mean im from CA, can my valley girl talk be counted as a language? "like tottaly......" uh..NO. its jus a way of talking. big deal, eh?
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    Default Re: Ebonics: Your Thoughts?

    Quote Originally Posted by madmaxine View Post
    a "jive" conversation and subtitles are at the bottom of the screen (much like the subtitled Scottish in "Trainspotting.")
    lol oh yeah i saw that part
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