Ebonics

[Joe Varo]

Since it appears that an Ebonics thread may be developing here, I did a
search on Yahoo! on "ebonics" and came up with about 28 sites.  Here is an
excerpt from URL www.west.net/~joyland/BlkEng.html

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  Two Dimensions of Black Speech
  
   When considering Black English it is helpful to distinguish between
   the two dimensions: Language and Style.
   
     * Language
          + Sounds
          + Grammar and structure
          + The words
     * Style
       Style involves the way speakers put sounds and grammatical
       structure together to communicate meaning in a larger context
          + It is what you do with the words
          + It incorporates the total expression, for example using black
            rhythmic speech
          + It may be "songified"
          + May use speech rhymes, voice inflections and tonal patterns
       
                                      
  Linguistics of Black English
  
   Linguists define Black English as a hybrid language containing
   elements of Euro-American English ("standard English") and elements of
   West African Languages (surviving Africanisms from Yoruba, Ibo, Ewe,
   etc.)
   
   The vocabulary of the new language is fairly easy to master, but the
   syntactical structure and idiomatic rules require considerable time
   and practice to master
   
   While all languages change over time the structure of a language
   remains relatively rigid and fixed.
   
   It is important to note that the greatest differences between black
   and white English are on the level of grammatical structure
   
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   Some examples of Black English follow:
   
   1. Indicating habitual action through verb structure, notably using
   the form "be" as a verb. This use of be derives from an aspectual verb
   system that is also found in many African languages. Its use conveys
   the speaker's meaningwith reference to the qualitative character and
   distribution of an action overtime.
   
   "He be hollering at us", "I like the way he be psyching people out"
   
   2. Indicating remote past through verb structure, notably using "been"
   with stress.
   
   "She been gone"
   
   3. Predication with optional copula The sense of complete predication
   conveyed by a noun followed by an adjective, adverb, verb, noun, or
   prepositional phrase. This is common in many West African languages,
   (e.g., in Kimbundu, Ene macamba, literally "They friends")
   
   "He real little", "They in the house", "My momma name Joyce"
   
   4. Semantic Inversion, turning a word into its opposite. This feature
   is familiar in Mandingo, a ka nyi ko-jugu, literally, "It is
   goodbadly", or it is so good that it's bad.
   
   5. Appropriating and secularizing church terms. Some terms are derived
   from the Traditional Black Church.
   
   "On T", "Testify"
   
   6. Pronominal apposition, repeating the subject for emphasis. This
   feature is common in Yoruba, Eya me, ot cu, literally, "My mother, she
   has died"
   
   7. Use of speech acts, that are either not in White English at all or
   are not used according to the same set of social rules of speaking.
   
   Signifyin'- the verbal art of insult
   Dozens- a form of signification where one signifies on anothers
   kinfolk.
   Use of Proverbs- "What goes around, comes around", "A hard head makes
   a soft behind"
   
   8. Signaling of possession by context and/or juxtaposition. No use of
   inflectional -z (written as apostrophe s)
   
   "My daddy name John"
   
   9. Tonal Semantics The use of voice and rhythm and vocal inflection to
   convey meaning. This gives Black speech its songified or musical
   quality. Both Black rappers and preachers use word sound to
   communicate at deeper levels to which words alone cannot convey.
   Examples include shouting, intonational contouring, use of rhyme,
   repetition and alliterative word-play.
   
   From a strictly linguistic view, Smitherman(1995) indicates that West
   African languages are tone languages. The speakers of these languages
   rely on the tone with which they pronounce syllables, sounds, and
   words to convey their meaning.
   
   The space does not allow for a full exploration of examples of Black
   English. For a more thorough coverage of this topic the reader is
   referred to Smitherman(1977); Dandy (1991); Major (1970); Labov
   (1972); Dillard (1972); Rickford(1975); Kochman (1972,1981); Baugh
   (1983); and Spears (1984).
   
                                      
  Specific Examples of Grammar and Structure Rule in West African Languages
  
   repetition of noun subject with pronoun - My father, he work hard
   
   question patterns without do - what it come to
   
   same form of noun for singular and plural - one boy ; five boy
   
   No tense indicated in verb: emphasis on manner or character of action
   - I know it good when he ask me
   
   Same verb for for all subjects - I know ; you know; he know; we know;
   they know
   
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  Examples of Sound Rule in West African Languages
  
   No consonant pairs - jus ( just) tes (test)
   
   Few long vowels or two-part vowels - rat or raht ( right), tahm (time)
   
   No /r/ sound - mow (more), dough (door), flow (floor)
   
   No /th/ sound - substitutes d or f for th (souf - south,
   mouf-mouth,norf-north--dis (this) dat (that) dem (them)
   
   Vowel plus /ng/ rendered as /ang/ - thang, sang, rang
   
   Contraction of going rendered as gon - he was gon tell but changed he
   mind

[Bibliography of sources deleted]
   
    Joycelyn Landrum-Brown joyland at west.net
    
   HTML document created: March 24, 1995
   Revised: December 26, 1996

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Joe