language

[S.R. Prozak]

> >> "Mangled" and "aberrant" sez who?
> > 
> > Says a broadly accepted standard of usage.
> > Language is, after all, a means of communication.
> 
> So your argument is that the users of African American English don't
> understand one another? Or that it isn't a broadly accepted standard of
> usage within their community? Please.
> 
> I don't think anyone here has advocated that Ebonics be taught in place of
> "standard" American English, only that it be recognised and acknowledged as
> a legitimate mode of cultural expression. I think the real sticking point
> for some is the suppressed realisation that Ebonics is a subversion of
> "standard" American English, rather than a marker of social and cultural
> inferiority. 

In the same way, using European-style English (!) is a subversion of the black culture heavily promoted by the media in the USA at least.

Revenge cuts both ways.

> It's quite possible that the distance between the two codes will continue to
> grow, perhaps to a point where they become mutually incomprehensible. In
> fact, this is precisely how languages do develop.

Segregation? Is necessary? For cultures? To exist independently?

Well I'm loading the bong now.

> English isn't "universal". Get over yourself.

Except on the Internet. Where it should be. Because English speakers invented it.

English is the language of commerce. We could be honest and call it a degenerated, commerce-modified Indo-European language.


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