Linguistic Аspects of Black English

As a society interested in the future of our youth we must realize that there is no substitute for hard work and study in the classroom, and there are no shortcuts to learning the English language. The educational system must strive to make children mainstream communicators. Ebonics is a misguided, ill represented, detrimental shortcut that will only create confusion and disappointment in the classroom. It is a cancer that must be sent into permanent remission by the clear and coherent voices of Americans.

Chapter III. Linguistic Aspects of Black English.

1. Phonetic peculiarities

AAVE and Standard English pronunciation are sometimes quite different. People frequently attach significance to such differences in pronunciation or accent and as such the study of phonology (the systematic a patterning of sounds in language) is an important part of sociolinguistics. It should be noted that phonology has nothing to do with spelling. The way something is spelt is often not a good indication of the way it "should be", or much less is, pronounced.

When two consonants appear at the end of a word (for instance the st in test), they are often reduced: the final t is deleted. This happens, to some extent, in every variety of English including standard ones. In AAVE the consonant cluster is reduced variably (i.e. it does not happen every time) and systematically.

Sociolinguists have shown that the frequency of reduction can be expressed by a rule which takes account of a number of interacting facts. Crucially, the frequency of reduction depends on the environment in which the sound occurs. The following two factors, among others, have been found to affect the frequency of reduction in consonant clusters

If the next word starts with a consonant, it is more likely to reduce than if the next word starts with a vowel. For example, reduction is more likely to occur in west side (becoming Wes side) than in west end.

A final t or d is more likely to be deleted if it is not part of the past tense -ed than if it is. (The past tense -ed suffix is pronounced as t or d or Id in English depending on the preceding sound.) For example, reduction is more likely to occur in John ran fast (becoming John ran fas) than in John passed the teacher in his car.

The th sounds: The written symbol th can represent two different sounds in English: both an "unvoiced" sound as in thought, thin and think, and a "voiced" sound as in the, they and that. In AAVE the pronunciation of this sound depends on where in a word it is found.

At the beginning of a word, the voiced sound (e.g. in that) is regularly pronounced as d so 'the', 'they' and 'that' are pronounced as de, dey and dat. AAVE shares this feature with many other nonstandard dialects, including those of the East Coast of United States and Canada.

Less common in AAVE is the pronunciation of the unvoiced sound as t. Thus 'thin' can become tin but rarely does. This however is a very common feature of Caribbean creoles in which 'think' is regularly pronounced as tink, etc. When the th sound is followed by r, it is possible in AAVE to pronounce the th as f as in froat for 'throat'.

Within a word, the unvoiced sound as in nothing, author or ether is often pronounced as f. Thus AAVE speakers will sometimes say nufn 'nothing' and ahfuh 'author'. The voiced sound, within a word, may be pronounced v. So 'brother' becomes bruvah, etc.

At the end of a word, th is often pronounced f in AAVE. For instance 'Ruth' is pronounced Ruf; 'south' is pronounced souf. When the preceding sound is a nasal (e.g. n or m) the th is often pronounced as t as in tent for 'tenth'; mont for 'month'. (10, 69)

The sounds l and r:

When they do not occur at the beginning of a word l and r often undergoes a process known as "vocalization" and are pronounced as uh. This is most apparent in a post-vocalic position (after a vowel). For instance 'steal', 'sister', 'nickel' become steauh, sistuh, nickuh. In some varieties of AAVE (e.g. in the Southern US), r is not pronounced after the vowels o and u. The words door and doe, four and foe, and sure and show can be pronounced alike.

Vowels. /Nasalized vowels:

When a nasal (n or m) follows a vowel, AAVE speakers sometimes delete the nasal consonant and nasalize the vowel. This nasalization is written with a tilde (~) above the vowel. So 'man' becomes mг.

Nasals consonants and front vowels:

In many varieties of English, including standard varieties, the vowels i in pin and e in pen sound different in all words. In AAVE, these sounds are merged before a nasal (like n or m). So in AAVE pin and pen are pronounced with the same vowel. Most Southern US varieties of English merge these vowels too, so this is only a distinctive feature of AAVE in the northern United States.

Diphthongs:

Some vowels like those in night and my or about and cow are called "diphthongs". This means that when the vowel is pronounced, the tongue starts at one place in the mouth and moves as the vowel is being pronounced. In AAVE the vowel in 'night' or in 'my' is often not a diphthong. So when pronouncing the words with this diphthong, AAVE speakers (and speakers of Southern varieties as well) do not move the tongue to the front top position. So 'my' is pronounced ma as in he's over at ma sister's house.

Stress:

AAVE s from some other varieties in the placement of stress in a word. So, where words like police, hotel and July are pronounced with stress on the last syllable in Standard English, in AAVE they may have stress placed on the first syllable so that you get po-lice, ho-tel and Ju-ly.

Sounds:

Creole has some characteristics which are associated with regional and working-class varieties of English and some others which are found only in Caribbean Creole. Some of the most important differences:

The vowel of CUP is like the vowel of British English COP /kVp/

The vowel of ALL is like the vowel of British English ARE /a:l/

The vowels of DAY and HOME are diphthongs /dI@/ and /huom/

The first consonant of THESE /Di:z/ is /d/: /di:z/

the first consonant of THUMP /TVmp/ is /t/: /tVmp/ (16,128)

2. Grammar peculiarities

Some of these characteristics, notably double negatives and the omission of certain auxiliaries such as the has in has been are also characteristic of general colloquial American English.

The linguist William Labov carried out and published the first thorough grammatical study of African American Vernacular English in 1965.(37)

The copula BE is often dropped, as in Russian, Hebrew, Arabic and other languages. For example: You crazy! ("You're crazy") or She my sister ("She's my sister"). The phenomenon is also observed in questions: Who you? ("Who're you?") and Where you at? ("Where are you (at)?"). On the other hand, a stressed is cannot be dropped: She is my sister. (37)

The general rules are:

- Only the forms is and are (which in any case is often replaced by is) can be omitted

- These forms cannot be omitted when they are pronounced with a stress (whether or not the stress serves specifically to impart an emphatic sense to the verb's meaning).

- These forms cannot be omitted when the corresponding form in Standard English cannot show contraction (and vice-versa). For example, I don't know where he is cannot be reduced to *I don't know where he because in Standard English the corresponding reduction *I don't know where he's is likewise impossible. (Though I don't know where he at is possible.)

Possibly some other minor conditions apply as well.

Present-tense verbs are uninflected for number/person: there is no -s ending in the present-tense third-person singular. Example: She writes poetry ("She writes poetry"). Similarly, was used for what in Standard English are contexts for both was and were.

The word it or is denotes the existence of something, equivalent to Standard English there in "there is", or "there are". This usage is also found in the English of the US South. Examples Is a doughnut in the cabinet ("There's a doughnut in the cabinet") and It ain't no spoon ("There isn't a spoon", also "They ain't no spoon").

Altered syntax in questions: In “ Why they ain't growin'?” ("Why aren't they growing?") and “Who the hell she think she is?” ("Who the hell does she think she is?") lack the inversion of standard English. Because of this, there is also no need for the auxiliary DO. (29, 48)

GRAMMAR AND STRUCTURE RULE IN WEST AFRICAN LANGUAGE,	BLACK ENGLISH
construction of sentences without the form of the verb to be	He sick today. They talkin about school now.
Repetition of noun subject with pronoun	My father, he work there.
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	I know it good when he ask me
Same verb form for all subjects	I know; you know; he know; we know; they know

Sound Rule in West African Languages	Black English
No consonant pairs	jus (for just); men (for mend)
Few long vowels or two-part vowel (diphthongs)	rat (for right); tahm (for time)
No /r/ sound	mow (for more)
No /th/ sound	substitution of /d/ or /f/ for /th/; souf (for south) and dis (for this)

Copula Deletion with "To Be" and Other Characteristics

Example	Name	SE Meaning / Notes
He workin'.	Simple progressive	He is working [currently].
He be workin'.	Habitual/continuative aspect	He works frequently or habitually. Better illustrated with "He be workin' Tuesdays."
He stay workin'.	Intensified continuative	He is always working.
He been workin'.	Perfect progressive	He has been working.
He been had dat job.	Remote phase (see below)	He has had that job for a long time and still has it.
He done worked.	Emphasized perfective	He has worked. Syntactically, "He worked" is valid, but "done" is used to emphasize the completed nature of the action.[25]

One of the most famous grammatical characteristics of Black English is the use of the verb to be. Omission of the verb to be, or copula deletion, is very typical of Black English. The "is" can be omitted completely ("He Michael, too"). On the

other hand, in sentences where the is or other forms of be are not contracted in general Standard English usage, it is not deleted in Black English

He finna go to work.	Immediate future	He's about to go to work. Finna is a contraction of "fixing to"; though is also believed to show residual influence of late 16th century archaism "would fain (to)", that persisted until later in some rural dialects spoken in the Carolinas (near the Gullah region). "Fittin' to" is commonly thought to be another form of the original "fixin' (fixing) to", and it is also heard as fitna, fidna, fixna, and finsta.[26]
I was walkin' home, and I had worked all day.	Preterite narration.	"Had" is used to begin a preterite narration. Usually it occurs in the first clause of the narration, and nowhere else.

The aspect marked by stressed 'been' has been given many names, including perfect phase, remote past, remote phase this article uses the third. Been here is stressed; in order to distinguish it from unstressed been (used as in Standard English), linguists often write it as BIN. Thus the distinction between She BIN running ("She has been running for a long time") and She been running ("She has been running")

With non-stative verbs, the role of been is simple: it places the action in the distant past, or represents total completion of the action. A Standard English equivalent is to add "a long time ago". For example, She been told me that translates as, "She told me that a long time ago".(35)

However, when been is used with stative verbs or gerund forms, been shows that the action began in the distant past and that it is continuing now. Linguist John R. Rockford suggests that a better translation when used with stative verbs is "for a long time". For instance, in response to "I like your new dress", one might hear Oh, I been had this dress, meaning that the speaker has had the dress for a long time and that it isn't new. To see the difference between the simple past and the gerund when used with been, consider the utterances:

I been bought her clothes means "I bought her clothes a long time ago".

I been buyin' her clothes means "I've been buying her clothes for a long time".

Negation

Negatives are formed differently from standard American English:

Use of ain't as a general negative indicator. It can be used where Standard English would use am not, isn't, aren't, haven't and hasn't, a trait which is not specific to AAVE. However, in marked contrast to other varieties of English in the U.S., some speakers of AAVE also use ain't in lieu of don't, doesn't, or didn't (e.g., I ain't know that). Ain't had its origins in common English, but became increasingly stigmatized since the 19th century. See also amn't.

Negative concord, popularly called "double negation", as in I didn't go nowhere; if the sentence is negative, all negatable forms are negated. This contrasts with Standard English, where a double negative is considered a positive (although this wasn't always so; see double negative). There is also "triple" or "multiple negation", as in the phrase I don't know nothing about no one no more, which would be "I don't know anything about anybody anymore" in Standard English. Black English also employs a pattern of multiple negation. Where negation is repeated throughout the clause or sentence. For Standard English "I didnґt see anything like that anywhere", Black English has " I ainґt see nothinґ like dat no place". The use of the negative contraction ainґt is distinctive of Black English, especially as a single past negative (I ainґt see for I didnґt see or he ainґt gonna do it). Multiple negation often implies emphasis.

In a negative construction, an indefinite pronoun such as nobody or nothing can be inverted with the negative verb particle for emphasis (eg. Don't nobody know the answer, Ain't nothin' goin' on.) (12, 54)

While these are features that AAVE has in common with Creole languages, Howe and Walker use data from early recordings of African Nova Scotian English, Samanб English, and Ex-Slave recordings to demonstrate that negation was inherited from nonstandard colonial English.

The use of "invariant be" is almost only found in Black English. This refers to repeated actions over a considerable extent of time, and the distinction between he walk, he walkinґ, he be walkinґ has no exact parallel in Standard English. These three verb forms have different negatives: He donґt walk, he ainґt walkinґ, he donґt be walkinґ. One might say 'He rich' instead of 'He is rich'; and 'Dey ugly' for 'They are ugly', and so on. (14,447) A brief version is:

In African-American Vernacular English you may omit forms of the copular verb 'be' provided all of the following conditions are met.

It must not be accented. You never leave 'is' out of something like 'There already is one!'

It mustn't end the sentence. You never say, 'I don't know what it is' without the 'is'.

It mustn't begin the sentence. You never leave out the 'is' in a question like 'Is dat right?'

It mustn't be an infinitive. You never leave out 'be' in something like 'You got to be strong' or an imperative like 'Be careful', or in one of those habitual aspect cases like 'He be laughin'.'

It mustn't be in the past tense. You never leave out 'was' or 'were'.

It mustn't be negated. You never leave out 'ain't' from something like 'He ain't no fool.'

It mustn't be first person singular. You never leave out the 'am' of sentences like 'I'm yo' main man.'

The frequency of inclusion has been shown to depend on a variety of factors. Here are some examples:

In future sentences with gonna or gon (see below):

I don't care what he say, you __ gon laugh.

...as long as i's kids around he's gon play rough or however they're playing.

Before verbs with the -ing or -in ending(progressive):

I tell him to be quiet because he don't know what he __ talking about.

I mean, he may say something's out of place but he __ cleaning up behind it and you can't get mad at him.

Before adjectives and expressions of location:

He __ all right.

And Alvin, he __ kind of big, you know?

She __ at home. The club __ on one corner, the Bock is on the other.

Before nouns (or phrases with nouns)

He __ the one who had to go try to pick up the peacock.

I say, you __ the one jumping up to leave, not me.

The dropping of the inflectional plural suffix is another feature of Black English ("He hab two dog.") The number itself (two) carries the plural. Speakers of Black English make "mooses" the plural of "moose", or "fishes" the plural of "fish". Words like "childrens", "foots" or "womens" are also not unusual in Black English.

The optionality of the plural is also a grammatical feature of Black English, and a similar feature is the optionality of the past tense. The same form of the verb is sometimes used for both present and past. Because of the weakening of final clusters it is impossible to decide whether a verb form is the present tense used for the past or a past tense form with the final -d or -t dropped in pronunciation.

American Black English does not possess the third-person singular present tense marker (-s). "He walk " is acceptable Black English grammar. In the case of words like "have" and "do", Black English uses the full forms of "have" and "do" ("He have my name"). (17, 57)

The articles "a" and "an" seldom appear in the speech of young Blacks, especialy those who have not had a Standard English education. They do appear, especially the "a", in the speech of Blacks who have come in contact with Standard English.

There is also a phenomenon called "semantic inversion" which appears in Black English. A Black "dude" who is considered to be "bad" by those "on the street" has a lot to be proud of. A true semantic inversion would equate "bad" in Black English with "good" in Standard English. However, quite often the meaning is not completely opposite, and in fact may be on different levels.

The study of American Black English remains controversial. Attempts to wipe out Black English have failed, and so have attempts to give Black English a universal acceptance. Black English (or Black Vernacular English) has grammatical characteristics similar to other English based creoles, such as the English creole spoken in parts of the Dominican Republic that still retain a population of ex-slaves from the US.

There exists a continuum between Black Vernacular English and Standard English, as usually occurs with post-creoles and their "parent" languages. Individuals have large ranges of variance between their ethnic dialect and Standard English. (30, 66)

Black Vernacular English is often unintelligible to speakers of Standard English. Cross-cultural misunderstanding, arising from wrong assumptions, often occurs when a speaker of Standard English encounters Black Vernacular English. The majority of English speakers tend to think Black Vernacular English, apart from the special slang; it is simply an impoverished version of English with a lot of grammatical mistakes.

There is a difference between making grammatical mistakes in Standard English and speaking correctly in a different variety of the language, one with a slightly different grammar, as is the case with Black Vernacular English which indeed has a regular, systematic grammar of its own.

Standard English varieties mark grammatical agreement between the subject and predicate in the present tense. If the subject is third person singular (he, she, it or the name of a person or object), an -s appears at the end of a regular verb. (E.g. John walks to the store). In AAVE the verb is rarely marked in this way. When regular verbs occur with such -s marking, they often carry special emphasis. Standard English also has agreement in a number of irregular and frequently used verbs such as has vs. have and is vs. are and was vs. were. In AAVE these distinctions are not always made. (38)

Tense and aspect

The verb in AAVE is often used without any ending. As is the case with the English creoles, there are some separate words that come before the verb which show when or how something happens. These are called "tense/aspect markers".

Past tense:

 In Standard British English, nearly all verbs have specially marked forms for the past tense, e.g. look-looked, come-came, go-went. In Creole the past tense is often left unmarked, so that it has exactly the same form as the present, e.g. a police van pull-up (Standard pulled up), out jump t'ree policeman (jumped), Jim start to wriggle (started).

Past tense may be conveyed by the surrounding discourse (with the help of adverbials such as, for example, "last night", "three years ago", "back in them days", etc., or by the use of conjunctions which convey a sequence of actions (e.g. "then"), or by the use of an ending as in standard English. The frequency with which the -ed ending occurs depends on a number of factors including the sounds which follow it. (25, 359)

Some past events are conveyed by placing been before the verb. Speakers of Standard English may mistake this for the Standard English "present perfect" with the "have" or "has" deleted. However the AAVE sentence with been is in fact quite different from the Standard English present perfect. This can be seen by comparing two sentences such as the following:

Standard English present perfect: He has been married.

AAVE been: He been married.

In the Standard English sentence the implication is that he is now no longer married. However, in the AAVE sentence the implication is quite the opposite: he is still married.

Sentences equivalent to Standard English perfects such as discussed above may be conveyed by the use of done in AAVE. For example the standard sentence "He has eaten his dinner" can be expressed as He done eat his dinner.

Future tense:

Future events and those that have not yet occurred are marked by gon or gonna (see above).

Events in progress:

Besides using the verb with the ending -ing or -in to convey that an event is in progress, AAVE has a number of other words which add particular nuances. For instance, if the activity is vigorous and intentional, the sentence may include the word steady. The item steady can be used to mark actions that occur consistently or persistently, as in Ricky Bell be steady steppin in them number nines.

Events that occur habitually or repeatedly are often marked by be in AAVE as in She be working all the time. (39)

Negatives

AAVE has a number of ways of marking negation. Like a number of other varieties of English, AAVE uses ain't to negate the verb in a simple sentence. In common with other nonstandard dialects of English, AAVE uses ain't in Standard English sentences which use "haven't". For example standard "I haven't seen him." is equivalent to AAVE I ain't seen him. Unlike most other nonstandard varieties of English, AAVE speakers also sometimes use ain't for standard "didn't" as in the following examples

I ain't step on no line.

I said, "I ain't run the stop sign," and he said, "you ran it!"

I ain't believing you that day, man.

As the first sentence above shows, AAVE also allows negation to be marked in more that one position in the sentence (so called double or multiple negation). In this respect, AAVE resembles French and a number of other Romance languages and also a number of English creoles. Certain kinds of nouns actually require negative marking in negative sentences. In so far as the negation must be expressed with indefinite nouns (e.g. "anything", "anyone" etc.), this is a form of agreement marking. (E.g. I ain't see nothing). (9, 56)

AAVE also has a special negative construction which linguists call "negative inversion". An example from Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon follows:

Pilate they remembered as a pretty woods-wild girl "that couldn't nobody put shoes on."

In this example (in the part in italics), a negative auxiliary (couldn't) is moved in front of the subject (nobody). Some other examples illustrate this:

Ain't no white cop gonna put his hands on me.

Can't nobody beat 'em

Can't nobody say nothin' to dem peoples!

Don' nobody say nothing after that. (Ledbetter, born 1861)

Wasn't nobody in there but me an' him. (Isom Moseley, born 1856)

At the level of grammar there are important differences between Creole and Standard English. Here are some of the main ones:

The pronoun system

Standard English has separate forms for subject, object and possessive pronouns. Creole has just one form for all three: sometimes this form is derived from the subject and sometimes from the object form in British English.

STANDARD ENGLISH PRONOUN SYSTEM

1. Subject pronouns

	sing.	plural
1st	I	we
2nd	y o u
3rd	he/she/it	they

STANDARD ENGLISH PRONOUN SYSTEM

2. Object pronouns

	sing.	plural
1st	me	us
2nd	y o u
3rd	him/her/it	them

STANDARD ENGLISH PRONOUN SYSTEM

3. Possessive pronouns

	sing.	plural
1st	my	our
2nd	your
3rd	his/her/ its	their

JAMAICAN CREOLE

PRONOUN SYSTEM

	sing.	plural
1st	me	we
2nd	you	unu
3rd	him	them

See how Standard British English has 18 different pronoun forms while Creole has only 6. Creole is much more "compact", more "efficient" in using the available forms to cover the range of meaning. But Creole has two forms for "you", one (/yu/) for singular and another (/unu/) for plural. Standard English is rather unusual in not having such a distinction, so in this respect Creole could be said to be more "universal". (10, 256)

Plurals

In Standard British English, nearly all nouns have specially marked plural forms, e.g. book-books, woman-women. Creole usually does not mark plural in this way, so that plural nouns often have exactly the same form as the singular, as in: t'ree policeman. Sometimes dem is added after a noun (especially one referring to people) to show plural, e.g. di gyal-dem, "the girls".

These grammatical differences between Creole and Standard have given rise in the past to the idea that Creole speakers have "wrong" or "sloppy" grammar. However, as you can see (especially from the pronoun example) Creole grammar is systematic and has its own logic. Most Creole words look like words of English but they are combined using grammar rules which belong to Creole alone. (38)

3. Lexical peculiarities

For the most part, AAVE uses the lexicon of SAE, particularly informal and southern dialects. There are some notable differences, however. It has been suggested that some of this vocabulary has its origin in West African languages, but etymology is often difficult to trace and without a trail of recorded usage the suggestions below cannot be considered proven, and in many cases are not recognized by linguists or the Oxford English Dictionary.

dig from Wolof dлgg or dлgga, meaning "to understand/appreciate"

jazz

tote

bad-mouth, a calque from Mandinka (38)

AAVE also has words that either are not part of Standard American English, or have strikingly different meanings from their common usage in SAE. For example, there are several words in AAVE referring to white people which are not part of mainstream SAE; these include the use of gray as an adjective for whites (as in "gray dude"), possibly from the color of Confederate uniforms, possibly an extension of the slang use for "Irish", "Ofay," which is pejorative, is another general term for a white; it might derive from the Yoruba word ofe, spoken in hopes of disappearing from danger such as that posed by European traders. However, most dictionaries simply refer to this word as having an unknown etymology. Kitchen refers to the particularly curly or kinky hair at the nape of the neck, and siditty or seddity means snobbish or bourgeois. (39)

Past Tense Markers

Phonological Features

Consonant Cluster Simplification, or Reduction

Final Consonant Simplification, or Deletion

Final and Post-vocalic -r Variation

[I] + [n] is realized as [ж ] and [I] + [nk] is realized as [жnk]

[theta] > [f] in Word/Syllable-final Position

[р] > [d] in Word/Syllable-inital Position

[р] > [v] in Word/Syllable-medial Position

Remote phase marker

VOCABULARY

AAVE does not have a vocabulary separate from other varieties of English. However AAVE speakers do use some words which are not found in other varieties and furthermore use some English words in ways that differ from the standard dialects.

A number of words used in standard English may also have their origin in AAVE or at least in the West African languages that contributed to AAVE's development. These include:

banana (Mandingo)

yam (Mandingo)

okra (Akan)

gumbo (Western Bantu)

A discussion of AAVE vocabulary might proceed by noting that words can be seen to be composed of a form (a sound signal) and a meaning. In some cases both the form and the meaning are taken from West African sources. In other case the form is from English but the meaning appears to be derived from West African sources. Some cases are ambiguous and seem to involve what the late Fredric Cassidy called a multiple etymology (the form can be traced to more than one language -- e.g. "cat" below).(10,252)

West African Form + West African Meaning:

bogus 'fake/fraudulent' cf. Hausa boko, or boko-boko 'deceit, fraud'.

hep, hip 'well informed, up-to-date' cf. Wolof hepi, hipi 'to open one's eyes, be aware of what is going on'.

English Form + West African Meaning:

cat 'a friend, a fellow, etc.' cf. Wolof -kat (a suffix denoting a person)

cool 'calm, controlled' cf. Mandingo suma 'slow' (literally 'cool')

dig 'to understand, appreciate, pay attention' cf. Wolof deg, dega 'to understand, appreciate'

bad 'really good'

In West African languages and Caribbean creoles a word meaning 'bad' is often used to mean 'good' or 'alot/intense'. For instance, in Guyanese Creole mi laik am bad, yu noo means 'I like him alot'. Dalby mentions Mandingo (Bambara) a nyinata jaw-ke 'She's very pretty.' (literally 'She is beautiful bad.'); cf. also Krio ( a creole language spoken in West Africa) mi gud baad.

Black English also emplys a d sound for the voiced Standard English th at the beginning of the words such as the, that, those, there; which are replaced by duh, dat, dose, dere, and dey. Black English has the "d" mostly at the beginning of the words, but otherwise v for the voiced th. For example "other" may be pronounced as "ovvah". Another phonological characteristic is "r-lessness," or the dropping of rґs after vowels. At the end of the words that is shown by -ah, as in "evvah" for the word "ever" and "remembah" for "remember."

Black English also often simplifies or weakens consonant clusters at the ends of words. This tendency is quite strong; some words are regularly pronounced without the final consonant, such as jusґ and rounґ. Nouns that end in a cluster such as -s, -p,-t or -k in Standard English will change in Black English so that those clusters are dropped and an "-es" is added in the plural. Thus "desk" becomes "desґ" and the plural becomes "desses"; "test" becomes "tesґ" and the plural becomes "tesses." (11, 78)

The most common application of elision or loss of unstressed word-initial syllable is the loss of the schwa in word-initial position, as in ґbout (about), ґgree (agree), ґlow (allow). The unstressed word-initial syllables themselves may be lost, as in ґbacco (tobacco), ґcept (accept) and ґmember (remember). (18.47)

Loan Translations:

Another interesting set of vocabulary items are called loan translations or "calques". In such cases a complex idea is expressed in some West African language by a combination of two words. In AAVE these African words appear to have been directly translated and the same concept is expressed by the combination of the equivalent English items

bad-eye 'nasty look', cf. Mandingo, nyE-jugu 'hateful glance' (lit. 'bad-eye')

big-eye 'greedy', cf. Ibo. anya uku 'covetous' (literally 'big-eye').

Any discussion of AAVE vocabulary must take note of the many recent innovations which occur in this variety and which tend to spread rapidly to other varieties of English. Most recent innovations are not enduring. These lexical items give regionally and generationally restricted varieties of AAVE their particular texture.

AAE is definitely not the only nonstandard vernacular spoken in the USA. Its excessive stigmatization and the related commitment on the part of some to eradicate it may have to do with negative attitudes inherited from the American colonial past, the period since which African Americans have been thought of as less intelligent. The very fact that vernaculars of the White middle-class have typically been identified by fiat as standard, although only some of them are close to it, reflects that prejudice, some tacit consensus in the overall society that everybody should adapt to White middle-class norms.

It is true that socio-economic stratification has imposed a system in which command of either standard or White middle class English has become part of the requirements for success in the professional world. However, developing proficiency in these norms need not be at the cost of abandoning one's vernacular for all communicative functions. Vernaculars have their own social identity functions; and many speakers are not ready, least of all eager, to renounce that social-indexical role of their vernacular.

As observed by A. Delpit (12, 454), they see in the humiliations of excessive corrections and in the very style of the corrections themselves, aggressions of their own ethnic and cultural identities. The children's negative reactions to inadequate approaches to the Standard English proficiency problem foster lack of enthusiasm, which in turn produces poor performance not only in Standard English but also in the classroom in general, especially when they become self-conscious linguistically.

It remains imperative that school systems teach Standard English more successfully to AAE-speakers. What hopefully we have presented in this paper is that this effort should be consistent with the development of diverse non-standard English vernaculars in North America since the colonial period. AAE is only one subset of such varieties out of many others. Perhaps excessive concern with AAE is in itself a negative factor that has ethicized the more general question of how to teach standard English efficiently to speakers of non-standard vernaculars in general without bruising their speakers' self esteem nor eroding their enthusiasm and interest in being educated.(38)

Conclusion.

In our diploma paper we have researched the linguistic aspects of Black English. Black English is very actual in terms of sociolinguistics and language interaction development, in racial relations and ethnic cultures.

The Black English historic development and its linguistic characteristics make up the core content of work. This diploma paper has considered historical review, development of contemporary Black English in the US and its linguistic aspects

We have observed Black English as a social dialect of English language, reviewed the historical development of Black English - its origin and development in the framework of Pidgin and Creole. We have considered the present characteristics of the U.S. Black English, differences between Black English, British English, and British Black English, investigated Black English contemporary development and its use in teaching process. We have also studied linguistic aspects of Black English, especially its phonetic, grammar, lexical peculiarities which have been formed in the process of language interaction.

This material can be used as teaching manual in the course of English Language, Lexicology, History of the English language, Area studies( UK/USA).

Black English is the communicative and social system, originally created at the intersection of three dimensions - social class, ethnic and territorial. Black English has existed as a social dialect since XVII century, but the term goes back only to 1969. At present 80% of Black Americans speak Black English.

Black English is widely used in modern literature (fiction and non-fiction), music, mass media ( news broadcasts, newspapers, commercial advertising) and in such daily routine matters as safety instructions, everyday conversations etc.

Black English also called African American English, or African American Vernacular English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular, or controversially Ebonics - is an African American Variety (sociolect/social dialect, ethnolect).

Black English has been used in many parts of world: the USA (Hawaii), Great Britain, in Africa (Gambia, Sierra, Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon), West Indies, Vanuatu, Papua New, Guinea, in the northern part of Australia, in Vietnam etc.

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