Ebonics
Definition: Ebonics means "black speech," which is the distinctive speech of African Americans
Origin: The term "Ebonics" was created in 1973 by a group of black scholars to replace 'Nonstandard Negro English." The language itself seems to share a lot of similarities with English, but has West African roots.
What Ebonics sounds and looks like:
- Some examples of Ebonics pronunciation:
- Omitting of the final consonant in words:
- Past = pas'
- Hand = han'
- The end of bath is pronounced with a t (bat) or f (baf) instead of the th
- Dropping b, d, or g at the beginning of verbs like don’t and gonna
- ‘I don't know = 'on know
- These distinctive pronunciations are all systematic, they are not errors
- This is true for Ebonics grammar as well
- Ebonics speakers regularly produce sentences without present tense is and are
- Example:
- “John trippin”
- “They allright”
- Example:
- But they don’t omit present tense "am"
- “Ahm walkin" not "Ah walkin"
- They do not omit "is" or "are" if they are at the end of a sentence
- "That's what he/they" is not grammatically correct
- 'Invariant' be
- 'Invariant' be is also known as 'habitual' be
- Definition: Actions that occur regularly or habitually rather than on just one occasion
- Example: “They be goin to school every day”
- Ebonics speakers regularly produce sentences without present tense is and are
- This is true for Ebonics grammar as well
- Omitting of the final consonant in words:
The Ebonics debate: The ‘Ebonics’ debate was a controversy that happened December 1996 when the Oakland School Board in California recognized Ebonics as the primary language of its majority African American students and resolved to take it into account when teaching them English. The controversy around the resolution was because it was misinterpreted as the Oakland School Board proposing to teach Ebonics instead of taking it into account and respecting it while teaching standard English in school.
Resources About Ebonics
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This YouTube video is of a clip from the documentary "Do you speak American?", which demonstrates how many California schools use the knowledge and structure of African American Vernacular English (AAVE or Ebonics) in the classroom as a tool for teaching children in the wake of the Oakland School Board's resolution to the Ebonics debate in 1996. It would be a good video for teachers to show to their students as an introduction to Ebonics.
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This is the article on Ebonics that all of the information above was taken from. It explains the definition, origins, language and grammar structures, and debate surrounding Ebonics.
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This article is about how Ebonics came around, the Ebonics debate, what it sounds like, and what it looks like.
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