African-American Vernacular English

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There are two main theories of African-American Vernacular English, one is the dialect hypothesis and the other one is the creole hypothesis. The dialect hypothesis is African slaves picked up English very slowly and learned it incorrectly while arriving in the United States and these mistakes have been past down through generations. The creole hypothesis maintains that modern African-American Vernacular English is the result of a creole to be taken from English and various West African Languages. To communicate in some cases a pidgin was developed by applying English and some West African vocabulary to the grammar rules of their native tongue. This pidgin was passed on to future generations, over the years African-American Vernacular English

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