History Of African American Vernacular English

African American Vernacular English (AAVE), also known as Ebonics or Black English, is the language spoken by many residents of the United States who are African American. The dialect is not one that is based in a certain region, like many dialects of English that exist in the United States, but rather is one that is culturally bound. This dialect of English varies quite markedly from that of the spoken standard in America. Because of this difference, many conflicts arise over the usage of AAVE by many Americans. One of the areas of greatest concern regarding AAVE is education. Many African American school districts and schools see low student performance. In fact, in the State of Michigan, of the 49 traditional high schools that are

This “orthographic representation [is] used to convey a phonological pattern derived from the influence of West African languages, many of which do not have an /r/ sound” (Smitherman, “Black English” 31). Because of the location of “shoe” after “Sista,” it shows that the shoe belongs to the sista because they are adjacent, unlike standard American English that would require a “’s” to indicated possession (Smitherman, “Black English” 32). Adjacency is also a trait that is common in West African languages, and goes beyond possession. In his article, “What is Black English? What is Ebonics?,” Ernie Smith discusses the absence of copulas in AAVE. Smith explains that the copula is not deleted, but rather never existed in the first place. Instead of having a traditional noun phrase and verb phrase construction, AAVE has “topic” and “comment” construction (Smith 57). For example, in the phrase “The teacher she mean”, consists of a topic (The teacher) and the comment (she mean). This construction, using adjacency, is also similar to languages and grammars found in West Africa (Smith