Black English Vernacular (BEV)

a reply to: IslandOfMisfitToys

In terms of driving, in my personal experience excessive speeding is a big one.

a reply to: ketsuko
You might want to call them who they are, instead of trying to group them with other people that may share nothing with them, except the pigmentation of their skin.

I just came back from local event where I met a young family with 4 young children. The latest member of their family is an 11 day old child they adopted, that just happens to be Black. This child like many other children, and families, I have known, will grow up in a community, and family, that is upper middle class American.

You will not be able to tell them apart from their peers by their speech, their mannerisms, or their culture, because they are of one community, regardless of the pigmentation of their skin. Yet so many here are ready to throw them under the bus because they were born with brown skin.

This need for finding fault, belittling, and placing people in positions of inferiority, to make yourself feel better, or superior, is becoming a growing and deleterious pattern in America, and has bled over to ATS.

We all out grow some things, or some things out grow us. I don't know which is which, but I think my days on ATS are winding to a close. It is no longer a place where I enjoy sharing, and communicating with vibrant, intelligent, and challenging spirits.

a reply to: rukia

I call it poor spelling....

originally posted by: TechniXcality
a reply to: rukia

There is also something that goes hand and hand with this type speech a strange philosophy that seems mysterious mainly because it makes no sense, but it is characterized by narassasicm, fringe leftist mantra in combination with conspiracy, and a victim mentality yet also at the same time bellicose. It is strange when I see and hear it and often it's disjointed, but if you've ever seen this "street wisdom" you would know exactly what I am talking about, and just how ridiculous it is. in fact when I hear it I shut folks down and tell them to stop talking to me, I don't want to hear your rambling.

Is there a video of some type (YouTube?) that shows people talking in the way you describe? I'd like actually hear it and see how the speaker's body language matches. TIA.
-cwm

a reply to: rukia

BEV/AAVE well that's a new name for it. when i was growing up it was called jive, then in the 80's and 90's it was called ebonics, there was even a push for teaching in school using ebonics. now i guess this is the new PC name for it.



cut me some slack jack!

originally posted by: Edumakated
As a black guy:

1) I can tell when someone is black just by their voice, even if they speak proper English. There is a tonal difference in the voice and blacks who speak proper English typically have a slightly different pronunciations. However, I don't think the reverse is true where white people can tell if someone is black or not (assuming they are speaking proper english). Correct me if I am wrong.

2) Middle and upper class blacks typically can speak ebonics or whatever you want to call it, but by in large it is discouraged. Many of us grew up in areas where you still needed to know slang, but since it was not necessarily encouraged at home, we don't speak it unless we are around friends in the hood.

3) The more you read and write, the less you feel compelled to talk in any kind of slang. Reading and writing significantly increases one vocabulary and helps you learn sentence structure.

4) Children typically emulate their parents. If the parents don't know how to speak proper English, then the kids will not speak proper english. Unfortunately, because schools are so bad in these areas, even the teachers don't correct the kids.

I must have been smacked 10,000 times by my parents for saying "Ax" instead of "Ask" as a child.

I can attest to the tonal thing you're speaking of. I'm a white male, but I get confused for being a black man sight unseen quite often.

People will talk to me on the phone and then finally meet me and look a bit shocked. I'm used to it by now, but at least a handful of times a year I inevitably get, "Oh...I...um...thought..."

And then I finish it for them because they're so uncomfortable, "Black? Yeah, I get that a lot..."

It's mildly amusing to see people's reactions when they've jumped to some conclusion about my ethnicity.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

You're an anomaly. That's awesome

originally posted by: rukia
Also known as AAVE (African American Vernacular English), BEV is...

Illiterate.
Yeah, in these days of massive illiteracy, rather than assuming the responsibility of becoming literate, lets legitimize the illiteracy and ignorance as a 'cultural heritage'!
The toxic fallout from "no child left behind" and a crap educational system!
But real education happens, or doesn't, after we leave school!
If we can read, we can educate ourselves.

What is the difference between some local 'dialect' that no one can make out, and illiteracy?
Words are for communicating, no?

originally posted by: MystikMushroom

originally posted by: Edumakated
As a black guy:

1) I can tell when someone is black just by their voice, even if they speak proper English. There is a tonal difference in the voice and blacks who speak proper English typically have a slightly different pronunciations. However, I don't think the reverse is true where white people can tell if someone is black or not (assuming they are speaking proper english). Correct me if I am wrong.

2) Middle and upper class blacks typically can speak ebonics or whatever you want to call it, but by in large it is discouraged. Many of us grew up in areas where you still needed to know slang, but since it was not necessarily encouraged at home, we don't speak it unless we are around friends in the hood.

3) The more you read and write, the less you feel compelled to talk in any kind of slang. Reading and writing significantly increases one vocabulary and helps you learn sentence structure.

4) Children typically emulate their parents. If the parents don't know how to speak proper English, then the kids will not speak proper english. Unfortunately, because schools are so bad in these areas, even the teachers don't correct the kids.

I must have been smacked 10,000 times by my parents for saying "Ax" instead of "Ask" as a child.

I can attest to the tonal thing you're speaking of. I'm a white male, but I get confused for being a black man sight unseen quite often.

People will talk to me on the phone and then finally meet me and look a bit shocked. I'm used to it by now, but at least a handful of times a year I inevitably get, "Oh...I...um...thought..."

And then I finish it for them because they're so uncomfortable, "Black? Yeah, I get that a lot..."

It's mildly amusing to see people's reactions when they've jumped to some conclusion about my ethnicity.

I don't doubt it. I have a few white friends who grew up in either very integrated neighborhoods or spent a lot of time around blacks and thus have picked up on the speaking habits. It is a very nuanced thing. I can even tell by voice a black person who pretty much grew up almost entirely around whites.

Most blacks I know have the ability to slip in and out of Ebonics as they please even the ones who speak like a T.V reporter with a New England accent, someone mentioned southern whites , well a lot of them lived close to southern Blacks even with rich ones, back in the day the mammy were the ones who actually reared those white kids and so passed on some of that speech pattern, that urban blacks have a sub culture???..well duh!!..that's what happen when you isolate ppl in ghettos for generations, they begin to diverge , some of it have destructive tendencies some not, incidentally I have the ability to comfortably slip in and out of Ebonics, standard English and Jamaican dialect called patois with ease..the question should be however is Ebonics which is different from slang by the way, is worthy of study?? I say yes..should it be taught as a language of communication??..no!.. or not until the speakers of Ebonics take all the power that matters then all bets are off and they can make others speak as they do , do not laugh too hard who knew the bastardized language called English would one day become the language of global communication,the Romans would have laugh themselves to tears, so you never know..

But seriously though modern American English is laced with loan words from other languages including a lot from Africa..whenever you used the term Okay you are using an African word.

Some of the above is similar to Jamaican dialect.