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Pastimes : The New Qualcomm - write what you like thread. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (1201)	12/8/1999 7:40:00 AM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12231

Maurice, re: "Black English", this is the the English spoken by African Americans, and also the branch of linguistics that studies such English. Until the 60s and 70s, people tended to believe that blacks spoke a "bad" unsystematic form of English that had no logic to it. Studies started in the 60s and 70s (I think) to actually examine the grammar and vocabulary of this English, and showed that actually Black English has an internally consistent and complex grammar, etc. Studies also focused on historical linguistics, tying in the evolution of Black English with the influences from African languages as seen in both the vocabulary and grammatical forms (it's been a while, but I recall that "saucy" as in "Don't be saucy!" is of African origin). The broader significance of Black English for the linguistics community was to show that all groups of people with a "dialect" are making use of an internally consistent and complex language (not to be confused with a "pidgin", which is more of a makeshift language that lacks the complexity of a real dialect), even if it differs from the "standard", or normative, dialect. Check out amazon.com Ebonics, I don't know much about. My vague understanding is that it is an attempt to make Black English its own sort of normative grammar. Whereas the studies in the 60s and 70s sought to show that Black English, as a linguistic phenomenon, is no better or worse (i.e., no less self-consistent or eloquent) than any other dialect (such as that spoken by the Queen), and therefore people who happen to speak it should not be looked down upon if they happen not to speak like your tv weatherman; Ebonics (in my vague impression) seeks to actually teach this form of English in a school setting, and not as a linguistic phenomenon, but rather as something children should try to speak and write (?). I get the impression that Ebonics is not going anywhere... As for capitals, "Black English" is capitalized cuz it is an academic discipline and a recognized (at least for linguists) dialect; i.e., a proper noun. I think they may be trying to call this "African American English" now, but I've (thankfully) been away from academia for a long time now, so I'm not sure about these things. "OG" stands for "Original Gangster". If you would like to join, check out amazon.com