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You misunderstand. I'm not saying AAVE is less "real" than GA or RP or Scots or whatever. In another comment I actually explicitly rejected the notion of "langu

by pluma 10y ago

You misunderstand. I'm not saying AAVE is less "real" than GA or RP or Scots or whatever. In another comment I actually explicitly rejected the notion of "language" as something distinct from "dialect" (in other words: I'm asserting that GA, RP, etc are all "just" dialects and the notion of "language" is entirely an abstraction and not a meaningful distinction). I don't know what beef you think you have with me and maybe this is my failure to communicate clearly (English is not my native language) but you seem rather hostile to me and it reads like you think I'm somehow questioning AAVE's status is a distinct dialect of English alongside GA, RP, Scots and so on. BTW, my comment was a response to a comment that has apparently been flagged and my comment seems to have been detached, which is why my argument reads like it's in opposition to the article rather than the comment I responded to (which in turn was actually in opposition to the article): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12030560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12030560

tptacek 10y ago
Like me, you're in several places on this thread. In this particular instance, the comment of yours we're discussing is a top-level comment, not a detached one. In that comment, you introduced unbidden an irrelevant ideological tangent about whether AAVE harms the job prospects of its speakers. It's that tangent I reacted to here. Elsewhere on the thread I simply disagree with your description of AAVE.
- pluma 10y ago
  Okay, then you've probably read it elsewhere but I'll reiterate for completeness' sake: My comment was not a top-level comment when I wrote it. That is why it doesn't seem to be relevant to the article. I actually responded to a top-level comment that has since been flagged. Apparently the moderation fairies saw something useful in it and detached it without leaving any traces. Or I'm an idiot and managed to respond to the article instead of the comment I was actually replying to. The comment I responded to introduced an ideological tangent on whether AAVE harms the job prospects of its speaker, not me. I merely agreed that regardless of the status of AAVE and its acceptance (which really only seems to be a problem because of ideological reasons -- it's literally self-evident that AAVE is a "real language" if that qualifier carries any meaning at all) there's no point in trying to give AAVE a special status in the expectation that it helps its recognition or the preservation of black cultural heritage (which is the general idea behind minority language movements like those in Europe). That indeed has nothing to do with the article and only re-iterates the specific point from the parent I responded to with something more productive than simply "if you teach AAVE in school black kids won't find a job because they think knowing AAVE is all they need". I actually find your argument that recognition of AAVE as a distinct language can help teaching AAVE native speakers English in school interesting and wonder if the creole children from Turkish immigrants in Germany speak has been studied similarly and if treating it as a distinct language and teaching German as a second language would work here as well. Lastly, please note you're not disagreeing with my description of AAVE. You're disagreeing with what I described as the (obviously biased) perception of AAVE by non-AAVE speakers of GA/RP. Of course it's disagreeable, but it seems like you mistake my "is" for "ought": * AAVE sounds stupid if you only know GA/RP. This impression is caused by AAVE being close enough to GA/RP to be intelligible but different enough to feel wrong, like a linguistic Uncanny Valley. This is just what happens if you feed unexpected input to the built-in language parser in your head. * AAVE is not actually stupid. This should be obvious but apparently I need to repeat this statement every time I make the previous statement. * Because of the race problems in the US and because AAVE signals being black, AAVE speakers face special discrimination even beyond those other non-GA speakers of English (or non-fluent non-native speakers of GA/similar) face in the US.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    If I hadn't originally read one of your AAVE comments attached to a subthread started by a race troll, I'd probably have clued in much earlier about what you were saying. It sucks how easily a single toxic comment can skew an entire thread. Sorry I made discussing this so tedious for you!

by pluma 10y ago

tptacek 10y ago

Like me, you're in several places on this thread. In this particular instance, the comment of yours we're discussing is a top-level comment, not a detached one. In that comment, you introduced unbidden an irrelevant ideological tangent about whether AAVE harms the job prospects of its speakers. It's that tangent I reacted to here. Elsewhere on the thread I simply disagree with your description of AAVE.

pluma 10y ago
Okay, then you've probably read it elsewhere but I'll reiterate for completeness' sake: My comment was not a top-level comment when I wrote it. That is why it doesn't seem to be relevant to the article. I actually responded to a top-level comment that has since been flagged. Apparently the moderation fairies saw something useful in it and detached it without leaving any traces. Or I'm an idiot and managed to respond to the article instead of the comment I was actually replying to. The comment I responded to introduced an ideological tangent on whether AAVE harms the job prospects of its speaker, not me. I merely agreed that regardless of the status of AAVE and its acceptance (which really only seems to be a problem because of ideological reasons -- it's literally self-evident that AAVE is a "real language" if that qualifier carries any meaning at all) there's no point in trying to give AAVE a special status in the expectation that it helps its recognition or the preservation of black cultural heritage (which is the general idea behind minority language movements like those in Europe). That indeed has nothing to do with the article and only re-iterates the specific point from the parent I responded to with something more productive than simply "if you teach AAVE in school black kids won't find a job because they think knowing AAVE is all they need". I actually find your argument that recognition of AAVE as a distinct language can help teaching AAVE native speakers English in school interesting and wonder if the creole children from Turkish immigrants in Germany speak has been studied similarly and if treating it as a distinct language and teaching German as a second language would work here as well. Lastly, please note you're not disagreeing with my description of AAVE. You're disagreeing with what I described as the (obviously biased) perception of AAVE by non-AAVE speakers of GA/RP. Of course it's disagreeable, but it seems like you mistake my "is" for "ought": * AAVE sounds stupid if you only know GA/RP. This impression is caused by AAVE being close enough to GA/RP to be intelligible but different enough to feel wrong, like a linguistic Uncanny Valley. This is just what happens if you feed unexpected input to the built-in language parser in your head. * AAVE is not actually stupid. This should be obvious but apparently I need to repeat this statement every time I make the previous statement. * Because of the race problems in the US and because AAVE signals being black, AAVE speakers face special discrimination even beyond those other non-GA speakers of English (or non-fluent non-native speakers of GA/similar) face in the US.
- tptacek 10y ago
  If I hadn't originally read one of your AAVE comments attached to a subthread started by a race troll, I'd probably have clued in much earlier about what you were saying. It sucks how easily a single toxic comment can skew an entire thread. Sorry I made discussing this so tedious for you!