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To speakers of Standard English, AAVE is broken in that it is (whether by accident or deliberately) hard to understand. That makes it an intrinsically lesser fo
by MagnumOpus 10y ago
To speakers of Standard English, AAVE is broken in that it is (whether by accident or deliberately) hard to understand. That makes it an intrinsically lesser form of your own language, same as other extreme dialects like Scots, Geordie or Mid-Ulster. It is not racist to say that it is a hassle to deal with it.
Obviously if a dialect or language is the primary or only means of interaction with a population group (as Persian is with Persians) it is not inferior - it is what it is. But if a borderline unintelligible dialect coexists with the understandable main language, its inferiority is not a moral judgement by evil racists, but a straightforward utilitarian rejection.
It also doesn't matter how high-prestige the group speaking a hard-to-understand dialect is. Swiss German is mocked and looked down upon by non-native-speakers, as is speaking the Swabian German dialect - though you likely won't find any population groups with higher social status (+wealth/prestige) in Germany.
- mikeash 10y agoTwo dialects exist that have trouble understanding each other. You declare one of them to be "broken" and "inferior." Why that one and not the other one? Surely we could say that AAVE is totally fine and it's "Standard English" that's broken? When you pick the one spoken by black people as the "broken" one, it's hard to see any motivation other than racism.
- coldtea 10y agoWell, for one, one is a more established language, with a longer history (literals and otherwise), written rules, plethora of books, and billions of speakers the world over. In fact, it was the AAVE that's derived from English and not the other way around. Without English there would be no AAVE. Plus it's also tied to a particular subgroup (and not even for all of its communicational needs). Oh, and about all that racism stuff that easily flows, I don't have a horse in this race (no pun intended) as I'm not American, and we didn't really do slavery. If anything, when my people came to the US they were treated exactly like blacks were treated at the time by the racist white majority, KKK-visits included.
- mikeash 10y agoThere are many varieties of English. I'm not aware of any single dialect that has anything close to a billion speakers. Dividing the complex universe of English dialects into AAVE and not-AAVE just emphasizes the unfair treatment this one particular dialect gets.
- coldtea 10y ago>There are many varieties of English. Most of which (British, American, Irish, Australian, etc) are trivial variations of the single originating British English language. >I'm not aware of any single dialect that has anything close to a billion speakers. English, the language, however, has. Dialects are just regional and group variations of it.
- mikeash 10y agoThere's no such thing as "British English," and to declare the multitude of British dialects to all be "trivial variations" seems ridiculous. AAVE isn't particularly notable, other than the politics surrounding it.
- tptacek 10y agoThis is logic that suggests we that all our comments should read like Beowulf, or at least Chaucer; after all, the dialect we speak is derived from older ones far further from our comprehension than AAVE.
- nickpsecurity 10y agoI have to hand it to you on Beowulf example. I remember learning about that in our literature class along with descriptions of Old, Middle and New English. Or something like that. What jumped out at me was how Old English looked German or something quite different from "English" as I was taught. Everyone in the class abhorred it as "not English." Turns out, our ancestors could've made the same gripes about our "dialect of English" that people are making about AAVE. Tripped me out.