3 ms·

It's funny, and perhaps not entirely unwarranted, that "racism" pops up here? As a Black American, I find the author's idea extremely interesting and naturally

by jrm4 3mo ago

It's funny, and perhaps not entirely unwarranted, that "racism" pops up here? As a Black American, I find the author's idea extremely interesting and naturally began to wonder -- what might this idea (in code?) look like for us? Owing to history and whatnot, the role "Black American English" might play is of course very much a moving target, but it's interesting to think about.

mghackerlady 3mo ago
Is there an internationally agreed upon standard for designating AAV? I suppose it's a large and influential enough dialect it wouldn't hurt to have one
- jrm4 3mo ago
  Not to my knowledge, and I imagine even trying to do this would stir up.. a lot. The more I think about it, the more difficult it seems. Not that it shouldn't be done, but wow.
- tialaramex 3mo ago
  The main people who'd want such a thing would be linguists, so that they can label samples. The non-prestige dialects of a language don't usually attract official interest, not least because officially the people who understand that dialect could also understand a prestige variant. Scousers may not talk like King Charles among themselves, but if he speaks they're not confused about what the King is saying even if they wouldn't use those words or say them that way. This might get sketchier for Chinese topolects where the official government policy is that China has a single language, "Standard Chinese" but, those topolects sure do seem like different languages if you didn't know about the policy. However AAV is nowhere close to that, I can't imagine that anybody who uses AAV normally watches "Last Week Tonight" and goes "That guy is speaking a completely unrecognisable language, are there subtitles?".
  - MrJohz 3mo ago
    In fairness, I think that's partly because AAV doesn't have the political and national identity that some other similar dialects have. I (as a lay person with no training in linguistics) feel like AAV and Scots are similar in terms of how far away from English they are, and many people would describe Scots as its own language, distinct from English.
    - mghackerlady 3mo ago
      I completely disagree. At least in the US, AAV seems to be a major cultural thing for the people who speak it
      - MrJohz 3mo ago
        But I think that national identity doesn't exist in the same way, do you know what I mean? Like, being Black/African American in the US is an important part of a person's identity, but it doesn't necessarily have the trappings of nationhood in the same way that Scottish identity does. That's not to say that the identity is any weaker, just that it manifests itself differently. This means that AAV is culturally important, but there's not necessarily the same sense of "this is a separate language" that there is with Scots, even though in many ways it has all the same claims of being one.
        mghackerlady 3mo ago
        I suppose, though I feel like the tie to nationalism=language is weak at best
        MrJohz 3mo ago
        I don't think it's nationalism per se, more just a national identity. You see independence movements across Europe (Catalan, Wales, Cornwall, some of these have more realistic prospects than others) that tightly bind the idea of nationhood to a collective language - we are all one people because we all speak the same language. And similarly, when larger countries want to suppress these independence movements, cracking down on their ability to learn or even speak that language is often a key tool used to do that.
  - mghackerlady 3mo ago
    I have an amateur interest in linguistics, that's partially why I asked. >That guy is speaking a completely unrecognisable language, are there subtitles? Interestingly enough, I remember reading somewhere that you could be legally entitled to an interpreter in a court setting (take that with a grain of salt, I forget where I read it)
PaulKeeble 3mo ago
As one example I have seen plenty of Code read Color redColour = ..... That is how it often manifests, the bits the Brits get to choose is in their own language and spelling.
dhosek 3mo ago
As a writer and amateur linguist I can always spot the people who don’t understand how AAVE works because they seem to think that it’s just “bad grammar” and don’t realize that it does in fact have its own grammatical rules. One that’s not exclusive to AAVE, but is common across most informal spoken English in the US (maybe beyond—I know there’s at least one Genesis song that uses this which suggests it may exist in informal British spoken grammar), is the use of the oblique case when a subject has two or more elements joined by and: “Steve and him went to the store” insted of “He and Steve went to the store.” (Ordering is also subject to different ordering with formal English dictating that the first person pronoun comes last, but informal English putting it first: “Me and him” vs “He and I.” The other thing I find interesting is that formal English has eschewed the double negative as an intensifier while most (all?) other Indo-European languages employ it. Compare Spanish “No veo nadie” (literally ”I don’t see nobody“ which is the informal English formulation) to English “I don’t see anybody.”

by jrm4 3mo ago

mghackerlady 3mo ago

Is there an internationally agreed upon standard for designating AAV? I suppose it's a large and influential enough dialect it wouldn't hurt to have one

jrm4 3mo ago
Not to my knowledge, and I imagine even trying to do this would stir up.. a lot. The more I think about it, the more difficult it seems. Not that it shouldn't be done, but wow.
tialaramex 3mo ago
The main people who'd want such a thing would be linguists, so that they can label samples. The non-prestige dialects of a language don't usually attract official interest, not least because officially the people who understand that dialect could also understand a prestige variant. Scousers may not talk like King Charles among themselves, but if he speaks they're not confused about what the King is saying even if they wouldn't use those words or say them that way. This might get sketchier for Chinese topolects where the official government policy is that China has a single language, "Standard Chinese" but, those topolects sure do seem like different languages if you didn't know about the policy. However AAV is nowhere close to that, I can't imagine that anybody who uses AAV normally watches "Last Week Tonight" and goes "That guy is speaking a completely unrecognisable language, are there subtitles?".
- MrJohz 3mo ago
  In fairness, I think that's partly because AAV doesn't have the political and national identity that some other similar dialects have. I (as a lay person with no training in linguistics) feel like AAV and Scots are similar in terms of how far away from English they are, and many people would describe Scots as its own language, distinct from English.
  - mghackerlady 3mo ago
    I completely disagree. At least in the US, AAV seems to be a major cultural thing for the people who speak it
    - MrJohz 3mo ago
      But I think that national identity doesn't exist in the same way, do you know what I mean? Like, being Black/African American in the US is an important part of a person's identity, but it doesn't necessarily have the trappings of nationhood in the same way that Scottish identity does. That's not to say that the identity is any weaker, just that it manifests itself differently. This means that AAV is culturally important, but there's not necessarily the same sense of "this is a separate language" that there is with Scots, even though in many ways it has all the same claims of being one.
      - mghackerlady 3mo ago
        I suppose, though I feel like the tie to nationalism=language is weak at best
        MrJohz 3mo ago
        I don't think it's nationalism per se, more just a national identity. You see independence movements across Europe (Catalan, Wales, Cornwall, some of these have more realistic prospects than others) that tightly bind the idea of nationhood to a collective language - we are all one people because we all speak the same language. And similarly, when larger countries want to suppress these independence movements, cracking down on their ability to learn or even speak that language is often a key tool used to do that.
- mghackerlady 3mo ago
  I have an amateur interest in linguistics, that's partially why I asked. >That guy is speaking a completely unrecognisable language, are there subtitles? Interestingly enough, I remember reading somewhere that you could be legally entitled to an interpreter in a court setting (take that with a grain of salt, I forget where I read it)

PaulKeeble 3mo ago

As one example I have seen plenty of Code read Color redColour = ..... That is how it often manifests, the bits the Brits get to choose is in their own language and spelling.

dhosek 3mo ago

As a writer and amateur linguist I can always spot the people who don’t understand how AAVE works because they seem to think that it’s just “bad grammar” and don’t realize that it does in fact have its own grammatical rules. One that’s not exclusive to AAVE, but is common across most informal spoken English in the US (maybe beyond—I know there’s at least one Genesis song that uses this which suggests it may exist in informal British spoken grammar), is the use of the oblique case when a subject has two or more elements joined by and: “Steve and him went to the store” insted of “He and Steve went to the store.” (Ordering is also subject to different ordering with formal English dictating that the first person pronoun comes last, but informal English putting it first: “Me and him” vs “He and I.” The other thing I find interesting is that formal English has eschewed the double negative as an intensifier while most (all?) other Indo-European languages employ it. Compare Spanish “No veo nadie” (literally ”I don’t see nobody“ which is the informal English formulation) to English “I don’t see anybody.”