>So should there be AAVE-English academic dictionaries with entries like "ain't: are not", etc.? This is already the case in Standard English dictionaries: htt

>So should there be AAVE-English academic dictionaries with entries like "ain't: are not", etc.? This is already the case in Standard English dictionaries: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aint http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aint >What about l33tsp34k and txtng spk, u wnt 2gt dctnrz 4 it 2? Actually, given how often I see it, I wouldn't be surprised if "U" was the standard English spelling for the second-person pronoun (or at least an acceptable variant), by the end of this century. It wouldn't be the first time an English pronoun's spelling collapsed down to a single letter ("I" was originally "Ic").