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I'm kind of casually fascinated with language, so when I came across a few papers on AAVE, I dug in and read both viewpoints. It's a long debate, but the most

I'm kind of casually fascinated with language, so when I came across a few papers on AAVE, I dug in and read both viewpoints. It's a long debate, but the most interesting thing that this particular Standford piece didn't mention - this style of English evolved from poor, white Southern farmers in the U.S. You wonder how different the debate would be if it was about Southern/poorer English instead of Northern/wealthier. There'd be different allies and opponents on both sides, different arguments, and so on. It's not hard to imagine some of the people most fiercely mocking AAVE would be its biggest champions, and some of its supports would be its largest detractors. Presenting the argument as a black/white thing makes it very different than presenting it as a geographical thing, or a rich/poor thing, or a formally educated/not thing, or an industrial/agricultural thing.

wheels 17y ago
One really odd observation that struck me when spending some time in southern Africa (South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana) a couple years back: "AAVE" has had a significant influence on the English of southern Africans and other elements of black American culture are prevalent as well: hip-hop, basketball and, even, somewhat comically, fried chicken. It really got my attention just after arriving when the brother of the bride to be, whose wedding I was there for, said while getting in his car, "Let's bounce." Were I a sociologist I think studying the flow of culture from black Americans to southern Africans and trying to separate out the distinctively African elements of black American culture vs. the distinctive black American elements of southern African culture would be fascinating.
- kscaldef 17y ago
  "bounce" is slang. There's nothing syntactically distinct in that sentence from Standard English, which is the discussion of the article.
- mahmud 17y ago
  African American culture is decimating African culture, IMO. I am from East Africa and these days it's rare to find any of our old art forms. As far back as the 70s, we had Reggae replace most of the indigenous pop music, and these days the reggae is giving way to hiphop.

wheels 17y ago

One really odd observation that struck me when spending some time in southern Africa (South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana) a couple years back: "AAVE" has had a significant influence on the English of southern Africans and other elements of black American culture are prevalent as well: hip-hop, basketball and, even, somewhat comically, fried chicken. It really got my attention just after arriving when the brother of the bride to be, whose wedding I was there for, said while getting in his car, "Let's bounce." Were I a sociologist I think studying the flow of culture from black Americans to southern Africans and trying to separate out the distinctively African elements of black American culture vs. the distinctive black American elements of southern African culture would be fascinating.

kscaldef 17y ago
"bounce" is slang. There's nothing syntactically distinct in that sentence from Standard English, which is the discussion of the article.
mahmud 17y ago
African American culture is decimating African culture, IMO. I am from East Africa and these days it's rare to find any of our old art forms. As far back as the 70s, we had Reggae replace most of the indigenous pop music, and these days the reggae is giving way to hiphop.