The History of AAVE and Its Unique Processes
African American Vernacular English formerly known as ‘Ebonics’, first coined in 1973 by black scholars after originally being called ‘Nonstandard Negro English’ in the ‘60s’, has marched its way to be the front-runner in social media recently, after years of it being deemed unprofessional. Many discuss the origin and use in the African-American community as well as outside of the community.
The Americas
To first understand this dialect, and the significance it has, we have to look at the 17th-century slave trade and the separation of Africans from their native culture as well as family members forcing illiteracy among them and former slaves to pick up English in their form. As many English dialects come from specific regions and/or users AAVE is the only one that doesn’t however, this took a change when the Great Migration happened. The Great Migration, a period where millions of African Americans left the south in search of factory jobs in cities to better educate themselves as well as the dialect taking a written form.
Grammar Rules
As Morgan Gill states in their TEDx talk, these phonetics are often found in popular culture and music we may listen to. Dropping or replacing a letter or two as well as changing the meaning to a simple word is what makes AAVE a dialect. Examples of these are the “kitchen” as one may think of an actual kitchen, once used in a sentence stylized for AAVE the word changes to “the especially kinky hair at the nape of one’s neck”.
Furthermore, AAVE incorporates Double Negatives, “I didn’t see no cat” for “I didn’t see a cat” as it emphasizes the fact that I didn’t see a cat, Absence of the 3rd Singular Form, “He don’t have no sense” for “He doesn’t have any sense”, Omission of the Auxiliary, “You playing cards” for “You were playing cards”, Omission of the Copula (to be), “Trevor said he gone” for, “Trevor said he is leaving”, Past participle of strong verb instead of the past tense, “And we done it” for “And we did it” and the addition of the Occasional tense, “He be a lie”.
The Princess and the Frog
Prime examples of these are in the primary black film “The Princess and the Frog”. As the movie is set around a majority Black cast in the 1920s in New Orleans, Louisiana, we are met with various rhetorical and grammatical devices. A Double negative,” Money ain’t got no heart”. Absence of the 3rd Singular Form, “Don’t matter where you come from”. Omission of the Auxiliary, “ You yo daddy’s daughta”. Omission of the Copula/Occasional Tense, “I be telling you”.
Just like other languages and dialects AAVE pronunciations follow rules similar to the American English system. For example, “all systematic, the result of regular rules and restrictions; they are not random ‘error’ – and this is equally true of Ebonics grammar”. Although not a specific group of people can speak AAVE as well as not all African- Americans can speak AAVE, a majority of African-Americans whether knowingly or not speak this dialect. Similar to any other language, growing up listening and speaking it is much easier to capture the way sentences are formatted to the rule used. Not following these rules results in the incorrect phrasing of sentences, whether adding slang or everyday words.
Now in 2021, due to the substantial impact, AAVE has had on TikTok, many of the black youth, like myself, are teaching and learning about AAVE. For many African-Americans similar to myself, TikTok brought up AAVE, and growing up it was just the way we spoke around family members and maybe other Black people and to what is called “code-switching” around others. As others outside the community in which it is commonly used, are either using it while being grammatically incorrect or for laughs. This is most prominent in @mylesocean on TikTok in which he reads off tweets misusing AAVE.
These tweets demonstrate the tweeters, not AAVE rules and restrictions resulting in the sentences sound completely incorrect as well as off.
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is a dialect constantly stereotyped as “ghetto” and “nonstandard English”. However, as time has gone by linguists have determined this “sub-standard” variety of English a dialect with systematic differences in grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary. To have a better understanding of AAVE usage one must enlighten themselves with the historical and social history from where the stereotypes emerge. Through the use of daily conversations to the use in prominent Black lead movies such as “The Princess and the Frog” to several others. African-American Vernacular English is a well-endowed and complex language with its unique processes and should be treated as such.
