@@pbj4184 so, in short, you believe normality is determined by scale and social correctness is determined by normality. Would it not follow then, that among the aristocracy of the 19th century south, slaveholding was socially correct? Edit (hit send instead of line break): if so, why should social correctness be desired? Because I believe that saying that something like nazism was socially correct due to its majority, and should thus be preferred over socially incorrect practice is dangerous.
@@pbj4184 so, to reiterate. why should social correctness be enforced or encouraged? The enforcement of social correctness led to the destruction of native American culture.
I just wanna point something out at 2:35. That theory is ridiculous because these paths didn't divulge separately from the original source. It happened sequentially from Early Modern English, to British English, to General American English, and then Ebonics (AAVE).
@@John-X Why would it come from GAE if, early on in America communication between blacks and whites were so diverged? They would've had to come from a common source, not one from the other, because while it's true that the slaveholders had to teach them English, that was only at the beginning of the slave trade and children would learn it from parents. Communication wasn't constant and by the time GAE was established there was already a clear diverge from AAVE as well by the 1800s. So that theory makes no sense.
This is similar to the Dongbei dialect of Mandarin, it’s stigmatised as a way of speaking for the poor, farming people of the northeast, we have many loanwords from the original language of the area: Manchu, we also pronounce things differently, skew our tones and pronounce a lot of sounds differently, our sentence structure changes and we immediately switch to the standard sentence structure and pronunciation when we meet someone important or someone from a more “prestigious part of the country” people usually treat us like this because we have an unusually high concentration of minorities in the northeast (Manchu, Mongolian and Korean) making up around 20% of the population so we’re seen as “worse” we’re what the rest of the world views as China so basically the China of China. People are also surprised by how articulate and formal some of us can be, stereotyping us as lazy and stupid.
Humans are humans, we like to think our opinion is law but in reality things are much more complicated than we would like to think. So we stamp our beliefs such as religion and morality to it and classify what we disagree with as wrong or evil, in truth the universe is not just simple black and white, grayscale, yin and yang, or good and evil. The universe is so much more beautiful, colorful and complicated. As it turns out language very clearly falls under this broad spectrum of complexity. Much love and stay safe my fellow human I hope this week is wonderful for you! :3 🌌 🦊
as a black man in America(I'm from Detroit), I felt compelled to congratulate you on this video. You actually gave a great deal of thought to it and you really made me think about that Habitual Be... To add, "He be workin'" (so long as I use it and folks I know have used it) would mean that the guy works a lot...as in he's hard to catch. I also say I be at work.... implying the same thing. I can't speak for the brothers and sisters outside of the midwest (I have a lot of homeys in Ohio and Illinois as well) but that's what I can contribute. I also like linguistics and have studied bits and pieces of all sorts of european languages but have never thought of the way I speak around my own as separate dialectically (??-- probably not a word) from english. I have to add words like even - 'eem', seven - sebm, eleven - elebm.... man you got my mind going....But quintessentially my point is great video.
@pita bred Just cause you from my city... what up doe! Was good wit you fam? To all you non speakers I just acknowledge this rare and interesting occurrence of seeing someone from my home town. And greeted this man in our area’s proper greeting.
I got a friend from NYC, he's a cool dude and has awesome expressions. He'll tell me things like, "I be puttin in MAD work", "he gots the sauce", "maybe a lil this, not much tho" "dat dude hella nice with it" How are you going to tell me that isn't an awesome dialect? Maybe some day, people will study and adopt this dialect, because you can simply get more said and done in some cases!
Funny thing is this doesn't just apply to African Americans. Lot of southerners talk this way too. Especially when it comes to verbs. You'll here southerners all the time say things like "he gone" instead of "he is gone". This grammatic structure is similar to rural white dialects. Which makes sense since it probably was influenced by the English of agrarian southerners. So it sounds weird mainly in the north and urban areas. But if it were in the south or rural areas, it wouldn't sound out of place at all
Probably due to majority of European in the south are not British descendent ? In which a lot of European languages influence their english similarly to how AAVE is born.
That makes sense. I'm white and from the south so a good portion of this already fits how I talk, just to a lesser extent and with a somewhat different accent. The stuff with "be" isn't as prevalent but I still hear it enough that it makes sense.
I remember once my nephew was trying to explain why a certain kid got suspended and he said "He be hitting the teacher." And my sister dutifully corrected him not to say "He be". So my nephew thought a minute and said, "It takes too many words to say 'He hits the teacher all the time.'" And we could only laugh and agree. It takes more words to convey this in standard English. The habitual "be" is super useful.
"Be" actually used to be used in old English dialects in a similar way. "That it be" is still used in a dialect in Norfolk in England. "He be walking here often".
@@johnnyhoran9369 "He hits the teacher" doesn't convey the same connotation of "habitually" or "all the time". You'd have to say "He's always hitting the teacher" or something like that.
What's also interesting is that AAVE has spread internationally as its used all the time in memes and music. Even me, a european who's never met an African American sometimes uses it, especially with friends who listen to the same music and memes.
@@eannamcnamara9338 First of all, your accusing someone of have the emotion of "hatred" simply because you lack the knowledge of linguistics and etymology is childish, and the assumption that you understand them better than I is absolutely laughable. If facts hurt your feelings, wear a helmet.
This was done in such a respectful way. Even though I grew up speaking this way at home, I witnessed my parents code switching all the time, so I learned to do it seamlessly. If AAVE had words from West African languages, instead of just syntax, it could definitely be considered a Creole. But, the fact that it can be undertood by speakers all over the U.S, with some variations shows that there are definitely grammatical rules.
All foreign groups do this. From Mexicans saying shears instead of chairs, to Japanese saying cwok instead of clock you'll find errors. Even caucasian Americans are speaking a bastardized version of English. English is not Ados original Native Tongue so unfortunately our parents spoke it to us combine with our tribal vernacular way of speaking and it's pass down over and over again. English was beaten into our people and we were forbidden to speak our native tongue. The same happen to the African Taino Indians of Pr before the spanish crashed on their shores...
I can’t think of any words in AAVE that aren’t English, but I’ve found that there are similarities in grammar rules to patois and pidgin English spoken in Nigeria. So, I think our dialect has a larger west African influence than we realize.
Ever hear about the Gullah Geechee people of the Sea Islands? Descendants of freed slaves living off the coast of South Carolina. They actually retained some of their African words and now have their own AAVE-like creole.
@@SkankHunt-vb2qc slang and dialect are two different things. Dialect is strict to change, slang changes every generation. Slang changes location to location. Dialect comes from the original area it started ie Southen US.
@@SkankHunt-vb2qc AAVE has been around for centuries, while that particular way off talking "she dummy thicc" is just slang and will change for the next generation of people talking AAVE.
The more I learn about linguistics the more I realize that the whole "There is a correct way and incorrect way to speak" narrative my English teachers always pushed is bull. I think that is as long as you can understand what someone is saying, and effectively communicate ideas, it's correct. Obviously it's nowhere near as stigmatized as AAVE, but as someone who grew up in the South and has a Southern accent, a lot of people, especially online, love to tell you how incorrect you are when you say/type something normal where you are from like "y'all" or "fixin". It makes me want to scream that there's entire states where we talk like this, it's not wrong just different. Really makes me sympathize with people who are told that they're perfectly understandable way of speaking is "wrong" just because the person making the comparison thinks their way is the only right way. It's actually quite frustrating for using voice text or word programs on computers, since they often correct my words and grammar to a different dialect. Learning bidialectal is a thing is actually pretty interesting, since I communicate in a very neutral american accent online and with people I don't know but switch back to Texan whenever comfortable. Y'all need 't be more welcomein 't others or yer gunna have a problum. Acceptance is imperative 't makin life better fer us all.
@@ufhjfu4326 And I'll bet you think you're speaking your language right, right? If you went to Britain you'd find over 300 dialects of British English ALONE. Educate yourself before someone mistakes you for a racist.
"He be working" as presented here seems to me to be the most useful when you're talking about someone and you don't know where he is currently working or if he's even working at the moment. If you know for sure that the person is working, you'd just say "he is working", or "he's at work" if he's working at a particular place. So I'm leaning towards that the speakers who are likely to say "He be working" live in social circumstances where's it's useful to be able to express something like that.
Francis E. Why do people need to be segregated to certain corners of the world? Safer? Better? More "natural"? I'm curious. Do you not like travel either? Or is it just immigration that bothers you?
And then, how far back should we go? African-Americans should go back to Africa. Great. Do white Americans go back to Great Britain? Does everyone with Spanish blood in Latin America return to Spain? Should Pacific Islanders return to Asia? The Australian aborigines to Asia as well? Native Americans back to Siberia? Everyone back to Africa? I'm curious as to why you picked the group of people you did and the time you did. How precise! Why?
Even civil rights leaders have acknowledged aave is uneducated form of speaking. "I am incensed," said poet Maya Angelou, who recited one of her poems at President Clinton's inauguration. "The very idea that African-American language is a language separate and apart can be very threatening, because it can encourage young men and women not to learn standard english. The Rev. Jesse Jackson also blasted the proposal, which was announced Wednesday by the California School Board to officially recognize Black English, also know as Ebonics, a term combining "ebony" and "phonics." "While we are fighting in California trying to extend affirmative action and fighting to teach our children so they become more qualified for jobs, in Oakland some madness has erupted over making slang talk a second language," Jackson said in a statement. "You don't have to go to school to learn to talk garbage," he said.
I have a friend who is a REAL African American, she is from Nigeria and puts forth the effort to learn and speak proper English, not only to better herself but to be an example to her daughter how not being lazy and hard work actually pay off. To see her overcome her difficulties and not be lazy when learning English is an inspiration and a perfect example how ppl born and raised in America claiming aave is a language instead of acknowledging it is a lazy uneducated excuse to speak properly is a lie
I guess now it's blatant racism to speak the truth, what will you ppl think of next. Not to mention prominent civil rights leaders have spoken against ebonics(aave) and even called it garbage. As seen in this article when ebonics was first introduced: "I am incensed," said poet Maya Angelou, who recited one of her poems at President Clinton's inauguration. "The very idea that African-American language is a language separate and apart can be very threatening, because it can encourage young men and women not to learn standard English." icon (403K/36 sec. AIFF or WAV sound) The Rev. Jesse Jackson also blasted the proposal, which was announced Wednesday by the California School Board to officially recognize Black English, also know as Ebonics, a term combining "ebony" and "phonics." "While we are fighting in California trying to extend affirmative action and fighting to teach our children so they become more qualified for jobs, in Oakland some madness has erupted over making slang talk a second language," Jackson said in a statement. "You don't have to go to school to learn to talk garbage," he said.
Love how blunt you will state things! Some people are scared to even acknowledge race exists but appreciate you just stating things how they are for the sake of education. Also just overall very entertaining thank you just binged your channel hope to see more uploads sometime, will defiantly be checking in for new uploads now and then!
I'm pretty sure why that happens that people are scared to acknowledge 'race exists' is probably when some people say race exists, they meant it like the so called 'yellow and black' humans are different from 'real' humans in abilities, body and so forth and connecting it to the pseudo-scientific 'hierarchy' scale, yeah, its a bit loaded nowadays.
Language is the demarcation of culture. When we stop listening to each other's dialects and languages as funny ways of speaking, we'll understand each other much better.
@@wallachia4797 because in USA really have a big problem with racism. There are neighborhoods for each ethnic group there and in each neighborhood a different culture and a different way to speak, people treat each other differently just because they are from different ethnic groups. Here in Brazil, for exemple, people are so mixed that everybody here have a grandfather/mother european, african and indigenous. Me for example am a mix of Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Africans and Tupiniquim. The poor are mixed, the rich are mixed, the white are mixed, the black are mixed and we have also a new "race" the "pardos".
Something that I wanted to add: There is a pretty distinct regionalism to each dialect of AAVE. For example - I am from NYC. So when it comes to interacting with black folks from Boston, Philly, and Jersey is pretty easy. Washington DC (or the DMV) begins to become a little bit difficult but it's still "mutuality intelligible". I lived in Pittsburgh, PA for almost 3 years and it was really, really difficult to understand what the black folks were saying there. Don't even get me started on the south. Of that I can understand black people from ATL, but people from Memphis and the other central southern regions are basically speaking another language to me. All of AAVE has a southern root to it. But since the great migration the various black communities were exposed to the local dialects of their area. The proximity of those local dialects in turn changed AAVE. It's fascinating stuff.
I have noticed Southern AAVE is harder to understand and seems to have more of a "drawl" than Northern or Western AAVE. There was a black actor in a couple of episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air I strongly suspect was Southern because of his accent.
I'm from philly but I have a lot of family that lives in the south especially ATL, Nashville and Dallas. When we speak our native language of Yoruba (Which I taught MYSELF) I understand everything. They open their mouth and speak aave which is still a form of english which is my technical first language and I literally have no idea what they're say lol
Im from the midwest and it is difficult sometimes understanding my family members from Atlanta. Sorta like that incident between the migos and dj akademics.
I love how you actually respect our culture enough to understand the rules and history. Too many whites oversimplify us as just being ghetto. That word is such a gross oversimplification to describe a rich subculture.
As a Scottish person who talks with people online frequently it’s quite common to talk in a different dialect as a Glaswegian is can be very difficult for other people to understand what I’m saying, I sometimes don’t even notice I’ve change the way I speak until my mum walks in the room to talk to me and everyone else gets really confused on what we just talked about lmao. It really pisses me off when people say it’s not “proper” which is usually English people who don’t like the fact we have our own culture and way of speaking. I find dialects super interesting and people should never change the way they speak just cause some people don’t understand it because it is a part of you and your culture!
Another entirely valid and important point is that AAVE is THE dialect of popular music. Even people with really strong English accents such as Mick Jagger and Robert Plant sing in it. A hugely culturally important piece of linguistic heritage.
YES! This needs more upvotes. It makes me imagine in a near future where AAVE will become a sort of "Art Dialect" while white English becomes considered kind of the "Essay Dialect" and every American school teaches in both. So interesting!
You could also imagine that for this reason a lot of non-native English speakers will adopt parts of. American music is incredibly wide spread and it influences a lot. Now this isn't the case for me since I mainly got my English from video games which I imagine are mainly GAE, but I can see it being different for someone who listened to more pop and hiphop.
As a Black man, all i can say is, "you done did dis right" your research is accurate, and i wish more people would have respect for the dialect like you do
@@dignuscius1298 you did this correctly. Most Black Americans code switch so if you're in university in America and you see us, we'll more than likely never use our dialect around you. Unless you get included in the fold of a group of black friends. Because using the dialect outside of our spaces can be a bit too dangerous.
This is awesome, I always here people imitating black speech and they use the word "be" in the wrong way. I never knew why it didn't sound right to me because in GE it would be correct. Now I know it's because they are using the GE words in GE sentence structure in the AAVE dialect. Interesting stuff!
As a white American I always wondered why I misunderstood the usage of "be" actually. I knew it wasn't wrong, I just didn't know what it meant. Now it makes sense because there's no word like it in GAE, but now I do! And I'm somewhat glad because it'll help communication with those speaking AAVE a little better
@Sam Bradley Thank you for reminding me that the far majority of white people are smart, respectful, mature adults that are willing to learn and better themselves if needed rather than stupid edgy racists.
JanusPapers Definition of a dialect is a language that is peculiar to a region or social group. In what way is AAVE not a dialect. And you still haven’t answered my question on why it matters anyway.
As a white San Diegan who never grew up around black culture and moved to Deep South alabama, aave is FOR SURE a dialect and not a sign of stupidity. I’ve had deep intellectual conversations with people who speak in aave and even though I’m not naturally used to hearing it given my background, I literally don’t even notice it anymore and can completely understand everything. It was definitely strange getting used to, especially considering the way the media portrays people with southern/black accents as dumb hicks or thugs or whatever other bs
When anyone who speaks this dialect is running an important, non- record or clothing company or has been elected to any important position in the government, let me know.
colormesarge he’s right. Yaint can also be “you ain’t shit” or “y’all ain’t shit.” It just depends where you live in the south. Personally in NC I use yaint singularly (you ain’t) rather than plural (y’all ain’t)
Genuinely curious how and why. Do C# and Java interact in any way, and what are the practical reasons for combining the two? Or are you referring to independent projects.
To be fair GAE and AAVE actually arnt that different because most people in the US speak a mix of it regardless of race, most people don’t speak fully one or the other though AAVE isn’t as wide spread, and the fact that it is blended like this is why people don’t take it seriously
@@monferno1 lol if you ain't black you speaking it wrong or you're using outdated terms cuz we change it every 10 years. new words are invented to stay ahead of the curve. we don't want people to steal the dialect and culture.
Actually, dialects have more to do with pronunciation and variations in the grammatical structure of casual speech. Dialects develop regionally and are attributable more to class than race/culture. AAVE is more along the lines of what is called a CANT. Cants are a linguistic phenomenon closely aligned with oppression and marginalization. For example, there was once a widespread cant in Europe called Polari, a cryptolect which was spoken by criminals, prostitutes, and homosexuals. Cants differ from dialects in their heavy usage of jargon and variably "coded" terms and phrases, and that they are more specific to a particular community or socioeconomic class than to a region. That said, it cannot be called "improper English", because it is a deliberate(or possibly incidental) deviation from "proper English". It's here to stay, and it's part of the intangible heritage of Black America.
@Bignose Peterstien Coengoldshekelbergschnozz What exactly was the point of bringing that statistic up? Bring yourself back on topic and actually contribute to the discusison instead of showing your illiterate mindset. How about we talk about the race that has killed the most people in the WORLD, that culture you speak so low of would be near the bottom of that list.
I can speak English in many accents and dialects. I live in Canada, but my mother is from Northern England. I can easily speak queen's English like I can speak rough Sunderland/NewCastle type of accent. I can also do a generic Canadian accent. My dad is French Canadian so I can speak french in a 'Québecois' accent and also a more formal kind of French. About 5 years ago I started learning more languages. I do pretty much the same thing with Spanish and Portuguese. I think by the age of 30 I'm going to know about 10 languages no joke. The snowball effect seems to be on my side.
It's because Google's correction dictionary is tiny. A lot of words you get squiggly red lines for in Google Docs or RUclips comments is completely fine in Microsoft Word.
The code switching is so real, my sister and I literally switch up how we're talking if we were in AAVE in the car, and GE (I forgot the acronym) when we get out, mid sentence. Now I might stop caring because why not? Especially if I'm not in a professional setting.
@Truth Sayer Are you freaking kidding me? Did you listen to the video at all? First of all, it's not that they "can't speak" "proper" English. They ARE speaking proper English, their proper dialect of English. Just because it isn't YOUR dialect doesn't make it wrong or a sign of being uneducated or whatever prejudiced excuses you tell yourself.. Just as you wouldn't expect an Irishman, Canadian, or New Yorker to completely drop his accent and way of speaking in a business setting you shouldn't discriminate and expect an AAVE speaker to change either unless the person they are talking to in that moment is having trouble understanding their accent/dialect. Otherwise it's just prejudice because you happen to be lucky enough that your dialect/accent is fashionable.
@@Blaze6432 wow. Only americans think this way. ♀ I really hope you realise that even General American English evolved the same way. Original english speakers who moved to the continent and were far from home.
@@AnthonyAlaribe American English is a standard dialect used in education and communication. Yes it is the proper way of talking. American English doesn't corrupt the foundation (grammar) of the language. Literally none of my black friends who come from proper backgrounds sound like that. There is a proper way to speak English and we all learn it in school. Having an accent and using slang is one thing, but completely being unable to adhere to rules of a language is another thing. I can't think of a single intellectually driven black person who sounds like that.
What people seem to not understand is when comedians say that black people are bilingual, they really aren't lying. I'm the only black female in a sea of my white brethren at my job and they are shocked at how articulate I am. For starters, articulation isn't race specific. Me enunciating words correctly and using correct verbage/tenses has everything to do with my education and absolutely nothing to do with the color of my skin. Now, when I get around my kinfolk who are from Caswell County, NC, it's literally like ole' dude from 'King of the Hill', who talks so fast and with a twang. I drop consonants, use double negatives and all the like because when you're around your people, you can relax and not have to worry about being labeled something that isn't you.
@JanusPapers I understand the point behind the metaphor. But what I don't understand is what made you come to my thread to comment (i.e: troll). I mean, there is such a thing as code-switching and the last I checked, my credentials say otherwise. There's nothing here to prove, especially to someone such as yourself. Nothing about what I said suggests that I'm uneducated. I'm from the South, so by default, I use colloquialisms and I drop consonants but I can turn it off and on. Tell me, is being a miserable clown a thing you can control or did you have to adapt?
@@QuixoticUkulele True. Same here. I've been called White my whole life simply because I don't speak with a southern accent. When you are Black, it seems everything negative you do is associated with your race for some reason. Then, if its positive, suddenly you are "acting White"? There is no Black Accent, there is a American Southern dialect that alot of Black, White, Asian, and Hispanic people use. I'm a Californian and I have met country versions of just about everybody. Depends on where you are from and background more than anything. I was raised by the "Greatest Generation" of Black People, born in the 50s, so I often find myself disconnected from some of these Modern Black People that think that "If its right, then its White". They get ignored, just like the racists of any color... and life goes on✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾
This is the most linguistically insightful video I've seen and I love how wonderfully the points were addressed. Thank you so much for recording this and I'm looking forward to watching more of your videos :)
While doing some volunteer work in East Africa last year, we hosted a movie night and watched black panther. Halfway through the movie, the guy sitting next to me turns and asks me what region of America killmonger's accent is from. I had a hard time explaining that it's not a regional accent, especially because all other accents in the movie are regional. This did a good job explaining.
here's an outsiders perspective to this, if white Americans or GAE speakers don't want to accept AAVE as a proper dialect because it sounds informal and wrong, then by extension, GAE isn't a dialect as well, let's all just stick to British English
in fact, all English is improper Proto-Germanic, so let's just all speak Proto-Germanic but wait! Proto-Germanic is just improper Proto-Indo-European, so let's all just speak Proto-Indo-European but wait! Proto-Indo-European is just...
Very interesting video. I always kind of saw AAVE (didn't know there was a term for it) as being more just a lot of slang, but it is enlightening to find out that there is actually a lot of grammar and phonetics involved. Everything makes a lot more sense when you think of it as a dialect that you don't happen to speak.
As a black guy, I use AAVE or standard english depending on what setting I'm in or who I'm talking to so I tend to do a whole lotta code switching. I'll even use both dialects in sentences consciously lol. It feels good to have a dialect I can connect with
I had a similar experience. I learned english from the internet and I made a friend who helped me lot to be fluent quickly. She spoke aave to me so I picked It up as my default english, I thought it was just the way people spoke casually tbh. Not until I was more exposed to content from black creators in yt I learned that what I used to speak was aave and I'm so embarrassed of how many times I must have looked like a fool being a lightskin latina speaking like that 😭😭💀💀
i learned german from a berliner so i speak like a berliner, had i learned it from an austrian, i'd sound like an austrian. both are valid forms of german.
Great video! After watching this ive realised how much AAVE and the different Caribbean Creoles have in common. Its quite interesting. Sending love from the West Indies!
That makes sense. Both AAVE and Creoles would likely be strongly influenced by western African languages, they just took influence from other parts of the languages.
Yeah in practice it wouldn't be super easy for say Jamaicans or Guyanese to be understood by AAVE speakers but linguistically they're (un)surprisingly similar
I wrote a paper on AAVE and they're all basically the same. I didn't watch this video so idk if he said this or not but basically, when enslaved Africans got to wherever, nobody gave them language lessons. So when we got to the US, nobody bothered to sit down and be like, "we're going to have school every morning so you guys can learn English." nope - we just had to learn it by listening. Anyone who's learned a second language before knows what language interference is. English is my first language and when I learned French, I often spoke it wrong cuz I was using English rules. Like in English we say, "the red dress." we say the adjective then the noun. In French, they say, "The dress red." they say the noun then the adjective. If nobody had sat me down and told that, I would've been speaking French wrong my entire life because I would've applied the rules of the language that I speak to the French language. Basically, that's what happened to enslaved Africans. Nobody taught them English so they applied west African language rules to English as every language learner does. That's how AAVE was born. The same thing is true of caribbean creoles and Haitian French and stuff.
2:15 Code Switching, when the environment changes, so does my dialect. those who only speak aave, i'll speak a mixture of both to save them because people carry a load of judgement.
Could you share some academics, college educated people, and world leaders speaking AAVE in a professional setting? I've only ever heard it in ghettos spoken by uneducated people usually in poverty. And given it's nature, it does appear to be how people who failed english class seem to speak. From a linguistics standpoint it's absolutely fascinating. But from a practical and realist stand point it's a bit obvious.
@@Otome_chan311 that's cuz the concept of "proper" english is classist and racist - the dialect/variety spoken by those in academia (so... upper class white folks) is considered proper because they hold a position of power. just like GAE is the official standard, because people who speak GAE are in positions of power that allow them to make their variety the only acceptable (happens in all kinda languages/countries). if you wanna get anywhere in academia you gotta assimilate, doesn't mean academic language is inherently better (so of course if you tell someone who /only/ speaks one variety of english to take a test in a quite different variety, they're not gonna do good. you'd fail a test in AVEE too. most AVEE speakers are bi-dialectial though, and also know GAE.) also can we please stop pretendung that Black communities not having as much access to education (where one could/is made to learn GAE) and generally being affected by poverty more is anything else but straight old racism und structural discrimination? there's just so, so much wrong with everything you just said (spoiler: it's the racism) n as white people, we really gotta examine our fuckin prejudice and privilege, especially before we speak about things we know nothing about - how bout you do that, too?
@@Otome_chan311 There are absolutely professors (myself included), world leaders, etc. that CAN speak AAVE but not in a professional setting since society rules GAE as the best language.
@@Otome_chan311 What the hell are you talking about. It's not a trend. It's just that society deems GAE as more professional. I've tried speaking AAVE but the world's racists hate it.
JanusPapers 2:55 don’t worry, America’s still very segregated enough for you never have to actually talk to any black people. No need to criticize how someone talks that you don’t actually interact with. Now that’s dumb.
@JanusPapers What about AAVE is moronic? Its differences with GAE are shared characteristics with Shakespeare's language and rules that other languages (including white European ones) have. It's a real dialect.
90's terms like "Dog", "Homie", Son", "Bro", and "Dude" are still being used by certain urban Millennials in arguments more-so in the northeast. I'd take them over "N*gga" which has gotten way too out of hand among multiple races any day.
***** & *****, I appreciate your clarification, brothers. But yall giving this silly n*gga too much attention. Clearly to try and get on the internet to dig into somebody for their use of a perceived outdated word means you have entirely no business to tend to.
Xidnaf, I love how you drawings are simultaneously simplistic but realistic. Like at 1:23 the US is drawn kinda wonky yet you've very clearly outlined different biomes and mountain ranges. Then at 2:43 you show the rain-shadow effect, where where the highlands walled off by mountains are arid! Very cool details
What’s funny to me is poor southern white dialects have many similarities to aave it’s obvious class and region played a roll in these developing dialects but poor southern whites who themselves are speaking “non proper English” will disparage aave
The reasons why are obvious too. That's very unfortunate that centuries of racial polarisation are still informing people's opinions in the South to this day.
I speak aave and I’m latino from Chicago. Of course I can also speak perfectly in general American but when I’m with my homies I be dropping verbs and using double negatives all the time lol. Funny how linguistics work.
fun fact: in the English-based creole Tok Pisin, the lingua franca of Papua New Guinea, the most common word for "large" is "bigas," from English "big-ass"
I hear 'Axed' instead of 'Asked' all the way down here in New Zealand too!! haha. Most people who say that are Polynesians who speak English as their second language, or their children who although born in New Zealand learnt English from their parents.
Not offensive..no Just unbelievably inaccurate. That is not a "Black Accent", it a Southern Accent that even like half of the US White population uses as well. But since it sounds uneducated, people associate it with Black people. You know? Because we're Black I guess, I dunno?😕😕😕
The point about the habitual "be" is genuinely fascinating. As an English person who's only really heard AAVE second-hand through American media, I hadn't properly understood that it's not simply a dialectical variation on "is".
@@ems3832 Why does it sound dumb? It does the job of conveying information, and does so in a more efficient way than most other forms of spoken English. It's just like the Scouser or Northern Irish "yous" as a plural of "you" - it works objectively better than other dialects' overly-complicated or downright ambiguous ways of saying the same thing. It's no more "wrong" than, say, talking French, Spanish, German, Mandarin, Arabic, Twi etc. If it doesn't sound dumb to people who are native speakers of AAVE dialect then that's what matters. I would gently suggest that further judgements are more indicative of your own prejudices than anything else.
@@wellthatwasdaft "Why does it sound dumb?" Good Lord, I actually have to explain that to you?! Such a daft question to ask... Try using "be" like that (or any of the other "aave-isms," for that matter) in a job interview and see how far it gets you. SMH. I would not so gently suggest that we just simply use proper, correct English. It's really not that difficult or "overly-complicated," as you put it. 🙄
I remember learning about AAVE at school (I live in Germany btw) last year and not finding the topic particularly interesting. This video has given me an entirely new appreciation for it! 👍
@@antagonist7924 ahh yes i remember when I too was going through by ben shapiro racist phase. You’re probably like what 11, 12? You’ll grow out of it soon buddy.
@@jwally1434 18, I see you're using the "age guessing" argument because you've got nothing legitimate in your thick skull to use as a rebuttal. Also, racism comes in all ages, we do not discriminate based on age.
@@antagonist7924 Gamer is just another word for someone with a lack of socail life and probably has never experienced the outside world from their own bubble. You probably never even talked to a black person before have you? I'll ask this, do you say the same thing when white people use slang and accents?
I'm black and this made me so happy, I've hardly ever seen anyone(especially a white person) treat our dialect as if it's legitimate. The comments are saddening, but I'm not surprised and I've heard it all before in real life. Thank you Xidnaf, you've earned a subscriber!
+screams yeah double negatives reinforcing is fairly common in language because it is a more natural extension of the idea of grammatical agreement than having multiple negatives cancel out. The negatives canceling is a much more "mathematical" worldview
+Declan Miller yeah but the double negative is something different in russian cause its mandatory and its mean something different you neeed no or не every time when you use an negative adverb or pronoun like nobody,nothing,never etc...
+screams they're just borderline racists or literary elitists. aave works perfectly fine and the narrator even in the beginning warns that most african americans can speak both dialects.
+screams czech here. same over here an english person would say "i don't do anything" but we'd say "i don't do nothing" (neudělal jsem to) or "nobody dared to move a finger" but we'd say "nobody didn't dare to move a finger" (nikdo se neodvážil pohnout prstem) czech goes so far as to have a negative predicate by default if there is one other negative element in the sentence, such as "Nobody told me that" would translate as (nobody didn't tell me that" (Nikdo mi to neřekl), in these cases, not using a negative predicate would produce nonsense, even though this rule must sound bonkers ass backwards to anyone speaking general english, i imagine the written form of my language looks alien to most of you in this thread, and it really is. at least we share the alphabet. XD for added fun, there are cases where just the predicate is negative and no other words are, as in "Eve didn't tell me that" (Eva mi to neřekla) Oh! and czech also has two ways of asking "Have you seen Paul?" (Viděl jsi Pavla?) and also "haven't you seen Paul?" (Neviděl jsi Pavla?") which pretty much mean the same but i never know whether to say yes or no to these. ;D There is a similar problem in english though, right? "would you like a cup of tea?" and "wouldn't you like a cup of tea?" I mean... should I say no to the second question because yes, i would actually like that tea? XD and does this reasoning even make sense and would the asker understand what i meant? or is the only possible answer "yes i would" no matter how the question is formed? "i don't know who wouldn't, but i definitely would, thank you very much!" :D aren't languages fun? there are exceptions to every rule and exceptions to exceptions XD
I never thought of it that way before. I'm white and was raised by parents who drilled English into me and so did school. My parents wanted me to get a good job so speaking "correctly" was important to them. I was taught that AAVE was broken, bad, incorrect, lazy English. But after watching this, perhaps it's not. It seems similar to the way some British accents drop words, parts of words or pronounce things differently, yet we think they're cool and AAVE is lazy. Thanks for making me think about this, it's given me a new perspective to view the world with and that's always a good thing.
Michael Pappano You might think they're cool, but most Britons don't. Trust me, a Geordie or thick Brummie dialect is seen as just as improper in England as AAVE is in the US. Regardless of who makes the rules of this 'properness', they exist, and not because whoever made them wanted to tear races apart. AAVE might not be considered incorrect in a situation where it is being spoken, just as a Geordie dialect might not. But in a situation where only American or British standard English is accepted, such as an official form or exam, neither AAVE or Geordie are correct. It's not really a race argument unless people make it into one.
Blackstar 76 Well not the accent, obviously, but if you couldn't expect to write your CV with Geordie-isms. It's the dialect that's the important part.
“He be workin” depends on context. Example 1: “Why Tron don’t be going out with us on Saturday?” “Cause he be workin.” Example 2: “Why I always see him on the block? Buddy don’t have a job?” “He be workin from home.”
Wouldn't it be "Why tron ain't coming out with us?"/why's it dat tron ain't coming out with us? The don't be sounds off. Tbf I'm not even sure the "he be workin" makes as much sense as "cus he workin" even though the be in that one makes sense
ParadiseAgent I could be wrong but I’m reading your example as asking why he won’t be coming along on a particular upcoming Saturday night, and the OP’s example as asking why it seems that he never comes along on saturdays (upcoming and the last several weeks).
Yeah, the AAVE of black people who stayed in the South (Jackson, Atlanta) sounds more "Southern" than someone from say, Compton or Oakland. And AAVE from the NYC area (Brooklyn, the Bronx, Harlem, Northern New Jersey) is heavily influenced by the New York dialect (see Jay-Z and Nicki Minaj).
Black American is back wow gee, I wonder if your a racist white guy, all I need to figure out is if you’re a racist white kid tryna seem edgy or if you’re an old racist boomer stuck in the past.
@Use My Robinhood link! Free stock you’re horrible at this. I know you’re trolling. But that was so wrong. A black person would type “that’s right” and probably pronounce it as “dats/das right” no one says “big dawg.
This is so dope. As a Black linguist, thanks for getting some education out there. I aint been seein too many jawns like this ouchea. Did have to laugh at that accent tho lol. Good looks
You can really see the racism come out if you try to tell people that no, this is an actual defined language, and deserves to be treated as such. Yikes.
Typically stated within a tone of approval and as a statement of fact, “She be workin” or “He be workin” is a proclamation of success and competency. It is to explain to the listener that the individual exists within a state or status of responsibility, virtue, and the ability to care for themselves and others, or has the ability to contribute to the household. The term is to celebrate the *individual* in her or his current talent, mental or physical pursuits; and in some rare occasions, her or his mind frame and intentions.
Interesting take... I tend to think of it as something very close to saying "He works" or "He has a job" than anything else. He may not be there RIGHT NOW, but it's a regularly occurring thing that happens and can reasonably be expected to continue. I had never considered it as another tense before this video, but I can see how it would be a natural response to questions like "Does he have a job?" Then again I wasn't raised with the black part of my family, so I don't have the dialect. I was raised by the white and Native American side of my family, and something very close to academic style English was always spoken in the home.
EmileeArsenic You should investigate your African or African American side. The varying cultures within are diverse, rich and extremely interesting; rich with laugher, dancing, music and merriment. People are generally encouraged to be strong emotionally, physically and mentally. Watching entire series Luke Cage on Netflix will give you a small taste of one culture among black people in the USA.
Sarista Celestial Considering how much the two sides of the family dislike one another, I doubt they'd be too willing to engage much to facilitate that investigation haha There are reasons there was such a sharp divide
EmileeArsenic That shouldn't stop you. You should be free to investigate all your heritage. I'm sure both sides of your family must feel enough of a connection with you to want to ensure your happiness. You could end up becoming the bridge to connect them. Watch the Netflix series. Let me know if you like it.
+Sarista, what would trip me up would the "sometimes" aspect of it. Is he working right now, does he work at all, or does he work sometimes? If a follow-up question is required to fully explain the situation, then the conversation isn't going so well. Similar to a parent asking the teenager, "How was school," and only getting "Good" as a response.
In a way, Standard English has it. If someone asked you what you do after you get up, you would reply "I get dressed" not "I am getting dressed". On the other hand, if someone knocked the door and asked what you were doing in there, you would reply "I'm getting dressed" not "I get dressed."
Oh my god, thank you for saying this. This helps me with my Irish studies so much! I had seen Bím used before but couldn't figure out how it was different from Táim
@@douglascrouse8793even ignoring the fact that you think sign language doesn't exist, if someone asks me "where's the remote" and I point at the remote the other person is going to understand what i'm communicating perfectly well, if I flip the middle finger at someone everyone's gonna understand what i'm trying to communicate. So yes it is a completely valid way of communicating. Language changes as time goes on and that's just a fact of life. If you went back in time 600 years you'd probably be stoned for not speaking the queen's english. TLDR I'm right you're wrong go еаt a diсk
Everyone should know this. THERE IS NO "CORRECT" WAY OF SPEAKING. LANGUAGE RULES ARE MODELLED AFTER THE SPEECH OF THE RULE MAKERS. It's baffeling people still don't realize this.
I disagree, it's definitely inferior. Not invalid, of course, but definitely worse to some degree. It's like the metric/imperial systems of measurement. You *can* use imperial but metric is objectively better.
7:22 The Habitual tense actually does exist in General American English; it's the Simple Present tense. In most languages "He works out" would mean that a person is currently working out, but in most english dialects, it means "He is in the habit of working out." Where most languages use the Simple Present tense, we instead use the Present Progressive tense "he is working out."
Because of the mixing of peoples over the internet and the influence of modern rap and hip hop, I've noticed more people, especially young teens, using characteristics of AAVE in every day conversation, like the habitual be, or omitting words instead of contracting them. Just does to show how interaction between peoples can change language rules over time.
Funny thing is, the word dropping happens all the time in all languages. In common French, you often hear something like "Je sais pas" (I don't know) when, properly, it's "Je ne sais pas". In fact, I often hear something like "Sais pas".
Very interesting video. Especially that bidialectal bit. When i had encountered black people who spoke gae i had previously assumed that was their preferred dialect. But now I wonder how many of them just spoke that way whilst talking to me, someone clearly not fluent in aave. I appreciate the consideration, though i don't mind people talking in aave cause it's interesting and still mostly comprehensible. I hadn't known what it was called but I'd never thought people who spoke aave were speaking wrong. Always just seemed like another accent, notable for its geographic proximity to different accents.
almost all of them speak GAE while around you. The ones who can only speak GAE are a minority of black people and usually because they didn't grow up in a black neighborhood or attend an all black high school. usually that's how it goes down..
@@jonp6709 my ex girlfriend and I when we were dating was out with some friends who were from Japan. Studying English. Anyway my ex asked me if I was up for something forgot what it was, but I replied "I'm down" and my Japanese friends were confused AF. Mostly because my ex was white speaking GAE I replied in AAVE. and they were unaware of the fact that these are two different dialects. What makes it more confusing for ESL learners is that in the US atleast, dialects eventually have a large number of their words and phrases used in GAE. In Japan having spent years living there, this isn't the case for Japanese dialects. The standard is Tokyo dialect. It's the stuff you learn in your textbooks if you study the language. A guy from Osaka isn't going to reply to someone speaking in the standard dialect with his dialect (kansai dialect). Japan usually doesn't integrate other dialects as often, they do on occasion, but not a lot. GAE has a habit of integrating words and phrases from other dialects and languages. So English has every century been radically different from the previous century of that language's history. 13th century English doesn't even sound recognizable to us English native speakers today in the 21st century. Whereas Japanese had small changes certain honorifics are dropped, etc etc, but is pretty consistent. Mandarin is another good example of this. IF you learn the write in traditional characters then you're able to read documents going back 2000 years.. If you learn simplified characters (mainland china) then that task becomes a lot harder to do.
Here in Ireland myself and many others say ''He do be workin''' and ''She the one''. A lot of AAVE is very similar to other dialects in other english speaking countries
Christian that is an interesting to say. I wonder if the Irish had an influence. Many Irish indentured servants formed families with blacks. Of course the plight of the Irish indentured servants is NOT the same as blacks; however circumstances (economics and hate by those in power) brought them together. The same is true with Native Americans. I'm sure that some people will hate what I just wrote but it is history. Many black people in America can point to an Irish or Native American ancestor.
Holly, that's very interesting, and I've been looking into that myself recently. That's why so many originally Irish names (like "Tyrone") are now regarded as black names in America.
I have an Irish quadruple grandmother. Many people in my family still have red hair down to my generation. There were many Irish servants and slave owners, their language has a heavy influence on the dialect
@Aiyaluna Yourke - that's a wonderful history and it's cool to be able to trace your roots like that. I can get back to the 1830s on my dad's side and only back to the 1900s on my mom's side. Dad's side was free for most of the 19th century, that's why it's easier to track them. All I know about mom's side is that it came from North Carolina and were tobacco farmers and most likely slaves in that manner of work until emancipation and very poor sharecroppers after that.
Brenande Mossita That term totally changed the way i think about how i speak and the languages i use... I'm North African and I'm CONSTANTLY code switching (mainly between French and our Dialect of arabic called Darija).
I'm the whitest dude in the world but I grew up in a pretty diverse area. Despite that I had very few close black friends until recently. Oddly enough now that I do I find myself adopting a lot of their traditionally black linguistic habits, especially when I'm around them (I also think my growing passion for hip hop might have something to do with it). I actually think it's pretty cool cause it's not something I do consciously. It's amazing how human brains are programmed to instinctually pick up communicative habits and replicate them just to make communication easier. Evolution at its finest.
@@ttnn123456789 he's not part of the ethnic group that created the dialect and speaks on how he is able to pick up on it. You sound like a fool. Like you're from Tokyo and you reply to someone's post about how they picked up on Kansai dialect and you go "being from Osaka has nothing to do with these things" You look extremely dumb.
@@Sebas-zn2he that's a huge part of human evolution. communication is extremely limited among other species. humans are very flexible and that's a large part of why we're such a successful species.
As a Brit, the similarity between London "working class" slang/speech/dialect and AAVE is very odd. I don't know whether Londoners are copying AAVE or whether it's just a strange coincidence but it's strange nonetheless.
It's definitely about environment and a sense of Identity rather than being black. I'm black and don't ever use the UK equivalent to AAVE and it feels very unnatural when I do.
you're kind of right but don't totally get it. it is indeed about environment but also definitely about being black, but being "Black American" specifically. this video is talking about a specific ethnic group within the USA and has nothing to do with the UK or the black dialects there that were influenced by West Indian migration. there are a lot of whites in urban areas who've been influenced by the way we talk. to be honest, much of the country is influenced by the slang we create (especially via music). their proximity to aave doesn't make it any less black.
same i grew up in the suburbs and trailerpark but it was pretty ghetto and most if my family speaks some slang when speaking in english like gonna, wanna, yall (im from texas), sometimes i say dat instead of that, sometimes i leave the t in names silent like martin id say "mar-en" or "mar-den"
As a white person I’ve never understood the need for workplaces to censor people’s way of speaking. AAVE is totally understandable, I don’t have to cover up my northeast accent and poc shouldn’t have to cover up theirs either.
@@MrCmon113 Please Try dutch, provincial dialects are so bad the way they write is literally different. Frisian is even considered its own language American dialects can barely be considered that. I shan't go into ebonics however, that is for the perpetual poor and frankly retarded
The first time I watched this video years ago was a huge step in my journey towards understanding the cultural diversity of America. Every once in a while I come back and rewatch it for a refresher, and every time I'm so impressed by it. Hats off to you my friend!
You're right, for a very long time I've been calling it slang and thinking about it as "lazy English". Turns out is just another rich and meaning full dialect with deep historicall roots! This was an awesome and informative video, like the rest of your work Xidnaf! I salute you from central México, keep up the awesome work!
@JanusPapers You know English is the result of "lazy Proto-Germanic" right? And Proto-Germanic is "lazy Proto-Indo-European." I guess that would make Japanese and Korean basically the least lazy languages widely spoken today. Is Cantonese "lazy Mandarin?"
@JanusPapers As a side note, if you watched the video intently (i.e. not being lazy) you would be fully aware that most speakers of AAVE are very much able to speak the standard dialect of English. I wouldn't call that "not making an effort."
@JanusPapers It is literally a dialect by the linguistic definition of dialect: a particular form of a language which is peculiar to a specific region or social group. Maybe you are the one who should stop making yourself look ignorant.
Im from the bay area so aave has greatly influenced how i speak (even tho im not black) because its the "cultural standard" ie its how pretty much everyone i grew up with spoke. Its because the black community has a strong presence and history in the city im from, though i guess personally i also have a bit of hispanic english influence in my speeach as well :)
+cadr003 not to detract from your anecdote, but I hope you realize that "the bay area" is uselessly vague. Just about every coastal area in the world has a "bay area", many of which are considered significant landmarks.
Same. but I also grew up on the internet and knew other people who were spoke internetenese. Grew up in a house hold with Jersey parents in Dallas Texas hung out with hipsters, blacks and mexicans. Then I moved to the east coast. I told someone the other day " I have too much swag and it's gucci". Yet, I can speak standardized very well if I try I just don't attempt to monitor my self unless I'm having to be "professional". Nahmean cuh? xD. Chyuh Cuh (Said Ironically).
@@alleycatdevil it was so clearly explained to you why you’re wrong. There is no use in even arguing because there is nothing I can say that hasn’t already been said. You can pretend your right, but that doesn’t make it true. You can either actually learn, and take into account new information to form an opinion with more evidence behind it, or you can continue to live in ignorance for absolutely no reason at all.
@@falkeprophet “pretend your right” ITS *YOU’RE* maybe people like me think AAVE is improper because everyone who speaks it or defends it is illiterate.
You also have to realize that when people learn a new language, the hardest thing to pick up on is the syntax. When our people came over, they learn English but used it in their syntax. The old 'us' and 'we' was not seen as proper English, but was proper for blacks. Because in many African cultures there is no singularity, only a collective.
Very interesting I'm from England, and I speak standard British English and also northern English dialect, and in the north of England we too use double negatives to emphasize. This feature is the original, basal form of English. The idea that two negatives equals a positive came from Indian mathematics later and it become the new norm. But black Americans are totally right to use it like this- i would say "I ain't eaten nothing all day" to mean "I have eaten nothing all day!" Also, as an Englishman looking from abroad, what i have always admired about black American English is the playfulness and joy they take in using it. English people love to treat the language like a game, have fun with it, we love jokes, rhymes, new words. So I think it's the black speakers of English in America who seem to have that the most in common with English people, a real love of playing with it and the sound of it. It's a thing to be enjoyed
Broooo! This video is everything!!! 😂💯💪🏾 Anybody that's offended by this video is an a**hole! I think this was accurate and as politely put as possible. I used to have the idea of bidialectical linguistics in my mind & didn't know what to call it. A lot of black people joke about it calling standard American English our " at work voice". As soon as you are done with formal settings you go back to AAVE as you call it. Understanding different languages & dialects also helps to destroy the stereotype that other people are less intelligent because they don't speak the same way you do (can you peep the AAVE here? Lol) I also used to get frustrated trying to understand people with thick Spanish, Jamaican & even British-English accents until I started challenging myself to understand sentence structures, conjugations & other patterns that are normal in different languages, but differ from American English. Not only has it helped me to understand WHY some people speak English as their 2nd language in the ways that they do, but it also makes Ebonics or AAVE more interesting to observe as a legitimate dialect. Thank you for sharing! #Subbed!
@@jkrabby6658 Actually a lot of white people are calling the video racist for glorifying "improper English". Apparently most linguists are SJW scum for actually trying to _learn_ things instead of labeling.
ngl AAVE low-key a big brain way of speaking You can turn an entire observation into the most simplified and legendary sentence possible: "Ay that girl is so hot!" VS "She fine"
I learned not to judge people's intellect from their speech habits personally. In an english class during High School, this one black girl who I got partnered with used both GAM and AAVE. It wasn't right to expect it, but even subconciously I kinda expected her not to take the work seriously even though we were both in an accelerated program. To my suprise, when we began work, she turned out to be one of the smartest people I have interacted with there and had a strong work ethic to boot. Lesson learned.
The student is probably still in the process of learning to code switch... we master it at different times in our lives. So if you were to maintain contact and reach out to her in ten years, the way she addresses you may be vastly different from the time you worked with her. If you do get the opportunity to observe this difference don’t assume that she became more educated and therefore learned that her speech pattern was incorrect. No, no, no, the variation means she learned the negative societal stereotypes around her being herself as she was socialized with her group, and she learned the importance of code switching for increased opportunity in a country laced with systemic racism. It means she learned that to grow she must leave part of her self at home. This warrants no celebration of her newly gained “articulation” (by the way we hate when y’all call us articulate it’s so insulting) more so it exudes the racism within this country as we grow to learn that we must change to be accepted by our white peers, make sure we are perceived as none threatening, and lastly tokenized (when y’all tell us “oh you’re not like them” “you’re so different” we hate that as well because we are and you’ll never truly know us because of the judgement you display...).
+Xidnaf Well done taking on a very, *very*, *VERY THORNY* topic. You've handled it well. And I'm sure you're going to be called every name in the book despite how well you've done. --- When I was in Germany in 1989, studying “Germanistik”, one of my required courses was actually Linguistics. The semester project [which was your entire grade for the semester, BTW] that several of us took on was dialects of English in the US. I want to tell you, and everyone else, what I found in the *extensive* linguistic academic journals and books available at University of Mainz: • No “Southern Dialect” • No “New York Dialect” • No “Boston Dialect” • A handful of papers about the effects of the “Pennsylvania Dutch” dialect of German on the English of S.E. Pennsylvania - and *nothing* about an “English Dialect” of S.E. Pennsylvania. [Guess what my paper was on? ;) ] • *Copious* articles about the “English Dialect spoken by Black Americans.” Let me repeat that: As far as German linguists [and other European linguists] are concerned, *most* of the variations in American English are *accents* and AAVE is a *dialect*. Now, before anyone reading knee-jerk-reacts with calling the German linguistic community names, *maybe* you should take a good *long* look in the mirror and ask yourself, “Why does a dialect in England strike me as quaint, or colorful, or cute … and not as ‘stupid-people English’, like I think AAVE is.” Because *you* *do* think that. *I* think that. *Every* white American has been *trained* *since* *birth* to think that. And if you need proof of this fact, just look at the entire comments section of this video. They are positively *dripping* with assumptions of Black-inferiority. J'accuse.
I go to school in a pretty damn diverse area. It's an even split between White, Black, and Arab. Everyone speaks relatively similarly when the speech crosses the groups. Within each group, it changes a bit, but everyone still understands.
As a polyglot/linguist, I've noticed that it is only English speakers that call the variants within the U.S. as "dialects". I'm under the impression that English speakers have a very poor idea of what a dialect really is. For me, they're accents. Because in reality, dialects are difficult to understand and require a duration of exposure. I only thought that Scots was the only dialect in English, but now I'll consider AAVE one too.
I agree with you, though I'd restrict your phrase, “English speakers,” to “Americans.” Great Britain has bushels of actual dialects of English [though they've been denigrated and marginalized during most of the 20th Century [well, at least that's what I've heard]]. So, anyone in the British Iles has firsthand personal experience with actual dialects of English. Here in the US, however, we Americans read, “dialect,” as “Important” and as “Valid” and as “Accceptable.” So every region insists that their regional accent and smattering of local words is a “dialect.” But let's say that there is a continuum between, “accent,” and “dialect.” I still assert that the regional variations of US English fall *far* from the transition-region from “accent,” to “dialect.” As far as I know … and I'm willing to be educated otherwise … the regional variations in US English words are a 1-to-1 shift in vowels and a couple of consonants, but no difference in phonological rules or grammar, and a smattering of different vocabulary.
+Glossika Phonics Last I checked, "Scots" is to English what Portuguese (at least the Brazilian form) is to Spanish (at least the Mexican form) (the two European forms of theses may have to same continuum); similar but still different languages.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
"He just be doin shit" = "he Is in the habit of taking part in miscellaneous activities"
@@pbj4184 its to exaggerate the difference between aave and general American English for comedic effect
@@pbj4184 what's correct English?
@@pbj4184 what about it makes it 'correct' or 'normal'?
@@pbj4184 so, in short, you believe normality is determined by scale and social correctness is determined by normality. Would it not follow then, that among the aristocracy of the 19th century south, slaveholding was socially correct?
Edit (hit send instead of line break): if so, why should social correctness be desired? Because I believe that saying that something like nazism was socially correct due to its majority, and should thus be preferred over socially incorrect practice is dangerous.
@@pbj4184 so, to reiterate. why should social correctness be enforced or encouraged? The enforcement of social correctness led to the destruction of native American culture.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
They don't think it be like it is
But it do
That is fucking majestic. :)
I wish I could give that comment the thumbs up twice.
thenekom you've won the internet
That be right.
It's so beautiful, I'm crying. :'(
Your pronunciation of Lailaheillallah has me ded your determination to try say words in other languages is very admirable
Lol, I respect people who sincerely try.
Stfu
I just wanna point something out at 2:35. That theory is ridiculous because these paths didn't divulge separately from the original source. It happened sequentially from Early Modern English, to British English, to General American English, and then Ebonics (AAVE).
@@John-X Why would it come from GAE if, early on in America communication between blacks and whites were so diverged? They would've had to come from a common source, not one from the other, because while it's true that the slaveholders had to teach them English, that was only at the beginning of the slave trade and children would learn it from parents. Communication wasn't constant and by the time GAE was established there was already a clear diverge from AAVE as well by the 1800s. So that theory makes no sense.
In Indonesia, we spell it as "La'illaha'ilallah"
"He was big trapping."
"His distribution network for illicit substances was quite robust."
He movin weight
'You heard me.'
'Did you hear me?'
Wow you be really dissing White sometimes
This is similar to the Dongbei dialect of Mandarin, it’s stigmatised as a way of speaking for the poor, farming people of the northeast, we have many loanwords from the original language of the area: Manchu, we also pronounce things differently, skew our tones and pronounce a lot of sounds differently, our sentence structure changes and we immediately switch to the standard sentence structure and pronunciation when we meet someone important or someone from a more “prestigious part of the country” people usually treat us like this because we have an unusually high concentration of minorities in the northeast (Manchu, Mongolian and Korean) making up around 20% of the population so we’re seen as “worse” we’re what the rest of the world views as China so basically the China of China. People are also surprised by how articulate and formal some of us can be, stereotyping us as lazy and stupid.
顶你老铁
thats sad, ya'll deserve better
@@mynameismud8596 humans in general need to learn to respect your differences.
Humans are humans, we like to think our opinion is law but in reality things are much more complicated than we would like to think. So we stamp our beliefs such as religion and morality to it and classify what we disagree with as wrong or evil, in truth the universe is not just simple black and white, grayscale, yin and yang, or good and evil. The universe is so much more beautiful, colorful and complicated. As it turns out language very clearly falls under this broad spectrum of complexity. Much love and stay safe my fellow human I hope this week is wonderful for you! :3 🌌 🦊
That sucks, im sorry to hear
It really do be like that sometimes
Billys Bilbolag I bet this comment took the better of a whole 2 seconds to think up.
Forreal tho.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
They don't think it be like it is
But it do
Is this an example of that “habitual” tense?
Nathan Thames Facts
as a black man in America(I'm from Detroit), I felt compelled to congratulate you on this video. You actually gave a great deal of thought to it and you really made me think about that Habitual Be... To add, "He be workin'" (so long as I use it and folks I know have used it) would mean that the guy works a lot...as in he's hard to catch. I also say I be at work.... implying the same thing. I can't speak for the brothers and sisters outside of the midwest (I have a lot of homeys in Ohio and Illinois as well) but that's what I can contribute. I also like linguistics and have studied bits and pieces of all sorts of european languages but have never thought of the way I speak around my own as separate dialectically (??-- probably not a word) from english.
I have to add words like even - 'eem', seven - sebm, eleven - elebm.... man you got my mind going....But quintessentially my point is great video.
@pita bred Just cause you from my city... what up doe! Was good wit you fam? To all you non speakers I just acknowledge this rare and interesting occurrence of seeing someone from my home town. And greeted this man in our area’s proper greeting.
I got a friend from NYC, he's a cool dude and has awesome expressions. He'll tell me things like, "I be puttin in MAD work", "he gots the sauce", "maybe a lil this, not much tho" "dat dude hella nice with it"
How are you going to tell me that isn't an awesome dialect? Maybe some day, people will study and adopt this dialect, because you can simply get more said and done in some cases!
Aye PUT ON FOE DA D = show people your pride in Detroit, the city in which you live .
lol 😂
You're from Detroit 😱
Funny thing is this doesn't just apply to African Americans. Lot of southerners talk this way too. Especially when it comes to verbs. You'll here southerners all the time say things like "he gone" instead of "he is gone". This grammatic structure is similar to rural white dialects. Which makes sense since it probably was influenced by the English of agrarian southerners. So it sounds weird mainly in the north and urban areas. But if it were in the south or rural areas, it wouldn't sound out of place at all
Probably due to majority of European in the south are not British descendent ?
In which a lot of European languages influence their english similarly to how AAVE is born.
That makes sense. I'm white and from the south so a good portion of this already fits how I talk, just to a lesser extent and with a somewhat different accent. The stuff with "be" isn't as prevalent but I still hear it enough that it makes sense.
@@xdeathcon As a white, which part of europe did your ancestor come from?
@@lotrlmao1648 English, German, Swedish. Probably mostly English, and I know that side of the family has been here since around 1750.
@@xdeathcon Fascinating, literally back before the founding of United State. Did your family have the family heirloom
my name jeff
wtf
What the hell? Sup man
iDubbbzTV yes it is
Wtf
Classic
"He dead"
"That's not correct. You mean he died."
"No, 4 years ago he died. Now he dead."
Reginald Hunter is brilliant.
That's not correct. You mean
"That's not correct. You mean "he is dead""
but it could mean "he has dead"
But he still died.
Miss Adjusted right lol. Bro dead
I remember once my nephew was trying to explain why a certain kid got suspended and he said "He be hitting the teacher." And my sister dutifully corrected him not to say "He be". So my nephew thought a minute and said, "It takes too many words to say 'He hits the teacher all the time.'" And we could only laugh and agree. It takes more words to convey this in standard English. The habitual "be" is super useful.
smart boy, I must say
"Be" actually used to be used in old English dialects in a similar way. "That it be" is still used in a dialect in Norfolk in England. "He be walking here often".
The ironic part isk, is that it's shorter in standard English xD "He be hitting the teacher." As apposed to simply, "He hits the teacher."
@@johnnyhoran9369 "He hits the teacher" doesn't convey the same connotation of "habitually" or "all the time". You'd have to say "He's always hitting the teacher" or something like that.
Okay, I think I finally understood the "habitual" now
What's also interesting is that AAVE has spread internationally as its used all the time in memes and music. Even me, a european who's never met an African American sometimes uses it, especially with friends who listen to the same music and memes.
African american culture in general is so widespread all around the globe and it's incredible 😮
@@CierraJohnson-bh4mcFr
Stupidity and apathy are among America's cultural exports. "Why be talkin' right when u can talk gansta, yo?"
@douglascrouse8793 nothing like people with no understanding of language hating on language evolution.
@@eannamcnamara9338 First of all, your accusing someone of have the emotion of "hatred" simply because you lack the knowledge of linguistics and etymology is childish, and the assumption that you understand them better than I is absolutely laughable. If facts hurt your feelings, wear a helmet.
I CACKLED WHEN YOU SAID “He be workin” in your high voice
This was done in such a respectful way. Even though I grew up speaking this way at home, I witnessed my parents code switching all the time, so I learned to do it seamlessly. If AAVE had words from West African languages, instead of just syntax, it could definitely be considered a Creole. But, the fact that it can be undertood by speakers all over the U.S, with some variations shows that there are definitely grammatical rules.
All foreign groups do this. From Mexicans saying shears instead of chairs, to Japanese saying cwok instead of clock you'll find errors. Even caucasian Americans are speaking a bastardized version of English. English is not Ados original Native Tongue so unfortunately our parents spoke it to us combine with our tribal vernacular way of speaking and it's pass down over and over again.
English was beaten into our people and we were forbidden to speak our native tongue.
The same happen to the African Taino Indians of Pr before the spanish crashed on their shores...
I stopped that code switching shit, it’s like fake and putting on a mask
I can’t think of any words in AAVE that aren’t English, but I’ve found that there are similarities in grammar rules to patois and pidgin English spoken in Nigeria. So, I think our dialect has a larger west African influence than we realize.
@@Cng215 All language will gradually shift and change and morph through time.
Ever hear about the Gullah Geechee people of the Sea Islands? Descendants of freed slaves living off the coast of South Carolina. They actually retained some of their African words and now have their own AAVE-like creole.
"That woman is heavyset yet presents herself quite well"
Translation: she dummy thicc 😥
That is slang and it will change in 5 yrs.
@@watchulla slang created in what dialect?
@@SkankHunt-vb2qc slang and dialect are two different things. Dialect is strict to change, slang changes every generation. Slang changes location to location. Dialect comes from the original area it started ie Southen US.
@@watchulla 0:42
@@SkankHunt-vb2qc AAVE has been around for centuries, while that particular way off talking "she dummy thicc" is just slang and will change for the next generation of people talking AAVE.
The more I learn about linguistics the more I realize that the whole "There is a correct way and incorrect way to speak" narrative my English teachers always pushed is bull. I think that is as long as you can understand what someone is saying, and effectively communicate ideas, it's correct. Obviously it's nowhere near as stigmatized as AAVE, but as someone who grew up in the South and has a Southern accent, a lot of people, especially online, love to tell you how incorrect you are when you say/type something normal where you are from like "y'all" or "fixin". It makes me want to scream that there's entire states where we talk like this, it's not wrong just different. Really makes me sympathize with people who are told that they're perfectly understandable way of speaking is "wrong" just because the person making the comparison thinks their way is the only right way. It's actually quite frustrating for using voice text or word programs on computers, since they often correct my words and grammar to a different dialect.
Learning bidialectal is a thing is actually pretty interesting, since I communicate in a very neutral american accent online and with people I don't know but switch back to Texan whenever comfortable.
Y'all need 't be more welcomein 't others or yer gunna have a problum. Acceptance is imperative 't makin life better fer us all.
learning about linguistics doesn't mean you can just speak a language wrong
@@ufhjfu4326 shut up
nice pfp and even nicer comment :)
@@ufhjfu4326 And I'll bet you think you're speaking your language right, right? If you went to Britain you'd find over 300 dialects of British English ALONE. Educate yourself before someone mistakes you for a racist.
that last part wouldn't sound out of place in a Mark Twain novel
When I speak to white people: “My cousin Keisha can do your hair.”
To black people: “My cousin Keisha do hair.”
Also, she gets her "hair did".
"Me likey"
Ain´t it "haar" ´staid of hair?
Oh she do
So around black people you talk like Kevin from the office
The Igbo language of Nigeria also has the habitual "be". Now I finally know the name for it! So maybe AAVE got that from West African languages?
"He be working" as presented here seems to me to be the most useful when you're talking about someone and you don't know where he is currently working or if he's even working at the moment. If you know for sure that the person is working, you'd just say "he is working", or "he's at work" if he's working at a particular place. So I'm leaning towards that the speakers who are likely to say "He be working" live in social circumstances where's it's useful to be able to express something like that.
And that the tense develops naturally then.
That's really interesting actually.
Francis E. Why do people need to be segregated to certain corners of the world? Safer? Better? More "natural"? I'm curious. Do you not like travel either? Or is it just immigration that bothers you?
And then, how far back should we go? African-Americans should go back to Africa. Great. Do white Americans go back to Great Britain? Does everyone with Spanish blood in Latin America return to Spain? Should Pacific Islanders return to Asia? The Australian aborigines to Asia as well? Native Americans back to Siberia? Everyone back to Africa? I'm curious as to why you picked the group of people you did and the time you did. How precise! Why?
I can't remember how much a YT video has changed my perspective and given me confidence at the same time. Hats off to you!
Right! You get told its "wrong" or "ghetto" and it gets to you
Even civil rights leaders have acknowledged aave is uneducated form of speaking.
"I am incensed," said poet Maya Angelou, who recited one of her poems at President Clinton's inauguration. "The very idea that African-American language is a language separate and apart can be very threatening, because it can encourage young men and women not to learn standard english.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson also blasted the proposal, which was announced Wednesday by the California School Board to officially recognize Black English, also know as Ebonics, a term combining "ebony" and "phonics."
"While we are fighting in California trying to extend affirmative action and fighting to teach our children so they become more qualified for jobs, in Oakland some madness has erupted over making slang talk a second language," Jackson said in a statement.
"You don't have to go to school to learn to talk garbage," he said.
I have a friend who is a REAL African American, she is from Nigeria and puts forth the effort to learn and speak proper English, not only to better herself but to be an example to her daughter how not being lazy and hard work actually pay off. To see her overcome her difficulties and not be lazy when learning English is an inspiration and a perfect example how ppl born and raised in America claiming aave is a language instead of acknowledging it is a lazy uneducated excuse to speak properly is a lie
@@scottrobinson9334 the blatant racism tho
I guess now it's blatant racism to speak the truth, what will you ppl think of next.
Not to mention prominent civil rights leaders have spoken against ebonics(aave) and even called it garbage. As seen in this article when ebonics was first introduced:
"I am incensed," said poet Maya Angelou, who recited one of her poems at President Clinton's inauguration. "The very idea that African-American language is a language separate and apart can be very threatening, because it can encourage young men and women not to learn standard English." icon (403K/36 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)
The Rev. Jesse Jackson also blasted the proposal, which was announced Wednesday by the California School Board to officially recognize Black English, also know as Ebonics, a term combining "ebony" and "phonics."
"While we are fighting in California trying to extend affirmative action and fighting to teach our children so they become more qualified for jobs, in Oakland some madness has erupted over making slang talk a second language," Jackson said in a statement.
"You don't have to go to school to learn to talk garbage," he said.
Love how blunt you will state things! Some people are scared to even acknowledge race exists but appreciate you just stating things how they are for the sake of education. Also just overall very entertaining thank you just binged your channel hope to see more uploads sometime, will defiantly be checking in for new uploads now and then!
I'm pretty sure why that happens that people are scared to acknowledge 'race exists' is probably when some people say race exists, they meant it like the so called 'yellow and black' humans are different from 'real' humans in abilities, body and so forth and connecting it to the pseudo-scientific 'hierarchy' scale, yeah, its a bit loaded nowadays.
Xidnaf solves racism using linguistics. (2019 Colourised)
Language is the demarcation of culture. When we stop listening to each other's dialects and languages as funny ways of speaking, we'll understand each other much better.
Why do people have to make everything about racism?
@@wallachia4797 because in USA really have a big problem with racism. There are neighborhoods for each ethnic group there and in each neighborhood a different culture and a different way to speak, people treat each other differently just because they are from different ethnic groups.
Here in Brazil, for exemple, people are so mixed that everybody here have a grandfather/mother european, african and indigenous.
Me for example am a mix of Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Africans and Tupiniquim. The poor are mixed, the rich are mixed, the white are mixed, the black are mixed and we have also a new "race" the "pardos".
@@ArthurPPaiva So ultimately, diversity is not strength, but the opposite.
@Kamil Debiola Damn, you really showed me by calling me an idiot two times.
Some people need to get a life lmao
Something that I wanted to add:
There is a pretty distinct regionalism to each dialect of AAVE. For example - I am from NYC. So when it comes to interacting with black folks from Boston, Philly, and Jersey is pretty easy. Washington DC (or the DMV) begins to become a little bit difficult but it's still "mutuality intelligible". I lived in Pittsburgh, PA for almost 3 years and it was really, really difficult to understand what the black folks were saying there.
Don't even get me started on the south. Of that I can understand black people from ATL, but people from Memphis and the other central southern regions are basically speaking another language to me.
All of AAVE has a southern root to it. But since the great migration the various black communities were exposed to the local dialects of their area. The proximity of those local dialects in turn changed AAVE.
It's fascinating stuff.
I have noticed Southern AAVE is harder to understand and seems to have more of a "drawl" than Northern or Western AAVE. There was a black actor in a couple of episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air I strongly suspect was Southern because of his accent.
I think he explicitly said he was from North Carolina, but that was the character, not the actor hisself.
I'm from philly but I have a lot of family that lives in the south especially ATL, Nashville and Dallas. When we speak our native language of Yoruba (Which I taught MYSELF) I understand everything. They open their mouth and speak aave which is still a form of english which is my technical first language and I literally have no idea what they're say lol
Im from the midwest and it is difficult sometimes understanding my family members from Atlanta. Sorta like that incident between the migos and dj akademics.
Josh Gunderson as a southern black boy I can tell you, you’d have to have grown up here to understand what the hell they were saying😂
I love how you actually respect our culture enough to understand the rules and history. Too many whites oversimplify us as just being ghetto. That word is such a gross oversimplification to describe a rich subculture.
Gyro Xaver “rich subculture”
@Ash Wolf you're trying to offend people but no one actually speaks like that, even when using aave
@Ash Wolf wow youre so funny dude repeating the same joke over and over is hilarious, did you come up with it yourself too? its so original oh my god
What's a gecko?
🤦🏻♂️
As a Scottish person who talks with people online frequently it’s quite common to talk in a different dialect as a Glaswegian is can be very difficult for other people to understand what I’m saying, I sometimes don’t even notice I’ve change the way I speak until my mum walks in the room to talk to me and everyone else gets really confused on what we just talked about lmao. It really pisses me off when people say it’s not “proper” which is usually English people who don’t like the fact we have our own culture and way of speaking. I find dialects super interesting and people should never change the way they speak just cause some people don’t understand it because it is a part of you and your culture!
Another entirely valid and important point is that AAVE is THE dialect of popular music. Even people with really strong English accents such as Mick Jagger and Robert Plant sing in it. A hugely culturally important piece of linguistic heritage.
YES! This needs more upvotes. It makes me imagine in a near future where AAVE will become a sort of "Art Dialect" while white English becomes considered kind of the "Essay Dialect" and every American school teaches in both. So interesting!
Blues is the roots, fam
And it's not just in music. A lot of AAVE expressions (or AAVE-incluenced expressions) have made it into General American as colloquialisms.
You could also imagine that for this reason a lot of non-native English speakers will adopt parts of. American music is incredibly wide spread and it influences a lot. Now this isn't the case for me since I mainly got my English from video games which I imagine are mainly GAE, but I can see it being different for someone who listened to more pop and hiphop.
Higgle D. Piggle Lmao. "yu cuz we wuz artists an shiet".
As a Black man, all i can say is, "you done did dis right" your research is accurate, and i wish more people would have respect for the dialect like you do
Jackklumber The Boiii RIGHTTTTT, SISSS!
Jackklumber The Boiii
If i may ask, what does it mean?
@@dignuscius1298"you did this correctly"
Jenny Oyster sis?
@@dignuscius1298
you did this correctly. Most Black Americans code switch so if you're in university in America and you see us, we'll more than likely never use our dialect around you. Unless you get included in the fold of a group of black friends. Because using the dialect outside of our spaces can be a bit too dangerous.
This is awesome, I always here people imitating black speech and they use the word "be" in the wrong way. I never knew why it didn't sound right to me because in GE it would be correct. Now I know it's because they are using the GE words in GE sentence structure in the AAVE dialect. Interesting stuff!
As a white American I always wondered why I misunderstood the usage of "be" actually. I knew it wasn't wrong, I just didn't know what it meant. Now it makes sense because there's no word like it in GAE, but now I do! And I'm somewhat glad because it'll help communication with those speaking AAVE a little better
@Sam Bradley Thank you for reminding me that the far majority of white people are smart, respectful, mature adults that are willing to learn and better themselves if needed rather than stupid edgy racists.
@@sambradley9091 It's pleonastic
JanusPapers Did you not watch the video? Even if you’re theory is somehow correct, why does it matter?
JanusPapers Definition of a dialect is a language that is peculiar to a region or social group. In what way is AAVE not a dialect. And you still haven’t answered my question on why it matters anyway.
“She kinda bad though.” = “However, the female is somewhat beautiful in a sultry sense.”
It doesn’t have to be in a slutry sense.
is that frost?
@@exaggeratedswagger7485dude, that's still gay!
As a white San Diegan who never grew up around black culture and moved to Deep South alabama, aave is FOR SURE a dialect and not a sign of stupidity. I’ve had deep intellectual conversations with people who speak in aave and even though I’m not naturally used to hearing it given my background, I literally don’t even notice it anymore and can completely understand everything. It was definitely strange getting used to, especially considering the way the media portrays people with southern/black accents as dumb hicks or thugs or whatever other bs
We need more people like you.
Sid joyner stop bringing that same lame excuse up cause it ain’t facts.
Sid Joyner it has African influence though
When anyone who speaks this dialect is running an important, non- record or clothing company or has been elected to any important position in the government, let me know.
fspight28 That’s true. It’s pretty cool to think about actually.
You all are not.
You all aren't.
Y'all aren't.
Y'all ain't.
Yaint.
*_YEET._*
You have summarized the south and I thank you for it
Y'aint is singular now though.
@@martisendrell9305 no, that's the dumb fallin outcha mouth
colormesarge he’s right. Yaint can also be “you ain’t shit” or “y’all ain’t shit.” It just depends where you live in the south. Personally in NC I use yaint singularly (you ain’t) rather than plural (y’all ain’t)
Evolution
I code switch all the time: C# or Java, it depends on the situation.
K V now we’re talking
Genuinely curious how and why. Do C# and Java interact in any way, and what are the practical reasons for combining the two? Or are you referring to independent projects.
I be code switching from java to python to r
g'day y'all mates
I've started making a personal conlang and I now know what code-switching feels like. Befowe da.
I do like how he made himself pink
It feels respectful to acknowledge that you are one variant instead of the "correct" or "default"
nice pfp
people love to talk shit about AAVE but it's a legitmate dialect like any other. this is why i love linguistics and anthropology.
To be fair GAE and AAVE actually arnt that different because most people in the US speak a mix of it regardless of race, most people don’t speak fully one or the other though AAVE isn’t as wide spread, and the fact that it is blended like this is why people don’t take it seriously
@@monferno1 lol if you ain't black you speaking it wrong or you're using outdated terms cuz we change it every 10 years. new words are invented to stay ahead of the curve. we don't want people to steal the dialect and culture.
People hate to admit racism
Actually, dialects have more to do with pronunciation and variations in the grammatical structure of casual speech. Dialects develop regionally and are attributable more to class than race/culture. AAVE is more along the lines of what is called a CANT. Cants are a linguistic phenomenon closely aligned with oppression and marginalization. For example, there was once a widespread cant in Europe called Polari, a cryptolect which was spoken by criminals, prostitutes, and homosexuals. Cants differ from dialects in their heavy usage of jargon and variably "coded" terms and phrases, and that they are more specific to a particular community or socioeconomic class than to a region. That said, it cannot be called "improper English", because it is a deliberate(or possibly incidental) deviation from "proper English". It's here to stay, and it's part of the intangible heritage of Black America.
@Bignose Peterstien Coengoldshekelbergschnozz What exactly was the point of bringing that statistic up? Bring yourself back on topic and actually contribute to the discusison instead of showing your illiterate mindset. How about we talk about the race that has killed the most people in the WORLD, that culture you speak so low of would be near the bottom of that list.
We have the Habitual Be in Ireland as well
WTF Ping Pong? Why are you everywhere?
Iuri Grangeiro I get around
It always confused me in primary school hahaha
So do pirates, jamaicans and dwarves (who're honeslty usually inspired from the Irish)
Are you the guy from twow?
so, a lot of america speaks the big GAE
I'm laughing way to much at this.
Lol
Muricans Speak GAE lol
Not to be confused with the big gay; using a lot of long letters and replacing vowels with As like YAAAAAAAAAAAAS
Lothric Knight Sword he
I genuinely didn't expect the amount of classicism in these comments 😰 foolish me expecting change
Peon cope
Bidialectal. I'm gonna use that from now on. Still shows the squiggly red line under it when I type it though.
And tridialectal...?
It's in the dictionary. Autocorrect sucks with words.
Right click, add to dictionary :)
I can speak English in many accents and dialects. I live in Canada, but my mother is from Northern England. I can easily speak queen's English like I can speak rough Sunderland/NewCastle type of accent. I can also do a generic Canadian accent. My dad is French Canadian so I can speak french in a 'Québecois' accent and also a more formal kind of French. About 5 years ago I started learning more languages. I do pretty much the same thing with Spanish and Portuguese.
I think by the age of 30 I'm going to know about 10 languages no joke. The snowball effect seems to be on my side.
It's because Google's correction dictionary is tiny. A lot of words you get squiggly red lines for in Google Docs or RUclips comments is completely fine in Microsoft Word.
The code switching is so real, my sister and I literally switch up how we're talking if we were in AAVE in the car, and GE (I forgot the acronym) when we get out, mid sentence.
Now I might stop caring because why not? Especially if I'm not in a professional setting.
@Truth Sayer Nah you're just prejudice
Truth Sayer What an ignorant, racist statement. It’s an official English dialect and I know you can understand them.
@Truth Sayer Are you freaking kidding me? Did you listen to the video at all? First of all, it's not that they "can't speak" "proper" English. They ARE speaking proper English, their proper dialect of English. Just because it isn't YOUR dialect doesn't make it wrong or a sign of being uneducated or whatever prejudiced excuses you tell yourself.. Just as you wouldn't expect an Irishman, Canadian, or New Yorker to completely drop his accent and way of speaking in a business setting you shouldn't discriminate and expect an AAVE speaker to change either unless the person they are talking to in that moment is having trouble understanding their accent/dialect. Otherwise it's just prejudice because you happen to be lucky enough that your dialect/accent is fashionable.
@@Blaze6432 wow. Only americans think this way. ♀ I really hope you realise that even General American English evolved the same way. Original english speakers who moved to the continent and were far from home.
@@AnthonyAlaribe American English is a standard dialect used in education and communication. Yes it is the proper way of talking. American English doesn't corrupt the foundation (grammar) of the language. Literally none of my black friends who come from proper backgrounds sound like that. There is a proper way to speak English and we all learn it in school. Having an accent and using slang is one thing, but completely being unable to adhere to rules of a language is another thing. I can't think of a single intellectually driven black person who sounds like that.
What people seem to not understand is when comedians say that black people are bilingual, they really aren't lying. I'm the only black female in a sea of my white brethren at my job and they are shocked at how articulate I am. For starters, articulation isn't race specific. Me enunciating words correctly and using correct verbage/tenses has everything to do with my education and absolutely nothing to do with the color of my skin.
Now, when I get around my kinfolk who are from Caswell County, NC, it's literally like ole' dude from 'King of the Hill', who talks so fast and with a twang. I drop consonants, use double negatives and all the like because when you're around your people, you can relax and not have to worry about being labeled something that isn't you.
@JanusPapers k.
I suppose I'm uneducated. 🙄
@JanusPapers Ducks don't talk though, so...
@JanusPapers I understand the point behind the metaphor. But what I don't understand is what made you come to my thread to comment (i.e: troll). I mean, there is such a thing as code-switching and the last I checked, my credentials say otherwise. There's nothing here to prove, especially to someone such as yourself. Nothing about what I said suggests that I'm uneducated. I'm from the South, so by default, I use colloquialisms and I drop consonants but I can turn it off and on.
Tell me, is being a miserable clown a thing you can control or did you have to adapt?
@@QuixoticUkulele (should have pointed out to them the duck test is a simile lol)
@@QuixoticUkulele True.
Same here. I've been called White my whole life simply because I don't speak with a southern accent. When you are Black, it seems everything negative you do is associated with your race for some reason. Then, if its positive, suddenly you are "acting White"? There is no Black Accent, there is a American Southern dialect that alot of Black, White, Asian, and Hispanic people use. I'm a Californian and I have met country versions of just about everybody. Depends on where you are from and background more than anything. I was raised by the "Greatest Generation" of Black People, born in the 50s, so I often find myself disconnected from some of these Modern Black People that think that "If its right, then its White". They get ignored, just like the racists of any color... and life goes on✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾
This is the most linguistically insightful video I've seen and I love how wonderfully the points were addressed. Thank you so much for recording this and I'm looking forward to watching more of your videos :)
While doing some volunteer work in East Africa last year, we hosted a movie night and watched black panther. Halfway through the movie, the guy sitting next to me turns and asks me what region of America killmonger's accent is from. I had a hard time explaining that it's not a regional accent, especially because all other accents in the movie are regional. This did a good job explaining.
See, East Africans are humans. I’d doubt AVVE is spoken by humans.
@@harrisn3693 fuck you too then
@@harrisn3693 yeah, AVVE wouldn't be spoken by humans
AAVE on the other hand
@@harrisn3693
What ses pool did this slither out of?!
@@joelle4226 LMFAOO fr
here's an outsiders perspective to this, if white Americans or GAE speakers don't want to accept AAVE as a proper dialect because it sounds informal and wrong, then by extension, GAE isn't a dialect as well, let's all just stick to British English
and then the lower class British English specifically, because that was the original accent.
gae 😹😹😹😹😹😹😹
in fact, all English is improper Proto-Germanic, so let's just all speak Proto-Germanic
but wait! Proto-Germanic is just improper Proto-Indo-European, so let's all just speak Proto-Indo-European
but wait! Proto-Indo-European is just...
@@alfieomega ...just cavemanese let's speak ca, but wait...
don't do that, we'll start losing all our alveolar plosives to glottal stops!!
Very interesting video. I always kind of saw AAVE (didn't know there was a term for it) as being more just a lot of slang, but it is enlightening to find out that there is actually a lot of grammar and phonetics involved. Everything makes a lot more sense when you think of it as a dialect that you don't happen to speak.
As a black guy, I use AAVE or standard english depending on what setting I'm in or who I'm talking to so I tend to do a whole lotta code switching. I'll even use both dialects in sentences consciously lol. It feels good to have a dialect I can connect with
I find the way we speak as poetic to the most dramatic effect.
My mother language is german but my english teacher was black man from California
He always talked in AAVE, so I kinda learned english like that
How has that shaped your view of gae? Do you think its weird because it's not what you're use to?
I had a similar experience. I learned english from the internet and I made a friend who helped me lot to be fluent quickly. She spoke aave to me so I picked It up as my default english, I thought it was just the way people spoke casually tbh. Not until I was more exposed to content from black creators in yt I learned that what I used to speak was aave and I'm so embarrassed of how many times I must have looked like a fool being a lightskin latina speaking like that 😭😭💀💀
@@dezbiggs6363 Not really, I just saw it as a different way of English being spoken than the way I learned it
i learned german from a berliner so i speak like a berliner, had i learned it from an austrian, i'd sound like an austrian. both are valid forms of german.
I want a teacher like that
Bar bar bar. Bar bar bar bar bar; bar bar bar? Bar bar bar: "Bar bar bar bar bar bar--bar bar."
Bar bar bar bar, bar bar bar- bar bar; bar bar bar bar bar bar bar. Bar bar?
Bar, bar. Bar...
Bar bar, bar bar bar bar bar.
@@zyaicob I knew it! So Bush really did conspire with the Holy Roman Empire to control the media's depiction of chicken fried rice!
Bar.
BAR BAR BAR? Bar, bar bar bar bar. Bar bar Bar bar. Bar bar bar? Bar! Bar bar.
Great video!
After watching this ive realised how much AAVE and the different Caribbean Creoles have in common. Its quite interesting. Sending love from the West Indies!
That makes sense. Both AAVE and Creoles would likely be strongly influenced by western African languages, they just took influence from other parts of the languages.
Thanks sis. Sending it right on back at yall.
Yeah in practice it wouldn't be super easy for say Jamaicans or Guyanese to be understood by AAVE speakers but linguistically they're (un)surprisingly similar
I wrote a paper on AAVE and they're all basically the same.
I didn't watch this video so idk if he said this or not but basically, when enslaved Africans got to wherever, nobody gave them language lessons.
So when we got to the US, nobody bothered to sit down and be like, "we're going to have school every morning so you guys can learn English." nope - we just had to learn it by listening.
Anyone who's learned a second language before knows what language interference is. English is my first language and when I learned French, I often spoke it wrong cuz I was using English rules. Like in English we say, "the red dress." we say the adjective then the noun. In French, they say, "The dress red." they say the noun then the adjective.
If nobody had sat me down and told that, I would've been speaking French wrong my entire life because I would've applied the rules of the language that I speak to the French language.
Basically, that's what happened to enslaved Africans. Nobody taught them English so they applied west African language rules to English as every language learner does. That's how AAVE was born.
The same thing is true of caribbean creoles and Haitian French and stuff.
Exactly
2:15 Code Switching, when the environment changes, so does my dialect. those who only speak aave, i'll speak a mixture of both to save them because people carry a load of judgement.
For all the ppl in the comments saying "AA's don't speak proper English" this video flew right over your head lol
Could you share some academics, college educated people, and world leaders speaking AAVE in a professional setting? I've only ever heard it in ghettos spoken by uneducated people usually in poverty. And given it's nature, it does appear to be how people who failed english class seem to speak.
From a linguistics standpoint it's absolutely fascinating. But from a practical and realist stand point it's a bit obvious.
@@Otome_chan311 that's cuz the concept of "proper" english is classist and racist - the dialect/variety spoken by those in academia (so... upper class white folks) is considered proper because they hold a position of power. just like GAE is the official standard, because people who speak GAE are in positions of power that allow them to make their variety the only acceptable (happens in all kinda languages/countries). if you wanna get anywhere in academia you gotta assimilate, doesn't mean academic language is inherently better
(so of course if you tell someone who /only/ speaks one variety of english to take a test in a quite different variety, they're not gonna do good. you'd fail a test in AVEE too. most AVEE speakers are bi-dialectial though, and also know GAE.)
also can we please stop pretendung that Black communities not having as much access to education (where one could/is made to learn GAE) and generally being affected by poverty more is anything else but straight old racism und structural discrimination?
there's just so, so much wrong with everything you just said (spoiler: it's the racism) n as white people, we really gotta examine our fuckin prejudice and privilege, especially before we speak about things we know nothing about - how bout you do that, too?
@@Otome_chan311 There are absolutely professors (myself included), world leaders, etc. that CAN speak AAVE but not in a professional setting since society rules GAE as the best language.
@@siddaslothman2273 Why do you just follow "society" rather than breaking the trend? Do you also use the n-word just because other people do?
@@Otome_chan311 What the hell are you talking about. It's not a trend. It's just that society deems GAE as more professional. I've tried speaking AAVE but the world's racists hate it.
“American society made the Negroes color a stigma.” -MLK
anything associated with that group is therefore seen as negative.
@JanusPapers yeah african american english sounds so stupid
JanusPapers 2:55 don’t worry, America’s still very segregated enough for you never have to actually talk to any black people. No need to criticize how someone talks that you don’t actually interact with. Now that’s dumb.
@JanusPapers What about AAVE is moronic? Its differences with GAE are shared characteristics with Shakespeare's language and rules that other languages (including white European ones) have. It's a real dialect.
@JanusPapers
Is moron the only insult u know?
@JanusPapers were you dropped as a baby? That would explain the zero IQ, brain dead stupidity that you're spewing out
You killed this joint, dog. Good lookin' out on our vernacular.
+Burdett Rice "You killed this joint, dog." I give you permission to come back to 2016. Looks like you wandered into the 90s for a moment there.
+CzarJuliusIII people still say dog, bro. But bruh has taken over more
***** I'm sure "people" still do. If by ""people" you mean anyone over the age of 40.
90's terms like "Dog", "Homie", Son", "Bro", and "Dude" are still being used by certain urban Millennials in arguments more-so in the northeast. I'd take them over "N*gga" which has gotten way too out of hand among multiple races any day.
***** & *****, I appreciate your clarification, brothers. But yall giving this silly n*gga too much attention. Clearly to try and get on the internet to dig into somebody for their use of a perceived outdated word means you have entirely no business to tend to.
Xidnaf, I love how you drawings are simultaneously simplistic but realistic. Like at 1:23 the US is drawn kinda wonky yet you've very clearly outlined different biomes and mountain ranges. Then at 2:43 you show the rain-shadow effect, where where the highlands walled off by mountains are arid! Very cool details
He be working. = He works alot.
Or a guy that's hard to catch up with
Depends on your tone
In NYC it can mean he's at work..
Or how about "He stay be workin." It reenforces and adds to the fact that he is always working a lot
@@spaceninja200 I think it would be "He STAY workin'" to mean he works constantly or all the time. Emphasis would be on the word stay.
What’s funny to me is poor southern white dialects have many similarities to aave it’s obvious class and region played a roll in these developing dialects but poor southern whites who themselves are speaking “non proper English” will disparage aave
The reasons why are obvious too. That's very unfortunate that centuries of racial polarisation are still informing people's opinions in the South to this day.
It's either called "how real Americans talk into the south" or "illiterate" with the only difference being skin color
@@NoorquackerInd Hit the nail on the head.
I speak aave and I’m latino from Chicago. Of course I can also speak perfectly in general American but when I’m with my homies I be dropping verbs and using double negatives all the time lol. Funny how linguistics work.
Boi it be like that
that guy man it never not be didn’t like that
It always do be like that honest
Your parents must be so proud 😔
@@TariqNavabiGaming lol did you watch the video or are you being stupid purposely?
I love the adding of “ass” to nouns in AAVE.
deadass same
Wait no
fun fact: in the English-based creole Tok Pisin, the lingua franca of Papua New Guinea, the most common word for "large" is "bigas," from English "big-ass"
what 🤷♀️😕
@@masicbemester stay up till 8:30- and now by 8:30 to 9:40 wake up get day started
I've often heard AAVE use "axe" instead of "ask." Strangely enough, Chaucer uses "ax" also in his Canterbury Tales.
Milena Đ. I usually only hear "axed" replace "asked". But honestly, "asked" is really hard to say without saying "aksed" or "axed"
Milena Đ. Or without saying "ast"
Gabe Sautter Thanks!
I hear 'Axed' instead of 'Asked' all the way down here in New Zealand too!! haha. Most people who say that are Polynesians who speak English as their second language, or their children who although born in New Zealand learnt English from their parents.
"Did you just use 'ass' as a verb? Please tell me it doesn't mean what I think it does..." ~ someone, probably.
This ain’t offensive.. dope video!
It's too true tho.
I'm offensive I find this black
Who tf would find this offensive?
* isn’t
Not offensive..no
Just unbelievably inaccurate. That is not a "Black Accent", it a Southern Accent that even like half of the US White population uses as well. But since it sounds uneducated, people associate it with Black people. You know? Because we're Black I guess, I dunno?😕😕😕
The point about the habitual "be" is genuinely fascinating. As an English person who's only really heard AAVE second-hand through American media, I hadn't properly understood that it's not simply a dialectical variation on "is".
It still sounds dumb, any way you slice it.
@@ems3832 Why does it sound dumb? It does the job of conveying information, and does so in a more efficient way than most other forms of spoken English. It's just like the Scouser or Northern Irish "yous" as a plural of "you" - it works objectively better than other dialects' overly-complicated or downright ambiguous ways of saying the same thing. It's no more "wrong" than, say, talking French, Spanish, German, Mandarin, Arabic, Twi etc.
If it doesn't sound dumb to people who are native speakers of AAVE dialect then that's what matters. I would gently suggest that further judgements are more indicative of your own prejudices than anything else.
@@wellthatwasdaft "Why does it sound dumb?" Good Lord, I actually have to explain that to you?! Such a daft question to ask... Try using "be" like that (or any of the other "aave-isms," for that matter) in a job interview and see how far it gets you. SMH. I would not so gently suggest that we just simply use proper, correct English. It's really not that difficult or "overly-complicated," as you put it. 🙄
@@ems3832 lol whatever you say
@@ems3832 It's neither better or worse. Just a different variation.
I remember learning about AAVE at school (I live in Germany btw) last year and not finding the topic particularly interesting. This video has given me an entirely new appreciation for it! 👍
"AAVE" is just another term for uneducated
@@antagonist7924 ahh yes i remember when I too was going through by ben shapiro racist phase. You’re probably like what 11, 12? You’ll grow out of it soon buddy.
@@jwally1434 18, I see you're using the "age guessing" argument because you've got nothing legitimate in your thick skull to use as a rebuttal. Also, racism comes in all ages, we do not discriminate based on age.
@@antagonist7924 But you discriminate how smart someone is based on the way they speak though. Sit down.
@@antagonist7924 Gamer is just another word for someone with a lack of socail life and probably has never experienced the outside world from their own bubble. You probably never even talked to a black person before have you? I'll ask this, do you say the same thing when white people use slang and accents?
I'm black and this made me so happy, I've hardly ever seen anyone(especially a white person) treat our dialect as if it's legitimate. The comments are saddening, but I'm not surprised and I've heard it all before in real life.
Thank you Xidnaf, you've earned a subscriber!
+Hobbes Ma Man ! ✌
Even as a black person I've had proper grammer so drilled into me that I never relizead this was a dialect
Almost all of the comments above yours are just positive now, 2 years later.
All linguists (white or not) got your back!!!!
these comments are a mess. aave seems efficient. also for the double negative thing: spanish does it too. like no hago nada is i do nothing.
+screams yeah double negatives reinforcing is fairly common in language because it is a more natural extension of the idea of grammatical agreement than having multiple negatives cancel out. The negatives canceling is a much more "mathematical" worldview
+Declan Miller
yeah but the double negative is something different in russian cause its mandatory and its mean something different
you neeed no or не every time when you use an negative adverb or pronoun like nobody,nothing,never etc...
+screams they're just borderline racists or literary elitists. aave works perfectly fine and the narrator even in the beginning warns that most african americans can speak both dialects.
portuguese too
+screams czech here. same over here an english person would say "i don't do anything" but we'd say "i don't do nothing" (neudělal jsem to) or "nobody dared to move a finger" but we'd say "nobody didn't dare to move a finger" (nikdo se neodvážil pohnout prstem)
czech goes so far as to have a negative predicate by default if there is one other negative element in the sentence, such as "Nobody told me that" would translate as (nobody didn't tell me that" (Nikdo mi to neřekl), in these cases, not using a negative predicate would produce nonsense, even though this rule must sound bonkers ass backwards to anyone speaking general english, i imagine the written form of my language looks alien to most of you in this thread, and it really is. at least we share the alphabet. XD
for added fun, there are cases where just the predicate is negative and no other words are, as in "Eve didn't tell me that" (Eva mi to neřekla)
Oh! and czech also has two ways of asking "Have you seen Paul?" (Viděl jsi Pavla?) and also "haven't you seen Paul?" (Neviděl jsi Pavla?") which pretty much mean the same but i never know whether to say yes or no to these. ;D
There is a similar problem in english though, right? "would you like a cup of tea?" and "wouldn't you like a cup of tea?" I mean... should I say no to the second question because yes, i would actually like that tea? XD and does this reasoning even make sense and would the asker understand what i meant? or is the only possible answer "yes i would" no matter how the question is formed? "i don't know who wouldn't, but i definitely would, thank you very much!" :D
aren't languages fun? there are exceptions to every rule and exceptions to exceptions XD
I never thought of it that way before. I'm white and was raised by parents who drilled English into me and so did school. My parents wanted me to get a good job so speaking "correctly" was important to them. I was taught that AAVE was broken, bad, incorrect, lazy English. But after watching this, perhaps it's not. It seems similar to the way some British accents drop words, parts of words or pronounce things differently, yet we think they're cool and AAVE is lazy. Thanks for making me think about this, it's given me a new perspective to view the world with and that's always a good thing.
Michael Pappano You might think they're cool, but most Britons don't. Trust me, a Geordie or thick Brummie dialect is seen as just as improper in England as AAVE is in the US. Regardless of who makes the rules of this 'properness', they exist, and not because whoever made them wanted to tear races apart. AAVE might not be considered incorrect in a situation where it is being spoken, just as a Geordie dialect might not. But in a situation where only American or British standard English is accepted, such as an official form or exam, neither AAVE or Geordie are correct. It's not really a race argument unless people make it into one.
R9000 Geordie or Brummie is seen as improper? Maybe if you work at Buckingham Palace, the rest of us just get on with it!
Blackstar 76 Well not the accent, obviously, but if you couldn't expect to write your CV with Geordie-isms. It's the dialect that's the important part.
Huh? Since when are unintelligible British accents cool?
SJWs just want to virtue signal and AAVE speakers want to get oppression points.
"This nigga be eatin' beans" = "The gentleman over there is eating beans"
Or it could be "This gentleman likes to eat beans from time to time."
Or this gentleman be passing gas through the ass
“He be workin” depends on context.
Example 1:
“Why Tron don’t be going out with us on Saturday?”
“Cause he be workin.”
Example 2:
“Why I always see him on the block? Buddy don’t have a job?”
“He be workin from home.”
Wouldn't it be
"Why tron ain't coming out with us?"/why's it dat tron ain't coming out with us?
The don't be sounds off. Tbf I'm not even sure the "he be workin" makes as much sense as "cus he workin" even though the be in that one makes sense
ParadiseAgent either of those are correct. It also depends on which area you live.
It's the General American present tense.
ParadiseAgent I could be wrong but I’m reading your example as asking why he won’t be coming along on a particular upcoming Saturday night, and the OP’s example as asking why it seems that he never comes along on saturdays (upcoming and the last several weeks).
We don’t be sayin buddy tho😭 that just don’t sound right
There are also regional varieties of AAVE
Yeah, and he mentions it.
Yeah, the AAVE of black people who stayed in the South (Jackson, Atlanta) sounds more "Southern" than someone from say, Compton or Oakland. And AAVE from the NYC area (Brooklyn, the Bronx, Harlem, Northern New Jersey) is heavily influenced by the New York dialect (see Jay-Z and Nicki Minaj).
Black American is back wow gee, I wonder if your a racist white guy, all I need to figure out is if you’re a racist white kid tryna seem edgy or if you’re an old racist boomer stuck in the past.
@Use My Robinhood link! Free stock you’re horrible at this. I know you’re trolling. But that was so wrong. A black person would type “that’s right” and probably pronounce it as “dats/das right” no one says “big dawg.
@@jormungandrworldserpent6437 sit down grandpa
This is so dope. As a Black linguist, thanks for getting some education out there. I aint been seein too many jawns like this ouchea. Did have to laugh at that accent tho lol. Good looks
Forgive my ignorance. What's "jawn" mean?
Brandon Thomas jawns?
Would that be like “things” or “stuff?”
Y'all be sayin jawn fr? We be saying "jit" down here cuh.
Greg Homan Jawns probably short for joints which in nyc we use for things .. as in those joints are hot ... in Philadelphia it’s those jawns are hot
You can really see the racism come out if you try to tell people that no, this is an actual defined language, and deserves to be treated as such. Yikes.
Typically stated within a tone of approval and as a statement of fact, “She be workin” or “He be workin” is a proclamation of success and competency. It is to explain to the listener that the individual exists within a state or status of responsibility, virtue, and the ability to care for themselves and others, or has the ability to contribute to the household. The term is to celebrate the *individual* in her or his current talent, mental or physical pursuits; and in some rare occasions, her or his mind frame and intentions.
Interesting take... I tend to think of it as something very close to saying "He works" or "He has a job" than anything else. He may not be there RIGHT NOW, but it's a regularly occurring thing that happens and can reasonably be expected to continue. I had never considered it as another tense before this video, but I can see how it would be a natural response to questions like "Does he have a job?"
Then again I wasn't raised with the black part of my family, so I don't have the dialect. I was raised by the white and Native American side of my family, and something very close to academic style English was always spoken in the home.
EmileeArsenic You should investigate your African or African American side. The varying cultures within are diverse, rich and extremely interesting; rich with laugher, dancing, music and merriment. People are generally encouraged to be strong emotionally, physically and mentally. Watching entire series Luke Cage on Netflix will give you a small taste of one culture among black people in the USA.
Sarista Celestial Considering how much the two sides of the family dislike one another, I doubt they'd be too willing to engage much to facilitate that investigation haha There are reasons there was such a sharp divide
EmileeArsenic That shouldn't stop you. You should be free to investigate all your heritage. I'm sure both sides of your family must feel enough of a connection with you to want to ensure your happiness. You could end up becoming the bridge to connect them. Watch the Netflix series. Let me know if you like it.
+Sarista, what would trip me up would the "sometimes" aspect of it. Is he working right now, does he work at all, or does he work sometimes? If a follow-up question is required to fully explain the situation, then the conversation isn't going so well. Similar to a parent asking the teenager, "How was school," and only getting "Good" as a response.
Fascinating!
Irish Gaelic has a habitual "be" too, like
Rithim = I run
Táim ag rith = I am running
Bím ag rith = I "be running?"
In a way, Standard English has it. If someone asked you what you do after you get up, you would reply "I get dressed" not "I am getting dressed". On the other hand, if someone knocked the door and asked what you were doing in there, you would reply "I'm getting dressed" not "I get dressed."
Oh my god, thank you for saying this. This helps me with my Irish studies so much! I had seen Bím used before but couldn't figure out how it was different from Táim
When he showed the white person with no body, I cackled 😭😭😭😭
I also think it’s interesting that Internet English can have elements of General American English and AAVE seamlessly blending together
Usually it feels more like it's making fun of AAVE though
there is no wrong way of speaking as long as it successfully communicates the idea its trying to get across
Try that theory out at your next job interview, samoria. 🙄😆
@@ems3832 it’s a fact job interview does not determine the legitimacy of dialects
So grunts and groans and hand gestures are fine? It seems that's where "we be" headed.
@@douglascrouse8793even ignoring the fact that you think sign language doesn't exist, if someone asks me "where's the remote" and I point at the remote the other person is going to understand what i'm communicating perfectly well, if I flip the middle finger at someone everyone's gonna understand what i'm trying to communicate. So yes it is a completely valid way of communicating.
Language changes as time goes on and that's just a fact of life. If you went back in time 600 years you'd probably be stoned for not speaking the queen's english.
TLDR I'm right you're wrong go еаt a diсk
This totally changed the way I look at AAVE, also didn't know that was a name for it lol
Everyone should know this. THERE IS NO "CORRECT" WAY OF SPEAKING. LANGUAGE RULES ARE MODELLED AFTER THE SPEECH OF THE RULE MAKERS. It's baffeling people still don't realize this.
Horrible-Artist699 As does every language.
Casual conversation, sure. Legally binding contract? You wont find aave on that document
I disagree, it's definitely inferior. Not invalid, of course, but definitely worse to some degree. It's like the metric/imperial systems of measurement. You *can* use imperial but metric is objectively better.
If nobody cared about a standard way of speaking nobody would understand one another.
No, they are primitives who dumbed down the English language. And you are a politically correct idiot.
7:22 The Habitual tense actually does exist in General American English; it's the Simple Present tense. In most languages "He works out" would mean that a person is currently working out, but in most english dialects, it means "He is in the habit of working out." Where most languages use the Simple Present tense, we instead use the Present Progressive tense "he is working out."
Exactly what I was thinking. It’s not exclusive to aave as this walnut tries to claim
Because of the mixing of peoples over the internet and the influence of modern rap and hip hop, I've noticed more people, especially young teens, using characteristics of AAVE in every day conversation, like the habitual be, or omitting words instead of contracting them. Just does to show how interaction between peoples can change language rules over time.
Funny thing is, the word dropping happens all the time in all languages. In common French, you often hear something like "Je sais pas" (I don't know) when, properly, it's "Je ne sais pas". In fact, I often hear something like "Sais pas".
'He be workin' is like 'He works a lot'. Like, that's what he's usually doing is working.
I be cookin in the kitchen, if ya'll know what I mean
it depends on the situation
@@whodarboilebamnames3990 lol
It also means he works hard, it depends on the context. That is why he had a hard time translating.
Very interesting video. Especially that bidialectal bit. When i had encountered black people who spoke gae i had previously assumed that was their preferred dialect. But now I wonder how many of them just spoke that way whilst talking to me, someone clearly not fluent in aave. I appreciate the consideration, though i don't mind people talking in aave cause it's interesting and still mostly comprehensible.
I hadn't known what it was called but I'd never thought people who spoke aave were speaking wrong. Always just seemed like another accent, notable for its geographic proximity to different accents.
almost all of them speak GAE while around you. The ones who can only speak GAE are a minority of black people and usually because they didn't grow up in a black neighborhood or attend an all black high school. usually that's how it goes down..
@@lordblazer true i hate speaking gae but only at work
@@jonp6709 my ex girlfriend and I when we were dating was out with some friends who were from Japan. Studying English. Anyway my ex asked me if I was up for something forgot what it was, but I replied "I'm down" and my Japanese friends were confused AF. Mostly because my ex was white speaking GAE I replied in AAVE. and they were unaware of the fact that these are two different dialects. What makes it more confusing for ESL learners is that in the US atleast, dialects eventually have a large number of their words and phrases used in GAE.
In Japan having spent years living there, this isn't the case for Japanese dialects. The standard is Tokyo dialect. It's the stuff you learn in your textbooks if you study the language. A guy from Osaka isn't going to reply to someone speaking in the standard dialect with his dialect (kansai dialect). Japan usually doesn't integrate other dialects as often, they do on occasion, but not a lot. GAE has a habit of integrating words and phrases from other dialects and languages. So English has every century been radically different from the previous century of that language's history. 13th century English doesn't even sound recognizable to us English native speakers today in the 21st century.
Whereas Japanese had small changes certain honorifics are dropped, etc etc, but is pretty consistent.
Mandarin is another good example of this. IF you learn the write in traditional characters then you're able to read documents going back 2000 years.. If you learn simplified characters (mainland china) then that task becomes a lot harder to do.
Honestly, I wouldnt usually speak to a non AA in aave same as I wouldnt speak german to someone who didnt speak german. It just feels weird to me.
That’s most likely true, chances are they use AAVE at home to speak with family members and GAE in public or in professional settings. I do the same
Why do I feel like Meme culture in the past few years has really adopted, spread, and developed AAVE.
It has
It has. They’ll use it when it benefits them but turn around & mock it and be racist once their done
i feel like most people in meme culture like creators are black.
It has
@@martinperalta4189 or latino?
Here in Ireland myself and many others say ''He do be workin''' and ''She the one''. A lot of AAVE is very similar to other dialects in other english speaking countries
Christian that is an interesting to say. I wonder if the Irish had an influence. Many Irish indentured servants formed families with blacks. Of course the plight of the Irish indentured servants is NOT the same as blacks; however circumstances (economics and hate by those in power) brought them together. The same is true with Native Americans. I'm sure that some people will hate what I just wrote but it is history. Many black people in America can point to an Irish or Native American ancestor.
Holly, that's very interesting, and I've been looking into that myself recently. That's why so many originally Irish names (like "Tyrone") are now regarded as black names in America.
I have an Irish quadruple grandmother. Many people in my family still have red hair down to my generation. There were many Irish servants and slave owners, their language has a heavy influence on the dialect
@Aiyaluna Yourke - that's a wonderful history and it's cool to be able to trace your roots like that. I can get back to the 1830s on my dad's side and only back to the 1900s on my mom's side. Dad's side was free for most of the 19th century, that's why it's easier to track them. All I know about mom's side is that it came from North Carolina and were tobacco farmers and most likely slaves in that manner of work until emancipation and very poor sharecroppers after that.
No offense, but for a long time in the U.S, blacks and the Irish were considered on the same level.
Code switching
Brenande Mossita That term totally changed the way i think about how i speak and the languages i use... I'm North African and I'm CONSTANTLY code switching (mainly between French and our Dialect of arabic called Darija).
I'm the whitest dude in the world but I grew up in a pretty diverse area. Despite that I had very few close black friends until recently. Oddly enough now that I do I find myself adopting a lot of their traditionally black linguistic habits, especially when I'm around them (I also think my growing passion for hip hop might have something to do with it). I actually think it's pretty cool cause it's not something I do consciously. It's amazing how human brains are programmed to instinctually pick up communicative habits and replicate them just to make communication easier. Evolution at its finest.
@@ttnn123456789 yeah no, since he can speak english i think his experience is just as relevant as any
Thats not evolution that’s just the natural ability for our brains to adapt.
@@ttnn123456789 he's not part of the ethnic group that created the dialect and speaks on how he is able to pick up on it. You sound like a fool.
Like you're from Tokyo and you reply to someone's post about how they picked up on Kansai dialect and you go "being from Osaka has nothing to do with these things" You look extremely dumb.
@@Sebas-zn2he that's a huge part of human evolution. communication is extremely limited among other species. humans are very flexible and that's a large part of why we're such a successful species.
vonschuhart same
As a Brit, the similarity between London "working class" slang/speech/dialect and AAVE is very odd. I don't know whether Londoners are copying AAVE or whether it's just a strange coincidence but it's strange nonetheless.
do african Americans come from London?
@@dantaerodgers2555 Repeat that, but slowly
Londoners use patois
its the Jamaican influence with patois.
@Sherry Ofc they do, but he was asking the original comment a question he already knows the answer to, as a way to tell him that they obviously don't
fun fact: "aave" is finnish for "a ghost"
black people are ghosts confirmed
Ayo, u caling me a spook?
Ser Arthur lmao
Biscuint interesting
Yeah I carry the ghosts of my ancestors with me
Biscuint glad to see no one got triggered... yet.
I am white and I grew up speaking aave... until my parents moved to the suburbs
It's definitely about environment and a sense of Identity rather than being black. I'm black and don't ever use the UK equivalent to AAVE and it feels very unnatural when I do.
you're kind of right but don't totally get it. it is indeed about environment but also definitely about being black, but being "Black American" specifically. this video is talking about a specific ethnic group within the USA and has nothing to do with the UK or the black dialects there that were influenced by West Indian migration. there are a lot of whites in urban areas who've been influenced by the way we talk. to be honest, much of the country is influenced by the slang we create (especially via music). their proximity to aave doesn't make it any less black.
Reece Swaby that's because your properly assimilated and educated
same i grew up in the suburbs and trailerpark but it was pretty ghetto and most if my family speaks some slang when speaking in english like gonna, wanna, yall (im from texas), sometimes i say dat instead of that, sometimes i leave the t in names silent like martin id say "mar-en" or "mar-den"
As a white person I’ve never understood the need for workplaces to censor people’s way of speaking. AAVE is totally understandable, I don’t have to cover up my northeast accent and poc shouldn’t have to cover up theirs either.
Tubman Twenty definitely true :/
Then you never encountered a proper dialect speaker. Our caretaker is Swabian, but he speaks with some German students in English.
@@MrCmon113
Please
Try dutch, provincial dialects are so bad the way they write is literally different. Frisian is even considered its own language
American dialects can barely be considered that. I shan't go into ebonics however, that is for the perpetual poor and frankly retarded
The first time I watched this video years ago was a huge step in my journey towards understanding the cultural diversity of America. Every once in a while I come back and rewatch it for a refresher, and every time I'm so impressed by it. Hats off to you my friend!
3:59 One should also mention the influence of Southern English, with the "Y'alls" and "Ain'ts".
*_Y'aint_*
MasicBemester 『メイジク ビー厶スター』 Y’aint a word
@@harrisn3693 y'all'd've'nt
And the accent generally used, too.
You're right, for a very long time I've been calling it slang and thinking about it as "lazy English". Turns out is just another rich and meaning full dialect with deep historicall roots! This was an awesome and informative video, like the rest of your work Xidnaf! I salute you from central México, keep up the awesome work!
@Édouard du Rent I wonder why... it's almost like AAVE developed in the American South while black people were being held as slaves...
@JanusPapers Because it takes so much effort to speak your native language.
@JanusPapers You know English is the result of "lazy Proto-Germanic" right? And Proto-Germanic is "lazy Proto-Indo-European." I guess that would make Japanese and Korean basically the least lazy languages widely spoken today. Is Cantonese "lazy Mandarin?"
@JanusPapers As a side note, if you watched the video intently (i.e. not being lazy) you would be fully aware that most speakers of AAVE are very much able to speak the standard dialect of English. I wouldn't call that "not making an effort."
@JanusPapers It is literally a dialect by the linguistic definition of dialect: a particular form of a language which is peculiar to a specific region or social group. Maybe you are the one who should stop making yourself look ignorant.
Im from the bay area so aave has greatly influenced how i speak (even tho im not black) because its the "cultural standard" ie its how pretty much everyone i grew up with spoke. Its because the black community has a strong presence and history in the city im from, though i guess personally i also have a bit of hispanic english influence in my speeach as well :)
+cadr003 not to detract from your anecdote, but I hope you realize that "the bay area" is uselessly vague. Just about every coastal area in the world has a "bay area", many of which are considered significant landmarks.
+Peter Schmidt ohh hahaha my bad im just so used to calling the area im from "the bay." Im from Oakland, CA.
I am a hillbilly from Texas and I know you mean San Fransico. lol, but there are no hillbillies from Texas.
Same. but I also grew up on the internet and knew other people who were spoke internetenese. Grew up in a house hold with Jersey parents in Dallas Texas hung out with hipsters, blacks and mexicans. Then I moved to the east coast. I told someone the other day " I have too much swag and it's gucci". Yet, I can speak standardized very well if I try I just don't attempt to monitor my self unless I'm having to be "professional". Nahmean cuh? xD. Chyuh Cuh (Said Ironically).
I’m also from the Bay Area, and I agree. Although I have never used AAVE, all my white friends do (I’m white)
Don’t you just love when someone clearly describes a subject, and people choose not to understand it
We all watched the same video… AAVE still is broken English. Cope
@@alleycatdevil it was so clearly explained to you why you’re wrong. There is no use in even arguing because there is nothing I can say that hasn’t already been said. You can pretend your right, but that doesn’t make it true. You can either actually learn, and take into account new information to form an opinion with more evidence behind it, or you can continue to live in ignorance for absolutely no reason at all.
@@falkeprophet words words words don’t care AAVE is cringe and improper English. Southern slang is also improper English.
@@alleycatdevil the funny thing about this is how you blatantly do EXACTLY what I said you were going to do.
@@falkeprophet “pretend your right” ITS *YOU’RE* maybe people like me think AAVE is improper because everyone who speaks it or defends it is illiterate.
Such a low-budget video but blowin my mind.
You also have to realize that when people learn a new language, the hardest thing to pick up on is the syntax. When our people came over, they learn English but used it in their syntax. The old 'us' and 'we' was not seen as proper English, but was proper for blacks. Because in many African cultures there is no singularity, only a collective.
Bullshit. Which language doesn't have a singular form?
@@MrCmon113 Most Native American languages only have "you" since there are no differences between sex, class and relevance. so, it can happen
Very interesting
I'm from England, and I speak standard British English and also northern English dialect, and in the north of England we too use double negatives to emphasize. This feature is the original, basal form of English. The idea that two negatives equals a positive came from Indian mathematics later and it become the new norm. But black Americans are totally right to use it like this- i would say "I ain't eaten nothing all day" to mean "I have eaten nothing all day!"
Also, as an Englishman looking from abroad, what i have always admired about black American English is the playfulness and joy they take in using it. English people love to treat the language like a game, have fun with it, we love jokes, rhymes, new words. So I think it's the black speakers of English in America who seem to have that the most in common with English people, a real love of playing with it and the sound of it. It's a thing to be enjoyed
this guy explained it SO well, thank you, you earned a new sub
Broooo! This video is everything!!! 😂💯💪🏾
Anybody that's offended by this video is an a**hole! I think this was accurate and as politely put as possible. I used to have the idea of bidialectical linguistics in my mind & didn't know what to call it. A lot of black people joke about it calling standard American English our " at work voice". As soon as you are done with formal settings you go back to AAVE as you call it.
Understanding different languages & dialects also helps to destroy the stereotype that other people are less intelligent because they don't speak the same way you do (can you peep the AAVE here? Lol)
I also used to get frustrated trying to understand people with thick Spanish, Jamaican & even British-English accents until I started challenging myself to understand sentence structures, conjugations & other patterns that are normal in different languages, but differ from American English. Not only has it helped me to understand WHY some people speak English as their 2nd language in the ways that they do, but it also makes Ebonics or AAVE more interesting to observe as a legitimate dialect. Thank you for sharing! #Subbed!
No one was offended by this video though?
@@jkrabby6658 Actually a lot of white people are calling the video racist for glorifying "improper English".
Apparently most linguists are SJW scum for actually trying to _learn_ things instead of labeling.
blacks be like
True other people are less intelligent and also happen to speak differently. Those two things just coincide.
ngl AAVE low-key a big brain way of speaking
You can turn an entire observation into the most simplified and legendary sentence possible:
"Ay that girl is so hot!"
VS
"She fine"
I learned not to judge people's intellect from their speech habits personally. In an english class during High School, this one black girl who I got partnered with used both GAM and AAVE. It wasn't right to expect it, but even subconciously I kinda expected her not to take the work seriously even though we were both in an accelerated program. To my suprise, when we began work, she turned out to be one of the smartest people I have interacted with there and had a strong work ethic to boot. Lesson learned.
Bop Underrated comment😂
Sweet Roll the majority of welfare acceptors are white though lmaooo you tried racist
Ouch.
Oh so you're a little less racist now?
The student is probably still in the process of learning to code switch... we master it at different times in our lives. So if you were to maintain contact and reach out to her in ten years, the way she addresses you may be vastly different from the time you worked with her. If you do get the opportunity to observe this difference don’t assume that she became more educated and therefore learned that her speech pattern was incorrect. No, no, no, the variation means she learned the negative societal stereotypes around her being herself as she was socialized with her group, and she learned the importance of code switching for increased opportunity in a country laced with systemic racism. It means she learned that to grow she must leave part of her self at home. This warrants no celebration of her newly gained “articulation” (by the way we hate when y’all call us articulate it’s so insulting) more so it exudes the racism within this country as we grow to learn that we must change to be accepted by our white peers, make sure we are perceived as none threatening, and lastly tokenized (when y’all tell us “oh you’re not like them” “you’re so different” we hate that as well because we are and you’ll never truly know us because of the judgement you display...).
+Xidnaf
Well done taking on a very, *very*, *VERY THORNY* topic.
You've handled it well. And I'm sure you're going to be called every name in the book despite how well you've done.
---
When I was in Germany in 1989, studying “Germanistik”, one of my required courses was actually Linguistics. The semester project [which was your entire grade for the semester, BTW] that several of us took on was dialects of English in the US. I want to tell you, and everyone else, what I found in the *extensive* linguistic academic journals and books available at University of Mainz:
• No “Southern Dialect”
• No “New York Dialect”
• No “Boston Dialect”
• A handful of papers about the effects of the “Pennsylvania Dutch” dialect of German on the English of S.E. Pennsylvania - and *nothing* about an “English Dialect” of S.E. Pennsylvania. [Guess what my paper was on? ;) ]
• *Copious* articles about the “English Dialect spoken by Black Americans.”
Let me repeat that:
As far as German linguists [and other European linguists] are concerned, *most* of the variations in American English are *accents* and AAVE is a *dialect*.
Now, before anyone reading knee-jerk-reacts with calling the German linguistic community names, *maybe* you should take a good *long* look in the mirror and ask yourself, “Why does a dialect in England strike me as quaint, or colorful, or cute … and not as ‘stupid-people English’, like I think AAVE is.” Because *you* *do* think that. *I* think that. *Every* white American has been *trained* *since* *birth* to think that. And if you need proof of this fact, just look at the entire comments section of this video. They are positively *dripping* with assumptions of Black-inferiority.
J'accuse.
*claps* Exactly, you got it exactly right.
I go to school in a pretty damn diverse area. It's an even split between White, Black, and Arab. Everyone speaks relatively similarly when the speech crosses the groups. Within each group, it changes a bit, but everyone still understands.
As a polyglot/linguist, I've noticed that it is only English speakers that call the variants within the U.S. as "dialects". I'm under the impression that English speakers have a very poor idea of what a dialect really is. For me, they're accents. Because in reality, dialects are difficult to understand and require a duration of exposure. I only thought that Scots was the only dialect in English, but now I'll consider AAVE one too.
I agree with you, though I'd restrict your phrase, “English speakers,” to “Americans.”
Great Britain has bushels of actual dialects of English [though they've been denigrated and marginalized during most of the 20th Century [well, at least that's what I've heard]]. So, anyone in the British Iles has firsthand personal experience with actual dialects of English.
Here in the US, however, we Americans read, “dialect,” as “Important” and as “Valid” and as “Accceptable.” So every region insists that their regional accent and smattering of local words is a “dialect.” But let's say that there is a continuum between, “accent,” and “dialect.” I still assert that the regional variations of US English fall *far* from the transition-region from “accent,” to “dialect.”
As far as I know … and I'm willing to be educated otherwise … the regional variations in US English words are a 1-to-1 shift in vowels and a couple of consonants, but no difference in phonological rules or grammar, and a smattering of different vocabulary.
+Glossika Phonics
Last I checked, "Scots" is to English what Portuguese (at least the Brazilian form) is to Spanish (at least the Mexican form) (the two European forms of theses may have to same continuum); similar but still different languages.
"He got drip" = "A fine gentleman, who is distinguished for his exquisite fashion sense"