God, I could listen to this man talk about literally anything in that perfectly enunciated honey voice of his. It helps that he's always saying something engaging and thought-provoking on top of just sounding nice. Also, I just randomly noticed that he and Sam Harris share some of the same cadences in their speech patterns.
This is a conversation that's is much needed in Singapore as some people assumes those speaking in Singlish (English with a mixture of Chinese dialects and Malays, commonly use in conversation) does not have ability to speak standard English or will have their ability to speak standard English negatively affected. Which I think is completely false.
The comparison between Black English and British dialects (I speak as a Yorkshireman) is brilliant. And for the most part, dialect speakers easily adapted to standard English when, for instance, they went on the BBC.
I like John but he couldn't be more off base here. It's true middle and upper class blacks can switch it on and off. But many many blacks from the projects can't distinguish between slang and what's not. I've seen it many times in interviews.
I think you make a similar point to a couple of other commenters. English is a language that has radically changed over short periods of time. The English that I (white, raised around white folks, college-educated) speak in a job interview would be considered casual when compared to the English that white college-educated folks would have used in formal settings fifty years ago. One thing that hasn't changed is that white folks who haven't learned to understand more than one dialect still get to say what "professional English" means. I don't know what jobs you interview for, and you haven't said how AAVE affects your hiring decisions, so I won't make any assumptions. If the interviewee uses some AAVE in professional settings, if it doesn't interfere with the job they're doing, I'm not sure that it matters. I'll go further and say that if it affects communication with white folks, it doesn't seem fair that Black folks have to learn to understand the way that white folks talk, but it doesn't always go the other way.
@Greg Spolar I won't pretend to know him THAT well, but from what I do know of him, he isn't like that and might I go so far to assume this--that was not his intention in asking that question. He's actually quite likable and humble.
Hint to Johnny: Learn Eng 101 first-then mix in idioms, slang,etc. Come on man-you are smarter than this. Here's a human experience: The Doc says-"yo mfer, I have to cut your ass up; er-whats wrong Doc? Doc: Well you leg is all F'd up, better get your ass in here. Nice try to bob & weave Johnny.
wait viola davis, I thought viola davis spoke standard american english based on all the interviews i've heard her speak in. I haven't hear her un-enunciate or use slang much.
Quite strange how McWhorter is able to recognise that trends can be useful ,e.g. the trend that very often black people sound a certain way which you can tell by their voice, but the next point he doesn't recognise the trend and gets literal. True there is nothing necessitating that a black person can't talk both in black english and in let's say professional english (since he mentioned job interviews) but there is still a trend that black people who speak mostly black-english (which I assume can also be called AAVE or ebonics) can often find it a strain to keep up professional english for extended periods of time and might revealingly slip up and revert to black-english grammar, or that some black people are almost incapable of consistent professional english, like how a hillbilly might be almost incapable of 'professional english'.
There is probably a selection bias in that observation. You would never notice if a black person spoke normal english in an interview, but would if they didn't.
McWhorter is countering the argument that Black people who speak AAVE at home aren't aware of the need to code switch. It sounds like you're saying that they might be aware of the need, and they might be able to to do it, but that they won't be able to sustain it. Obviously, the underlying question here is why they should.
mcwhorter speaks flawless educated standard american english. Yet he still sounds black to me. Its too late to do the experiment but I'm pretty sure if I heard him on the radio I would know he is black.
As a Black/Puerto Rican man born in the ghetto of New York and having moved from the ghetto and having to learn how to speak correctly or "proper" from listening to college lectures and reading books I can say Mr. McWhorter is dead wrong. You will speak what you know, regardless of the circumstances and many of us from the ghetto refuse to take in or learn proper English. My mindset changed after I became a Christian. That is why I can go back and forth with my colloquialism. Most blacks do not have that benefit.
A.L. Hughes Yeah that happens to me too. I was born in Brooklyn and raised there my whole life. When i went to college, and started to read a great deal, my diction did change. But i do notice that i vacillate between the way inwas raised and what i became....
I like this guy, and I don't know where he's from, but if he's ever spent any time in the southeast United States, 90 percent of the black people there couldn't speak regular english in a job interview or anywhere else. I would agree with him about most any other part of the country, but not in the South. I know because I was raised in Alabama, and went to school with mostly blacks my whole life. Whites are the minority in Mobile, AL. Another point is, if you're gonna create your own way of talking, wouldn't you at least want it to be correct?
Couldn't it be because, as stated in this video, since the divergences are too recent, a big part of this population doesn't realize that they're speaking a separate dialect and therefore can't yet tell it apart from the standard/care to be fully diglossic? Also, McWhorter talks at length in "Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue" about why it's an inherently misconceived stance to say that there is a *correct* version of a language, given the constantly evolving nature of speech. He argues that English has an absurdly simple grammar (and as a foreigner I have to add, absolutely incoherent graphophonemics) compared to most other languages because it's been butchered by the generations of mongrels who invaded then integrated England and (successively) couldn't speak proper celt, saxon, norse, norman, french... it made it a unique language, but certainly not a "correct" one if any such thing exists.
That is absolutely false. I'm african American and I can code switch as we call it with the best of them. Obviously at work or writing papers in college I used proper American standard English. At work I talk the way I talk just as any other race with a dialect would. Ironic, no one seems to make fun of Chinese people when they speak English in their respective dialects. Stop it. This brilliant linguist is correct.
The question is, what _is_ "correct"? I suggest reading McWhorter's book, Words on the Move: Why English Won't - and Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally), from 2017.
@@brysonrowden5322 - I understand where you are coming from, but I have a question. If white people naturally speak to each other in English which more closely resembles "academic English", or what you would use to write a paper, wouldn't it mean they have an advantage? You can code switch because you were educated properly on how to use standard English, but many poor blacks have substandard educations and may never learn how to use standard English, so their black dialect is all they really know. This might put them at a disadvantage when they show up for a job interview.
I think this might be the only thing I have disagreed with Mr McWhorter about. Just look at Britain, and the history and segregation related to speech.
God, I could listen to this man talk about literally anything in that perfectly enunciated honey voice of his. It helps that he's always saying something engaging and thought-provoking on top of just sounding nice.
Also, I just randomly noticed that he and Sam Harris share some of the same cadences in their speech patterns.
He truly is a brilliant man, and he is amazing at public speaking. Like you, I can and have listened to him for hours
LOL - I was thinking the same thing. "I'll be there in a minute - I'm listening to McWhorter read random maintenance manuals."
This is a conversation that's is much needed in Singapore as some people assumes those speaking in Singlish (English with a mixture of Chinese dialects and Malays, commonly use in conversation) does not have ability to speak standard English or will have their ability to speak standard English negatively affected.
Which I think is completely false.
How sad that the room is so empty... but 100 of us have tuned in!
The comparison between Black English and British dialects (I speak as a Yorkshireman) is brilliant. And for the most part, dialect speakers easily adapted to standard English when, for instance, they went on the BBC.
He needs to be on TV more often.
John McWhorter is a National Treasure. Speaking intelligence and sense in an age full of outrage and insanity.
I need to see this in it's entirety
I like John but he couldn't be more off base here. It's true middle and upper class blacks can switch it on and off. But many many blacks from the projects can't distinguish between slang and what's not. I've seen it many times in interviews.
I think you make a similar point to a couple of other commenters. English is a language that has radically changed over short periods of time. The English that I (white, raised around white folks, college-educated) speak in a job interview would be considered casual when compared to the English that white college-educated folks would have used in formal settings fifty years ago. One thing that hasn't changed is that white folks who haven't learned to understand more than one dialect still get to say what "professional English" means. I don't know what jobs you interview for, and you haven't said how AAVE affects your hiring decisions, so I won't make any assumptions. If the interviewee uses some AAVE in professional settings, if it doesn't interfere with the job they're doing, I'm not sure that it matters. I'll go further and say that if it affects communication with white folks, it doesn't seem fair that Black folks have to learn to understand the way that white folks talk, but it doesn't always go the other way.
John McWhorter should have a conversation with Jordan Peterson.
Should be interesting
@John Murawski is Jordan Peterson an expert on half the things he talks about?
They have.
ruclips.net/video/E1PeOfbT_q0/видео.html
@Greg Spolar I won't pretend to know him THAT well, but from what I do know of him, he isn't like that and might I go so far to assume this--that was not his intention in asking that question. He's actually quite likable and humble.
He did. It’s on RUclips.
A Larger English? Why not?
However, it is racist to say I must SOUND white in order to get a job. Black Language and Black Sound are two different things.
Peer influence has such a strong impact on pre-adolescents.
Racist
Nah he’s wrong about “Scicilan”...
How so?
Hint to Johnny: Learn Eng 101 first-then mix in idioms, slang,etc. Come on man-you are smarter than this. Here's a human experience: The Doc says-"yo mfer, I have to cut your ass up; er-whats wrong Doc? Doc: Well you leg is all F'd up, better get your ass in here. Nice try to bob & weave Johnny.
Spoken like a dumb Nigga
McWhorter's Larger English = Phat English.
wait viola davis, I thought viola davis spoke standard american english based on all the interviews i've heard her speak in. I haven't hear her un-enunciate or use slang much.
It’s more nuanced than using slang. It’s the tiny idiosyncrasies of diction that most people don’t consciously perceive or study.
Quite strange how McWhorter is able to recognise that trends can be useful ,e.g. the trend that very often black people sound a certain way which you can tell by their voice, but the next point he doesn't recognise the trend and gets literal. True there is nothing necessitating that a black person can't talk both in black english and in let's say professional english (since he mentioned job interviews) but there is still a trend that black people who speak mostly black-english (which I assume can also be called AAVE or ebonics) can often find it a strain to keep up professional english for extended periods of time and might revealingly slip up and revert to black-english grammar, or that some black people are almost incapable of consistent professional english, like how a hillbilly might be almost incapable of 'professional english'.
There is probably a selection bias in that observation. You would never notice if a black person spoke normal english in an interview, but would if they didn't.
McWhorter is countering the argument that Black people who speak AAVE at home aren't aware of the need to code switch. It sounds like you're saying that they might be aware of the need, and they might be able to to do it, but that they won't be able to sustain it. Obviously, the underlying question here is why they should.
mcwhorter speaks flawless educated standard american english. Yet he still sounds black to me. Its too late to do the experiment but I'm pretty sure if I heard him on the radio I would know he is black.
As a Black/Puerto Rican man born in the ghetto of New York and having moved from the ghetto and having to learn how to speak correctly or "proper" from listening to college lectures and reading books I can say Mr. McWhorter is dead wrong. You will speak what you know, regardless of the circumstances and many of us from the ghetto refuse to take in or learn proper English. My mindset changed after I became a Christian. That is why I can go back and forth with my colloquialism. Most blacks do not have that benefit.
A.L. Hughes Yeah that happens to me too. I was born in Brooklyn and raised there my whole life. When i went to college, and started to read a great deal, my diction did change. But i do notice that i vacillate between the way inwas raised and what i became....
Dear Black American hold contempt at your own peril.
I want my 9 minutes back...no offense Kohn but...boring!! Perhaps speaking in the black English dialect would have made this more interesting !!
I like this guy, and I don't know where he's from, but if he's ever spent any time in the southeast United States, 90 percent of the black people there couldn't speak regular english in a job interview or anywhere else. I would agree with him about most any other part of the country, but not in the South. I know because I was raised in Alabama, and went to school with mostly blacks my whole life. Whites are the minority in Mobile, AL. Another point is, if you're gonna create your own way of talking, wouldn't you at least want it to be correct?
Couldn't it be because, as stated in this video, since the divergences are too recent, a big part of this population doesn't realize that they're speaking a separate dialect and therefore can't yet tell it apart from the standard/care to be fully diglossic? Also, McWhorter talks at length in "Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue" about why it's an inherently misconceived stance to say that there is a *correct* version of a language, given the constantly evolving nature of speech. He argues that English has an absurdly simple grammar (and as a foreigner I have to add, absolutely incoherent graphophonemics) compared to most other languages because it's been butchered by the generations of mongrels who invaded then integrated England and (successively) couldn't speak proper celt, saxon, norse, norman, french... it made it a unique language, but certainly not a "correct" one if any such thing exists.
That is absolutely false. I'm african American and I can code switch as we call it with the best of them. Obviously at work or writing papers in college I used proper American standard English. At work I talk the way I talk just as any other race with a dialect would. Ironic, no one seems to make fun of Chinese people when they speak English in their respective dialects. Stop it. This brilliant linguist is correct.
The question is, what _is_ "correct"? I suggest reading McWhorter's book, Words on the Move: Why English Won't - and Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally), from 2017.
@@brysonrowden5322 - I understand where you are coming from, but I have a question. If white people naturally speak to each other in English which more closely resembles "academic English", or what you would use to write a paper, wouldn't it mean they have an advantage? You can code switch because you were educated properly on how to use standard English, but many poor blacks have substandard educations and may never learn how to use standard English, so their black dialect is all they really know. This might put them at a disadvantage when they show up for a job interview.
@@ElectronFieldPulse In my opinion, the problem doesn't lie with the speaker, it lies with the unfair advantage.
I think this might be the only thing I have disagreed with Mr McWhorter about. Just look at Britain, and the history and segregation related to speech.
That scan-out, wide shot was interesting. John knew he was speaking directly to the 4 people who were listening. Of the 4, one truly.