Black English

I came in contact with this whole AAVE (aka Black English) business when I took a linguistics class in undergraduate. The Oakland School Board then in 1996-97 outbursted the controversy of recognizing AAVE as an official instruction language in schools. On a linguistic persepctive, as this book suggests, AAVE should be considered a dialect of English for it is what linguists call "rule-governed". It means that Black English has a distinctive sets of grammar rules, structures, and sound patterns. It had been hypothesized that West African immigrants came into the country and worked as slaves. They might speak a pidgrin that over course of time developed and became a creole. This is known as the Creole Hypothesis. It explains the striking similarities shared between Plantation English (spoken by Southern Whites) and Black English. Dillard's book, though published more than 20 years ago, still reflects the distinct linguistic characteristics of AAVE. The dialect distinguishes itself with forestressing syllable, regularization (i.e. using "I goes" rather than "I go"), syllable contaction (i.e. pronouncing "suppose" as /spoz/), perfective "done" form, invariant be form, and more. AAVE therefore is just like any dialect we might hear people speak except it is often stigmatized; that is, in linguist's language, language is degraded and the speakers feel ashamed to speak the language. Dillard's book deals with grammatical and social aspects of the language. Highly recommended.

J. L. Dillard is quoted in many other books on black english. It is full of interesting tidbits about black english, and is loaded with examples. an excellent work, even for the 1970s!