African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is often considered to be an inferior form of speech compared to other American vernaculars, especially to standard American English. This prejudice has been long-lasting. In the 19^th century the common explanation for AAVE being different from white vernaculars was thought to be the genetic inferiority or deprived social environment of Afro-American people. However, this position was based on the arguments of non-linguists; it was not supported by linguistic evidence. By the mid-20^th century linguists began to see AAVE as a vernacular in its own right. This meant that, along with an analysis of its linguistic structures and systems, attention began to be paid to the early development of AAVE. This has resulted in both considerable scholarly discussion and the formulation of numerous theories of the origin of AAVE (Rickford 315, Lanehart 55).

Three main theories have emerged. The similarities of AAVE and Caribbean creole¹ languages and Gullah² are the main focus of what is known as the Creolist hypothesis, from which the Ebonicist sub-theory has subsequently emerged. In turn, the Anglicist, or Dialectologist, theory concentrates on the interaction and common history of AAVE and the vernaculars spoken by European Americans and the southern white population (Southern White Vernacular English, or SWVE for short).

These theories all counter the prevailing public prejudice against AAVE as "English gone bad". There is still little public awareness of how other languages have been involved in the complex early development of AAVE, which exemplifies how a vernacular is affected by historical events and social circumstances. This paper examines the following questions: what are the main theories on the early developments of AAVE? Which languages are thought to have had an impact in this development, and what are the sociohistorical contexts to which the theories refer to as supporting evidence? Finally, what is the relationship of AAVE to SWVE?

The Sociohistorical Context of Early AAVE

It is generally accepted that some forms of AAVE first emerged in the tobacco, cotton and rice plantations among black slaves and servants in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, during the American colonial period. Otherwise, there are few issues concerning the origins and early developments of AAVE that are clearly agreed upon (Mufwene 65, Rickford 315). Possibly one of the most important factors for the fact that the origins of AAVE are still debated upon, is the lack of sufficient and reliable evidence; although some written data from the colonial period remain, their authenticity and reliability is often questionable. In addition, evidence of actual speech of the black population is not available, as most recordings were not made until the early 20^th century (Lanehart 89).This lack of evidence, along with various speculations and analyses on the origins of many distinctive features of AAVE, and its similarities and differences with other vernaculars and languages, led to the birth of separate hypotheses, or even schools, which focus on the origins of AAVE from quite different perspectives (Lanehart 88).

The first African slaves arrived in Virginia in 1619, and the first recorded evidence of the language of the black population during this period is from 1692. This written data was collected from the testimonies in the Salem Witch Trial (Rickford 317). The evidence from the following century consists mainly of literary texts, while the most notable data of the 19^th century is considered to be some ex-slave recordings collected during the mid-1800’s, during the time of the civil war (Rickford 317). However, the reliability of especially the early travel narratives and literary works is often questionable, as they were often written by whites who may not have had sufficient experience in the speech of the black population. In addition, evidence of the actual speech of the black population from the 17^th to 18^th century is not available, as most recordings were not made until the early 20^th century (Lanehart 89).

It was only in the 20^th century when more extensive data was collected in the form of ex-slave recordings and interviews (Rickford 317) Thus, as mentioned already, the amount of data from the early colonial period is relatively small; the lack of an adequate analysis of the language(s) spoken by the black population led to linguists often relying on sociohistorical, rather than linguistic, evidence when trying to uncover the origins of colonial AAVE. Rickford (316) humorously notes that relying only on later recorded or written evidence on AAVE to study its origins is analogous to a drunk losing his wallet in a dark field, but looking for it under a street light because the light there is better.

In the early 17^th century, when the first slaves were shipped to Virginia, plantations were relatively small. African slaves did not form large black communities; They often helped in domestic tasks as well as with farm work (Mufwene 72). In the 1700’s, the plantations began to grow remarkably, and as a result more slaves and indentured workers were needed. As seen in the table below, in the Southern colonies (Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland), the number of African Americans was far more numerous than in the colonies more Northward ³. Hence, the Southern colonies are seen as the birthplace of AAVE.

Region	White	Black	Total	% Black in region
New England	349,029	10,982	360,011	3.1%
Middle Colonies	275,723	20,736	296,469	8.8%
Southern Colonies	309,588	204,702	514,290	39.8%
All Colonies	934,340	236,420	1,170,760	20.2%

Table 1: The Estimated Number and Percentage of the Black Population in 1750 (Rickford 320)

Early AAVE from the Creolist and Ebonicist Perspectives

The Creolist view on the origins of AAVE focuses on the assumption that it descended from a creole language, such as Gullah. The basis of this assumption is that today’s AAVE has features common with Caribbean creole languages, and that AAVE has become closer to Standard English as a result of decreolisation, which began around the time of the Civil War (Rickford 337).

It is often thought that in order for a creole language to develop, the percentage of speakers who would participate in this development must be as high as 80% of the total population. Although this requirement was not met in any colony, with South Carolina having the highest percentage of 60, pidgin and creole languages did develop. According to Rickford (317), it is not only the percentage of speakers that is crucial in the development of a creole, but also how densely these people are populated within an area. In South Carolina and Georgia, rice and indigo plantations were massive and African Americans outnumbered whites by far (Mufwene 72). It should also be noted that the large number of slaves of different origins in such circumstances were more than likely to need a lingua franca, which also supports the theory that a creole may have developed (Rickford 325).

The creolist view emphasises the need for this lingua franca by noting that, especially during the first 30 years of colonisation, slaves were imported not only from Africa; a considerable number of them came from the West Indies. Thus, the earliest speakers of AAVE were not English speakers but creole speakers. Regardless of whether the creole was imported from the West Indies or Africa, or emerged in the American colonies, it is suggested that as black creole-speaking slaves from the Southern colonies were later imported to other colonies, the creole spread (Rickford 321-323, 327). It is often noted that the slaves and servants had the opportunity and needed to interact regularly with the white population. For this reason there is speculation about how a completely separate creole would have succeeded, as one might expect the black and white population to have spoken a common language.

However, the creolists claim that it is nevertheless possible that slaves and servants still interacted mainly with each other, and thus preserved their language even in areas where white people were the majority. After all, the freedom before racial segregation gave the opportunity to be in contact with other African and Caribbean slaves. Besides, as Rickford notes, if the linguistic isolation of ethnic groups would depend only on the opportunity to interact with other groups, then why would AAVE be different from other American dialects even today (Rickford 318, 322). Finally, the main idea of the creolist view is that today’s AAVE gets its distinguished features from a prior creole origin; as for the similarities between AAVE and other American vernaculars, the creolist view suggests that these similarities developed later as a part of the decreolisation process (Lanehart 55).

In addition to the idea that AAVE originates from a creole language, a sort of sub-theory has also emerged: Some linguists have turned their focus from the general creole features, which includes the impact of, the West Indian population, for example, on AAVE to study the connections between purely African languages. Ebonicists take the view that AAVE has originated from West African and Niger-Congo languages, as these languages have been claimed to have notable similarities with AAVE (Lanehart 72).

Early AAVE and the Dialectologist perspective

According to the traditional dialectologist or Anglican-based hypothesis, most linguistic features found in AAVE derive from the British English spoken by white people during the early colonial period (Smitherman 30). Thus, according to Smitherman (30) AAVE or Black English is really White English, and the forms still used in AAVE, of which some are already archaic in other American or British Englishes, have remained in AAVE due to racial isolation — that is, they have not blended into mainstream spoken English. In addition, there are several features of AAVE that are not part of Standard English, but can be found in white non-standard vernaculars. Today, the dialectologist view also recognizes the possibility of AAVE deriving not from British English, but possibly from non-standard dialects spoken in the colonies. This theory is sometimes referred to as The New Dialectologist View (Rickford 338).

To return to the demographics presented in Table 1, it may be argued that since the number of black slaves was relatively small, for example in the Middle colonies, black slaves or servants were very likely to have interacted regularly for over 200 years with the white population in terms of both communications and physical interaction. This was true especially in the case of house servants, whose number was relatively large in the region. Although on the rice and indigo plantations of the coastal areas the population percentages of black people was notable, it may be argued that elsewhere,such as on the tobacco and cotton plantations, white Americans were the majority and the number of workers per plantation was not nearly as high. Taking this into consideration, Mufwene (67) says that the highest concentrations of imported slaves produced Gullah in the coastal areas, but its development is not necessarily relevant when talking about the early stages of AAVE, as Gullah and where it emerged is very different from the situation in other areas. Thus, the dialectologist perspective argues that the circumstances would have prevented pidginisation and creolisation in most colonies, at least to some extent (Rickford 321-322, Mufwene 64).

It is sometimes claimed that due to racial segregation the interaction between the white and the black populations would have been highly limited and would have prevented a major influence of English on the language spoken by the black population. Nevertheless, the fact is that racial segregation was not widely and strictly institutionalised until the late nineteenth century, much after most Africans arrived in America. In addition, it is suggested that those black slaves who were born in America in the early colonial period probably acquired the dialect of the white people. This functioned as a model for the slaves who were imported from Africa (Mufwene 66).

When it comes to the actual linguistic features of AAVE, dialectologists highlight the fact that the English spoken by the white population in the colonial period was very different from what it is like today, and this explains why it is sometimes hard to see the relationship between some features of AAVE and other English dialects. McWhorter (339) argues that this fact is often ignored among the creolists, and that nevertheless, non-standard varieties of English, especially in the South, still do have many common features with the AAVE that is used today. Furthermore, to explain some features whose origins cannot, at least yet, be explained as being outdated forms of other English dialects, Mufwene (69) believes that since many white servants who did not speak English as their first language had immigrated from Europe, for example from Germany, AAVE might include some linguistic features from other European languages as well as English.

AAVE and Southern White Vernacular English

AAVE has previously been compared to mainly standard and Northern American English, which has influenced the way in which AAVE is seen as quite a unique and separate vernacular of English. However, when looking at the developmental stages of AAVE, it is reasonable to examine it not in comparison to standard English, but to the white vernaculars that can be assumed to have developed in the same regions as AAVE. Indeed, numerous features that remain in AAVE today or have been present in the past have also been found in SWVE (Mufwene 65).

Looking at the common history of AAVE and SWVE, contact seems to be the ultimate explanation for the similarities in these vernaculars: although Gullah and possibly other creoles developed on the coastal areas of the Southern colonies, elsewhere, interaction especially between poorer whites and imported blacks was extensive from the very early stages of colonial America (Mufwene 65). Especially towards the end of the 19^th century, when many white farmers became tenants due to difficulties in the cotton industry, the contact between the white and black populations became more frequent and intimate (Lanehart 78). These contacts have been more than likely to have caused common language patterns. Supporting this view is Mufwene’s (63) note that travellers to the American South noticed that the white and black population spoke alike. In addition, it cannot be expected that the influence would have been unidirectional, but that the vernaculars of both the white and black populations would have influenced each other (Mufwene 64).

It is often thought that many features typical of SWVE originate from different dialects of British English, but no British dialect has been identified as being remarkably similar in features with SWVE (Mufwene 73). Later, however, it has been observed that many of the features that are considered typical of SWVE can also be found in AAVE. The fact that many of these features are exclusively found in these two vernaculars indicates that they are unlikely to have originated from a creole language. In addition, it is argued that for these features to have been able to survive in the vernaculars to this day, they show a deeply entrenched common heritage (Mufwene 68). To find these kinds of features, some phonological structures of the vernaculars can be used as examples (Lanehart 93):

(AAVE and SWVE)

• Loss of /r/ after consonants in words such as professor
• Merging of /ε/ and /I/ in words like pen

(AAVE and Old-fashioned SWVE)

• Metathesis of final /s/+ stop in words like ask: [æsk] becomes [æks]
• Labialisation of interdental fricatives: -th pronounced as /f/ in words like bath

It has also been pointed out that some features common to both AAVE and SWVE have probably been introduced from the same source: the white and black populations of the South were accompanied by labourers from continental Europe and Ireland, and their contribution to both vernaculars is also regarded as being significant (Mufwene 69)

Besides similarities between AAVE and SWVE, the two vernaculars also differ in many aspects. According to the divergence hypothesis, these differences have come into the vernaculars after they developed together (Cukor-Avila 85). In other words, it is thought that AAVE and SWVE were more alike in the past, and that both vernaculars have subsequently evolved due to, for example, historical events such as racial segregation and immigration within the United States. (Lanehart 83). Especially the large-scale migrations of African Americans and some later new contacts between Europeans and SWVE speakers are considered to be influential in the diverging process (Mufwene 65)

Might the Origins of AAVE Be A Synthesis of All Three Theories?

The three main theories on the origins of AAVE all have their adherents; with none having been clearly validated over the others. While the Creolist hypothesis concentrates on the similarities between AAVE and creole languages, the Ebonicist theory shows its connection to African languages. Finally, the Anglicist hypothesis supports the view that AAVE’s early development wwas mostly influenced by European languages. These different theories seek evidence from the sociological and historical circumstances of the 17^th century onwards, taking into consideration such factors as immigration, population demographics and communication among the different social groups.

The linguistic features that AAVE and other languages have in common today support all these theories to some extent. Yet whether the most important factor in the development of early AAVE was a creole, British English, Southern White Vernacular English or all of these combined, it is possible to say that AAVE has apparently developed as a result of many different linguistic and sociohistorical influences, especially because many of its features can be traced back to all of these languages and not to just one of them. The emergence of any natural language, in this case the Black English vernacular, is obviously not something that will have only one starting point. Thus it would be a surprise if linguists will ever agree on only a single theory of how AAVE emerged.

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Notes:

1. A creole is a new language which develops as a result of mixture of languages. Traditionally, a creole is talked about when a pidgin language becomes a native language for some people.

2. Gullah is a creole language which originated in the coastal areas of South Carolina and the surrounding islands. Gullah is an English-based language with a remarkable number of features from African languages. It is also related to other Caribbean creole languages.

3. Table 1 shows the demographics on a large scale, and does not take the differences between individual colonies into consideration.

Works Cited:

• Cukor-Avila, Patricia. The complex grammatical history of African-American and white vernaculars in the South. English in the Southern United States. Ed. Stephen J. Nagle. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Lanehart, Sonja L. Sociocultural and Historical Contexts of African American English. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2001.
• McWhorter, John H. Defining Creole. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
• Mufwene, Salikoko. The Shared Ancestry of African-American and American White Southern Englishes: Some Speculations Dictated by History. English in the Southern United States. Ed. Stephen J. Nagle. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Rickford, John R. Prior Creolization of African-American Vernacular English? Sociohistorical and Textual Evidence from the 17th and 18th Centuries. Journal of Sociolinguistics, Vol 1 Issue 3. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997.
• Smitherman, Geneva. Talking That Talk: African American Language and Culture. London/New York: Routledge, 1999.