There are two major misconceptions about American Black English. The first is that Black English is entirely unique among dialects of American English. The second is that there are two major dialects of American English, that spoken by Whites and that used by Blacks. Neither of these views is accepted by scholars, but both have wide general acceptance. But the question is thus raised, what exactly is "Black English"?

Black English as a Social Dialect

Black English is a social dialect characteristic of American blacks, often cutting across regional differences. When a group within a society undergoes some form of social isolation, then social dialect differences become more marked. Markers in this case include the discrimination and segregation experienced historically by American blacks.

Such a social dialect can cause a problem from the social point of view in a way that the resulting variety of speech may be stigmatized as "bad" or "improper". It can be thought of as "bad speech" by speakers of standard English when Black English does not use grammatical forms which are required when using Standard English, for example as with the absence of the verb "to be" in forms like "You crazy!" or the use of double-negative constructions "He don´t know nothing".

Many historial events have had an effect on Black English. One of these was the early use of English-based pidgins (a pidgin is a variety of a language which developed for some practical purpose, such as trading, among groups of people who did not know each other´s languages) and creoles (a pidgin which has become the first language of a social community) among slave populations, as almost all Africans originally were brought to the United States as slaves. The language of Black Americans still reflects aspects of West African languages to a certain extent.

Another powerful historical event was the great exodus of Blacks from the Southeast to the Northeast of America and other parts of the country in the early twentieth century. There are many theories about the development of American Black English, but one thing which has always marked the English spoken by Black Americans is the fact that throughout U.S. history the patterns of communication between Blacks and other Americans have reflected the social distance between them.

Black English in Social Situations

The Black English speech community is marked by many situations and communicative events which may be described as "in-group associations." In other words, using "Black English" in these situations and events is a form of identification with one's "blackness" as a part of "black America." It may also be described as a type of "code-switching" between identity as a "standard American" (regardless of race or ethnic group) who speaks "standard English", and a "black American" who is able to speak "Black English" as an aspect of "black identity."

Such events are reflections of black American social structure. They are learned by children who listen to and observe adults and other children, practice these events among themselves, and thus gradually become competent language users by their community´s standards. In their communities Black Americans have unique styles of talking and ways of structuring and communicating social relationships through particular uses of language, such as "greeting" and "fussing" (a type of dispute or argument). Black preaching styles, verbal games, and the ritual insults of Black children — as well as vivid and allusive styles of street talk among adults — have long been a part of the Black community.

Black English has several specific features when used in a social context. The rules of Black English are highly structured and follow intricate patterns of operation. The age of the conversational partner determines largely the kind of language used.

The eldest adults are the highest status members of the Black community. They are given the widest latitude in the use of language. They have the privilege to initiate and maintain any or all types of communication with others regardless of their age. They are allowed to praise, fuss, tease, lie, joke or preach. The only limitation is the communicative norms which are related to the sex of the speaker. For example it is not socially acceptable for an elderly female to engage in ritual insults, epic-like tales called "toasts", or other male-dominated communicative events.

Other adults are high status members as well and can initiate almost as many types of communicative acts as can their elders. However, they are restricted from using particular language behaviors with the elderly; they may not fuss, preach or lie to elder citizen. Both elders and other adults have nonreciprocal communicative rights when interacting with children. This means that there are many language behaviors which children cannot engage in with adults, yet they must acquire competence in these behaviors, because their power and prestige as adults depends on their facility with a wide range of styles and communicative acts.

Children are considered to be low-status members of the community. They mainly engage in communicative events with other children. They have to use certain type of language when speaking to an adult. Interaction rules also require children to engage in particular kinds of language use, for example formular greetings and verbal responses to directives. Children are required to show adults that they are attentive listeners and that they value adults´communications. One of the ways to indicate this is a verbal response given when they are directed or called.

"Greetings" as an Example of Structured Black Communication

One example of the highly-structured nature of Black English is the procedure to be followed when people meet and "greet" each other.

Children are expected to initiate greetings when they encounter familiar adults or when introduced to new ones. When accompanied by adults, they greet each other after the adults have greeted each other. Whether accompanied or alone, children are not required to exceed the briefest form of greetings. "Hi", "Hello", or "Morning" are sufficient. Community ways of interacting require equal status members to greet each other first, followed by greetings from high-status members (e.g. adults) to low-status members (e.g. children). Simultaneous greetings (a greeting exchange between the children simultaneous with another among the adults) or a generalized greeting to all is never acceptable. The relative status of each member and acknowledgement of that status by greeting rituals must be marked. In groups of mixed ranks exchanges between equals both open and close the greeting routine.

Structural Differences Between Black English and Standard English

Black English has features unique to its subsystem as well as features of the general system of English grammar. It has its own rules of grammar and phonology. One dominant characteristic is the amount of fluctuation in forms and constructions. Almost every statement about Black English includes a qualification such as "may occur", "sometimes", "often" or "generally." The same speaker will pronounce a plural ending on one occasion and on another occasion will drop it. One sentence will have ain´t for the past negative and the next didn´t or even ditn´t.

A device called "sweet talk" also appears in Black English. This means that new forms are often created to fit a particular setting or situation. In the rules of Standard English grammar "sweet talk" would be considered bad English because of its ignorance of grammatical rules. In Black English "sweet talk" serves to establish a verbal superiority: he who masters the language can control the communication and will thus also control the personal or group relationships of the situation. It is easy to see the connection between "sweet talk" and the language games often played on street corners by black children or the "rap battles" which are a part of current popular culture.

Another device is known as "eye dialect". This refers to changing the spelling of words without changing their sound, in order to characterize a speaker. For example, "was" can be spelled "wuz", although both are pronounced the same. The "wuz" spelling characterizes one as the speaker of a particular dialect, with its particular social connotations.

Black English also emplys a d sound for the voiced Standard English th at the beginning of the words such as the, that, those, there; which are replaced by duh, dat, dose, dere, and dey. Black English has the "d" mostly at the beginning of the words, but otherwise v for the voiced th. For example "other" may be pronounced as "ovvah." Another phonological characteristic is "r-lessness," or the dropping of r´s after vowels. At the end of the words that is shown by -ah, as in "evvah" for the word "ever" and "remembah" for "remember."

Black English also often simplifies or weakens consonant clusters at the ends of words. This tendency is quite strong; some words are regularly pronounced without the final consonant, such as jus´ and roun´. Nouns that end in a cluster such as -s, -p,-t or -k in Standard English will change in Black English so that thoses clusters are dropped and an "-es" is added in the plural. Thus "desk" becomes "des´" and the plural becomes "desses"; "test" becomes "tes´" and the plural becomes "tesses."

The most common application of elision or loss of unstressed word-initial syllable is the loss of the schwa in word-initial position, as in ´bout (about), ´gree (agree), ´low (allow). The unstressed word-initial syllables themselves may be lost, as in ´bacco (tobacco), ´cept (accept) and ´member (remember).

Copula Deletion with "To Be" and Other Characteristics

One of the most famous grammatical characteristics of Black English is the use of the verb to be. Omission of the verb to be, or copula deletion, is very typical of Black English. The "is" can be omitted completely ("He Michael, too"). On the other hand, in sentences where the is or other forms of be are not contracted in general Standard English usage, it is not deleted in Black English ("What is he?").

The use of "invariant be" is almost only found in Black English. This refers to repeated actions over a considerable extent of time, and the distinction between he walk, he walkin´, he be walkin´ has no exact parallel in Standard English. These three verb forms have different negatives: He don´t walk, he ain´t walkin´, he don´t be walkin´.

Black English also employs a pattern of multiple negation. where negation is repeated throughout the clause or sentence. For Standard English "I didn´t see anything like that anywhere", Black English has " I ain´t see nothin´ like dat no place". The use of the negative contraction ain´t is distinctive of Black English, especially as a single past negative (I ain´t see for I didn´t see or he ain´t gonna do it). Multiple negation often implies emphasis.

The dropping of the inflectional plural suffix is another feature of Black English ("He hab two dog.") The number itself (two) carries the plural. Speakers of Black English make "mooses" the plural of "moose", or "fishes" the plural of "fish". Words like "childrens", "foots" or "womens" are also not unusual in Black English.

The optionality of the plural is also a grammatical feature of Black English, and a similar feature is the optionality of the past tense. The same form of the verb is sometimes used for both present and past. Because of the weakening of final clusters it is impossible to decide whether a verb form is the present tense used for the past or a past tense form with the final -d or -t dropped in pronunciation.

American Black English does not possess the third-person singular present tense marker (-s). "He walk " is acceptable Black English grammar. In the case of words like "have" and "do", Black English uses the full forms of "have" and "do" ("He have my name").

The articles "a" and "an" seldom appear in the speech of young Blacks, especialy those who have not had a Standard English education. They do appear, especially the "a", in the speech of Blacks who have come in contact with Standard English.

There is also a phenomenon called "semantic inversion" which appears in Black English. A Black "dude" who is considered to be "bad" by those "on the street" has a lot to be proud of. A true semantic inversion would equate "bad" in Black English with "good" in Standard English. However, quite often the meaning is not completely opposite, and in fact may be on different levels.

The study of American Black English remains controversial. Attempts to wipe out Black English have failed, and so have attempts to give Black English a universal acceptance. More information on the history of this social dialect of American English can be found in related papers from US-1 and US-8 Black English and "Ebonics" archives.

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Bibliography

• Brasch, Walter M. Black English and the Mass Media. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981
• Ferguson, Charles A., and Shirley Brice Heath, eds. Language in the USA. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981
• Yule, George. The Study of Language. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985

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Original from December 1997; Last Updated 18 November 2003