“Don’t write how you speak,” “Don’t use double negatives,” “Speak proper English,” are all phrases that I heard a lot growing up. Eventually, as many other African American children inevitably do, I learned how to speak in academic environments, saving my African American Vernacular English, or “Ebonics,” for home and among friends.
Merriam-Webster defines language as “the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them understood by a community.” I have broken this down into four parts: words, pronunciations, rules, and people. Using this as the criteria that make up language, I considered whether AAVE should be recognized as its own.
1. Every language should have words that are specific to them.
While AAVE encompasses English words, their meanings are different than in English dictionaries. If someone speaking Ebonics says, “I’m about to bounce,” they do not mean that they will literally jump up and down repeatedly. Similarly, “I’m going to the crib” does not mean climbing into a bed made for young children. These meanings are specific to African American Vernacular English. AAVE fulfills the “words” criterion for being a distinct language.
2. Every language has pronunciations specific to that language.
AAVE has pronunciations that are significantly different than “Standard American English” pronunciations. The letters “th” may be pronounced “de,” the difference between “they” and “dey.” Words ending in “or” or “re” may be shortened, e.g. store, door, floor become sto’, do’, flo’. Similarly, “ing” may also be shortened to just “in.” (walkin’, talkin’). Words like “child” are pronounced “chile.” African Americans are often seen as “uneducated” for using abbreviated words and pronunciations. However, these pronunciations are distinct to AAVE.
3. Each language has some type of grammatical rules.
People may be most opposed to the concept of Ebonics as real language, because they believe that it doesn’t have rules or patterns. This is simply untrue. African American Vernacular English has several rules. One of them has to do with the verb “be.” The verb “be” can be used to represent what is currently happening as well as what has happened in the past, and what is expected to happen in the future. For example, “She be cleaning,” is the Standard English equivalent of “she is always cleaning.” Another example of grammatical structure is Ebonics’ use of double negatives. In the Standard English language, two negatives should not be used in the same sentence. However, in AAVE, if you are making a negative statement, every possible negation should be used. For example, “I ain’t tell nobody about nothin’,” is the correct form in AAVE.
4. Every language is linked to a community, a people, a culture, or a history.
According to the 2010 census, there are over 35 million African Americans. This exceeds the amount of people who speak recognized languages like Swedish (9 million people) or Greek (13 million). Although not all African Americans speak Ebonics, there are enough people for whom AAVE is the native tongue.
Ebonics could be considered its own language.
