It's a hobby.

:lol2:

Mushmouthese is not a language, it is a symptom of a semi-educated sub-group of society. It is no more african than I am.

And AIDS is studied epidemiologists. What's your point?

Let's not take a nose dive off into the multi-culti pool here.

RE: Ebonics.

The point is, if you speak ebonic be prepared to be discriminated against. If I owned a business and needed someone to answer the phone, I would want someone who spoke English. No "This be Brianna's House of Pleasure. Who you be and who you want?" NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I wouldn't vote for anyone who spoke like that, be friends with anyone who spoke like that, hire anyone who spoke like that or even TAKE SERIOUSLY anyone who spoke like that. Prejudiced white girl? No. I just don't like people who sound like uneducated dolts. That doesn't make me 'stupid'. You can say "he be, she be, we be, they be..." all you want. I'll form my impression of you accordingly.

true dat.

Are you expert or even remotely educated in Linguistics, Cognitive Science/Psychology or anything in that realm? Language shifts all of the time. If your great-grandparents heard the way you speak they would be appalled. Does that make them better than you? Does that make the English you speak the language of a semi-educated sub-group of society?

Let me revise my previous statement that you've taken issue with. AAVE is studied as a language by linguists.

So what? Somebody put a crucifix in a jar of piss once and called it "art."

That makes sense. Who said you shouldn't hire the best person for the job?


That's pretty fucking sad. What would you say if I said the same things about morbidly obese individuals?

Then you proceed to contradict this assertion.

So, someone speaking Ebonics in any situation is an uneducated dolt. Even someone who is highly educated but when they are communicating with their family and friends speaks Ebonics so as to be easily understood and accepted to the in-group?

It seems that your impression is already formed.

I won't be responding to this thread anymore. One thing I've learned is that, along with Politics and Religion, Language is something you don't talk about in polite society.

Quitter.

I just said I won't reply but this isn't really the same thread of discourse.

Yes, you put anything in an artistic context and it is arguably "art". However it is not "Art" as in "Fine Art" e.g. Le bassin aux Nympheas, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, etc.

someone who feels they need to intentionally mispronounce words and butcher grammar to fit in with those around them may need to rethink the people they allow to surround them.

To the people they are communicating with it's not mispronunciation nor bad grammer it's their group's dialect of English.

But if they claim to be "American" and speak "English" why can't they speak the same American English as the rest of us? I understand regional accents, and regional dialect when certain items exist in one area but not another (e.g. grits), but I don't agree with bastardization of language just to create your own special "dialect".

yes it is. it was an intentional choice to speak in that manner. we are not speaking about a group of immigrants that has entered the US and mixed their primary language and english (spanglish, creole). we are talking about people who chose to speak in a specific manner in order to stand out and mark their "differentness". this isn't a language that survived from the days of the slave trade and grew into what it is today. this way of speaking is highly connected and influenced by the hiphop culture.

AAVE speakers have been isolated from mainstream society for the largest part of the last several hundred years. Their speech has aggregated a lot more things like "grits" than other white southern english speakers. An accent is by definition a dialect, IIRC. They didn't intentionally change their speech patterns to create their own dialect/language.

I'll point to this article again for those that would like a decent short description of how AAVE/Ebonics was formed.

Here is a surprisingly long list of englishes.