I can't decide if I'm more embarrassed or insulted by this.The above article cites an "interesting" assertion that Ebonics is a "combination of English vocabulary with African language." Really? Please explain how. I've heard this explanation of the patois spoken in the English-speaking Caribbean Islands. I never heard this of the English spoken by African-Americans. I could see if this were the early days of slavery where the captives came fresh off the West African coast (or were raised by those who were) and their native tongues heavily influenced their acquisition and pronunciation of the English language. Today's "Black English" sounds nothing like that of the days of slavery. Heck, it doesn't even sound the way it did in the 1940's, or even the 1970's! Have these people seen "Gone with the Wind?" "Superfly?" Do the Black speech patterns heard in those movies sound anything like what one would hear in a Lil' Wayne or Soulja Boy song? I don't think so. (And thank God! Those songs sound like crap!) The African-American dialect (if it can even be monolithically categorized as such) is an ever-evolving way of speaking. The further we move in time from the days of the Middle Passage, that "combination of English and African" argument grows more and more tenuous. So stop contriving some linguistic connection to Africa just to validate an American-bred variety of non-standard English!
But this isn't even what this article is talking about. What they're referring to here is slang. SLANG! They're spending Federal tax dollars on the interpretation of slang! Haven't these people heard of Urban Dictionary? It's free! Why are they wasting Federal funds on this? And why are they treating us like we're foreign speakers? We're Americans! We speak English! Stop treating us like we're "other" and "less than"!
I swear deep in someone's heart is the belief that we shall overcome someday. Can't we make an honest man or woman out of that person? Can we at least give it a try?
