Black Dialect is an Africanized form of English reflecting Black Americans linguistic-cultural ties to their African Heritage.
While the English dialect chosen as the standard in this country is not more highly structured, well formed, or grammatical than any of the other dialect.
Important to note that all languages change over time and Black English is not different. We must cautious against making an assumption that all Blacks use all these partterns all the time (or even use any).
Black English as a True Language Form
Black English is a bonafied language system with its own rules of grammar, vocabulary and structure. When African slaves attempted to learn English, their native languages got in the way. This is called interference-tendency of individuals to make the language they are learning conform to the sound and structure of their native tongues.
Gullah has been identified as a legitimate Creole language. It is the language of the descendants of black slaves who escaped to the South Carolina Sea Islands.
One Key difference between Gullah and Black English is that Gullah is a Creole language and Black English is 'considered' to be a dialect.
Development of Black Dialect
There are two schools of thought regarding the origins of Black Dialect, the Anglian-based tradition and the African-based tradition.
The Anglian tradition of scholars (Krapp, 1925; Kurath, 1949) believe that Black English is traceable to British dialects of Old and Middle English, which the slaves picked up from white immigrants whom settled in the South during the colonial era. As a result they asserted that Black speech is just archaic white speech that has been sustained by linguistic isolation. This view argues that all traces of African heritage and culture were stripped from the slaves.
The African-based tradition asserts that Black English is really Africanized English, which can be traced to the formation of English pidgins and creoles during the slave trade. From this perspective Black English developed as a result of a language combining various European languages (depending on the region of the country and the immigrants settled there).
Two Dimensions of Black Speech
When considering Black English it is helpful to distinguish between the two dimensions: Language and Style.
Language
- Sounds
- Grammar and structure
- The words
Style
Style involves the way speakers put sounds and grammatical structure together to communicate meaning in a larger context.
- It is what you do with the words
- It incorporates the total expression, for example using black rhythmic speech
- It may be 'songified'
- May use speech rhymes, voice inflections and tonal patterns
Linguistics of Black English
Linguists define Black English as a hybrid language containing elements of Euro-American English ('standard English') and elements of West African Languages (surviving Africanisms from Yoruba, Ibo, Ewe, etc.)
The vocabulary of the new lanuage is fairly easy to master, but the syntactical structure and idiomatic rules require considerable time and practice to master.
While all languages change over time the structure of a language remains relatively rigid and fixed.
It is important to note that the greatest differences between black and white English are on the level of grammatical structure.
Content
Factsheet
Development of Gullah
Learning Gullah
Black English
Sea Island Culture
Photos
Reference