Ebonics: The Analysis of Origin and Aftereffect

INTRODUCTION

Learning about the cultural differences with We Need New Names, the stories formatted from South High, and what I gathered in my CEC observations, I decided that learning the origins of a language is the most interesting route to pursue in learning a country. I first wanted to pursue the idea of the art culture in Zimbabwe. The common art work founded includes pottery, jewelry making, carving and making baskets. The median was mostly wood and became more famous in the 1940’s. The common essence was birds, human figures and fuses in rocks. “This art movement attracts, and continues to attract, sculptors from surrounding African counties – Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia – so while the Shona people are still predominant, other cultural influences have enriched the creation of the sculptures that bear their name.
In the late 1960s the world recognized that a new art movement had been born in Africa,” (History of Zimbabwean Shona Sculpture). I found, while looking for artifacts that could relate to We Need New Names, that one of the inspiration for artists is the mythology, folklore and rituals with beliefs in the spirits. This art movement attracts mostly sculptors who use the natural world which reflects the country’s rural inspirations. Shona Sculptors believe that every rock contains the spirit essence and each sculpture is shaped by the will of the spirit in the rock. They believe that during the sculpting, it is the spirit not the artist that transforms the stone.

However, as I continued to look forward on the art movement, I found myself straining to find information about these art pieces. I enjoyed looking at the art pieces, but found repetitive sources. The artist’s work is nonetheless inspiration, and contributes to the Shona tradition and spirituality. When reading, We Need New Names, and watching “Dear White People”, I found myself thinking about the idea of “black talk” and the slang used. Dear White People mentions the idea of ivy league and the thoughts behind these African American characters. “Black people can’t be racist; prejudiced, yes, but not racist. Racism describes a system of disadvantage based on race. Black people can’t be racist since we don’t stand to benefit from such a system,” (Sam White, Dear White People). This movie points out the school (representing larger society), which talks about the controversy of racial identity within the world. I found myself wanting to find the reason between the racial divide, also what identity is claimed with Ebonics language users.

Edward Sapir, in the first half of this century—hence the label, 'The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis', for the theory of linguistic relativity and determinism. Whorf proposed: 'We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way—an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language' (Whorf, 1956). This simply explains the idea of how languages can influence the way a person thinks. With Ebonics, it’s proclaimed with grammatical rules, phonology, and semantics and is abstract like standard English.

Through this Ebonics could be one of these examples of how a language can change a cognitive viewpoint within a person. I find and learn from the influences with Ebonics in pop culture (music, movies, television series, and social media), the effects in communication and slang, also literature (slam poetry, Huckleberry Finn, Color Purple, We Need New Names, and etc). With all these outlets of this language, we can see the different variations and dialects. All of these influences and shaped perceptions about language and literature, make the racial division we see in society.

ORIGIN AND RULES

"The word Ebonics is formed by combining ebony (black) and phonics (speech sounds)," (Rickford). Ebonics may be defined as the linguistic and paralinguistic features which on a concentric continuum represent the communicative competence of the West African, Caribbean, and the United States slave descendants of African origin. Although there is no primary origin of this dialect, there are two popular theories of how it started. Dialectal Hypothesis talks about the creation of Ebonics was due to geographical separation from other English speakers. Creole Hypothesis considers the roots of slave trade, which began in West Africa due to mixing of different tribes. “1960s: During the 1960s the first large scale research into the dialect was conducted. The term, "Nonstandard Negro English" was typically used to describe the dialect.
1970s: The term "ebonics" is coined at a conference on "Cognitive and Language Development of the Black Child", which was held in St. Louis in 1973. Linguist Robert Williams was the first to use the term and later co-authored a book exploring the dialect titled Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks. 1990s: In 1996 a controversial decision was made by the Oakland California School Board. They decided to include Ebonics in the curriculum to better reach African American students, (History - Ebonics Site).

The term gained attention with a school in California, called Oakland. The board decided to pass a resolution declaring Ebonics to be the language of 28,000 African-American students within that district. "After a great deal of negative publicity, Oakland backed away from some aspects of its original resolution. Oakland now plans to follow a less controversial path, educating teachers about the language of their students, and teaching students how to translate from Ebonics to standard English," (Baron, 2005). In the face of massive national opposition to the Oakland Ebonics resolution, this radical, separatist move shifted: Oakland retracted its declaration of linguistic independence and reaffirmed the traditional goal of teaching students standard English.

It includes the grammar, various idioms. . . idiolects and social dialects of Black people. Ebonics also includes nonverbal sounds, cues, and gestures which are systematically and predictably utilized in the process of communication by Afro-Americans (Ernie Smith, 1973). Anyone teaching should utilize and support the learner's use of their home or native language. "No one dialect of English, in any linguistic sense, is superior as a means of communication to any other...Although dialects and creole vary in pronunciation and grammatical structure (due to their distinct historical origins) they are no less grammatical than Standard English. All languages, dialects, and creole are governed by rules of grammar...they are all 'equally' grammatical...the fact that one way of speaking is viewed as superior, more intelligent or more 'proper' than another is not a linguistic phenomenon, but a political, social and economic affair. A particular way of speaking has become dominant because those who speak it have risen to power, and control functions like education, mass communication and the means of production," (Wood, pg.92). Ebonics has such a vast background, that resource of vocabulary is predominantly shown as less valuable since it stems from standard English when slave trade brought thousands overseas.

POP CULTURE AND LITERTURE

In We Need New Names, the Zimbabwean-accented Colonial English of Darling's keeps her from belonging to any American group. The effort of translating her standard of English she learned into Black-Teenage-American-English, causing an identity rift with her new “home”. In Kalamazoo, Darling struggles to hide the different faces she has with the African-born behind African-American, but when she snaps at Kristal, she argues that her white, British language is superior. Kristal replies, “First of all, it's called Ebonics and it be a language system, but it be our own, naamean, 'coz we ain't trynna front,” (Bulawayo, pg. 256). I find this topic interesting of the idea of a racial divide between languages, which Darling comes to find with her friends. Instead of being a dialect of English, Ebonics is regarded as its own language. Ebonics is a dialect of English and which immigrants who speak this way must be sensitively taught to code switch by their teacher who acknowledges and accept the person's home language.

The biggest piece that was relatable in finding Ebonics was music, movies, television series, and social media. This effects communication and the idea of poor speech or nowadays, language of rapping. Music with hip-hop music uses slang and evolved with phrases that removes some part of the word. One famous style is with Snoop Dogg and the way he popularized an English word. A list displayed in “List of Slang Used in Hip-hop Music,” that talks about the way a mass of fans can be influenced to change slang words. For example;

bizzle - bitch
fizzle - can be female, fuck, flatulate or any number of words starting with the letter F
hizzouse - house
hizzle - hook, as in the phrase "off the hook"
nizzle - nigga
rizzle – real

These artists have millions of viewers, fans, and consumers in their albums. Eminem also uses this language in his song with Rihanna, “Love the Way You Lie”. In the lyrics with deletion of word-final single consonant, putting only n in place of ng in gerunds, leaving the r out after a vowel and using ain’t instead of aren’t. As the hip-hop culture expands, it continues the slang and modified the meaning of words. Now more artists are being socialized into this language with different uses of extended dialects, for example; Kanye, Nicki Minaj, Kid Cudi, Eminem, etc.

Besides the visual and audio aspect, Ebonics is frequently mentioned in historical eras. In works like Huckleberry Finn, Color Purple, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and coming of age novel We Need New Names. These earlier novels focus on the slave trade during mid-17th to 18th century, which shows the mixed lines used that we would later name Ebonics. Uncle Tom's Cabin displays the lack education African Americans were given after being forced to immigrate to America as slaves. The characters in Uncle Tom's Cabin spent most of their lives living and working with solely African Americans, just as most African Americans did during that time and the surrounding years. After that, segregation became common and African Americans were still surrounded by only African Americans in schools, most communities, and workplaces. Another famous piece is Color Purple and has narratives with the characters continuously writing to each other in letters. “Celie's letters are not written in standard English. Celie writes her letters in non-standard dialect, what Walker has called black folk language,” (Walker, 1982). In this novel, the character Celie doesn’t exuberate confidence, and is meek with her personality. With Huckleberry Finn, the southerner slave named Jim, brings his dialect to their standard of English, for example; “Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. Ef it wuz HIM dat 'uz bein' sot free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, 'Go on en save me, nemmine 'bout a doctor f'r to save dis one?' Is dat like Mars Tom Sawyer? Would he say dat? You BET he wouldn't! WELL, den, is JIM gywne to say it? No, sah—I doan' budge a step out'n dis place 'dout a DOCTOR, not if it's forty year!"(Twain, 1986). In these novels, Ebonics wasn’t placed as language yet it depicts a person of being lazy, or lack of knowledge. This relates to We Need New Names and the way Darling finds herself being challenged on her English. Even though her teaching was grammatical correct, so was Kristal’s per her hinting at Ebonics. She explains that even though her and Darling don’t sound like they are using the same language, there is rules that do apply to Ebonics, therefore making her as an equal to the standard English.

Effects on Communication

Social media also plays into Ebonics and the confusion people face with calling it slang. The rising use of the younger generation and technology is creating a new form of communication. Advocates would consider this trend as an evolution of language, as others would say this is a dumbing down of our culture. This could start an argument for that the way we use electronic communication, is a new language. This argument was made when Ebonics was coming of age, with the same opposition sayings; that the language is black folk talk, not intelligent, resulting in a racial divide. This may not as far as Ebonics has gotten, however it is predominantly showing in essays, emails, any kind of networking. Slang terms such as IDK (I don't know), SMH (shaking my head), and BTW (by the way) have become a common sight on student assignments.

Evaluation

In my learning of Ebonics, I realized how influential this language has shown itself throughout history. When looking at the history of Ebonics, it seemed to stem from slave trade, however it’s components is much more than that. I found scholarly notes on the evolution, from different countries and the dialects that influenced this language. I started out wanting to know the origins of this language, yet I found a cultural that has its own rules and history which contributes to the most renown novels, and pop culture. I learned with the idea of creating a language is not specifically owned by that country, yet from others contributing to it. I found looking at the courses can continue with this general of topic and languages. For my topic Ebonics talks about the origin of “black speech”, and how it has risen into its own language with rules and rhetoric. I would be interested in learning the creative writing since each narrative has origins with the story teller. I believe doing Ebonics looks at different perspective of language. Finding what is the nuclear behind traditions of stories, we might find the origins of languages are not as different as we think. Working on these could help my Art major or Web design minor, with the idea of different backgrounds of art can intertwine in any work I do. Painting, drawing, sculpting or writing stories can help me strengthen my findings with languages all over the world. Art is universal and can be interpreted in any language, however it can teach me the traditions, rituals and history a country may have. Leaving with more sense of understanding what Ebonics is, may leave me more understanding of new coming terminology.

Works Cited

Research Log

Search terms

Search engine used

Findings

Wikipedia-

Zimbabwean art.

Ebonics

White vs ebonics

Ebonics and schools

The origin of sounds for ebonics

Google (or other surface web search engines)-

"History of Zimbabwean Shona Sculpture." History of Zimbabwean Shona Sculpture. N.p., n.d.

"History - Ebonics Site." History - Ebonics Site. N.p., n.d.

Smith, E. (1997). Ebonics: A Threat to White Supremacy. Paper presented at the United African Movement Forum, New York, NY.

Wood, D. (1988). How Children Think and Learn. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, Inc.

Baugh, J. (2005). Ebonics Phonics. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/AAVE/ebonics/

Controversy and Ebonics

Grammar rules with Ebonics

Ebonics slang

Google Scholar-

Williams, R.L. (1997). The Ebonics Controversy. Journal of Black Psychology, 23, 203-214.

Whorf, B. L. 1940. "Science and linguistics". Technology Review 42: 227-31, 247-8.Reprinted in Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf, ed. by J. B. Carroll, 207-19. Cambridge, MA: The Technology Press of MIT/New York: Wiley. 1956

Society and Ebonics

Novels with Ebonics

Literature with Ebonics

NDSU Herd Search

Rickford, John. "Linguistic Society of America." What Is Ebonics (African American English)? N.p., n.d.

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple: A Novel. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982. Print.

Bulawayo, NoViolet. We Need New Names: A Novel. New York: Reagan Arthur , Little, Brown, 2013. Print.

Twain, Mark, and E. W. Kemble. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Pleasantville, NY: Reader's Digest Association, 1986. Print.

The definition of black talk

Other-

Baugh, J. (2005). Ebonics Phonics. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/AAVE/ebonics/

NARRATIVE PROSE & RESEARCH FINDINGS

While looking for facts on Ebonics and proof of origin, I used keywords like; black talk, Ebonics, society and Ebonics, Oakland, origin, education slang, language rules. Even though there was ample amount of information, there was a trend to look at the Oakland School that made it ripple throughout the nation. No one dared to think it was its own language, yet just a racial divide between white folk and black. Even though the history of slave trade makes it apparent there were differences between the language, no one second guessed it for the vocabulary started with English format.

Lynnae

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved in return,"- Moulin Rouge

Research Log