Southern accents, Eastern accents, Northern accents and Ebonics
 

I was looking at some recent and old posts on here, and I was noticing the dialogue that was being used. Some of it is hilarious, but some people really do talk like some of the posts we read. greekchat even has it's own translator (DS) (lol). While it was very funny reading the translations, there really are definitions of some of the English words we're using today that we didn't use 100 years ago. I got a PM recently and the member who PMd me used the term "bitchassness" in conversation. I never heard of that term before. I asked what it meant and the member PMd me an actual definition from the internet. Then some of the words that are used in the South vs the North, East and West are totally different from one another. o.k. I use some slang here and there, but now it's getting to the point where I just don't understand some of the words that are being used today.

After reading a lot of the posts on here and having conversations with some of the people I know, eventually or so it seems, it's certain to me that more new words will form, meanings will migrate, and obsolete words will die out.

If we talk generationally as well, I totally think yuh right. Sumtimes I have no ideuh what people a' sayin'.

Grammar is my friend, howevah, so I think I'll stick to using it.:):D

Congratulations, I think you may have figured out the real problems on a web site and some people on it?

I don't think you know what Ebonics is.

I'm not saying it's bad or anything to use it, I just wonder where we're going with it. I know the English language has radically changed in the past....I dunno, I would even say in the past 50 years or so. How does this sort of thing happen? Is it possible to say what our language will be like, let's say 5000 years from now? I mean, I know 5000 years is a long time in the life of any language, like 1000 years ago, English was a language that was so different from our own, it now has to be learned as a foreign language. Like Beowulf for example. In it's original Old English language, it's like wtf? I know the 14th century Middle English of Chauncer's "Cantebury Tales" needs to be updated to make it fully intelligible. Even Shakespears modern English can be hard to understand, and it's only around 400 years old.

No, I don't, but I know it's a real part of the English language that wasn't at one time in use.

Tom, I don't think it's a real problem, I just don't know a lot of the meanings of some of the words. Don't you use some slang? I'm sure you do.

At the risk of oversimplifying the definition, let's just say you really mean "urban" slang. Ebonics and African American Vernacular English are more so about linguistics, pronunciation, and structure than about the actual words used.

So they're not the same? I don't think anything is wrong with it, nor do I think anything is wrong with the different words being used in different parts of the United States. I just wonder how it changed to what it is now. I have my opinions of where I think it will go, but I'm interested in hearing others.

What you are talking about is really linguistics - which is fascinating. Language is never static. I think that media saturation and technological advances means it can do so at a faster rate than before, certainly. And some types of slang and colloquial speech are no longer geographically limited in the way it was before. So, a catchphrase on a television show can sweep the country almost overnight.
On what I consider a positive note, linguists have been surprised at the entrenched nature of regional accents and speech. There was a theory that tv would erase such differences. But it hasn't happened. :)

I love dialects and differences in speech! I grew up in South/Central Florida and most people here speak in what some consider a Northern accent. Once I moved away to school in the "true" South, I started to get a Southern accent! :)

Glad I read ahead. *high five*

Yeah but when you throw Ebonics in the title and joke about having a resident Ebonics translator, it appears to make light of it based on faulty information.

No Ebonics way back when . . .
 

When I was in linguistics (many moons ago) , we studied "Black Standard English Variant". I remember when the hue and cry about "Ebonics" was in the news - am now curious as to who coined the phrase. I don't much like it - "ebony" + "phonics".

This reminds me of the time that I went to Dallas and seriously felt like I had culture shock. I mean I was borned and raised in Texas, but being from El Paso you rarely (like less than 1% of the time) meet anyone w/ a southern accent. So when I was in Dallas, I was just :eek:...according to my dad (who's originally from New Jersey) El Pasoans have more of a "midwestern accent" than anything southern.

My linguistics friends are very intrigued by it. :)

Dr. Robert Williams coined it in the 1960s-1970s(?). More specifically:
"Ebonics, a blend of ebony and phonics, is a racially affirmative term that was
first coined in the Black Pride era to refer to the full communicative competence of African-American slave descendents (Williams 1975: vi)" (Ronkin and Karn 1999)

Ebonics is often used interchangeably with Black English. But scholars like Smith and Crozier (1998) argue that Ebonics and Black English aren't interchangeable.

I remember my first exposure was as a college fresh(wo)man as the only black person in the classroom. Of course I was made into the authority on affirmative action and all things "black." So one day the professor said "today we are going to discuss Black English or EBONICS." I immediately said "there's no such thing." And he quickly changed the topic. LOL. While I now believe there is a such thing and understand why it is studied, I wasn't about to sit through that lecture back then because I had already been subjected to a semester's worth of what my classmates felt about what they perceived to be "black stuff."

One thing I would be interested in (that we didn't get into in my classes) is the regional differences in Black Standard English. Surely New Yorkers don't talk like Georgians, no matter their skin colour. So, which is the most important - the region, or the racial/cultural group? Is it the family that determines the dialect, or the peer group?
In my personal experience, children of immigrants seem to be more influenced by their surrounding community. Rarely do you hear the children having the accent of their elders. But within non-immigrant families, I think more of the over-all accent/linguistic standards of the family seem to be apparent in the children. I grew up all over the country, and while I don't have a deep southern accent, there's no doubt where I'm from when I speak.
Anyone have any thoughts?

bitchassness.....lol

Why does that sound like sumn u made up?

soem idiots in Oakland....

BTW....maybe it's just me, but I don't buy into the whole "Black English BS...."

I do however believe in dialects and that depending on where you are you will be able to distinguish....for instance if you go to some parts of Bal'more, you can hear this....


I think either you speak 'proper' english or you don't.....

"Proper English"
 

Well, linguistics studies what IS - not necessarily what you think should be. There is indeed a dialect known by various titles, but you can think of it as Network Standard English. Probably what you mean by "proper English" - actually spoken by relatively few outside of those who have had voice and diction or speech classes.
I think it fair to say that there is indeed a dialect, call it Eubonics or BSEV, that is identifiable and can be discussed in scientific, linguistic language. Transitive be, anyone?

My little sis is from the Longview area and has the DEEPEST southern accent I've ever heard. I love it. :) I have a slight accent on occasion; apparently it's gotten 'worse' since I moved from San Antonio to Fort Worth. Who knew?

When I lived in Boston, I was teased by my Yankee friends frequently because I didn't drop my R's. I've decided that I speak two languages: Northern and Southern.

Actually, the phrase was recently made popular by Diddy (aka Sean Combs) on Making the Band 4. Why don't you pop over to MTV.com, see if you can catch a streaming episode and watch in wonder as his stupid ramblings turned into an overnight sensation!

Seriously Daemon, I didn't make it up. I would post the link, but I don't think that would be a good idea.

DSTCHAOS, I wasn't making fun of the slang that was being used, I was laughing at the translator. I wasn't trying to offend anyone and I totally apologize if I did.

1. With education and occupation controlled for, racial/cultural group matters more than region. Aside from accents and minor differences in phrases used (these differences have been reduced through media exposure to other people and places), sentence structures are extremely similar. Now if we were talking about the Gullah Sea Islands, that would be a different story but even this is a perfect example of "Slave dialect heritage mixed with...other stuff" and there are similarities between Gullah dialect and Ebonics.

2. Family when the person is younger and peer groups as the person ages and (usually) begins to spend more time at school, work, and away from the family. The same as any other learned behavior.

No harm no foul.

But once again, Ebonics isn't "slang" and you should find another way to joke about a GC translator than to call the crappy translated sentences Ebonics. :)

Earponics?

Idiots = an educated and accomplished black scholar and years worth of scholars who have studied this?

Ok but you'd be the idiot if you attended a conference in any of the disciplines where Ebonics or Black English is discussed. You'd be debating based on emotion and your limited experiences and they'd be discussing based on research and studies in various times and spaces. :)

You aren't the only one but thank God that none of the theory and research begin or end with you or any other naysayer. ;)

If you go to some parts of B-more, you will also be subjected to horrendous house music.

But the main point of studying linguistics and socio-linguistics is to celebrate patterns of language that expand across regional and other distinctions.


Right and most people who study Ebonics and Black English are not saying that all black people speak it (but not speaking it doesn't mean you don't understand it) or that this passes off as "proper" English. However, there are teachers and academics who try to change classroom climates in many schools to accomodate for students who speak Ebonics (similar to ESL) but this is generally a bad idea because you have to prepare kids for the working world.

It's also important to note that the average American regardless of race does not speak or write "proper" English. Even some very educated people make some very common mistakes when speaking and writing. It's only a "problem" that generates "outrage" when you associate a racial or ethnic minority group's linguistic patterns to this.

As an aside, I get bothered when people say "complected" and I usually hear black people say it so that shaped how I felt about its usage. But it actually isn't incorrect and has falsely been used as a sign of "poor education" and "Black English."

How do you get Dunkin Donuts coffee out from between the letter keys on your keyboard? I just spit out a mouthful and laughed so hard, I wheezed. People from the offices next to me came running to see if I was okay.
:D

I'm not just talking about Ebonics here. I'm talking about how things have changed, and how things could change in the future based on patterns. When I mentioned Shakespear's English which is about 400 years old, I think reading his English and comparing it to English today, along with other historical trends are very useful guides to the way it could change in the future. One common prediction is that Modern English is following the same path as classsical Latin which at one time was a global language that evolved gradually, broke apart and was eventually buried. Even Latin split into distinct regional dialects as time went on and later, it evolved into unintelligible languages.

I don't think we should totally rely on history because it can only take us so far, but the way global communications are today, are far from anything seen in the past. I think vocabulary changes not so much because new words are invented but because words take new meanings and are combined in new ways, which is why I don't see anything wrong with urban slang and why I was not making fun of it. I think with this, more than likely a couple hundred years from now the English language will be harder to understand. I think the vowels have changed the most. The consonants have pretty much been fairly stable. I would have to do some research on that to find out why though.

Now, Dunkin Donuts is a regional thing, at least up until the past few years. I heard from my inlaws that Arkansas now has them. Only, they actually go there for the donuts, not the coffee or bagels, which cancels out the true Dunk's experience.

It's funny because now that Krispy Kreme is up here in the north, people are so excited because they love the donuts. Because, you know, no one really gets donuts at Dunk's.

I personally love the munchkins. Only chocolate though. Mostly because they have no calories, being donut holes and all.

I agree with this. I am the daughter of an immigrant, and while my mother has a very thick Bavarian accent (even 40 years later), none of my siblings have a one-- although we can all mimic the Bavarian pronounciation of english words (the th at the end of a word in more like an s, etc.). Interestingly, I spent three years in speech therapy as a child because the school said I didn't pronounce my th, s, and z sounds correctly-- I pronounced them they way my mother did.

I also notice slight regional differences even within the "Midwest" accent.

o.k. I was wrong, and I went back to edit the original post.

Krispy Kreme for the donuts and Dunkin for the coffee.

I wouldn't have it any other way. :)

And unless you have the KK with the big glass window where you can see the donuts coming from the ovens, you have NADA! :D

I'm a KK glazed donut enthusiast but I only eat them once a twice a year because they are empty calories and lack nutrition. They tried to fool healthy folk like myself by getting the whole wheat versions but I knew it was just marketing. :(

Krispy Kreme are doughnuts of the gods. Yummm.. .and I too only have them once or twice a year. And they've gotta be HOT.

I eat them warm or room temperature. I'll take KK any way I can get them since I eat them so infrequently. :)

Oh...to keep this on topic...ever notice those frosty accents their donuts have? :o

I'm not just talking about Ebonics, either. Shakespeare's English is actually closer to modern day American English than British English and some Applachian dialects are VERY close. Language tends to be more conservative when spoken by those who have left the motherland - they seem to want to hold on to the way it was as a form of identification. Those in the native country continue to be a part of the language evolving and changing, with less regard for keeping the status quo as a way of cultural identity.

One of the reasons English is so hard to pin down is because it has been influenced by so many different languages. Grammar often doesn't make sense because it is based on the Latin models - scholars tried to "force" English to fit the model they were familiar with, with mixed results.

Latin didn't just break into sections and die - it became the basis of the romance languages. Romance = Rome, not lovey-dovey. Because what influences the change in language is unpredictable - politics, for example - it would be very difficult to guess where it is going. Linguists have their hands full just trying to keep up with current trends.(!) Just 20 years ago who would have guessed the impact of the internet and texting, for example? I always like discussions of the word of the year, and the words being added to the OED.

I highly recommend Bill Bryson's book The Story of English for a really interesting look at the way English has evolved.

Re Shakespearean English:

Isn't it harder to understand because of the Renaissance slang? I mean, it's kind of like400 years from now and someone reads something (provided that people still read in 400 years) where a character says "You got Punk'd!" or something like that.

Also, has anyone noticed regional tone (not accent), especially for some ethnic groups? For some reason, I can always tell a "Chinese" voice/style even if the person speaks completely accentless English. There's also an Italian voice.style (think Rudy Guiliani or Martin Scorsese) that I've noticed in Italian-Americans and Italian-Canadians over a certain age.

I agree. I was speaking of classical Latin which like I said was actually a global language belonging to a powerful empire which was broken apart and pretty much buried, and this was done by it's own progeny. As early as 300AD or so, the Latin of the masses had a vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar largely distinct from the elites classical Latin. Yes, the unintelligible languages I was referring to were the forerunners of today's Italian, Spanish, French and other Romance languages. Old English had a rich system of inflections for conjugating verbs and marking nouns with inflections to indicate such things as possessive, indirect objects or the objects of a preposition. Eventually the system began to collapse, mainly because words borrowed from Latin, French and Norse had stress on their 1st syllables. Norse speakers also introduced new endings and English began as a language like Latin, where word order mattered little.

Yes, you're right. Shakespear's English is closer to today's English. What you have to remember though is not only were a lot of the same words used today used back then, they were used in a different way from today. For example, when I was in undergrad we read about a laguage historian and he said that Shakespear knew what the word "hot", "dog", "ice" and "cream" meant, but he wouldn't know what we mean by "hot dog" or "ice cream". And this is what I was talking about in my OP. A lot of the words now are getting more and more difficult to dissect.

Ewwww. They're too messy and sticky. Yuk.

BLASPHEMY!