Ya know
I once had a history teacher explain what "ebonics" was. He said it has nothing to do with "slang". Slang is something that varies from region to region. (For example, we here in NY don't say words like "crunk" or "twirk" or "wodie" too often. But people down south use it more often.)
He said ebonics is just improper english. And the term comes from the way our European slave owners spoke. If u think about it. Most of the early settlers of the U.S. were not high class, educated Europeans. They were in fact lower class, lower educated people. So when they spoke, they didnt speak proper english (think of Charles Dickens
). Their slaves learned this improper english from them. This is what ebonics referrs to. Over time, as the lower class europeans became more educated, they began speaking standard English. But the slaves who were denied education, didnt make this advance in language. When blacks finally did start going to school, they learned standard english, but at the same time, had family and friends at home who didnt speak standard english. They learned to use the best of both worlds for dual expression, the same way we do today.
This same teacher said we SHOULD take offense when people refer to "our" slang as ebonics. It's not neccesarily ebonics, just a different way of expressing ourselves.
(Now if you're not talking about just slang, but things like "I be goin to the sto erday afta school cuz I be Hongry!", now thats ebonics. But if you're saying something like "Oh, the party last night was off the heezzee. I jammed all night", that's slang)If this is the case, ANYONE, including young children of ALL races, who doesn't speak proper english should be said to be speaking ebonics.
I don't claim that this explanation is gospel, but has anybody else ever heard this?
SoloRHO
PEACE: Proper Education Always Corrects Error