Southern accents, Eastern accents, Northern accents and Ebonics

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

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.

[SWTXBelle]

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.

[Thetagirl218]

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!

[epchick]

Originally Posted by Thetagirl218

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!

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 ...according to my dad (who's originally from New Jersey) El Pasoans have more of a "midwestern accent" than anything southern.

[em_adpi]

Originally Posted by epchick

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 ...according to my dad (who's originally from New Jersey) El Pasoans have more of a "midwestern accent" than anything southern.

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.

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

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'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.

[SWTXBelle]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

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.

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.

[Taualumna]

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.

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

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.

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.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

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.

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.

[SWTXBelle]

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".

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

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".

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."

[SWTXBelle]

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?

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

the region, or the racial/cultural group? Is it the family that determines the dialect, or the peer group?

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.

[ForeverRoses]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

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?

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.