Theories on ethnicity - cover work

Theories of origin:

American Black English (also known as BVE - Black English vernacular) is language spoken by African Americans (Generally who live in America) and Caribbean/African individuals who live in Britain. Among linguists, the history of African American vernacular is hugely controversial. There are four key theories regarding the origins and development of AAVE. In order, the theories are:

the Anglicist Hypothesis

the Creolist Hypothesis

the Neo-Anglicist Hypothesis

the Substrate Hypothesis

The anglicist hypothesis:

The first theory was set forth in the mid 20th century by Hans Kurath and Raveb Mcdavid. Until the 1960’s, Kurath and Mcdavid’s theory was the one that was ruling.

According to this theory, the development of AAVE followed the same way as the language of other immigrants would. This theory seems to suggest that when slaves were brought from Africa to the US, the languages they spoke had varied massively. Therefore, as they were exposed to the English language, they were practically forced to learn it. When slaves began to have children, their native languages were preserved less and less, meaning they spoke English more and more. This is also notice in society today, as many children of immigrants do not speak their own native language as they are not exposed to it. Due to this, it is argued that through generations of the slaves’ native languages, it has eventually died out. Instead, this was replaced by the regional and social dialects which surround them. Proponents of the Anglicist Hypothesis believe that this suggests that Black English is just acquired English that happened to develop with slightly different features over many years.

Linguists seek to support this hypothesis by comparing traits of the British English of the time with those that are unique to AAVE.

The creolist hypothesis:

This theory suggests that AAVE was developed from a creole language that resulted from the early contact between Africans and Europeans.  An example of a creole is Krio, which is spoken today in Sierra Leon and elsewhere in Africa.

CREOLE = A language that develops due to contact between two groups who do not know each other's language.

A creole language is developed in two steps.

Firstly, A pidgin is created which is a pseudo-language, usually developed for the purpose of allowing groups with different languages to trade, that includes a combination of both languages.  They are usually narrow, specialized, and not really grammatical but it is possible for a pidgin to continue to develop into a functional language.  This usually happens with the next generation, who grow up hearing the pidgin and learn it from an early age.  A creole is a fully-formed language that does follow grammar rules. Therefore, many people think that a creole results from contact between the Europeans and Africans. They say it was similar to English based creoles which are developed in the African Disapora. Proponents of the creolist hypothesis suggest that creole is widespread throughout the southern US.

Linguist William Stewart maintained that even slaves who were born in the New World spoke a creole language that differed significantly from the varieties of British English spoken by the white colonists.

However, the creole hypothesis suggests that a process of decreolization occurred where many of the features of creole were replaced with other dialects which occurs as a result of being surrounded by them.

This theory has been largely disproven - This hypothesis was supported by not only linguistic but also historical evidence.  However, it fell out of favor with the discovery of further historical data -- in the form of the written records of ex-slaves.  These extensive narrations did not differ nearly as much from the postcolonial dialect as would be expected if AAVE really developed from a creole.  

Furthermore, linguist Salikoko Mufwene has suggested that historically, the distribution of slaves in the Southern United States was not in fact likely to facilitate development of a creole, as most slaves had contact with only a few others.  (Mufwene 2003).  

The neo - anglicist hypothesis:

In a similar way to the anglicist hypothesis, the Neo-Anglicist Hypothesis maintains that the earlier African-American Vernacular originated based on the British dialects that were brought to the U.S. In contrast, the Neo-Anglicists do not maintain that modern features of AAVE can be traced to British dialects

because instead, they believe that the African-American Vernacular diverged from the other dialects and became more diverse.

However, the main  implication of this theory is that the most distinct features of AAVE are relatively recent innovations that were the work of African-Americans themselves and not as a  result of any outside influence.

The substrate hypothesis:

This theory suggests that while earlier AAVE dialects may have incorporated many features of other regional dialects due to contact with them, it has always differentiated itself in virtue of a strong substrate effect. They believe that AAVE has always differentiated itself via the substrate effect, due to possible early contact with creole speakers, even if they themselves never developed a full-fledged creole.

In linguistics, a substrate effect occurs when a language is influenced continually by its exposure to or contact with another language, even if this language no longer transfers features to the other language or is no longer in contact with it.  Even after the contact has ceased, it can still have an effect on the way the first language develops later on.

Contemporary issues and development

The spread of Black English

When slavery ended, more and more African Americans spread north and all over the country which meant AAVE was spread as well. After a while, it took on a ethnic significance which solidified it and also helped in establishing the base features for language. This then lead to a form of AAVE which is recognised regardless of geographical differences.  Meanwhile, social occurrences such as the segregation of American society reinforced this culture of separation even more strongly, and the dialect continued to diverge and become unique, growing with the African-American sense of identity.

Ebonics

Recently, the societal status of African-American Vernacular English has been extremely controversial, due mostly to the widespread negative perceptions regarding it. This came to a public head with the Oakland Ebonics Controversy in 1996.

This was a result of the Oakland County school board passing a resolution that declared Ebonics to be a language.  This had the result of mandating instruction in the AAVE dialect for students whose primary dialect was AAVE.  Despite support from linguists and teachers of English to students of other languages, the popular reaction was largely negative.  People objected to what they saw as declaring an inferior dialect to be a language, or to teaching English they saw as "wrong" in public schools. Currently, work is being done to help speakers of other dialects learn standard English through use of that dialect, notably by famed sociolinguist William Labov.  With education, resistance to the idea should be dispelled.