‘Internet language’ vs AAVE
Brittany Tomlinson, “Kombucha Girl'' on Tik Tok, took to the social media platform to give her opinions on the use of AAVE, African-American Vernacular English, or more popularly known as ‘black slang’, on social media. The video ignited a response from many speakers of AAVE, and definitely does not sit right with me. Tomlinson expressed that “The Nicki Minaj thing, ‘The big boobs? Chile, anyway,’ that’s a meme, obviously, So, when someone is quoting that or when someone says ‘period,’ ‘sis,’ ‘snatch,’ all that, it’s very much like internet culture. Like stan twitter. Stan culture has its own language”.
The Tik Tok star’s comments provoked recoil, and rightly so as AAVE is not “like internet culture” and “stan culture does not have its own language”. Attempting to and in this case being successful in white-washing the black history of AAVE is just another example of white supremacy. This may seem like a reach to many, especially those of the ignorant kind like Brittany Tomlinson, but speakers of AAVE have been subjected to contempt and ridicule for years for their vernacular, yet the same colloquialisms exiting the mouths of white suburban teens on Tik Tok is considered ‘cool’ and ‘trendy’. Categorising AAVE as ‘stan twitter language’ completely dismisses and erases the wholly brutal but simultaneously innovative development of the dialect, which, like countless things synonymous with black culture, specifically African-American culture, originates from the involuntary encounter between West Africans and white European colonialists.
The History of AAVE
The Atlantic Slave trade gave an uncalled for birth of many dialects and creoles, which began as pidgins and essentially grew up to become creole languages. The phenomena of language contact has been studied by linguistics as the genesis of AAVE and other creoles, where speakers of West African languages were enforced into slavery and systematically segregated from those they shared a language with, thus their tongue inevitably mixed with the language of their colonial oppressors, English. This is not an isolated case, but in fact the case for the world’s creoles. This idea is known in the linguistic world as the Creole Origin hypothesis. (However, it is important to mention that some linguists do not consider AAVE a creole, as the argument surrounding the origins of AAVE is ongoing. Indeed the paper The Creole Origins of African American Vernacular English: Evidence from copula absence by John R. Rickford states that AAVE “decreolized into mesolectal forms increasingly closer to English”)
On the other side of the argument, the Dialect Divergence Hypothesis claims that AAVE is a sister dialect of Southern American English (SAE) which diverged from it in the 1700s and 1800s. Although AAVE shares phonological similarities with Southern American English, it is considered a dialect in its own right, not a pseudo imitation of SAE. Consequently some have coined the term ‘blaccent’, a portmanteau word of ‘black’ and ‘accent’, which I use reluctantly to describe AAVE which, I again emphasise, is not solely an accent. This may also be why some white people find it credible to plagiarise AAVE terms as their own, as it is phonetically (meaning the way the dialect sounds) similar to the cousin-marrying, red-neck, southern accent.
Along with ‘blaccent’, ‘black English’ and ‘ghetto English’, the term ‘Ebonics’ is used as a synonym for AAVE. In popular culture, and now gen z culture, it is misunderstood that these titles refer to a slang used by black inner-city and urban folk; a contorted and misshapen form of Standard American English or simply ‘bad English’. In fact, the term ‘Ebonics’ is today considered, by some, a slur. This does make sense considering the villinisation of ‘Ebonics’ in national media. The dialect has deep-rooted connotations of criminality and urban youth violence, perhaps born out of the white fear of racial integration as black communities integrated into the historically ‘white’ regions of America after the abolishment of racial segregation in 1964. This proxy war between white speakers of Standard American English and black speakers of AAVE was exposed in the Oakland Ebonics Controversy of 1996-7.
In 1996, an educational task force appointed by the Oakland School Board published a report of the education of African American students, and the findings exposed America’s widespread prejudice against the millions of AAVE speakers. In the report, along with so many other disheartening stats, it was stated that 64% of the students who repeated a grade were African American and the GPA for African American students was 1.80 out of a 4.0 scale, the lowest GPA for any ethnic group. So, when a resolution was passed recognising the legitimacy of AAVE, then called Ebonics, this set off a firestorm in the media. But, before we dive into the uproar, let’s unpack just why everyone was against Ebonics in the classroom, then and now.
Think about it, every day millions of black children arrive at their American school, which teaches in American English, among teachers who, let’s face it, for the most part do not speak AAVE. For those children, however, who speak AAVE at home, on their street and in their neighbourhood, for those children who use the habitual tense (I been doing well in school) or negative concord (My dad ain’t never without a job), for those children, it is unfair to expect them to instantly and correctly use Standard English in their school work or just in classroom conversation. While the resolution’s purpose was to build a bridge between students who spoke AAVE and teachers who spoke Standard American English, in fact it specifically instructed to "[maintain] the legitimacy and richness of such language ... and to facilitate their [students] acquisition and mastery of English language skills", many critics missed the point.
Maya Angelou claimed that “the very idea that African American language is a language separate and apart could encourage young black students to not learn Standard English”. Cartoon strips and posters were published in national newspapers mocking the use of 'Ebonics', committing slander by forming a fabricated narrative between the use of AAVE and the death of the English language, and likewise the poster mocking the renowned Martin Luther King Jr. quote "I had a dream".
Other similar prescriptive critics could not swallow the relatively small pill that ‘bad English’ or ‘ghetto speech’ would be considered a legitimate dialect. It seems impossible for black children to learn Standard American English AND speak AAVE, just because AAVE is thought of as a destructive force that inhibits speakers from acquiring any other ‘correct’ and ‘proper’ language… like black people who speak AAVE are forever stamped with the mark of inarticulacy. Then and now, we continue to see speakers of AAVE subjected to scrutiny, where their vernacular is inexplicably linked with unemployment and lack of prosperity.
Now what?
“We would often say when people have a prejudice against a language system, what they really have is a prejudice against people who are speaking it”. The author of this quote is unknown, yet their words are remarkably relatable.
A proxy war is being fought between AAVE speakers and all of those who oppose the dialect. It is preposterous to presume that it’s unique and innovative grammar system, vocabulary and phonology creates fear, real fear, in white and non-black individuals. No, it is not the words that dance on the tongue of black people that frightens others, it is not the culture soaked into the words, nor the history embedded in it, it is the pigment of the speakers skin that triggers this terror. You don’t agree? Well, then tell me why when a white upper-middle class kid, or sometimes full grown adult, uses ‘period pooh’, ‘Chile’ or ‘She been mad’, it does not stir the animosity inside of you. Explain to me why it is cool and desirable to ‘talk black’ when you are not black, but when a black person speaks their native dialect with their unique inflections and vocabulary, it is unprofessional or ugly? This reclamation of AAVE as cool and fashionable only when it is spoken by non-black people is not cultural appreciation, but appropriation. By ctrl, alt and deleting the black blueprint on their own vernacular, we, as non-black people, are erasing a deeper history. It's not right.
So, reducing ‘anyway chile’ and ‘sis is snatched’ to “internet slang” or “stan twitter language” is redundant and disrespectful to the actual AAVE speakers whose voices are ignored and ridiculed.
I am not the language police, so I can not tell you what you can and can not use in your speech. Not every black person speakers AAVE, nor are all speakers of the dialect black. My hands are up, I use AAVE features at times. However, there is a difference between myself arguing that I am using “stan twitter language” (which isn’t a real thing, as far as I am aware) and acknowledging that I am borrowing AAVE terms in my vernacular. I am educated on the dialect’s history and hopefully, now, you are too.
If not, I urge you to learn the historical impact of AAVE, not that of “stan twitter language”. For this “stan language” has a shallow history, yet AAVE has a history and culture that lives on; a history soaked into the tongue of it’s speaker and is spoken every single day.
{Bustle’s article entitled “When They See Us” Shows What Happens When Black Slang Is Misheard discusses cases where slang (aka AAVE) used by a black person is a main factor in their criminalisation and miscarriage of justice. To me, this is infuriating as ‘miscommunication’ or simply covert racism, brought out through language differences is just another channel for racism to damage black lives. This article is a great read so please check it out. I will be sure to dedicate a piece to AAVE again in the future, so stay tuned.}
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