[blocking_io]

As the article points out, if it were 'bad English', the rules of AAVE would not be consistently applied. However, speakers know how to use the rules and they always apply them. Saying that 'calling it a language' is bad is truly ignorant. As far as linguists are concerned, it is a language. If you say otherwise, you are simply wrong. There is nothing inherently better about the English you speak compared to their English.

[smsm42]

I don't see how it follows. For example, for a native speaker of a language that has no definite/indefinite articles, it is common to omit those in English. Also, for speakers of languages without plural or complex tense system, it is common to systematically omit plurals or use only one or two tenses in English. Would it mean that English without articles, plurals and with only present tense would not be a "bad English" but would be a language on its own? ESL students would be delighted to know their English isn't bad, it's just their own view on the English language, equally valid, I'm sure, but somehow I do not see that happening just yet.

[blocking_io]

Are you really comparing how second language learners mangle a language to the first language of millions of Americans? As I said, English learners would not consistently apply rules. They make different mistakes. AAVE speakers reliably use the same grammar, and can understand each other unambiguously. Please explain why Standard American English is superior to AAVE. Why do you think SAE is any more valid than AAVE?

[prodigal_erik]

> Why do you think SAE is any more valid than AAVE?

Wasn't AAVE originally created by people consciously trying to imitate SAE as best they could after limited education? Don't all the differences represent mistakes now immortalized?

[blocking_io]

Why is the origin relevant? Middle English incorporated Norman vocabulary into Old English following the invasion and subjugation of England. Does that make French a more valid language than English?

[seanmcdirmid]

> Does that make French a more valid language than English?

The French might think so...

[unhammer]

Wasn't Modern English originally created by speakers of Old English consciously trying to imitate French as best they could after limited education?

(Wasn't Old English originally created by Anglo-Saxons consciously trying to imitate Norse and Latin as best they could after limited education?)

[nollidge]

My uneducated 4-year-old nephew speaks American Standard English. It doesn't take any education whatsoever to imitate language.

[Evbn]

Your description matches every language just as well.

English is a nonsensical mess spoken by fools who couldn't keep their German, Latin, and Greek separate.

[smsm42]

Your righteous indignation does not really contribute much. There are billions of people that speak bad English every day. That alone doesn't make their English good. Just saying "a lot of people do it" is not a validation of anything. Every person with native Russian language, at least until they lived in English-speaking country for many years, reliably skips articles and reliably misuses complex tenses, because there's no such thing in their language background. Yet they understand each other perfectly well, moreover - native speakers understand them perfectly well too (maybe they cringe a bit inside, but what could you do?) Does it mean we have Russian American English Vernacular here?

>>> Please explain why Standard American English is superior to AAVE.

I'm not sure what you mean by "superior" here. There's an English language with its grammar rules, and there are common mistakes or detachments from widespread usage patterns which people make in English. What would be the reason some of these should be institutionalized with four-letter acronyms and research programs and, I have no doubt, juicy grants?

>>>> Why do you think SAE is any more valid than AAVE?

Probably the same reason "the" is more valid than "ze". I'd personally prefer the latter, it's easier for me (actually, I'd prefer to get rid of it completely, face it, the whole concept is just a waste of space and time), but stupid English-speaking world insists on using "the". No idea why, maybe you know?

[blocking_io]

Your comparison of second language speakers to native speakers of AAVE continues to be insulting and wrong.

I'm not sure what you mean by "superior" here. There's an English language with its grammar rules, and there are common mistakes or detachments from widespread usage patterns which people make in English.

This is wrong. There is not 'an English language'. There is Standard American English, Scouse, Glaswegian, Received Pronunciation, Jamaican English, AAVE, and dozens of others, many of which you would find harder to comprehend than AAVE.

What would be the reason some of these should be institutionalized with four-letter acronyms and research programs and, I have no doubt, juicy grants?

As I keep explaining, this article does not advocate AAVE speakers should not be taught SAE, but that by recognising their native language they can be taught SAE better.

[smsm42]

>>>> This is wrong. There is not 'an English language'

Of course there isn't. If you are asked "do you speak English?", you have no idea what they are talking about. If you come into a bookstore and see a shelf named "Books in English", you ask the seller to point out to you which books are in Glaswegian, when one in Jamaican English, which ones are in AAVE, which ones are in Scouse... No way there's something that everybody actually calls "English". Got it.

>>>> As I keep explaining, this article does not advocate AAVE speakers should not be taught SAE

I am at loss why you keep explaining something that nobody doubted anyway. Teaching standard English does not preclude juicy grants for studying AAVE and "recognizing it" and "teaching better". I'd be happy to know how exactly better would it be? The article is pretty scarce on the details except for one method that basically eliminates the word "wrong" from the teacher's vocabulary and instead instructs the student that "we do it this way". I am not sure why this would be any different, but for this alone there's no need to even have a concept of AAVE as it seems...

[derleth]

> this article does not advocate AAVE speakers should not be taught SAE

If he actually understood this, his righteous indignation would be gone and then where would he be?

[nollidge]

> Just saying "a lot of people do it" is not a validation of anything.

Actually, when it comes to linguistics, it's the only thing that validates it. Can you possibly come up with better criteria?

[Crake]

This is what happens when you take postmodernism crazy think that comes out of the liberal arts departments and apply it to things in the real world.

Nothing can be right or wrong anymore. Everything is just your opinion. These people have literally written papers on how physics concepts like E=mc^2 are sexist.

[Hairy_Sandwich]

I don't think there are any rules to "AAVE" either, one speaker of this dialect? creole? language? or whatever we're calling it, would not be able to point out grammatical errors in the speech of another. I think the following would all be considered valid AAVE:

I ain’t tell nobody nothing about no sushi. or I didn’t tell nobody nothing about no sushi. or I didn’t tell nobody about no sushi. or I didn’t tell nobody about sushi.

All are bad English, i have no doubt whatsoever, that all would be understood by a speaker of "AAVE". I am of the opinion there is no such thing as AAVE, but there is definitely such a thing as people speaking bad English, which is reinforced by peer pressure and cultural and historical factors. Also I feel like people (educators in Oakland?) just caved, and don't want to admit that they have failed to properly educate and include a huge swathe of people.

[anigbrowl]

Also I feel like people (educators in Oakland?) just caved, and don't want to admit that they have failed to properly educate and include a huge swathe of people.

I'm inclined to agree. I live in north Oakland, in a pat of the city where a lot of the Black Panthers were based and got involved in community development on a practical level, such as installing traffic lights on dangerous intersections and suchlike. A few of these projects have little signs attached for historical reference. None of them are written in AAVE though.

I find slangs, dialects, creole, pidgin etc., quite interesting; I grew up in Ireland with a huge number of local words mixed in with conventional English, my in-laws have a fairly fluid mix of Vietnamese, Chinese and English going on at home, and I had some acting training growing up so I have a very good ear accents and idiom, and can get myself mistaken for a native speaker in several languages with only a very limited vocabulary. I'm all for recognizing what's interesting about AAVE.

On the other hand, if you're not teaching English effectively (and effective teaching has been a problem in Oakland, in multiple subjects), then you're putting the pupils at a huge disadvantage. And making exaggerated claims for AAVE is part of the problem; it clearly is not a fully developed language, and the in the original article the parallel drawn with French was simply incorrect (which was noted at the end of the article, but I wonder how many people made it that far?).

[Crake]

Good to see you around here. (I gave up on metafilter.)

I also agree that language variations are interesting...but AAVE is clearly not its own language. The suggestions flying around here that it ought to be treated like a second language entirely are rather ridiculous.

You don't have to justify usage of the word "the" to a chinese person, they know that's what they have to strive for in learning professional english. It's strange how often I see people (basically) advocating that we racially discriminate in these matters. I don't see anyone advocating that langauge patterns commonly used by hillbillies/rednecks be considered a completely different language, but those people are not just poor and uneducated, but also white. It seems that compassion runs dry so quickly for people of the wrong race, whichever one has been deemed fashionable to mock in a particular culture/decade. I wish we could do away with it entirely, instead of just swapping discrimination against one for discrimination against another.

[nollidge]

> it clearly is not a fully developed language

Says who? Your intuition?

> the parallel drawn with French was simply incorrect

If you'd actually read that part carefully, you'd notice that the specifics of the example were incorrect, but even the correction is still a valid double-negative in French.

> if you're not teaching English effectively

As has been repeated several times throughout this thread, the argument was never about changing the English teaching curriculum. It was about having the teachers learn AAVE so they understand their students.

[Evbn]

Chaucer would faint if he were forced to read this barely intelligible creole you call "English".

[dandelany]

Sorry, but you're just wrong - not "I disagree with you" - but your facts are wrong. There are many rules, as other posters have said, and people who speak AAVE regularly would absolutely be able to pick out grammatical errors. If I said "I didn't tell him anything about anybody," it would be grammatically correct English. If I said "I ain't tell him nothing about nobody," it would be gramatically correct AAVE. If I said "I ain't tell him nothing about anybody," or "I ain't tell him anything about nobody," AAVE speakers would certainly recognize it as incorrect. Most AAVE speakers I know would probably make fun of you for mixing dialects.

Your four examples of valid AAVE prove absolutely nothing. Most statements in English can be formed correctly in many different ways without drastically changing meaning. Here are the English corollaries to your AAVE examples:

I didn't tell anybody anything about any sushi. I didn't tell anyone a thing about any sushi. I didn't tell anyone about any sushi. I didn't tell anybody about sushi.

[blocking_io]

I don't think there are any rules to "AAVE" either, one speaker of this dialect? creole? language? or whatever we're calling it, would not be able to point out grammatical errors in the speech of another.

You're wrong. Linguists have been studying AAVE for years. It has been determined how the grammar of AAVE differs from SAE.

All are bad English, i have no doubt whatsoever, that all would be understood by a speaker of "AAVE".

Leaving aside whether these sentences are AAVE, are you arguing that being able to say the same thing multiple ways means that AAVE is not a language? That seems like an absurd point to make.

Also I feel like people (educators in Oakland?) just caved, and don't want to admit that they have failed to properly educate and include a huge swathe of people.

Did you read the article? It explains that by acknowledging AAVE as the native language of students, educators are better able to teach SAE and explain to students in what context it should be used.

Frankly, at this point you need to educate yourself. It's quite common for people to have the initial reaction that AAVE is bad English. But to continue to deny it a status of a language, and to insult its speakers as uneducated borders on racist.

[Hairy_Sandwich]

"You're wrong. Linguists have been studying AAVE for years. "

Yeah but I didn't say Linguists wouldn't be able concoct a grammar for AAVE, I said one AAVE speaker would not be able to point out the grammatical errors of another.

The sentence I gave was an example of AAEV from the article. The article used the sentence "I ain’t tell nobody nothing about no sushi".

I just gave a bunch of other examples I thought would pass for actual AAVE sentences, that would be "grammatically correct" intelligible to any AAEV speaker.

I'm of the opinion that it's merely wishful thinking to say that we can tell where simple bad English ends and AAEV begins.

Just because you suggest that I'm probably a racist because I remain skeptical about AAEV being an actual language, that doesn't make it a language. I think that the AAEV is simply result of PC politics. Nobody not even linguists are immune to politics. I haven't "insulted the speakers" in any way, I didn't say people who talk that way are stupid, I said that people talk that way because they are uneducated, or because of peer pressure, or historical/cultural factors.

"Did you read the article? It explains that by acknowledging AAVE as the native language of students, educators are better able to teach SAE and explain to students in what context it should be used."

Yes I read the article, that doesn't mean I agree with everything it said. If AAEV truly is a language then I'll come around eventually with the right explanation. If I never hear a persuasive enough explanation then I won't come around to that way of thinking (recognizing AAEV as a language). Suggesting that people are racist for not seeing how it is a legitimate language, only makes me more beleive that it's politics and not linguistics that gave it that classification.

[dandelany]

"If AAEV truly is a language then I'll come around eventually with the right explanation."

I wish this were true, but it doesn't seem to be. Several posters have given you well-thought-out, factual explanations for your misunderstanding of AAVE, but you seem to sweep them all under the rug because you think that "one AAVE speaker would not be able to point out the grammatical errors of another" - an assertion not based in fact at all.

Let's say I told you I didn't believe the earth was round, but that I'm keeping an open mind. You would, of course, bring up scientific data and expert opinions. To which I reply, "Well it still seems flat to me. Look!" stomp stomp "See, pretty darn flat! This round-earth theory of yours seems like just a result of PC politics. But keep trying - if the earth really is round, I just need the right explanation to win me over." Am I really being open-minded?

[hackinthebochs]

>I said one AAVE speaker would not be able to point out the grammatical errors of another.

Would you be able to point out the grammatical errors in standard english without having been taught standard english grammar all through school, while at the same time having it re-enforced through writing assignments, literature, etc? I don't know about you, but I very likely would not. The point is we don't have a built in mechanism to flag subtle grammar errors (although we can certainly tell if something "sounds" wrong, but this is likely through re-enforcement).

[joshrotenberg]

Yeah but I didn't say Linguists wouldn't be able concoct a grammar for AAVE, I said one AAVE speaker would not be able to point out the grammatical errors of another.

A linguist doesn't "concoct" a grammar (not an ethical one, at least). A grammar is described based on actual usage of the language. As evidenced by the section "AAVE grammatical Aspects" in the above Wikipedia article, there are clearly rules of grammar in AAVE. What evidence do you have that one speaker of AAVE wouldn't be able to point out grammatical errors?

[Evbn]

When you can't spell a word consistently that you use eight times in one post --the most important word in your post-- we don't give much weight to your guesses as to who can spot inconsistencies in usage.

[joshrotenberg]

I don't think there are any rules to "AAVE" either, one speaker of this dialect? creole? language? or whatever we're calling it, would not be able to point out grammatical errors in the speech of another.

There are actually quite a few rules. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_Eng...

[losvedir]

I don't think there are any rules to "AAVE" either, one speaker of this dialect? creole? language? or whatever we're calling it, would not be able to point out grammatical errors in the speech of another. I think the following would all be considered valid AAVE

Based on what?!?

Linguistics is an honest-to-god real science. A real, academic discipline, with papers, peer review, analysis of recordings, population surveys, simplified predictive models, etc, and it unanimously disagrees with you.

You seem to have very strong opinions in this thread, but have provided absolutely no evidence or basis for them.

This isn't a "feels like" or "believes" topic. This is a factual discussion, and you appear to be blathering your uninformed, lay speculation against the force of science. I feel like I'm arguing with a creationist here.

[Cushman]

> I think the following would all be considered valid AAVE:

Here's an idea: Stop guessing about a language you don't speak, put your linguist hat on, and go out and find an actual attestation. I suspect you will be surprised.

[Evbn]

Or just read a book on the topic. Many of them are written in SE.

[derleth]

> I don't think there are any rules to "AAVE" either

Well, then you're wrong on a simple, factual level. It's like you not thinking the atomic number of oxygen is eight: It is, and it will be, regardless of what the ignorant think.

[pasquinelli]

"All are bad English, i have no doubt whatsoever, that all would be understood by a speaker of "AAVE""

but they'd all be perfectly well understood by a speaker of "english" as well. so then "english" isn't a language. fascinating stuff.

[Crake]

You can consistently apply bad rules. For example:

Your knot write about you're ideas. You're comment says your opinionated about what people should right.

Your and you're are consistently misapplied by people everywhere, whether by consistently using one instead of the other, or just using "your" for everything.

Just because it's consistently applied doesn't make it correct English.

We use a standard form so you don't have to stop and puzzle out what the hell someone is trying to say.

Unless what you're writing is only going to be read by yourself, what you put down is supposed to communicate your ideas to others. That's why an ability to communicate in a standard manner is so important.