[nollidge]

> I think AAVE is simply modern America's cockney slang.

Well, what linguists think is that it's at minimum a dialect with consistent grammar and using features of many other forms of communciation that you'd probably consider "real" languages.

Just because it's not what you were taught doesn't mean it's "bad" English or slang.

[anigbrowl]

Cockney slang has rules too, it's at least as much a dialect as AAVE.

[nollidge]

True! I was more objecting to the "I think" part and the "slang" part, but I should've been clearer about that.