Talk:Ebonics (word)/Archive 4

Ebonic Plague

In 1996, when the Oakland School Board announced that students would begin getting school credit for speaking Ebonics, there was a national outcry of criticism. The TV show "Saturday Night Live" created a skit that mocked the school board. The plot of the skit was an outbreak of the "Ebonic Plague" which caused members of the skit (all white) to suddenly begin talking in a patois. It was hilarious and evidently the last straw. The school board backed down soon after.

--cheers 70.153.13.175 (talk) 22:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)Titus

Ernie Smith writes:

For the totally uninitiated Wikipedia reader,on the issue of whether Ebonics is a language or dialect; I should make it clear here that, although there might be in socio and geopolitical circles, and TV skits, in the field of linguistics there is not and there has never been a debate as to whether Ebonics is a ‘language’ or a ‘dialect’. In linguistics it is axiomatic that human languages differ and there are no languages that do not, in varying degrees, have social or regional (geographical) dialects. Therefore, as in the case of all human languages, Ebonics is both a language and a dialect. Ebonics is a language because it is a system of communication for transmitting human thoughts. Ebonics is a dialect because within the common core, systematic, rule governed and predictable rules of gammar that makes Ebonics a language, there are variations in Ebonics that are related to socio-economic and geographical diffences that exist between the speakers.

Given that Ebonics is in fact a language, the crux of the issue at hand and the question that must be addressed is; to which language family, as a dialect, does the language ‘Ebonics’ belong? In other words, the real Ebonics debate is whether the empirical or hard evidence supports the thesis that, on the basis of continuity of the morphology and morpho-syntax (rules of grammar)is the language of African Americans (i.e., descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans) genetically akin to the Germanic language family to which English belongs? Or based the criterion of continuity of the morphology and morpho-syntax or rules of grammar, is Ebonics genetically akin to the Niger-Congo and Bantu languages of Africa and as such a neo African dialect that is the linguistic continuation of the Niger-Congo and Bantu language family in diaspora?

References

Kifano S., Smith E. A, (2005) Ebonics and Education in Context of Culture: Meeting Language and Cultural Needs of LEP African American Children Edited by J. Ramirez et. al. Buffalo Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Smith E. A. (1974) The Evolution and Continuing Presence of the African Oral Tradition In Black Ameica. Irvine. University of California at Irvine.

Smith E.A. (1976) A Case for Bilingual and Bicultural Education for United States Slave Descendants of African Origin Department of Linguistics Seminar Papers Series No 39 Edited By A. Kaye and D. Sears California State University Fullerton, Fullerton

Smith E.A. (1978) Historical Development of Ebonics In The Western Journal of Black Studies. Pullman Washington State University Press

Smith E.A. (1993) Black Child In the Schools: Ebonics and its Implications for the Transformation of American Education In Bicultural Education Studies In Education Edited by A. Darder, Claremont, Claremont Graduate School

Smith E. A., Crozier K. (1998) Ebonics Is Not Black English In The Western Journal of Black Studies. Pullman Washington State University Press

Smith E.A. (1993) Cultural and Linguistic Factors in Worker Notification to Blue Collar and No-Collar African American Workers In American Journal of Industrial Medicine Edited by Philip J. Landrigan, Irving J. Seliokoff et. al. New York. Wiley-Liss

Smith E.A (2001) Ebonics and Bilingual Education of the African American Child In Ebonics and Language Education of African Ancestry Students Edited by Clinton Crawford Brooklyn Sankofa World Publishers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk) 07:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Back to the matter of parody, etc.

Oh yes, the prosody or phonological segments or even morphology of language A may sound funny to speakers of language B -- just as those of language B may sound funny to speakers of language A. To me, as a non-sociolinguist, this seems profoundly banal; beyond this, I'm mildly depressed by the urges of my fellow-humans to place people in in- and out-groups. And that's about the extent of my own interest.

However, Baugh does devote a chapter (eight, pp 87-99) of his book Beyond Ebonics to "Racist Reactions and Ebonics Satire".

Much of this chapter of Baugh's is about racist reactions to and satire of AAVE (or whatever you care to call it). (Baugh here deals with Cosby and such people.) So far as this is encyclopedic, I'm sure it should go in African American Vernacular English.

However, a substantial amount of the chapter is specific to the term Ebonics (with drearily jocular derivatives such as "Hebonics" and "Mathabonics") and there is even a little about the Afrocentric concept of Ebonics. This material probably is encyclopedic -- after all, it rates a substantial chunk of a chapter of an academic book. If it merits summarizing anywhere in WP, it should go in this article. For a number of reasons, I'm reluctant to do this work. However, anyone who'd like to do so now knows where to look for material. -- Hoary (talk) 02:20, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment from User:Ernie A. Smith Ph.D.

In this edit, User:Ernie A. Smith Ph.D. added the following to the article:

Ernie Smith writes:

There are two issues conflated in Wikipedia that must be separated in order for a reader to have a cohesive understanding of the dispute regarding the origin and true meaning of the word Ebonics. Firstly, the issue of the origin and true meaning of the word ‘Ebonics’ is a separate and distinctly different issue from the issue of whether the native language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans is a dialect of English and ipso facto genetically related to the Germanic language family to which English belongs. The essence of this second issue is; when in fact, in Indo-European linguistics, the most prevalent view is that, continuity of morphology constitutes the relevant evidence for positing genetic kinship, why do those who posit the language of the descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans as being a dialect of English (an Indo-European language) reject continuity of morphology as being the relevant evidence and posit instead that it is continuity of the ‘English lexicon’ or lexifier English (English being the dominant vocabulary) that is the relevant evidence that makes Ebonics a dialect of English?

Relative to the first issue, i.e., concerning the origin and true meaning of the word Ebonics, in an earlier edit that I submitted to Wikipedia I presented empirical evidence that the word Ebonics was coined in January of 1973 by Dr. Robert L. Williams, an African American psychologist who was at that time a professor of psychology at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri. As further empirical evidence that Dr. Robert Williams coined the term Ebonics in 1973, I cite an Op. Ed. article written by Dr. Robert Williams in the January 28, 1997 issue of the St. Louis Post Dispatch. In this Op. Ed. article Dr. Williams presents excerpts from a tape recording made during a small group meeting of Black psychologists, linguists and speech and language scholars attending a conference in St Louis, Missouri on "The Cognitive and Language Development of the Black Child'. At this conference, funded by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), papers were presented by psychologists, linguists, special education experts, speech pathologists and language researchers from other disciplines who viewed the native language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans as being a dialect of English. Papers were likewise presented by psychologist, linguist, speech pathologists and language researchers who viewed the language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans as being a neo-African dialect that is genetically related to the Niger-Congo and Bantu languages of Africa.

In my earlier edit submission to Wikipedia I argued and presented empirical evidence that as coined and originally defined by the author of the word Ebonics (Dr. Robert Williams) the word ‘Ebonics’ does not refer to a Black dialect of English or any other appellation that inherently infers that the native language of African Americans is a dialect of English and hence genetically related to the Germanic language family to which English belongs. I posited that, with the exception of the dissertation of Dr. Ernie Smith (University of California at Irvine 1974), in which the term Ebonics is used extensively, edited by Dr. Robert Williams, the first book ever written on Ebonics was entitled Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks (1975). In this book which contains articles authored by several presenters attending this conference Dr. Williams also contributed an article entitled "The Effects of Language on the Test Performance of Black Children". In this article Dr. Williams provides what, in his St. Louis Post Dispatch article, is recorded as the ‘official definition’ of the word Ebonics. The title of my dissertation is “The Evolution and Continuing Presence of the African Oral Tradition in Black America” It should be noted that as a matter of policy all University of California (UC) dissertations are copyrighted. In my dissertation (Chapter 1 page 1) the word Ebonics is defined precisely as originally and is officially defined by Dr. Williams. I also contributed a chapter from my dissertation as an article in "Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folk" (1975).

In Dr. Williams' article entitled "The Effects of Language on the Test Performance of Black Children" (1975:100) he makes it very clear that the African American psychologists, linguists, special education, speech and language professionals that were assembled rejected the thesis that the native language of Black Americans was a Black dialect of English and that the Group: “…in a barrage of criticism held that the concept of Black English or non-standard English contains deficit model characteristics, and therefore must be abolished. Following considerable discussion regarding the language of Black people, the Group reached a consensus to adopt the term Ebonics (combining Ebony and Phonics or Black sounds).” Clearly, based on what Dr. Robert Williams states here, the word Ebonics was not coined and defined as a synonym for Black English (BE), Non-standard Negro English (NNE), Black Vernacular English (BVE), African American English (AAE), African American Vernacular English (AAVE), Negro English (NE), Vernacular Black English, etc., but rather the word Ebonics was coined in repudiation of any and all appellations that inherently infer that the native language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans is a dialect of English and genetically related to the Germanic language family to which English belongs.

Thus, the Wikipedia reader is here confronted with precisely the same issue with which the Oakland Unified School District Board (OUSD) was confronted in 1996. Does the term 'Ebonics' mean what Dr. Robert Williams, the African American psychologist who originally coined and 'officially' defined the term Ebonics, says it means, or does it mean what those who contend that Ebonics is a synonym for BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, say it means? In its effort to resolve this issue, the OUSD Board created a Task Force on The Education of African American Children (Task Force). One of the tasks assigned to the Task Force was to investigate the origin and authentic meaning of the term Ebonics. As a result of its investigation the Task Force on The Education of African American Children concluded that the irrefutable empirical evidence was that Dr. Robert Williams coined the term Ebonics. The Task Force concluded and reported to the OUSD Board that, even if the OUSD Board disagreed with the thesis that the language of all descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans belongs to the African language family, as officially defined by the author, the term Ebonics refers to an African language system. More precisely, as posited in the Task Force’s resolution that the OUSD Board adopted as District policy, the term Ebonics refers to a neo-African dialect that has grammatical roots and rules that are traced to the Niger-Congo languages of Africa.

The Task Force further informed the OUSD Board that, since the term Ebonics refers to an African Language System, when African American parents identify their child’s home language as Ebonics, on the district’s Home Language Designation (HLD) form, they are declaring a language other than English is their child’s ‘native’, primary’ or ‘home’ language. The Task Force recommended to the OUSD Board that, based on the fact that the term Ebonics refers to an African Language System, as a matter of OUSD policy, children of African ancestry whose parents have declared Ebonics as their child’s home language have a right to equal treatment and should not be discriminated against on the basis of their language ancestry. The evidence being irrefutable that Dr. Robert Williams originally coined the term Ebonics and that the term Ebonics refers to an African Language System, for the OUSD Board the answer to the question, ‘what does the term Ebonics mean’, was very simple. As posited by the OUSD Board’s resolution passed unanimously on December 18, 1996, the term Ebonics means what the author of the term says it means and any definition of the word Ebonics that does not conform to the meaning originally posited by the author is counterfeit.

In Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition the words 'counterfeit' and 'plagiarize' are defined as follows (1993: 265 and 888): “counterfeit 1. made in imitation of something else with intent to deceive...to try to deceive by pretense or dissembling.” “plagiarize …to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own: use (a created production) without crediting the source ~ vi to commit literary theft: present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source – plagiarizer.”

I maintain that those who view and use the term Ebonics as being a synonym for BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, are either totally ignorant of the origin and true meaning of the word Ebonics (which calls into question their scholastic and academic acumen) or they are fully aware of the origin and true meaning of the word Ebonics and elect to use the word Ebonics as a synonym for BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, with the intent to deceive. I maintain that since by definition to counterfeit is to: “try to deceive by pretense or dissembling.” the propagation of a false definition of the word ‘Ebonics’ as being a synonym for BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, with the intent to deceive, is larcenous counterfeiting. I maintain that since by definition "to steal and pass off the ideas or words of another as one’s own" and using a "created production without crediting the source" is plagiarism or literary theft, when use is made of the word Ebonics (an original idea and word coined by Dr. Robert Williams) as a synonym for BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, this deceptive pattern of practice, i.e., using the ‘word’ or ‘idea’ (Ebonics) without properly crediting the source (Dr. Robert Williams) is plagiaristic dishonesty or ‘literary theft’ that violates national and international laws protecting ‘intellectual property’ rights. This kind of plagiarism or stealth of ‘intellectual property’ via literary theft and the intentional perversion of the truth should not be tolerated and the authors of articles and books as well as publishers of dictionaries with counterfeit and plagiaristic definitions of the word Ebonics must be held accountable.

As I have stated above, being either totally ignorant of the original authorship and authentic meaning of the word Ebonics or knowing fully and well the original authorship and authentic meaning of the word Ebonics but, deliberately propagating a counterfeit definition with the intent to deceive, many of those who posit the term Ebonics as being a synonym for BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, have construed the issue to be a mere semantic quibble. That is, they posit that “we are talking about the same thing but just calling it something different”. I maintain that there is a fundamental difference between ‘talking about the same thing and calling it something different’ and ‘talking about something different and calling it the same thing’. The reader will notice that not one of those cited above ; John Baugh, Lisa Green, Wayne O’Neil, Gloria Weddington, and others such as John Rickford and John McWhorter who also posit the term Ebonics as being a synonym for BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, has dared to deny that the term Ebonics was coined by Dr. Robert Williams. Nor has a single one of them produced a shred of evidence to the contrary.

Having presented empirical evidence that the combining of the words ‘ebony’ and ‘phonics’, to create the word 'Ebonics' was the original idea of Dr. Roberts Williams I have established that, as a word associated with Black or African ‘speech sounds’, the word 'Ebonics' is the creative and intellectual product of Dr. Robert Williams. I have established that, being the creative and intellectual product of Dr. Robert Williams the word Ebonics means what the author of the term says it means and any definition of the word Ebonics that does not conform to the meaning originally posited by the author is counterfeit. Thus, I maintain that whereas, there may be a dispute as to whether the language of descendants of enslaved Africans belongs to the Niger-Congo African language family, or to the Germanic language family to which English belongs, there can be no debate as to the original authorship of the word Ebonics. Given the fact that when the term Ebonics was originally coined by the author or creator of the word Ebonics an “official” definition was declared, there should be no debate as to the authentic meaning of the term Ebonics. As coined and ‘officially’ defined by its author (Dr. Robert Williams) the term Ebonics refers to an African language system. Let us turn now to the issue of whether the native language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans is a dialect of English and hence genetically related to the Germanic language family to which English belongs.

In the field of linguistics there are three methods of language classification that are of major significance (See Greenberg 1967:66) (1) the genetic method, (2) the typological method and (3) the areal method. All three of these methods are equally legitimate and are considered to be reliable and valid within the context in which they are qualified and expressly used. As Joseph Greenberg states in his book; Essays In Linguistics: (1967:66) "Confusion results only when a classification reached by one method is erroneously treated as an exemplification of one of the other methods, thus leading to invalid inferences." Of these three methods according to Greenberg: (1967:66) “…the genetic is the only one which is at once non-arbitrary, exhaustive, and unique. By non-arbitrary is here meant that there is no choice of criteria leading to different and equally legitimate results. This is because genetic classification reflects historical events which must have occurred or not occurred”. The reader should know that, as was posited by the Linguistic Society Of America (LSA) in defense of the 1996 OUSD resolution, in the field of linguistics the term 'genetic' has nothing to do with 'genes', as the term is used in biology. i.e., the specific sequence of nucleotides in DNA or RNA that is located in the germ plasm on a chromosome. In linguistics when the term 'genetic' is used and languages are said to be 'genetically related', the term 'genetic' has to do with "genesis" or "origin". (See Kifano and Smith 2005:62-95)

In his book African Language Structures professor William Welmers states (1973:3): "genetic relationships" have to do with linguistic characteristic that are inherited by one generation of speakers from another, as opposed to those which are acquired from other sources." In an article entitled “Linguistic Continuity of Africa in the Caribbean” Mervyn Alleyne states that: (1971:125,126): “The most prevalent view concerning the basis for genetic classification in Indo-European linguistics is that continuity of morphology constitutes the relevant evidence for positing genetic relationship. For example, there has been linguistic continuity in Western Europe in terms of the transmission of Latin morphology (in somewhat altered form) or by the transmission of Old Germanic morphology. This makes languages like French, Spanish, etc., genetically related to Latin, and German, Dutch, etc., genetically related to Old Germanic. It is generally accepted that there has been no rupture in the development or transmission process, although obviously there has been change. English itself is considered to be a continuation of Anglo-Saxon, although in fact the vocabulary is predominantly Romance or Latin."

I reiterate here, for the totally uninitiated Wikipedia reader, relative to the issue of whether or not Ebonics is a ‘language’ or a ‘dialect’, although in soicio and geo - political circles there may be, in the field of linguistics there is not and there has never been a debate as to whether Ebonics is a ‘language’ or a ‘dialect’. In linguistics it is axiomatic that human languages differ and there are no languages that do not, in varying degrees, have social or regional (geographical) dialects. As to whether Ebonics is a language or dialect the fact is, as in the case of all human languages, Ebonics is both a language and a dialect. Given that Ebonics is in fact a language, in terms of the issue at hand, the question that must be addressed is; to which language family, as a dialect, does the language ‘Ebonics’ belong? In other words the issue is whether the empirical or hard evidence supports the thesis that, on the basis of continuity of the morphology (rules of grammar) the language of African Americans (i.e., descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans) is genetically akin to the Germanic language family to which English belongs. Or does Ebonics belong to the Niger-Congo African language family as the linguistic continuation of Africa in diaspora and hence, is a neo African dialect?

In his book Descriptive and Comparative Linguistics Professor Leonard Palmer states (1972:22, 23): “To reconstruct the ancestral forms which account for resemblances in the communities under observation is simultaneously to make some kind of assertion about an ancestral community… We repeat, then, that observed resemblances between speech habits, given the empirical principle of arbitrariness, force us to conclusion of historical connectedness by an unbroken chain of mimetic acts. This connectedness is what is understood by ‘relationship’. In order to establish the fact of such a relationship our evidence must not consist entirely on points of vocabulary. For … words are often borrowed by one language from another as a result of cultural contact. Thus, English has borrowed words like algebra from Arabic sources. No one on that account will assert English is ‘related’ to the Semitic languages. What constitutes the most certain evidence of relationship is resemblance of grammatical structure, for languages retain their native structure even when their vocabularies have been swamped by foreign borrowing, such has been the case for English and Hittite”

Attesting to what Palmer has stated just above Mervyn Alleyne states (1971:126): “If we find African elements in Afro-American dialects, the conclusion is inescapable that they belong to the base of the historical process. If we find an almost total absence of Indo-European morphology in African-American dialects, but instead find the morphosyntax can in many respects be shown to be derived from the morphosyntax of West African languages, we can reasonably conclude that there is morphosyntactical continuity from West African languages to Afro-American dialects.” Based on what Alleyne has posited just above, if the preponderance of the empirical evidence is that there is continuity of the English morphology or rules of grammar in the language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans, then the language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans must be viewed as a dialect of English. On the other hand if the preponderance of the empirical evidence is that there is continuity of the Niger-Congo African morphology or rules of grammar, then the language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans must be viewed as being genetically akin to and belonging to the Niger-Congo African language family and hence a Nigritian or African dialect.

In his book Muntu: An Outline of the New African Culture Janheinz Jahn states (1953:194): “In the Afro-American world some hybrid languages have arisen: Creole, Surinaams, Papiamento and others, which are generally designated as dialects. Creole counts as spoiled French, Surinaams is also called Negro English. The vocabulary consists predominantly of European words, but the syntax and word formation follow the rules of African grammar. It is wrong therefore to call these languages ‘spoilt’ English or ‘spoilt’ French. If one considers the essence of a language to be its vocabulary, Creole and Papiamento must be called the youngest of the Romance languages, Surinaams must be call the youngest of the Germanic languages. But if one considers the grammatical structure of a language more important than its vocabulary, then the three languages mentioned do not belong to the Indo-European group.”

I maintain that based on the criterion of continuity of the morphology or rules of grammar the only way the hybrid language that resulted from the convergence of the European colonial settler’s Early Modern English (EmodE) and the Niger-Congo African languages spoken by the enslaved ancestors of African American people would be a dialect of English is that, the hybrid language of African American people would have to have an English grammar (morpho-syntax) with Niger-Congo African words superimposed. But, in America and throughout the African diaspora, this is not the case. As attested by Janheinz Jahn in quotes just above the empirical evidence is that, in each and every instance throughout the African diaspora, the hybrid languages that have evolved from the convergence of EmodE and the Niger-Congo African languages have an African morpho-syntax (grammar) with European words superimposed.

And so, I have established that in Indo-European linguistics, languages are not classified as being akin or genetically related based on the mere evidence of a common lexicon or vocabulary. In Indo-European linguistics and in this Wikipedia the English language itself is defined as a West Germanic language despite the fact that the bulk of the English lexicon is derived from Latin, French and other non-Germanic languages. This prompts the question if: BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, actually exist as vernaculars or dialects of English, where are these vernaculars or dialects spoken? That is, based on the criterion of continuity of the morphology or rules of grammar where are the BE, AAVE and other Engish language based dialects that have English grammars with African words superimposed? Surely John Baugh, Lisa Green, Wayne O’Neil, Gloria Weddington, and others who posit the term Ebonics as being a synonym for BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, can produce empirical evidence of one at least.

The enslaved ancestors of speakers of Ebonics came primarily from the West Coast and Niger Congo Africa speaking Nigritian and Bantu languages. The ancestors of speakers of English came from England speaking European settler English - a Germanic language. Therefore the morphology and morph-syntax of Nigritian and Bantu languages and the morphology and morpho-syntax of the Indo-European Germanic English language are not derived from a common origin or linguistic base. Since the morphology and morph-syntax of Nigritian and Bantu languages and the morphology and morpho-syntax of the Indo-European Germanic language are not derived from a common origin or linguistic base, the Nigritian and Bantu languages and the Indo-European Germanic languages were not genetically related. Given that the Nigritian and Bantu languages and the Indo-European Germanic languages were not genetically related, the Nigritian and Bantu language (Ebonics) and Indo-European Germanic language (English) are not genetically related. In other words, from a comparative linguistic perspective the language being discussed as Ebonics is the consequence of linguistic convergence - not linguistic divergence. That is, Ebonics does not have a Germanic or English grammar with an African Lexicon superimposed. Throughout the African diaspora the empirical evidence is that as a consequence of linguistic convergence the descendants of enslaved Africans acquire and speak, as their native or primary language, mixed African and European dialects that have African grammars with European lexicons superimposed. Simply put, the linguistic differences that remain is the evidence that Ebonics and English are not the same. That is why the term Ebonics was coined and why the only legitimate meaning of the term Ebonics is the official definition posited by Dr. Robert Williams.

[Ernie Smith, Ph.D. Professor of Linguistics]

REFERENCES

Alleyne, M. (1971) Linguistic Continuity of Africa in The Caribbean in Topics In African American Studies Edited by Henry Richards New York. Black Academy Press.

Crawford C. (2001) Ebonics and Language Education of African Ancestry Students Linguistic Society of America Chicago January 1997 Resolution on Oakland Ebonics Issue (p358) Brooklyn Sankofa World Publishers

Delpit T. (1998) Linguistic Society of America’s Resolution on the Oakland Ebonics Issue Chicago January 1997 In Real Ebonics Debate (pg160) Boston Beacon Press

Greenberg J. (1967) Essays in Linguistics Chicago, University of Chicago Press

Janheinz J. (1953): Muntu An Outline of the New African Culture New York, Grove Press

Kifano S., Smith E. A, (2005) Ebonics and Education in Context of Culture Edited by J. Ramirez et. al. Buffalo Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition (1993). Springfield MA Merriam Webster Inc. Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition. (2001) Springfield MA Merriam Webster Inc.

Palmer L. (1978) Descriptive and Comparative Linguistics London, Faber & Faber

Random House Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2001) New York. Random House.

Romaine, S (1994) Language and Society :An Introduction to Sociolinguistics Oxford, Oxford University Press;

Shipley, J.T. (1984) The Origin of English Words. Baltimore. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Smith E. A. (1974) The Evolution and Continuing Presence of the African Oral Tradition In Black Ameica. Irvine. University of California at Irvine

Smith E. A., Crozier K. (1998) Ebonics Is Not Black English In The Western Journal of Black Studies. Pullman Washington State University Press

Smith E.A (2001) Ebonics and Bilingual Education of the African American Child In Ebonics and Language Education of African Ancestry Students Edited by Clinton Crawford Brooklyn Sankofa World Publishers

The American Heritage Dictionary Of The English Language, (1976). Boston. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Welmers, W. (1973) African Language Structures Berkeley. University of California Press

Williams, R.L. Rivers, W. (1975). The Effects of Language on the Test Performance of Black Children. In R.L. Williams (Ed) Ebonics: the true language of black folks, (pp. 96-109) St Louis, Institute of Black Studies.

Williams, R.L. (1997, January 28). Ebonics as a bridge to Standard English: [Letter to the editor], Saint Louis Post Dispatch.

Williams, R.L. (1997). The Ebonics controversy: Journal of Black Psychology 23 (3), 208-214.

Well, this is very interesting.

I suggest that the writer (i) reads Wikipedia:No legal threats and (ii) thinks hard about whether the paragraph starting "I maintain that those who view and use the term Ebonics" constitutes a legal threat. If it is not, the writer should clarify this. If it is, then an administrator (not me) is likely to block the writer.

If it's made clear that this is not a legal threat, then an adult discussion can start about some of what's above. -- Hoary (talk) 16:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I think of it less as a threat and more as a misguided rant. The article in its present form (and nearly all versions of the article dating to 2007) a) credits Williams' early research and coining of the term and b) how the term's definition has become broadened since then. While not a lawyer myself, I see little of concern in the current article. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 19:30, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Matters of law aside, the assertion that any definition of a word that doesn't conform to the definition of that word posited by its coiner is "counterfeit" is a most interesting one. Lexicographers could happily label the uses of typewriter, computer etc to refer to machines as "counterfeit", the only correct meanings -- or anyway the more correct meanings, as I can't be bothered to consult the OED right now -- being people who do this or that. ¶ I am also amazed and amused to read that a language resembling the subject matter of, for example, Lisa J. Green's African American English: A Linguistic Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002; ISBN 0-521-89138-8) has, morphologically -- or morphosyntactically -- less to do with English than with Bantu/Nigritian languages. Perhaps the writer understands "morphology" and "morphosyntax" rather differently than do most people. Reality check: most whites in north America have little trouble in understanding blacks (even blacks talking to each other) or anyway less trouble than they have in understanding the most anglicized (Americanism-ridden) forms of Friesian, Dutch, etc. (Unless of course they want to have trouble: racism can conquer all.) -- Hoary (talk) 03:42, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

On page 8 on the Introduction in Green's book (thanks for that link BTW), she even mentions Smith's contentions about the redefinition of the term. It sounds like Smith is very vocal about his assertions. I did a little digging, and found this, specifically "Dr. Smith's conclusions are largely based on his research and the research of other scientists on the language and culture of Africans and African Americans." A more recent issue of the Harvard Educational Review describes Smith as a "community and civil rights activist." While it's a good thing to have subject matter experts who wants to contribute to the project, when those contributions revolve around original research and activism, then I start to get concerned. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 04:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not at all persuaded by the arguments presented above by the user identifying himself as Smith. He quotes nuggets from elderly work in historical linguistics that (at least of context) seem obscure at best (and often seem slightly garbled to boot, as if inaccurately retyped) --

And so, I have established that in Indo-European linguistics, languages are not classified as being akin or genetically related based on the mere evidence of a common lexicon or vocabulary. [Hoary: Well of course not.] In Indo-European linguistics and in this Wikipedia the English language itself is defined as a West Germanic language despite the fact that the bulk of the English lexicon is derived from Latin, French and other the non-Germanic languages. [Hoary: Yes indeed.] This prompts the question if: BE, BVE, AAE, AAVE, VBE, NNE etc. actually exist as vernaculars or dialects of English, where are these vernaculars or dialects spoken? [Hoary: In the US, primarily.] That is, based in the criteria of continuity of the morphology or rules of grammar [Hoary: If "criteria" isn't just a typo for "criterion" then what's the other criterion? Does "morphology or rules of grammar" mean "morphology or syntax", and if not, what does it mean? Etc.] where are the BE, BVE, AAE, AAVE, VBE, NNE etc dialects that English grammars with African words superimposed? [Hoary: This is a cartoonish idea of a lect.] Surely John Baugh, Lisa Green, Wayne O’Neil, Gloria Weddington, and others who posit the term Ebonics as being a synonym for BE, BVE, AAE, AAVE, VBE, NNE etc can produce empirical evidence of one at least.

I can't start to speak for the third or fourth of these. Baugh, who I think has given the term "Ebonics" more attention than Green has, does not call it a synonym of AAVE or any of the others, as this very Wikipedia article (when not vandalized) makes clear. Yes, he says it is used to refer to the same language, but that doesn't make them synonyms.

Our interlocutor manages to infer something very improbable from work in historical linguistics done when most present-day linguists (if even born) were still in short pants, presents a bizarre interpretation of dispassionate analyses of AAVE done since then, issues a demand for evidence for the validity of this straw man, and seems to demand that the term "Ebonics" should be treated in Wikipedia as if it were a registered trademark. Despite the impressively long list of references at the end, he doesn't cite any discussion of the history of AAVE or Ebonics published recently by a university press or similar (or in a peer-reviewed linguistics journal). I'm not even slightly convinced. -- Hoary (talk) 02:35, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

In response to Hoary's analysis Ernie Smith writes:

As I have stated above, being either ignorant of the original authorship and authentic meaning of the word Ebonics or knowing fully and well the original authorship and authentic meaning of the word Ebonics but, deliberately propagating a counterfeit definition with the intent to deceive, many of those who posit the term Ebonics as being a synonym for BE, AAVE and other English language based appellations, have construed the issue to be a mere semantic quibble. That is, they posit that “we are talking about the same thing but just calling it something different”. Again I maintain that there is a fundamental difference between ‘talking about the same thing and calling it something different’ and ‘talking about something different and calling it the same thing’. I have not engaged the subject of BE, AAVE and other English language based appellations that inherently infer that the language of descendants enslaved Niger-Congo AFricans is a dialect of English because, based on criterion contintunty in rules of grammar, any and all appellations that infer inherently that the language of descendants enslaved Niger-Congo AFricans is a dialect of English, beg the question of genesis. Hoary makes the naked assertion that English dialects that have West Germanic Grammars with African words superimpmposed exist as the language of descendants enslaved Niger-Congo AFricans in America.

I ask again where in America are these dialects or vernaculars of English that have West Germanic Grammars with African words superimpmposed? John Baugh, Lisa Green, Wayne O’Neil, Willaim Lavov, Robin Lakoff, John Rickford, John Mc Whorter, Gloria Weddington, Walt Wolfram William Srewart and others, all posit the bulk of the lexion in the dialects or vernaculars of English that they call BE, AAVE and English language based appellations as being derived from the West Germanic English language.

I contend that, there is an internal inconsistency in the view that the word Ebonics is synonymous with BE, AAVE and the other English language based appellations. My contention here is based on the fact that; as I have shown, in Indo-European linguistics, the most prevalent view is that, a common origin and continuity of the morpho-syntax or rules of grammar constitutes the relevant evidence for positing genetic kinship. In this Wikipedia despite the fact that the bulk of the English lexicon is from the Roamance languages the English language itself is defined in part as follows; " English is a West Germanic language that developed in England and south-eastern Scotland during the Anglo-Saxon era." What is incongruent in Hoary's position is that, the enslaved ancestors, antecedents and forebears of African American people came principally from the West Coast and Niger-Congo areas of Africa speaking Niger-Congo and Bantu African languages. The ancestors, antecedents and forebears of the speakers of English came from England speaking British settler Early Modern English (EmodE) (a West Germanic language). The morph-syntax of the Niger-Congo and Bantu African languages and the morpho-syntax of the British settler EmodE are not derived from a common origin or linguistic base. Therefore, the Niger-Congo and Bantu African languages and the British settler EmodE language were not genetically related.

Yet, as if the language of descendants of enslaved West Coast and Niger-Congo Africans did originate from a common British settler English linguistic base, (EmodE) those who contend that Ebonics is a dialect or vernacular of English, posit there is a continuity of the West Germanic EmodE morpho-syntax or rules of grammar and thus Ebonics is genetically related to the English Germanic language family. The question is posed; how can there be an EmodE linguistic continuity in the language of descendants of enslaved Africans, when their ancestors, antecedants and forebears did not originally speak EmodE in the first place. I think Hoary's off his meds again? (hows that for a argumentum ad hominem rant) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk) 07:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

This is the talk page of a Wikipedia article, not a forum for discussion and not an outlet for original research or original analysis. If we talk about anything, it should be how to improve the article. Let's get back on topic, folks. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 07:57, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

IP, you say: I think Hoary's off his meds again? It's not good to get into a habit of saying things such as this, as various editors of this encyclopedia (other than myself) are, or pretend to be, most upset to be referred to in such a way. (Personally, I don't care. I just wonder if you are asking or saying.) ¶ That trivial matter aside, you ask, or wonder, how can there be an EmodE linguistic continuity in the language of descendants of enslaved Africans, when their ancestors, antecedants and forebears did not originally speak EmodE in the first place. The question is bizarre. Nobody has suggested that the ancestors of Black Americans spoke Early Modern English. They speak a lect of English, a language that (if you're diachronically inclined) can be plotted back to Early Modern English. (Of course the history of a language is of no concern whatever to any infant who's learning that language.) Such is the consensus among linguists. If you disagree, you may care to write a book saying why the consensus is mistaken. If the book found a reputable publisher, I'd read it with interest. CUP, OUP, and Wiley-Blackwell are among the publishers that are putting out surprisingly large numbers of books on linguistics; good luck persuading one of them to bring out your book. Until such theories come out via a university press or similar, I'll pay them no attention. -- Hoary (talk) 16:42, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

In response to Hoary's analysis Ernie Smith writes:

In the neuroscience area of medicine there is a brain injury or disease called subdural hematoma. According to Weiner and Goetz, one of the clinical manifestations of this brain injury or disease is "a depressed level of consciousness" (1994:45). Weiner and Goetz indicate that the "depressed level of consciousness can occur before focal findings, and may have trivial or no trauma history." There are two types of subdural hematomas, the acute subdural hematoma and the chronic subdural hematoma, and they are classified according to the interval of time that occurs between the instance of a head injury and the development of clinical manifestations. Of these two subdural hematomas, the chronic subdural hematoma: "is more common in patients with cerebral atrophy (i.e. the elderly and alcoholism)" (Weiner and Goetz 1994:223). Also, however, studies of the prolonged use of cocaine have produced irrefutable evidence of the tremendous brain damage (cerebral atrophy) that can occur from such use. This suggests that ‘alcoholism’ is not the only form of 'substance abuse’ that can be associated with cerebral atrophy as the underlying mechanism of chronic subdural hematoma.

I have initiated my response to User Hoary’s analysis with a discussion of subdural hematoma because I suspect that therein lies the etiology of his or her patently deficient critical thinking skills. This response will show that, while the User Hoary’s critique purports to be about Ebonics, actually his/her critique has nothing to do with Ebonics: User Hoary’s critique is about ‘a lect of English’ which implies, inherently, that the language of Black Americans is a dialect of English, and, thus, is genetically related to the West Germanic language family to which contemporary American English belongs. Now the User Aeusoes1 has stated: “This is the talk page of a Wikipedia article, not a forum for discussion and not an outlet for original research or original analysis. If we talk about anything, it should be how to improve the article. Let's get back on topic, folks.” — Ƶ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet

I agree, one hundred percent, with user Ƶ§œš¹ “If we talk about anything, it should be how to improve the article”, and I agree that, when I say, I think Hoary's off his meds again? it's not good to get into a habit of saying things such as this because various editors of this encyclopedia (other than myself) are, or pretend to be, most upset to be referred to in such a way. I want to improve the article. The problem is: this person User Hoary seems to be unfettered in his/her ability to make slyly disparaging remarks and insults. The User Hoary drew first blood by making jest of typos and what he or she deemed to be my lack of ideally competent English composition. I refused to be insulted and replied with an appropriate slur of my own. If Wikipedia will keep a tight check on the rabid insults of User Hoary, I will, likewise, refrain from making such denigrating retorts. In Black American culture ‘playing the dozens’ is a pastime sport. (See Smitherman G. 1977:128-134) See also Folb E. (1980:235)

The User Hoary asks the following, in response to the question that I posed in my article: “I just wonder if you are asking or saying.) ¶ That trivial matter aside, you ask, or wonder, how can there be an EmodE linguistic continuity in the language of descendants of enslaved Africans, when their ancestors, antecedents and forebears did not originally speak EmodE in the first place? The question is bizarre”. Now, we cannot proceed as adults if my questions are belittled as ‘bizarre’. If this slur is being made by User Hoary, it verifies my suspicion that subdural hematoma is the etiology of his/her patently deficient critical thinking skills. Given that the name User Hoary appears at the end of the critique, and given that the style of criticism reeks of User Hoary’s DNA, I am predisposed to posit this critique and the slur; “the question is bizarre” to User Hoary as his bilge.

Needless to say, as the Wikipedia reader can discern, I do have retorts of my own in reply to these unprovoked slurs. The User (Hoary) continues his/her critique by positing that: “Nobody has suggested that the ancestors of Black Americans spoke Early Modern English. They speak a lect of English, a language that (if you're diachronically inclined) can be plotted back to Early Modern English”. In response to this slur concerning my bias, predisposition or tendency to favor diachronic linguistics I say that, as a graduate of the University of California at Irvine with a Ph.D. in Comparative Culture and a Subspecialty in Comparative Linguistics, and, in 1978, having been appointed to the rank of Full Professor in the Department of Linguistics at California State University at Fullerton where I taught Linguistic Ontogeny (529), American Dialects (305), Minority Dialects (107), and Bilingualism (411), I am, indeed, diachronically inclined. In fact, the word Ebonics came into existence because of an irrationally, incongruent, Eurocentric deviation from universally accepted comparative, diachronic or historical linguistics principles. (See Smith E.2001) (Wade N. (2005)

Having addressed the User Hoary’s slur concerning my being “diachronically inclined” and the User Hoary’s slur that “The question is bizarre”, I will now address the User’s statement that: “Nobody has suggested that the ancestors of Black Americans spoke Early Modern English. They speak a lect of English, a language that …can be plotted back to Early Modern English”. At the beginning of my article the issue of the origin of the word Ebonics is bifurcated from the issue of whether, from a diachronic linguistic perspective, Ebonics is a dialect of English, and, hence, genetically related to the Germanic language family. In the essay that I submitted to Wikipedia for editing and discussion, I asserted that I participated in the 1973 “Cognitive and Language Development of the Black Child” Conference in St. Louis, and was there when Dr. Robert Williams coined the term "Ebonics". I am even credited by Dr. Williams as the scrivener who framed the wording of the official definition of the term Ebonics (See Williams, 1997:210). So, I say with absolute authority that the term Ebonics does not refer to “a lect’ of English”, and the word Ebonics is not a synonym for any appellation that inherently infers that the language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans is a dialect of English, thusly, making it genetically related to the West Germanic language family to which contemporary American English belongs.

The Wikipedia reader will notice that the User Hoary has not denied that Dr. Williams coined the word Ebonics in 1973. Given that the User Hoary is bereft of any empirical evidence that Dr. Robert Williams did not coin the word Ebonics in 1973, we can proceed to the issue of the meaning of the word Ebonics. In my essay, I contended that Dr. Williams posited an “official definition of the word Ebonics in 1973, when he originally coined the word. I notice that the User, Hoary has also, not denied that, when Dr. Williams originally coined the word Ebonics, he posited an “official definition” of the word Ebonics. Since the User appears to be bereft of a shred of empirical evidence that Dr. Williams did not posit an “official definition” of the word Ebonics when he coined the word, we can proceed to an ‘adult’ discussion of whether or not any definitions of the word Ebonics, that do not conform to the definition posited as the “official definition” by Dr. Williams, are counterfeit or legitimate. For, the User Hoary seems to be suggesting that when a counterfeiter puts the name ‘Rolex’ on a one jewel, gold plated, Hong Kong watch, that makes a one jewel, gold plated, Hong Kong watch a genuine Rolex? (See Smith E. and Crozier K. (1998)

The intent of the official definition of Ebonics posited by Dr. Williams and agreed to by the Conference members assembled is this: Ebonics is the language spoken by descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans, and is the linguistic continuation of the Niger-Congo African tradition in Black America. Since the User Hoary does not deny that when Dr. Williams originally coined the word Ebonics he, also, posited an “official definition, it appears that what the User Hoary really wants to refute is the basic tenet of the definition that Dr. Williams posits as the meaning of the word Ebonics. Now, I am perfectly willing to engage in this discussion with the User, Hoary if it will improve the article. But I shall, at every turn, critically address the logical fallacies and snide slurs of Captious and Sophists User Hoary.

Let’s return now to User Hoary’s statement that: “Nobody has suggested that the ancestors of Black Americans spoke Early Modern English. They speak a lect of English, a language that … can be plotted back to Early Modern English”. The Wikipedia reader will notice that; while the User Hoary does not deny that the enslaved ancestors, antecedents and forebears of Black Americans did not originally speak Early Modern English, he/she has not stipulated that the ancestors of Black Americans spoke Niger-Congo and Bantu African Languages. There are two incongruent implications here: First, if the ancestors of African ancestors did not, originally, speak EmodE, then, what did they speak? That is, the User Hoary implies that, the enslaved African ancestors of Black Americans did not have the cortical capacity for fully human thoughts. Possessing only mating calls, distress signals and feral grunts the African ancestors of Black Americans were primitive, docile, sub-human savages that had not developed a fully human language or communication system of their own.

Implied also is that because they possessed only the rudiments of a language to start with, the "scant baggage" of mating calls, distress signals and feral grunts that the enslaved the African ancestors of Black Americans possessed most certainly could not have been the grammatical nor the lexical base upon which Black American dialects of English were developed. In other words, the enslaved African ancestors of Black Americans did not, originally, speak Early Modern English, for they were sub-human tabula rasa or blank slates upon which the ancestors of EmodE speakers imprinted a human language upon their savage minds for the first time. Since possession of the cognitive faculty of language or the capacity to speak and transmit thoughts, systematically, using highly structured, rule governed signs and symbols is the specie specific attribute that distinguishes homo sapiens from the ape and lower primates, this view denies that Niger-Congo Africans are human beings: The User Hoary appears to be of the ilk that propagates this asinine point of view.

On the other hand, there is a second implication that is as equally incongruent. This view, postulated by those who contend that Black Americans speak a dialect of English, acknowledges that Niger-Congo or Black Africans are human beings, and that the ancestors, antecedents and forebears of Black Americans possessed fully human Niger-Congo and Bantu African languages. However, also implied in this view is that, in the transmission process, the enslaved African ancestors, antecedents and forebears of Black Americans gave up African languages. That is, they broke with the African linguistic tradition and accepted EmodE, or what User Hoary calls a ‘lect’ of English, as their mother tongue. It is this view that I was addressing when I submitted my initial contribution to Wikipedia. I contend there is an internal inconsistency or incongruence in the view that Black Americans speak a dialect of English”. Firstly, while this view concedes that the enslaved African ancestors of Black Americans spoke Niger-Congo and Bantu African languages, it posits a complete break with and discontinuity of Niger-Congo and Bantu linguistic system, (i.e., the morpho-syntax or rules of grammar) and a wholesale adoption of the morpho-syntactical or grammar rules of Early Modern, English by enslaved Niger-Congo Africans and their descendants. The proponents of this view ignore or deny, entirely, the existence of African Niger-Congo and Bantu language elements in the grammar of Black American English. They posit the less than ideally competent English grammar (non standard usage) that exists in the dialects of Black Americans are EmodE survivals that were imperfectly obtained or learned by the enslaved African ancestors of Black Americans, or as being colonial Scots-Irish Celtic language features acquired from Scots-Irish overseers and indentured servants. When asked to explain the irrefutable evidence of non-EmodE and non-colonial Scots Irish features that exist in the English dialect of Black Americans, they attribute the existence of a ‘scant few’ African words to borrowings initially made by EmodE speakers and then taught to their enslaved Niger-Congo African vassals.

I maintain that the postulation that there is morpho-syntactical continuity from EmodE to Black American dialects to the English language or dialects of Black American urban inner cities as a result of EmodE speakers having mutilated or dummied down their EmodE grammar in order to communicate with the enslaved African ancestors of Black Americans is not supported by the empirical comparative linguistic evidence. Neither is the notion that, in the transmission process, the enslaved ancestors of Black Americans gave up their African Niger Congo and Bantu languages and accepted the ersatz EmodE grammar (baby talk) as their primary language or mother tongue. I maintain further that the view or thesis that any and all African elements that exist in the English language or dialects of Black American urban communities are borrowings made by EmodE speakers and taught or transmitted to their enslaved Niger-Congo and Bantu African slaves is oxymoronic nonsense. In fact, the view that the enslaved African ancestors of Black Americans gave the up their Niger-Congo and Bantu languages for an ersatz EmodE (baby talk) implies that the African ancestors of Black Americans did not have much of a language anyway. Thus, this is a view that differs only to a minute degree from the view that the African ancestors of Black Americans had no language at all. In essence, both views support the ‘deficiency hypothesis’, known, thusly, in the bio-behavioral and social sciences.

With regards to User Hoary’s closing remarks that “the issue is not (Of course, the history of a language is of no concern whatever to any infant who's learning that language.) Such is the consensus among linguists. If you disagree, you may care to write a book saying why the consensus is mistaken. I would read the book with interest, if it was published by a reputable publisher. CUP, OUP, and Wiley-Blackwell are among the publishers that are publishing a surprisingly large number of books on linguistics; good luck persuading one of them to bring out your book. Until such theories come out via a university press or similar, I'll pay them no attention”. I strongly urge this User Hoary to read my article entitled Cultural and Linguistic Factors in Worker Notification to Blue Collar and No-Collar African American Workers (1993) In American Journal of Industrial Medicine Edited by Philip J. Landrigan, Irving J. Seliokoff et. al. New York. Wiley-Liss

References

Alleyne, M. (1971) Linguistic Continuity of Africa in The Caribbean in Topics In African American Studies Edited by Henry Richards New York. Black Academy Press.

Crawford C. (2001) Ebonics and Language Education of African Ancestry Students Linguistic Society of America Chicago January 1997 Resolution on Oakland Ebonics Issue (p358) Brooklyn Sankofa World Publishers.

Delpit T. (1998) Linguistic Society of America’s Resolution on the Oakland Ebonics Issue Chicago January 1997 In Real Ebonics Debate (pg160) Boston Beacon Press.

Folb E. (1980) Runnin Down Some Lines: The language and Culture of Black Teenagers Cambridge Harvard University Press.

Greenberg J. (1967) Essays in Linguistics Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

Holloway J.E. (1991) Africanisms in American Culture Bloomington Indiana University Press.

Janheinz J. (1953): Muntu: An Outline of the New African Culture New York, Grove Press.

(Kifano S., Smith E. A, (2005) Ebonics and Education in Context of Culture Edited by J. Ramirez et. al. Buffalo Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Smith E.A. (1993) Cultural and Linguistic Factors in Worker Notification to Blue Collar and No-Collar African American Workers In American Journal of Industrial Medicine Edited by Philip J. Landrigan, Irving J. Seliokoff, et. al. New York. Wiley-Liss

Smith, E.A. (1997) What is Ebonics What Is Black English In Real Ebonics Debate Edited by Perry T. and Delpit L. Chicago-Boston Beacon Press.

Smith E. A., Crozier K. (1998) Ebonics Is Not Black English In The Western Journal of Black Studies. Pullman Washington State University Press.

Smith E.A. (2002) Ebonics A Case History In The Skin the we Speak Edited by Lisa Delpit and Joanne K. Dowdy New York New York Press.

Smitherman G. (1977) Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America Boston Houghton Mifflin Co.

Wade N. (2005) Languages May Speak Volumes. New York New York Times article.

Weiner, W J. and Goetz, C G. (1994) Neurology for the Non-Neurologist Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott Co. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk) 13:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

1. I maintain that the postulation that there is morpho-syntactical continuity from EmodE to Black American dialects to the English language or dialects of Black American urban inner cities as a result of EmodE speakers having mutilated or dummied down their EmodE grammar in order to communicate with the enslaved African ancestors of Black Americans is not supported by the empirical comparative linguistic evidence. / I don't know of any linguist who claims that AAVE mutilates, dumbs down, or dummies down English. (I don't say such people don't exist: presumably a certain proportion of people who earn PhDs later become crackpots.) AAVE is just as good/intelligent a language as is standard US English, or French, or Swahili, or Kabardian -- which is a fact that is understood by anyone who has bothered to read and understand such a mass-market book as Pinker's The Language Instinct. Slaying straw men isn't helpful.
2. I strongly urge this User Hoary to read my article entitled Cultural and Linguistic Factors in Worker Notification to Blue Collar and No-Collar African American Workers (1993) In American Journal of Industrial Medicine / I'd be willing to do so, but the download costs money and I have trouble believing that a paper of just six pages in a journal of industrial medicine could do more than merely summarize the intellectual underpinnings of the particular research covered. The paper is 17 years old; how persuasive have its intellectual underpinnings been among later writing on AAVE?
3. In Black American culture ‘playing the dozens’ is a pastime sport. / It is indeed! Unfortunately I don't have any of the works of Smitherman on me now and only have recourse to the web. Here, thanks to Google, we see playing the dozens explained: "whereby agonists aim to win a verbal duel by creating the most insulting, humorous, spontaneous comments about the agonists' relatives, especially their mothers". If you'd like to participate in such a duel, please do so with somebody else, somewhere else.
4. If Wikipedia will keep a tight check on the rabid insults of User Hoary [...] / Wikipedia has little patience for rabid insults. The best place to complain about an outbreak of them (whether from me or anybody else) is probably "WP:AN/I" "Wikiquette alerts". -- Hoary (talk) 14:13, 1 March 2010 (UTC) .... amended Hoary (talk) 01:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes:

When I submitted my previous contribution to Wikipedia Talk Ebonics I was under the impression that an anthropoid above the level of Homo fernus or pithecanthropus erectus was inviting an edit colloquy pertaining to the subject - Ebonics. It appears that what I am in fact confronted with here is something less than a primate. I believe more akin to the Canis familiaris Or Canis lupus. It is clear that what User Hoary lacks in intellectual competence he/she certainly makes up in frothing growls, snarls, barks and yelps. Given User Hoary’s inarticulateness I have forwarded, to the Romulus and Remus Linguistic Institute, a copy of the growls, snarls, barks and yelps that Hoary makes this time for translation by the female Canis familiaris whose turpitude produces such progeny.

The User Hoary is clearly unable to address the logical implications of his/her AAVE thesis that the language of Black Americans is a vernacular or ‘lect of English’. Therefore, I shall restate what is obviously implied by the thesis using what is in Cognitive Linguistics called ‘dog whistles’ (See Wikipedia section on dog whistle politics). To begin, the most publicized, and by a 1979 federal court decree, in Ann Arbor, vested with a veneer of being a cogent and authentic theory, on the origin and historical development of African American speech, is the Pidgin/Creole Hypothesis. The linguists and social scientists that hold this view are commonly called Creolist. In their view, writes William Stewart (1973:351) "The American Negro dialects probably derived from a creolized form of English once spoken on American plantations by Negro slaves and seemingly related to Creolized forms of English, which are still spoken by Negroes in Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean..." In the Pidgin/Creolist’s literature we find that, because of their essentially Caucasio or Euro-centric bent there are no Pidgin/Creolists who posit African American speech as being the linguistic continuation of Africa in Black America. Instead, what we find is a uniform depiction of the antebellum contacts between Europeans and African people as being contacts in which, Africans were primitive, dimwitted and docile savages who, not having the cortical capacity for fully human thoughts, had not developed a fully human language or communication system of their own. The impression is given that Africans had only the rudiments of a language to start with. Therefore, the crude feral grunts and signaling system that the Africans possessed most certainly could not have been the grammatical or the lexical base upon which the pidgin dialects were developed.

Evidence of this uniformity of opinion among Pidgin/Creolists is provided In the Memorandum Opinion and Order issued by the Judge of the U.S. Federal District Court in Ann Arbor Michigan wherein the Judge, (Charles Joiner) states: “The issue before this court is whether the defendant School Board has violated Section 1703(f) of Title 20 of the United States Code as its actions relate to the 11 black children who are plaintiffs in this case and who are students in the Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School operated by the defendant School Board. It is alleged that the children speak a version of “black English,” “black vernacular” or “black dialect” as their home and community languages that impedes their equal participation in the instructional programs and that the school has not taken appropriate action to overcome the barrier”. Clearly, this is entirely different from the 1996 Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) ‘Ebonics’ controversy wherein the parents had identified “Ebonics” as the home language of their children on the OUSD home language identification forms. In this Ann Arbor case the parents of the 11 children had identified the home language of their children as “black English”, “black vernacular” or “black dialect”. Further on in his Memorandum Opinion and Order Judge Joiner states (1979:13) “All of the distinguished researchers and professionals testified as to the existence of a language system, which is a part of the English language but different from the standard English used in the school setting, the commercial world, the world of the arts and sciences, among the professions and in government. It is and has been used at some time by 80% of the black people of this country and has as its genesis the transactional or pidgin language of slaves, which after a generation or two became a Creole language. Since then it has constantly been refined and brought closer to the standard as blacks have been brought closer to the mainstream of Society” Notice that the Judge said “all” of the experts testified that the very “genesis” of the language system called ‘black English’ or ‘black vernacular’ was “the transactional or pidgin language of slaves”.

Webster’s Dictionary posits the following as the etymology and definitions of the word “vernacular’ “ver nac u lar \və (r)-‘nak-yə-lar\ adj [L vernaculus native, fr verna slave born in his master’s house, native] (1601) 1 a : using a language or dialect native to a region or country rather than a literary, cultured or foreign language b: of relating to, or being a nonstandard language or dialect of a place, region or country c: of, relating to, or being the normal spoken form a language” (See Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition (2001:1308). The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1976:1423) posits the following as the etymology of the word ‘vernacular’ “[From Latin vernāculus, domestic from verna, native slave, probably from *Etruscan.]”. *Note that the word ‘Etruscan’ is associated with origin of the word vernacular. In The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1976:1126) the word Romulus is defined as: “Romulus: The son of Mars a vestal virgin who, with his twin brother Remus was abandoned as an infant to die but was raised by a she wolf. He later killed Remus and founded Rome in 753 B.C.” One needs only to see the picture and the word ‘Etruscan’ adjacent to the words ‘she wolf’ in this dictionary to decode this dog whistle. The appellation AAVE is ‘dog whistle’ for “dog in the master’s house”.

As I have stated earlier above when asked to describe the process by which the pidgin English dialect was invented and the method by which it was taught to the African slaves, it is the Pidgin/Creolists who, with a veneer of reason, put forth the "baby talk" theory. The essence of this theory is that, initially, the African slaves had no competence in the European languages to which they were exposed, what so ever. That being the case, in order to communicate with the African savages it was incumbent upon the European slave-masters to devise a communication system. The Pidgin/Creolists contend that this was done by Europeans greatly "simplifying" their speech. This, greatly simplified speech is depicted as being a form of speech comparable to that used by adults when they talk to "babies". It is this, "baby talk", a simplified, corrupt or mutilated form of English that was taught to the African slaves, who then adopted it and made it their native tongue. This is precisely the view that was held and explicitly put forth by the godfather of modern Pidgin/Creolists and proponents of the AAVE thesis; Professor George Phillip Krapp of Columbia University. Even though he conceded that, there was no evidence to support his "baby talk" hypothesis Krapp was one of the first to posit the condition of dominance and subordination as being very significant in the creation of the English based plantation pidgin/creole dialects. Inferring that Africans were docile tabulae rasae or "blank slates" upon which the Europeans imprinted their infantile like linguistic creations, in his work "The English of the Negro" G.P. Krapp (1924) describes the assimilation process as follows: “The assimilation of the language of the Negroes to the whites did not take place all at once. Though the historical evidence is not as full as might be wished, the stages can be followed with some certainty. When the Negroes were first brought to America they could have known no English. Their usefulness as servants however, required that some kind of communication between master and slave be developed. There is little likelihood that any of the masters exerted themselves to understand the native language of the Negroes in order to communicate with them. On the contrary, from the beginning the white overlords addressed themselves in English to their Black vassals. It is not difficult to imagine what kind of English this would be. It would be a, very much, simplified English - the kind of English some people employ when they talk to babies".

One of the most ardent of the contemporary proponents of the pidgin/creole theory is John McWhorter. In an article in the Black Scholar (1997:11) this author states: "African influence on Black English is light and indirect. Most non-standard features of Black English are directly traceable not to Mende, Yoruba, or Kikongo but to regional dialects spoken by the British settlers whose English was what African slaves in America were exposed to." McWhorter offers no explanation of the process by which the original Niger-Congo African linguistic base or core vocabulary and structure was superseded by British settler EmodE. Consider McWhorter’s assertion that "African influence on Black English is light and indirect". Citing Mende, Yoruba, and Kikongo as names of some of the specific African ethic groups or tribes from which the enslaved Africans came, McWhorter admits there was an African linguistic continuum or base from which the language of enslaved Africans came into direct contact with British settler EmodE. But then, in the very next breath, he claims the "African influence on Black English" was "indirect". The question is posed, why would Africans need to have British settlers transmit African linguistic features to them "indirectly", when Africans were native speakers of their African languages already?

McWhorter next provides examples of some so-called Black English features and makes the naked assertion that the grammatical patterns in the examples he presents are identical to patterns found in modern "up-country" dialects of English spoken in Great Britain. His examples of Black English are supposedly traceable to British settler English. Yet, he does not cite one source to attest that the examples are authentic Old English, Middle English or even Early Modern English (EModE) utterances. The examples he uses certainly are not the Early Modern English found in the King James Version of the Holy Bible. McWhorter simply presents some structural features as examples and asserts that; "all of these things can be heard today in Great Britain, and one can sometimes even be surprised by the oddly "African American" sound of some up-country white Britishers".

In the science of forensics, just as certain fallacies or mistakes in reasoning are related to the deductive and empirical pattern, so are other fallacies associated with the practical pattern. These fallacies are the ones traditionally called the fallacies of relevance: i.e., the reasons used to support a conclusion are irrelevant to that conclusion. They are bad reasons. They seem to support the conclusion, but they really do not. A person using irrelevant reasons may use them in a variety of different ways. The following list is by no means exhaustive, but it does contain the fallacies of relevance that appear most frequently in the practical patterns used by those of User Hoary's ilk as dog whistles in their critique. A careful study of this kind of deviousness should make the Wikipedia reader sensitive to such dodges and thus be able to spot the ones which are similar but do not fall precisely into these groups. These logical fallacies, incidentally, occur both in actively trying to support a position and also in trying to refute someone else’s position. They are as follows: 1) Argumentum ad baculum (appeal to force or substitution of bombast for argument, i.e., I’m right because I say so. In other words, ‘might makes right’). 2) Argumentum ad Hominem (appeals to interest, motives or prejudices, i.e., a diversion from an intellectual appeal i.e., an attempt to have an argument accepted or rejected not because of any merit or deficit intrinsic to the argument but the character of the person presenting the argument. 3) (Argumentum ad Ignorantium (arguments based upon ignorance, i.e., ignorance of the point at issue. Something cannot be so because he or she has never heard of it) 4) (Argumentum ad Ignoratio elenchi (ignoring the issue entirely, i.e., an evasive tactic that avoids the truth or validity of the opponents argument entirely) 5) (Argumentum ad Misercordiam (appeal to pity or sympathy) 6) Argumentum ad non sequitur (an inference that does not follow from the premise or statement (as a response) that does not follow logically from anything previously said). 7)(Argumentum ad Personam) (baiting an opponent by attacking him personally, insulting him, criticizing his friends and doing anything that will cause him to lose his temper). 8) Argumentum ad Populum (appeal based popularity i.e., seeking to gain support for a position by maintaining he is just a plain old ordinary folk like everybody else. This fallacy is also called the ‘band wagon”, appeal, i.e., something should be done because everybody’s doing it). 9) Argumentum ad absurdo (appeal to ridicule) 10) Argumentum Reductio ad absurdum (reduced to absurdity, e.g., extending the word some to all and then showing example that all is false). 11) Argumentum ad Tu Quo Que; (evasion of the issue, i.e., refuting the claim of an opponent with an identical or exaggerated counter claim). 12) Argumentum ad Verecundiam (appeal to invalid use of expert opinion or biased authority, i.e., when persons who are experts in one field are cited or present themselves as experts in a field in which they have no training or qualifications) (See McBurney, O'Neill, Mills (1961) Argumentation & Debate) Kalish D. (1964) Logic: Techniques of Formal Reasoning Freely Argumentation and Debate (1967)

Hoary’s paragraph number 1 is both Argumentum ad Ignorantium and Argumentum ad Verecundiam (appeal to invalid or biased authority). In Hoary’s paragraph number 2 after having extolled the virtue of and expressed esteem for linguistic works published by the reputable publisher Wiley-Blackwell, (aka Wiley-Liss) when confronted with empirical evidence that I have ‘been there and done that” User Hoary’s Argumentum ad Misercordiam (appeal to pity) reply is; he/she is too poor to access works of linguists published by Wiley-Blackwell Liss, because it costs too much to download. Specifically the yelp or howl was; “I'd be willing to do so, but the download costs money”. This trash can’t even afford a book published by Wiley-Blackwell. Has this mutt Hoary had anything published ever? The tramp goes on to say says “I have trouble believing that a paper of just six pages in a journal of industrial medicine could do more than merely summarize the intellectual underpinnings of the particular research covered”. This is Argumentum ad Hominim or Argumentum ad Personam (attacking the person instead of his ideas). When I initially submitted my article to Wikipedia it was critiqued and rejected as prolix. Now this Hoary ‘hound’ has an aversion to the brevity of my article that appears in a refereed Journal published by the venerable publisher Wiley-Blackwell. Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition (2001:550) defies the word ‘hoary’ as, “1: “gray or white with or as if with age, 2: extremely old  : ANCIENT <~ legend>”. This leads me to believe that maybe it is not substance abuse (alcoholism or drugs) but rather, ‘old age’ that is the etiology of the chronic subdural hematoma. I surmise this based on the last growl wherein Hoary snarls: “The paper is 17 years old; how persuasive have its intellectual underpinnings been among later writing on AAVE?” This junk yard dog appears to have an aversion to superannuated literature that contains universally accpted truths. Does this aversion to the truth in superannuated or old literture include the; Torah, Holy Bible, Vedic Scrtptures, the Holy Quran, and Shakesphere?

REFERENCES

Alleyne, M. (1971). Linguistic continuity of Africa in the Caribbean. in R. J. Henry (Ed.), Topics in Afro-American studies. New York, NY: Black Academy Press.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1976:1423) Applebome, P. (1997) Dispute Over Ebonics Reflects Volitile Mix New York Times Company page A19.

Asante, M. (1991) African Culture: The Rhythms of Unity Trenton, N.J. Africa World Press.

Bennett, J. (1909) Gullah: A Negro Patois South Atlantic Quarterly October 1908 and January 1909

Bickerton, D. (1975) Dynamics of a Creole System London Cambridge University Press

Blackshire-Belay, (1991) (Ed) Language and literature in the African American Imagination Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. _________. (1996), The location of Ebonics within the framework of the Africological paradigm. In Journal of Black Studies 27, 5-23.

Chambers, J. Jr. (Ed.), (1983) Black English: Educational Equity and the Law Ann Arbor: Karoma.

Dillard, J. L. (1972). Black English - Its History and usage in the United States. New York: Vintage Books. ________ (1976). American Talk. New York: Vintage Books.

Freely, A. (1967) Argumentation and Debate Belmont Wadsworth Publishers

Greenberg, J. (1967) Essays in Linguistics Chicago. University of Chicago Press.

Hartmann, R.R.K. and Stork, F.C. (1976) Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, New York. John Wiley and Sons

Hymes, D (1977) Pidginization and Creolization of Languages London Cambridge University Press

Jahn, J. (1961) Muntu: An outline of the new African culture New York. Grove Press.

Kalish, D (1964) Logic: Techniques of Formal Reasoning New York Harcourt Brace

Krapp, G.P. (1924). The English Of The Negro. New York: American Mercury.

Joiner, C. Judge. (1979) Memorandum Opinion and Order United States District Court. Martin Luther Kung Junior Elementary School Children, et al. V. Ann Arbor School District Board Detroit.

McBurney, J. H. O'Neill, J.M. and Mills, G. E. (1961) Argumentation & Debate New York, McMillian Co.

McWhorter, J. (1997) Wasting Time On an Illusion In The Black Scholar Oakland Black World Foundation

Perry T., Delpit, L. (1997) Oakland School Board Resolution No. 9697 0063 December 18, 1996 In Real Ebonics Debate. Boston Beacon Press

Palmer, Leonard R. (1978) Descriptive And Comparative Linguistics: A Critical Introduction London: Faber & Faber

Rickford, J. R. (1997) Suite for Ebony and Phonics New York, Discover. Volume 18 Number 12 page 82

Romaine, S. (1994) Language and Society: An introduction to Sociolinguistics Great Britain: Oxford University Press.

Smith, E. A. (1976) A case for bilingual and bicultural education for United States Slave Descendants of African origin Seminar paper Series #39. Fullerton, CA Dept. of Linguistics, California State University Fullerton.

Smitherman, G. (1977). Talkin and testifying; The language of Black America Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

            (1997)  Black English/Ebonics: What it be like Milwaukee.  Rethinking Schools Fall Vol 12. No 1.  page 8. 

Stewart, W. (1973:351) Toward a History of American Negro Dialect In Language and Poverty Edited by Frederick Williams Chicago Rand McNally College Publishing Co.

The Holy Bible King James Version Book of Proverbs Chapters 3-29

Turner, L. D. (1973) Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Twiggs, R. (1973) Pan African language in the western hemisphere Quincy MA: Christopher.

Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition 2001:1308)

Weiner, W.J. & Goetz, C.G. (1994) Neurology for the Non-Neurologist Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott Co.

Welmers, W. E. (1973). African Language Structures. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Williams, R. L. (1975). Ebonics ; The true language of Black folks. St. Louis: Institute of Black Studies.

            (1997) The Ebonics Controversy  In Journal of Black Psychology Volume 23 Number 3. Thousand Oaks. Sage Periodicals. pages 208 - 214.  

Wofford, J. (1979). Ebonics; A legitimate system of oral communication. Journal of Black Studies Volume 9. pages 367 - 381

Woodson, C. G. (1933) Miseducation of the Negro Washington D.C.: The Associated Publishers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk) 17:49, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, Ernie, it seems that you have much more free time than I do. I have other deadlines to meet, so allow me to skip to the final paragraph of the above.

In Hoary’s paragraph number 2 after having extolled the virtue of and expressed esteem for linguistic works published by the reputable publisher Wiley-Blackwell, (aka Wiley-Liss) when confronted with empirical evidence that I have ‘been there and done that” User Hoary’s Argumentum ad Misercordiam (appeal to pity) reply is; he/she is too poor to access works of linguistics published by Wiley-Blackwell Liss, because it costs too much to download.

No. I'm sure I can afford to download the paper. I buy what seems likely to present value for money to me. (Thus I will not buy a lawnmower, no matter how low its price. I have no lawn. This says nothing about my estimate of the value of the lawnmower to other people.)

The tramp goes on to say says “I have trouble believing that a paper of just six pages in a journal of industrial medicine could do more than merely summarize the intellectual underpinnings of the particular research covered”. This is Argumentum ad Hominim or Argumentum ad Personam (attacking the person instead of his ideas).

Rubbish. Look at the title of the article and the number of pages within it. This does not purport to be a theoretical article.

Does this aversion to the truth in superannuated or old literture include the; Torah, Holy Bible, Vedic Scrtptures, the Holy Quran, and Shakesphere?

When I want to read about language I'll start with what's newest, because linguistics is a developing science. I believe that the average age of the content of most reading lists for university linguistics courses is very low.

Now, this is the talk page for a Wikipedia article. If you have concrete proposals for the article, make them. Feel free to call me a hound, a dog, a tramp, neurologically impaired, a coke fiend, a chronic alcoholic, senile, etc -- none of this worries me at all. But don't do so on this page, as it's not obviously relevant to the article. You can instead do it on my user talk page, or, if you have a serious objection to the results of what you diagnose as my neurological disorder, then somewhere such as WP:AN/I. And avoid leveling these or similar accusations at anybody else: doing so would probably get you into trouble.

If you have new material of your own for publication, then have it published. But that's not what Wikipedia is for. If you like some aspects of the very general concept behind Wikipedia, you might consider having a textbook published at "Wikibooks". If its conditions seem irksome, then of course you can use another website, perhaps your own, and retain as much control as you like. -- Hoary (talk) 00:17, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

To Ernie:

• Your posts are way too long. You may be used to using long paragraphs to get your point across but when your first post or two doesn't show any coherence, nobody bothers to give your posts sufficient attention. You also don't need to follow your posts with a string of references. In other words, shorten your posts
• Please take time to familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's policies, which include WP:NPA, WP:V, and WP:COI.
• You recommended a difficult-to-find article in a medical journal from 17 years ago. I've found it and read it. As an article about language, it's basically garbage. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:32, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Dr. Ernie Smith writes

What is this? You dare to refer to the language of all descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans as the language of “dogs born in the master’s house” yet when you are served this ‘dog whistle’ slur in kind, you want to go belly up and think you can just run away with your tail between your legs? . Come on Hoary! The fun has just begun. You got down on my line. Major mistake! You are out of your league and out of your class. From the very beginning your comments on my article have been laced with arrogant Eurocentric invective, vituperative and vitriolic ad hominem, ad personam, ad populum, and reductio absurdum non sequiturs. Even here you dare to you present me with more ad absurdo frothing growls, snarls, barks and yelps. The fact is, as the whole wide world can see, the reason you skipped to the end of my latest contribution is because you do not have the cognitive capacity to address the content of the article in terms of its validity, internal consistency and naked truth. You have been exposed as a pretentious fool. Given your inarticulateness and my lack of expertise in the area of your specific sub-primate animal communication I again forwarded a copy of the frothing growls, snarls, barks and yelps you utter as bravado to the Romulus and Remus Linguistic Institute, for translation. With regards to your argumentum ad baculum admonition that I should “avoid leveling these or similar accusations at anybody else: doing so would probably get you into trouble”, you are not my friend. What do you care?

For the Wikipedia readers that are not sure or who view, as a reach, my assertion that the appellation AAVE is a Eurocentric‘dog whistle’ for “dog born in the master’s house” Webster’s Dictionay posits as the etymology and definition of the word ‘slave’ the following: ‘slave \’slav\ n [ME sclav, fr. OF ; esclave, fr. ML sclavus, fr. Sclavus Slav; fr. the frequent enlsavement of Slavs in Central Europe] (14c) 1 : a person held in servitude as the chattel of another 2 : one that is completely subserviant to a dominating influence.” Notice that the etymological origin of the word slave is Latin and that the word slave originally referred to the Slavs or Slavic people. That the Romans regarded as being and treated the Slavs like dogs is reported in any number English literatue classics. (See I, Claudius: From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius (1989) The Roman Emperor Gaius Caligula and His Hellenistic Aspirations (2007)

References:

Adams G. W. (2007) The Roman Emperor Gaius Claigula and His Hellenistic Aspirations London Oxford University Press)

Graves R. (1989) I, Claudius: From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius New York Vintage Press International Edition

Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition (1993). Springfield MA Merriam Webster Inc.

Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition. (2001) Springfield MA Merriam Webster Inc.

Ernie Smith 17:03, 6 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk)

Ernie Smith writes Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]

You acknowledge that the 17 year old article was in a Medical Journal. I referenced that Journal article of mine in rebuttal to that canis familiaris Hoary’s remark concerning his esteem for works published by reputable publishing firms such as Wiley Blackwell. The Journal of Industrial Medicine is a scholarly refereed journal published by Wiley Liss the parent of Wiley Blackwell. My article is about Ebonics. That white supremacists and many Black American sheep dogs that have been reared nursing at the udder of white supremacists do not view Ebonics as a language but rather, as primal utterances of dogs born the master’s house, certainly is not a profound revelastion. Since you apparently are of the ilk that does not view Ebonics as a language it is logical that; “as an article about language”, you would view my article as ‘basically garbage’. Given that you view my article as being “basically garbage” it appears that you also call into question the acumen of the editors at The Journal of Industrial Medicine and likewise relative to works published by Wiley Blackwell = ‘basically garbage’.

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 18:46, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Do you have something meaningful to say or are you now making it your business, as a scholar, to call other people names? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:56, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I've invited an uninvolved admin to come and take a look. -- Hoary (talk) 00:30, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes:

Ƶ§œš¹ Have I called you names?. If I have misspelled your Ƶ§œš moniker, it was an inadvertent error. I until you called my article in the Journal of Industrial Medicine ‘basically garbage’ I had regarded you as a neutral observer of ad absurdo (appeal to ridicule) colloquy between user Hoary and myself. Thus far you have not called me any names. If you do call me names you rest assured that I will reply in kind. So Hoary, you call an administrator right away! For, my intent was to correct the factual un-truths and mis-information that I had discerned, relative to the subject of Ebonics, that Wikipedia is presenting to the whole wide world.

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 05:10, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I still don't understand what those untruths are. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:34, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Untruths

On the issue of un-truths Dr. Ernie Smith writes:

Ƶ§œš¹ there were at least two dozen academicians, language scholars and researchers in the small group assembled at the Conference in St. Louis when the blending or portmanteau of the words ‘ebony’ (black) and ‘phonics’ (sounds) to yield the word ‘Ebonics’ occurred. Hence, I maintain that the Wikipedia inference that the coining or portmanteau of the word Ebonics occurred during a dialogue between Dr. Robert Williams and Ernie Smith is not accurate and misleading. I cite as evidence of this an article written by Dr. Robert Williams that appears in The Journal of Black Psychology (August 1997). In this article, entitled "The Ebonics Controversy", Dr. Williams states: (Page 209, 210) "I coined the term Ebonics On January 26, 1973, in St. Louis Missouri.... In the spirit of Kugichagulia, the second principle of Nguzo Saba, the African American scholars and I decided that we needed to become self-determined and take over this issue and name our language. We must name and define our reality rather than let others do that for us. Thus, on January 26, 1973, the African American linguists and I met to name and define our language"... (see also St. Louis Post Dispatch January 1997). Clearly based on what is stated in quotes just above Dr. Robert Williams and Ernie Smith were not the only discussants in the room when the genesis of the word Ebonics occurred. Therefore, the assertion that “the initial mention of "Ebonics" was made by the psychologist Robert Williams in a ‘dialogue’ with linguist Ernie Smith is factually inaccurate. Would it not have been be just as easy to say “the initial mention of "Ebonics" was made in 1973 by the psychologist Robert Williams in a ‘discussion with linguist Ernie Smith and a group of language scholars and researchers that took place at a conference on the "Cognitive and Language Development of the Black Child", held in St. Louis, Missouri ?

References

Williams, R.L. (1997, January 28). Ebonics as a bridge to Standard English: [Letter to the editor], Saint Louis Post Dispatch.

Williams, R.L. (1997). The Ebonics controversy: Journal of Black Psychology 23 (3), 208-214.

Ernie Smith 08:40, 8 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk)

That makes sense. I've changed the article accordingly. That seems to be a relatively minor issue. Are there any others? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 09:33, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

An abstract of the J Black Psychol article (and the article itself, for those willing to pay $25) can be found here. -- Hoary (talk) 15:00, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding more untruths

Ernie Smith writes:

Ƶ§œš¹, what Baugh posits as four ways that Afrocentric proponents view Ebonics is not accurate and misleading. The proponents of the term Ebonics view and use the word Ebonics only one way. That way being; from an Africa centered comparative linguistic perspective. In fact, a careful analysis of what Baugh posits as number (iii) reveals that this view is not Afrocentric at all. That is, the view that Ebonics “is the equivalent of black English and is considered to be a dialect of English" (and thus merely an alternative term for African American Vernacular English|AAVE” is Eurocentric. The other three views, numbers (i), (ii) and (iv), are Afrocentric. But when carefully examined one fines that they are actually three variations on a common theme. That theme being; Africa is the genesis and geographical center from which the language of Black Americans originates. Thus the three variations of the Afrocentric views are:

"(i) "an international construct, including the linguistic consequences of the African slave trade";[7] (ii)to "refer to the languages of the African diaspora as a whole;[8] or it may refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English: either" (iv) it "is the antonym of black English and is considered to be a language other than English" (and thus a rejection of the notion of "African American Vernacular English" but nevertheless a term for what others term AAVE, viewed as an independent language and not a mere ethnolect)".[9]

Now I should make it clear here that, whereas the first sentence of view number (ii) that Baugh attributes to Blackshire Belay is indeed an Afrocentric view on Ebonics, i.e., to “refer to the languages of the African diaspora as a whole”, the second sentence or phrase Baugh attributes to Blackshire Belay, .i.e., “or it may refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English language|English: either” is not Afrocentric and to posit this phrase as an Afrocentric view is in fact an outright misrepresentation of what Blackshire Belay has posited. That is, nobody denies there are Eurocentric counterfeiters and plagiarizers that use the word Ebonics as a synonym for BE, AAVE and other appellations that “refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English language”. This does not make Blackshire Belay’s report of such counterfeit usage her Afrocentric view. In short there is only one way that Afrocentric proponents view Ebonics and that is an African centered point of view.

References

Asante, M. (1998) The Afrocentric Idea; Philadelphia Temple University Press

Asante M. (1999) The Painful Demise of Eurocentrism Trenton, Africa World Press

Ernie Smith 06:41, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

There are two ways we can remedy this. One option is to modify the first sentence to remove or qualify what Baugh means by "Afrocentric." Another option (and one that I prefer, if we can do it) is to follow that paragraph with further academic discussion or even report on a scholarly response to Baugh's work.

It doesn't seem like Blackshire-Belay is cited as backing up anything but ii (at least not as it's attributed in the article). Am I missing something or did you misread that? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 07:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Let's look at what Baugh writes. Here it is:

Readers who are interested in a thorough history of Ebonics would be well advised to consult Tolliver-Weddington's (1979) edition [. . . .] it also accentuates the definitional derailment of Ebonics from an international entity to one that Tolliver-Weddington describes as follows:

a language (dialect) that is spoken by Black Americans living in low-income communities and that [has] some specific characteristics observed in the phonological and grammatical system. Such agreement has led to numerous false assumptions and misunderstandings about Ebonics. (1979:364)

There are, to the best of my knowledge, four divergent definitions of Ebonics that exist among Afrocentric proponents of the term:

1. [. . .]

2. Ebonics is the equivalent of black English and is considered to be a dialect of English (Tolliver-Weddington 1979). [. . .]

Baugh is citing Gloria Tolliver-Weddington's compilation, the Journal of Black Studies vol. 9, no. 4. I do not have this (and I do not know what the "agreement" is).

Still on the same p.74 of his book Beyond Ebonics, Baugh also quotes Asante, writing in the same special issue of Journal of Black Studies:

[I]nformation about Black English has proliferated, creating a misunderstanding of the scope and function of the language. Ebonics as a designation for the language, usually referred to as Black English, attempts to remove some of the ambiguity created by connecting black with English.

(That's Baugh's emphasis.)

Now let's turn to the definition that Baugh attributes to Blackshire-Belay. It's the fourth in his list of four, and here it is (from his p.75):

4. Ebonics refers to language among all people of African descent throughout the African Diaspora (Blackshire-Belay 1996).

He backs this up (on p.23) with a lengthy quotation from this work of Blackshire-Belay. Here's how it ends:

I extend the term Ebonics to include all languages of African peoples on the continent and in the Diaspora that have created new languages based on their environmental circumstances. (Blackshire-Belay 1996:20)

Ernie, you write:

Now I should make it clear here that, whereas the first sentence of view number (ii) that Baugh attributes to Blackshire Belay is indeed an Afrocentric view on Ebonics, i.e., to “refer to the languages of the African diaspora as a whole”, the second sentence or phrase Baugh attributes to Blackshire Belay, .i.e., “or it may refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English language|English: either” is not Afrocentric and to posit this phrase as an Afrocentric view is in fact an outright misrepresentation of what Blackshire Belay has posited.

But here's what the article now says:

it "is the antonym of black English and is considered to be a language other than English" (and thus a rejection of the notion of "African American Vernacular English" but nevertheless a term for what others term AAVE, viewed as an independent language and not a mere ethnolect).

This makes no claim that inclusion of AAVE is Afrocentric; it merely attempts to explain one implication of what Blackshire-Belay says, an implication that I think will be important to most readers. Perhaps that could be rephrased better. Instead of "nevertheless a term for", how about "nevertheless encompasses"?

That is, nobody denies there are Eurocentric counterfeiters and plagiarizers that use the word Ebonics as a synonym for BE, AAVE and other appellations that “refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English language”.

I don't know what "counterfeiters" or "plagiarizers" you are referring to. Anyway, above we have a clear example of Asante (hardly a Eurocentric writer) using (and indeed seeming to advocate the use of) "Ebonics" to refer to the language that he says is "usually referred to as Black English".

In short there is only one way that Afrocentric proponents view Ebonics and that is an African centered point of view.

Afrocentric proponents may indeed agree on viewing Ebonics in a similar way, but Baugh not only points out that the actual meaning of "Ebonics" shifts among writers, he also makes a point of saying that the multiplicity of meanings has caused problems, notably in the paragraph that closes his second chapter. -- Hoary (talk) 14:08, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Dr Ernie Smith writes:

Ƶ§œš¹ I agree with your second option, i.e., “to follow that paragraph with further academic discussion or even report on a scholarly response to Baugh's work”. You should know that after checking the references again I discerned that you are abolutely correct. Indeed, it is not Blackshire Belay that Baugh posits as his source for Afrocentic view number (ii). Based on the footnote number 8 that appears after the first phrase in number (ii), i.e., “refer to the languages of the African diaspora as a whole;[8]” Baugh actually attributes this view to; Williams (1975) and Williams (1997). This prompts the question; is the second phrase that appears to be a continuation of number (ii) which states; “or it may refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English: either” also included as what Dr.Williams posits? For if it is attributed to Dr. Williams, I still say it is not Afrocentric and to posit this phrase as an Afrocentric view is in fact an outright misrepresentation of what Dr. Williams has stated.

Ernie Smith 15:00, 9 March 2010 (UTC)~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk)

Here's the intended framework of a sentence that may well be too intricate:

Ebonics may:

(i) be [Williams's concept],

(ii) refer to [what Blackshire-Belay uses it to refer to];

or it may refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English: either

(iii) it "is the equivalent of black English and is considered to be a dialect of English" (Tolliver-Weddington), or

(iv) it "is the antonym of black English and is considered to be a language other than English" (Smith).

-- Hoary (talk) 15:15, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes:

Ƶ§œš¹ There is an Afrocentiric view of the world and there is a non Afrocentric view. As defined by Robert Williams the word Ebonics posits an Afrocentric view relative the origin and historical development of the language of descendants of enslaved Africans in America and throughout the diaspora. The view that the language of descendants enslaved Africans in America and throughout the diaspora is a dialect of English or some other European language is a non Afrocentric view and it has nothing to do with Ebonics. The counterfeiters and plagiarizers that have for years attempted to filch the word Ebonics and with the intent to deceive used the word Ebonics as a synonym for BE, AAVE and other such appellations clearly have Hoary confused. [See Smith (1997) and Smith and Crozier (1998)]. In the “About Wikipedia” section on the main page of Wikipedia we are told the following as the etymological origin or genesis of the word “Wikipedia”: “Wikipedia (pronounced /ˌwɪkɨˈpiːdi.ə/ WIK-i-PEE-dee-ə) is a multilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia project based on an openly-editable model. The name "Wikipedia" is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites, from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning "quick") and encyclopedia. Wikipedia's articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information.” Now, just as the word Ebonics is a is portmanteau of the words ‘ebony’ and ‘phonics’ the word or name Wikipedia is portmanteau of the words ‘wiki’ and ‘encyclopedia’. According to the ‘About Wikikpedia’ section the word or name ‘Wikipedia’ is from the Hawaiian word ‘wiki’ meaning ‘quick’ not the word ‘wickiyapi’ an Algonquian Indian word from which the word ‘wickiup’ is derived. Thus the word 'Wikipedia' is not derived from the Algonquian Indian word ‘wikiyapi’ and its origin has nothing to do with the word’wickiup’ that means “a hut used by nomadic Indians of the arid regions of the western and southwestern U.S.” (see Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (2001:1347) As defined by its author the word or name ‘Wikipedia’ is not a portmanteau of the word ‘wicked’ and ‘pedophile’ and it has noting to do with “wicked pedophiles”. User Hoary thinks it is allright to encompass meanings for the word ‘Wikipedia’ that the founders of ‘Wikipdeia’ never intended and defend the use of any and all counterfeit meanings on the web all over the world. I accept what is presented in quotes above as being the origin and true meaning of the name “Wikipedia”. I believe the meaning posited for Wikipedia above is the only authenthic meaning of word ‘Wikipedia’. I wonder how the author(s) or originator(s) of the name ‘Wikipedia’ would feel if there were counterfeiters and plagiarizers going all over the world misrepresenting and outright mis-using the name “Wikipedia”?

References

Smith, E.A. (1997) What is Ebonics What Is Black English In Real Ebonics Debate Edited by Perry T. and Delpit L. Chicago-Boston Beacon Press.

Smith E. A., Crozier K. (1998) Ebonics Is Not Black English In The Western Journal of Black Studies. Pullman Washington State University Press.

Ernie Smith 16:26, 9 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk)

I'm not aware of having expressed any opinion on the word "Wikipedia". But since you bring this up, Ernie, if the name "Wikipedia" were indeed used within serious writing to mean "wicked pedophilia", and if this use were discussed within a book published by OUP, then I'd be in favor of noting the matter within Wikipedia's entry on itself.

What is this "plagiarism" of which you write? Is it possible to "plagiarize" a single word? If you're talking about plagiarism of something else, then of what? And plagiarism by whom?

Who has "counterfeited" what?

Since you are using words that suggest arguments that might lead to lawsuits, I'd point out that this website tells us that "Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization." Has Williams registered "Ebonics" as a trademark, or even described it as a trademark? If not (as I suspect), the way you keep on about the etymology and meaning of "Wikipedia" puzzles me considerably.

You say The view that the language of descendants enslaved Africans in America and throughout the diaspora is a dialect of English or some other European language is a non Afrocentric view and it has nothing to do with Ebonics. Perhaps you would like to explain how this squares with the quotation above by Asante.

I see it as the job of this article to tell people what has been meant by the word "Ebonics" when these uses have merited description in intelligent, nonpartisan works such as Beyond Ebonics, a book published by OUP and written by a Stanford professor who's been the president of the American Dialect Society. Now, some of the uses of the word may in your view (or for that matter in mine) be regrettable or worse. If this is what you believe, you're free to take the matter up with those who, in your view, misuse the word. But this article is not the place, and neither is this talk page.

Of course teaching at Stanford, having been prez of the American Dialect Society, having your book published by OUP -- none of these guarantees infallibility. I'm willing to believe that Baugh is wrong. If you believe that he is wrong (and not merely that he says things that you wish he wouldn't say), let's see some convincing arguments for this, rather than unconvincing attempts at analogy with "Wikipedia", etc. You'll probably have to cite one or more books published by university presses that show Baugh to be mistaken. Not merely two papers, however excellent they may be, by one of the sparring parties (who happens to be yourself).

Lastly, I'm puzzled by your great concern with etymology. That one word of a natural language is known to have been invented as a blend (or, if you prefer, a "portmanteau") of two others does not guarantee that it will continue to represent those two. Words change their meanings, sometimes very quickly. (For that matter, even registered trademarks can do so. Consider "spam".) -- Hoary (talk) 17:26, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes:

I have forword this snarl to the kennels at the Romulus and Remus Linguitics Institute for translation. I am awaiting their reply. When I get their response I shall reply. I think have made my point. I would not be surprised if a pedophile porn web-site suddenly appears with the name Hory's Wickedpidiah very soon.

Ernie Smith 17:58, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

It seems like, although all the potential definitions are Afrocentric according to Baugh, Smith here is arguing that iii and iv are Eurocentric (or not Afrocentric enough). If it's argued in Smith (1997) and/or Smith & Crozier (1998) that those putting forth iii and iv are somehow illigitimate, I don't personally have an a priori problem with incorporating that viewpoint in the article.

I do echo Hoary's point, though, that this article is attempting to describe how people use the word. If we are to incorporate information that basically states that those involved with the original coining of Ebonics disaprove of its broadening, we must be careful not to appear to endorse or overrepresent the significance of this view. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 00:57, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Possible change of meaning

If I understand the above rather long discussions correctly, Dr Smith argues that the term "Ebonics" was coined by Dr. Robert Williams during a discussion in which several other people took part, and that therefore Dr. Williams's intentions and understanding of the meaning of the term control it, and any attempt to use it with a significantly different meaning is illegitimate and in some sense a "counterfeiting", piracy, or plagiarism. As Dr. Smith should know, that is not how language works and particularly it is not how the English language works. Terms enter the language, whether by coining, adoption, transformation, or other means; such terms then are subject to shifts in meaning, often drastic shifts, as they are used by various people. Such shifts may be rapid and intentional, or gradual and unconscious. Wikipedia should be interested in what reliable sources say the term now means, and what it has meant over its history. Dr. Williams's intentions in coining the term are clearly relevant to this, but not definitive if others have generally used the term in a different sense than he intended, even if he (or others on his behalf) strongly objects to such changes. DES ^(talk) 20:27, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes to the Wikipedia Web managers

Thanks for the 'typo fix' suggestion. It certainly makes things simpler for me. As for your other admonitions, concerning my responses to this person Hoary, I have been attempting to improve the article via a constructive colloquy with the editor Ƶ§œš¹. This Hoary person appears get his or her orgasmic jollies making asinine slurs and commentary that does not address the subject of Ebonics nor the inconsistencies in his or her logic. I have verbally cleaned this person Hoary’s clock and yet this person Hoary keeps coming back for more. Clearly this person Hoary loves the sadomasochistic verbal exchanges that he or she has invited and is having with me. You would do better to make your admonitions to this Hoary person because I will not tolerate ‘dog whistle’ insults and racial slurs from Hoary, you or anyone else. So you just block my edits all you want. Blocking my edits won’t make the inaccuracies and outright lies that Wikipedia is disseminating on the subject of Ebonics accurate or true. If this person Hoary wants to discuss Black English or African American Vernacular English he or she should take his or her discussion to the Wikipedia Black English or African American Vernacular English section or page. Ebonics is not Black English, African American Vernacular English or any other appellation that implies inherently that the language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans is a dialect of English and genetically akin to the Germanic language family to which English belongs. If you do not understand this fact then why was the Wikipedia African Diaspora project initiated? You should have called it the Black Anglo Saxon Diaspora Project instead. But then, there would have to be historical linguistic evidence that Black Anglo Saxons brought Early Modern Black English, African American Vernacular English dialects to colonial America from somewhere in Germanic Europe.

Ernie Smith 04:24, 21 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk)

You keep alluding to "inaccuracies and outright lies" in the article, but so far what we've gotten from you is a minor wording change regarding the context of the original coining and that definitions other than the original are not Afrocentric. We've fixed the former, and are certainly trying to address the latter. Neither of these issues could be considered "outright lies", so I'm still waiting for the real big issues that you're concerned about.

Also, should I take a look at Smith (1997) and Smith & Crozier (1998) as Ebonicist works that address the broadening of the term? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 06:48, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes

Ƶ§œš¹ I attempted to address the question that you posed regarding other inaccuracies but at the behest of User Hoary I have been blocked by the Wikipedia administrators. That said, you should carefully examine what I did in fact state regading the four ways that Baugh posits as being the Afrocentric proponent's view on Ebonics. I maintain that just because a writer happens to be Black or African American (Weddington, Baugh and Green for example) being Black does not make their postion on Ebonics Afrocentric. What I stated was that; "the proponents of the term Ebonics view and use the word Ebonics only one way. That way being; from an Africa centered comparative linguistic perspective." I went on to state that "In fact, a careful analysis of what Baugh posits as number (iii) reveals that this view is not Afrocentric at all. That is, the view that Ebonics “is the equivalent of black English and is considered to be a dialect of English" (and thus merely an alternative term for African American Vernacular English|AAVE” is Eurocentric. The other three views, numbers (i), (ii) and (iv), are Afrocentric..."

Ƶ§œš¹, if you re-read the quote above carefully you will see that you are clearly in error regarding what I stated concerning Baughs number (ii). So let me make it clear here. It is my view that the first phrase in number (ii) that reads; "to refer to the languages of the African diaspora as a whole”, is definitely Afrocentric. What I questioned was the second phrase or clause in number (ii) that reads; “or it may refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English language|English: either”. I contend that this phrase contradicts the first phrase and is therefore and oxymoron. The fact that Eurocentric writers attempt to filch, redfine and use the word Ebonics to "refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English language" does not make this practice Afrocentric.

To User:DESiegel

I am indeed very well aware that languages change over time. In fact I co-authored a book on the origin of the "N' word and in that book I extensively addressed how the meaning of the Kemetic (Egyptian)word NGR has changed. In this book Shaba Shebaka and I systematically demonstrate that while all English language dictionaries posit the origin of the 'N' word as being derived from the Latin word 'niger' meaning 'black', (See Ullaman, et.al. Third Latin Book (1930:51) the word 'niger' is not originally a Latin word. (see America Heritage Dictionary (1976:1531) That is, while the word 'niger' may have entered into the English langange from Latin, the empirical evidence is that the tri-consonant Mdw Ntr 'NGR' is found in the ancient Kemetic (Egyptian) language thousnds of years before there is any record of a Latin civilization. The empirical evidence is that the root word NGR was introduced to the Ayran or European people when they initially invaded and made contact with the Negroid people (NGRS) of ancient India around 2000-1000 BC. (See Wallbank and Taylor(1942:72,73)and Durant (1954:356).

In Sir E.A. Wallis Budge's Egypitian Hieroglyphic Dictionary the words NGRS and NGGR can be found in hieroglyphs. Budge provides the specific site where these hieroglyphs are located in Egypt today. As defined by Budge the first word NGRS is the name of an ancient Kemetic or Egyptian God (Budge 1978:341). The second word NGGR is the name of an ancient Kemitic or Egyptian Goddess (Budge 1978:398). For the Wikipedia reader that may be concerned as to the relevance of this discussion of the 'N' word to Ebonics I strongly urge the reader to examine the etymology and definition of the word "ebony" in any unabridged English language dictionary. The point being made is that there is a subtle linguistic diglossia being imposed that must to be challenged. Einar Haugen states the point I am making thusly: "if we call the building-up of a language an Aufbau and the aphasic dismantling an Abbau, the bilinguals restructuring can be call an Umbau. This is the goal of all the studies if bilingual interference: in what way has a language been rebuilt or umgebaut because of the coexistence with another language in the minds of bilingual speakers?" Of course to those who view Ebonics as being a dialect of English the idea of 'biligualism' when it comes to the languge of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans in diaspora is unfathomable.

References

Budge Wallis E.A. (1978) An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary New York Dover Publications Budge Wallis E.A. (1969) The Gods of the Egyptians New York. Dover Publishers

Durant W. (1954) Our Oriental Heritage New York Simon and Schuster

Haugen E. (1970) Linguistics and Dialinguistics In Bilingualim and Language Contact Geogretown Roudtable on Languages and Linguistics. Edited by James Alatis Washington D.C. Georgetown University Press.

Sabaka S. and Smith E.A. (2003) Nigger: A Divine Origin Los Angeles Milligan Books

Ullman B.L. Henry N. and White D. (1930) Third Latin Book New York The Macmillian Company

Wallbank W. and Taylor A.M. (1942) Civilization - Pastand Present Chcago Scott Foresman and Company

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 18:56, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie, your description of the process leading to your block is inaccurate. I alerted administrators to your conduct and invited any of them to decide on what to do (if anything). All of this is on view here.

You maintain that just because a writer happens to be Black or African American (Weddington, Baugh and Green for example) being Black does not make their postion on Ebonics Afrocentric. I don't think that anybody disagrees.

You continue: What I stated was that; "the proponents of the term Ebonics view and use the word Ebonics only one way. That way being; from an Africa centered comparative linguistic perspective." Here, "proponents" is potentially ambiguous. If the proponents of the term are merely those who choose to use it in preference to other terms often used for the phenomenon they're discussing, then this is untrue. As a grotesque extreme, the horrendously underinformed Bill Cosby used it very differently in a fatuous newspaper article (conveniently plagiarized here). But whatever "proponents" means, this Wikipedia article has to explain significant uses of the term "Ebonics" has been used, including what you or I may think are misuses.

You say: It is my view that the first phrase in number (ii) that reads; "to refer to the languages of the African diaspora as a whole”, is definitely Afrocentric. What I questioned was the second phrase or clause in number (ii) that reads; “or it may refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English language|English: either”. I contend that this phrase contradicts the first phrase and is therefore an oxymoron. No. As I pointed out earlier, you have misparsed the sentence as a whole (and understandably so, as the sentence is long, intricate, and awkward). [O]r it may refer to what is normally regarded as [etc] is not part of (ii); instead, it's a preamble to (iii) and (iv).

You conclude The fact that Eurocentric writers attempt to filch, redfine and use the word Ebonics to "refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English language" does not make this practice Afrocentric. You're going to have a hard time persuading others that the extension of the term to mean AAVE is necessarily Eurocentric, in the face of evidence such as Asante's published comment [I]nformation about Black English has proliferated, creating a misunderstanding of the scope and function of the language. Ebonics as a designation for the language, usually referred to as Black English, attempts to remove some of the ambiguity created by connecting black with English. But yes, obviously, use by some speaker or writer of the term "Ebonics" indeed does not make the utterance Afrocentric. -- Hoary (talk) 23:48, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Ermie Smith writes

Ƶ§œš¹ You asked me to cite other inaccuracies in the Wikipedia article on Ebonics. I direct your attention to the Wikipedia article on the “Oakland Ebonics Controversy”. The Wikipedia article states: “For students whose primary dialect was AAVE, the Oakland resolution mandated some instruction in that dialect, both for "maintaining the legitimacy and richness of such language... and to facilitate their acquisition and mastery of English language skills." This also included the proposed increase of salaries of those proficient in both AAVE and Standard English to the level of those teaching LEP (limited English proficiency) students and the use of public funding to help teachers learn AAVE themselves.[1]” This not accurate. In fact it is an outright lie. In the first place, the OUSD Board's December 18, 1996, resolution was not about children who speak African American Vernacular English, Black English or any other appellation that implies inherently that the English language is the home, native or primary language of the parents and children that were the specific basis for the Oakland Unified School Districts (OUSD) resolution. The OUSD December 18, 1996 resolution was concerning children whose parents had identified their home, native or primary language as (1) "Ebonics", (2) "Pan African Communication Behaviors" and/or (3) "African Language Systems". As proof of this assertion I cite the fact it that the appellation African American Vernacular English does not appear anywhere in the entire OUSD resolution. In fact the first four Whereas clauses of the OUSD resolution speak only to the existence of a linguistic continuity of the West Niger-Congo African language system in the language of African slave descendants and their unique language stature. The very first whereas clause of the OUSD resolution states: WHEREAS, numerous validated studies demonstrate that African-American students as part of their culture and history as African people possess and utilize a language described in various scholarly approaches as “Ebonics” (literally Black sounds) or “Pan African Language Communication Behaviors” or “African Language Systems.” [For more information relative to the appellation “Pan African Language Communication Behaviors” see Pan African Language In The Western Hemisphere (1973)] The second Whereas clause of the resolution states: “Whereas, these studies have also demonstrated that African language systems have origins in West and Niger-Congo languages and are not merely dialects of English”. Now what more evidence does it take to prove that the OUSD resolution was not about African American Vernacular English or any other appellation that implies inherently that the English language is the home, native or primary language of the parents and children that were the basis for the Oakland Unified School Districts (OUSD) resolution?

Here is more. A critical analysis will reveal that in its very essence the OUSD resolution was about the vindication of the equal protection of the law rights of the Afrocentric parents and their children under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. That is, the right of English Language Learners (ELL) of African ancestry to not be discriminated against on the basis of their language ancestry and be provided instruction in the English language as a second language, i.e.,ESL. In short, to be provided a Free and Appropriate Public Education. As proof of this assertion I cite the fifth whereas clause of the OUSD Board's resolution which reads: "Whereas, judicial cases in states other than California have recognized the unique language stature of African American pupils, and such recognition by courts has resulted in court-mandated educational programs which have substantially benefited African American children in the interest of vindicating their equal protection of the law rights under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution." (See OUSD resolution page 1. para. 5.) As further evidence that the OUSD Board's resolution was about "Ebonics", "Pan African Communication Behaviors" or "African Language Systems" and not African American Vernacular English, I cite the first ‘Now Therefore Be It Resolved’ clause of the OUSD resolution which states: “NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED the Board of Education officially recognizes the existence of, and cultural and linguistic bases of West and Niger -Congo African Languages Systems and these are the language patterns that many African American students bring to school;” Clearly based on this passage of the resolution what the OUSD Board was addressing was the existence of "Ebonics", "Pan African Communication Behaviors" or "African Language Systems" and not African American Vernacular English. The second “Therefore be it resolved” clause of the OUSD resolution states: “BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of Education hereby adopts the report, recommendation and attached Policy Statement of the District’s African American Task Force on language Stature of African American Speech and…” As a result of this passage in the OUSD resolution the Policy Statement of the OUSD Board’s African American Task Force on language stature of African American speech became the official OUSD policy on Ebonics. In the very first paragraph of the Policy Statement adopted by the OUSD Board, relative to "Black English", and African American Vernacular English” the Board makes its position perfectly clear. It reads: (page 1. paragraph.1.) “There is persuasive empirical evidence that predicated on analysis of the phonology, morphology and syntax that currently exists as systematic rule governed and predictable patterns in the grammar of African-American speech. The validated and persuasive linguistic evidence is that African Americans (1) have retained a Niger-Congo African linguistic structure in the substratum of their speech and (2) by this criteria are not native speakers of a Black dialect or any other dialect of English”. It does not require a preschool child’s level of comprehension to discern that the OUSD resolution was not in any way shape form or fashion about children whose parents had identified their home, native or primary language as African American Vernacular English or any other dialect of English. As even more evidence and indeed proof positive that the OUSD Board resolution was about "Ebonics", "Pan African Communication Behaviors" or "African Language Systems" and not “African American Vernacular English or any other non-standard dialect of English, I cite also the last passage of the policy statement adopted by the OUSD Board. In this passage the Board makes it clear to African American parents who believe that their child's home language is a vernacular or non-standard dialect of English that, the "Ebonics" resolution does not pertain to them. This passage reads: (page 2. para. 5). "Nothing in this Policy shall preclude or prevent African American parents who view their child's limited English proficiency as being related to non-standard English, as opposed to being African language based, from exercising their right to choose and to have their child's speech disorders and English language deficits addressed by special education and/or other District programs".

References

Oakland Unified School District Resolution Number 9697-0063 December 18, 1996. A RESOLUTION OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION ADOPTING THE REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE AFRICAN AMERICAN TASK FORCE : A POLICY STATEMENT AND DIRECTING THE SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS TO DEVISE A PROGRAM TO IMPROVE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND APPLICATION Skills of African American Students

Twiggs R. D. (1973) Pan African Language in the Western Hemisphere North Quincy Christopher Publishing House

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 04:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie, you write Ƶ§œš¹ You asked me to cite other inaccuracies in the Wikipedia article on Ebonics. I direct your attention to the Wikipedia article on the “Oakland Ebonics Controversy”. Whereupon you allege that there is "an outright lie" in that article. It's a different article. If you have a beef with it, say so in its own talk page. Meanwhile, do you or do you not claim that this article, "Ebonics" is inaccurate? If you do make such a claim, please explain what the inaccuracy is -- and please do so as concisely as possible. -- Hoary (talk) 05:03, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Mary Hoover on the origin of "Ebonics"

Here's my transcription of an exchange that starts around 14 minutes into a recording of an interview with Mary Rhodes Hoover that's here at Youtube and is among this article's list of external links:

Interviewer: Why don't you tell us about the origins of "Ebonics" or "African Language System" or, um, whatever other term that, uh, it, it potentially has, uh, gotten named.

Hoover: Yes, you've listed three of the terms there, but there was -- at one point it was called "Black English", another point it was called, uh, "African American Language", and, uh, the first person to seriously write about the language was Lorenzo Dow Turner back in 1949, and he called it -- he wrote a very famous book, and anybody interested in really reading, um, a serious uh, study of the language, it's called Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect, and he -- dialect -- and he called it "Gullah", the "Gullah Dialect". And so it's had many different ah, ah, ah terms that've been used to, to refer to it. "Ebonics" -- I happened to be there, at the conference in 1973, where Dr Robert Williams named it "Ebonics", ah, which means simply "black sounds". So that's, that's pretty much, uh, it.

I've tried to get this right but have left in the hesitations, even though doing so gives a misleading impression of Hoover's speech, which is fluent and clear. (Her "three" is a humdrum conversational slip.)

Here's a smoothed out version:

Interviewer: Why don't you tell us about the origins of "Ebonics" or "African Language System" or whatever other term that it potentially has gotten named.

Hoover: Yes, you've listed three [sic] of the terms there, but [. . .] at one point it was called "Black English", [at] another point it was called "African American Language", and the first person to seriously write about the language was Lorenzo Dow Turner back in 1949, and [. . .] he wrote a very famous book, and anybody interested in really reading a serious study of the language, it's called Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect, and he [. . .] called it "Gullah", the "Gullah Dialect". And so it's had many different terms that've been used to refer to it. "Ebonics" -- I happened to be there, at the conference in 1973, where Dr Robert Williams named it "Ebonics", which means simply "black sounds". So that's pretty much it.

It's clear from this part of the interview that Hoover is happy with the term "Ebonics". But her own background was that of a linguist-educator (and a distinguished one, see this PDF); in this section of the interview she says nothing about the origins of Ebonics (I mean, of the language, not of the term), doesn't mention any African language, seems happy for "Ebonics" to be understood as referring to what "Black English" is used by others to refer to, and says she was present at the coining of the term "Ebonics". -- Hoary (talk) 02:03, 22 March 2010 (UTC) ... smoothed out version added Hoary (talk) 05:09, 22 March 2010 (UTC) tweaked 06:29, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith on Ebonics

Here on Youtube is the first of what are billed as a series of videos of Ernie Smith talking about Ebonics. (There's something wrong with the relevant codec in the computer I'm using right now, so I can't see for myself.) -- Hoary (talk) 06:29, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I've just watched it on another computer. Something has gone wrong with the transfer to digital, or perhaps with the codec on this machine, but for whatever reason as I watch it the image judders and the sound is distorted. Still, it's intelligible. Smith says various remarkable things. Here are two nuggets (to the best of my transcribing ability):

When you look at the literature that they disseminate about this language it does not in any way correspond, except for lexical items, to the structure that I know to be the English language. So we questioned the legitimacy of the use of the term "Black English", and instead we posed the term "Ebonics", black sounds. [...]

If he was serious and really meant that there's no morphosyntactic correspondence, I suppose this would imply that the surface similarity of (for example) Ebonics and Standard English comparative and superlative adjective forms ("-er", "-est"/"-es") is merely a coincidence.

And again, after pointing out that there's no talk of "Yellow English", "White Trash English", etc:

The word "Black" has always represented to the Europeans something evil, base, licentious, wanton, depraved, corrupt, and then the Europeans who refer to Black language as a Black English, they're not talking about the language of Bryant Gumbel, or Max Robinson, or Ed Bradley, or Jayne Kennedy, they're not talking about the English of these Blacks who happen to be professional speakers of English, they're talking about the nonstandard, deviant speech, that corrupt, licentious, wanton, depraved, crooked -- all of the negative attributes that you can give something is given the word "Black", and when you look at the literature put out by the agents of US imperialism, the Zionists like Walt Wolfram, William Labov, Joan Baratz, all of these Europeans who've been writing about Black language, [names I can't catch], when you look at their literature, they're not talking about the language of the Black educated, they're talking about the nonstandard Black sounds of Black children that do not correspond to English.

So the ingredients seem to be:

1. Deny that the "Black sounds of Black children" are English.
2. Point out that the speech of Black US TV newscasters is excellent [standard US] English.
3. Object to the way that (1) and (2) are lumped together.
4. Point out that there's no "other-color" analogy to the term "Black English"
5. Dismiss interested sociolinguists such as Wolfram (raised in Philadelphia, educated in the US, worked in the US) as "Europeans", "agents of US imperialism" and "Zionists".
6. Claim that "Europeans" have the lowest possible image of Blackness.

(Incidentally, when Smith goes on to make his second point in the same video, he repeats that others who've discussed Black language, or some of them, are "European Zionists".)

Me, I'd agree with two of those six, and I'd say that there's some truth to one or two others. Others may watch, listen, read, and judge for themselves whether I've been fair in representing what Smith said, and may estimate for themselves the likelihood that Smith's views would have been widely shared.

Of course it is possible that Smith's views have changed over the years since the (unspecified) time when that video was made.. -- Hoary (talk) 14:25, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

"In an exclusively US context"

Ernie Smith writes Ƶ§œš¹

Ƶ§œš¹, I have a point of information. Is the “In an exclusively US context” section a part of the article being discussed? For, in this section I find the following very misleading statement: “In 1996, the term became widely known in the U.S. owing to a controversy over a decision by the Oakland School Board to denote and recognize the primary language (or sociolect or ethnolect) of African American children attending school, and thereby to facilitate the teaching of standard English.[12] Thereafter, Ebonics seems to have become little more than an alternative term for African American Vernacular English, although one emphasizing its claimed African roots and independence from English, a term linked with the nationally discussed controversy over the decision by the Oakland School Board, and one avoided by most linguists.[13] “ I pose this question because I have just received a translation from the Romulus and Remus Linguistic Institute. It appears there is an effort being made to cover–up some very, very inept and ersatz scholarship at Wikipedia encyclopedia by simply declaring my analysis of the Oakland Ebonics Controversy as something that pertains only to that article when in fact the words “For more details on this topic, see Oakland Ebonics controversy” , the words Oakland School Board (twice) and ‘sociolect’, ‘ethnolect’ and ‘African American Vernacular English’ appear under the heading “In an exclusively US context”. My analysis of the Oakland Ebonics controversy” was about ‘Ebonics’ the langauage of limited English proficient (LEP) English language learners (ELL) of African ancestry in the OUSD African diaspora. I maintain that when a counterfeiter puts the name ‘Rolex’ on a one jewel, gold plated, Hong Kong watch, this does not make a one jewel, gold plated, Hong Kong watch a genuine Rolex. I likewise maintain that when ignorant white trash and dumb Negro Sheepdogs that nurse at the udder of white supremacits trash use the word Ebonics as a synonynm for and African American Vernacular English this does not make Ebonics an African American Vernacular of English.

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 13:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

That's partly right, Ernie. And to the extent that it's right, it's why Wikipedia has an article on "Ebonics" as well as an article on "African American Vernacular English".

Incidentally, is every person who uses "Ebonics" as a synonym for "African American Vernacular English" either (a) ignorant white trash or (b) a dumb Negro sheepdog that nurses at the udder of white supremacist trash? -- Hoary (talk) 14:32, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

So what you’re saying is that OUSD was addressing "Ebonics" as being defined as i or ii, and specifically and overtly excluding iii. I'm suspicious of this interpretation; the final quote you provide for this, which is the most convincing piece of evidence, could be interpreted as meaning that parents don't have to endorse the controversial classification to accept the services offered. If what you say is true, then how do you account for Morgan (1999) (p 173) who argues that what the OUSD referred to as "Ebonics" is the same as what others call AAVE? Do you have sources that back up your interpretation?

Regarding the "in an exclusively US context," would it be less misleading to rephrase the bold part in: "Thereafter, Ebonics seems to have become little more than an alternative term for African American Vernacular English…" to "Thereafter, the term "Ebonics" seems to have become popularized, though being little more than an alternative term for African American Vernacular English…" ? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 22:13, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes Ƶ§œš1

Ƶ§œš1, you state or pose as an interrogative; “So what you are saying is that OUSD was addressing "Ebonics" as being defined as i or ii, and specifically and overtly excluding iii.” In reply to this sentence, I am saying what I have said and I reiterate it here; "the proponents of the term Ebonics view and use the word Ebonics only one way. That way being; from an Africa centered comparative linguistic perspective”. I have said and I reiterate it here; “... As defined by Robert Williams the word Ebonics posits an Afrocentric view relative the origin and historical development of the language of descendants of enslaved Africans in America and throughout the diaspora. The view that the language of descendants enslaved Africans in America and throughout the diaspora is a dialect of English or some other European language is a non Afrocentric view and it has nothing to do with Ebonics”. In other words Ƶ§œš1, there are ‘proponents of Ebonics’ and are ‘anti-proponents of Ebonics’. The proponents of Ebonics are those who view and use the word Ebonics from an Africa centered comparative linguistic perspective. The 'anti-propronents of Ebonics' are those who do not view and use the word Ebonics from an Africa centered comparative linguistic perspective. The parents of the children of African ancestry in the OUSD for which the OUSD Board passed the resolution in 1996 were parents who are ‘proponents of Ebonics’. That is, they are parents who view and use the word Ebonics from an Africa centered comparative linguistic perspective. I have said and and I reiterate here; “the OUSD Board's December 18, 1996, resolution was not about children who speak African American Vernacular English, Black English or any other appellation that implies inherently that the English language is the home, native or primary language of the parents and children that were the specific basis for the Oakland Unified School Districts (OUSD) resolution. The OUSD December 18, 1996 resolution was concerning children whose parents had identified their home, native or primary language as (1) "Ebonics", (2) "Pan African Communication Behaviors" and/or (3) "African Language Systems". I say, Wikipedia article that posits the OUSD resolution was about African American Vernacular English is a outright lie.

You state or pose as an interrogative Ƶ§œš1; “So what you are saying is that OUSD was addressing "Ebonics" as being defined as i or ii, and specifically and overtly excluding iii.” In reply, I am saying what I have said and I reiterate it here; the view that Baugh posits as Afrocentric view number (iii) is not Afrocentric at all. I have said and I reiterate here, the view that Ebonics “is the equivalent of black English and is considered to be a dialect of English" (and thus merely an alternative term for African American Vernacular English|AAVE” is Eurocentric”. I have said and I reiterate here, the other three views that Baugh posits as being the view of Afrocentric proponents of Ebonics, i.e., views (i), (ii) and (iv), are Afrocentric. Given that I did in fact include view number (iv) as an Afrocentric view I am at a loss to understand why you have excluded view number (iv) from what I have said concerning the OUSD resolution. You should know that I'm suspicious of your having ommited view number (iv). For view number (iv), i.e., the view that Ebonics “is the antonym of black English and is considered to be a language other than English" (and thus a rejection of the notion of "African American Vernacular English" but nevertheless a term for what others term AAVE, viewed as an independent language and not a mere ethnolect)" is the view that was expressly being supported in the OUSD resolution.

Now, with regards to your interroagative concerning whether the first paragraph of the OUSD Policy Statement “could be interpreted as meaning that parents don't have to endorse the controversial classification to accept the services offered”. My reply is; the OUSD Policy Statement was explictly informing the hog maws and hot souce eating Negro parents in the OUSD who are uncomfortable with their Afrcian ancestry and do not or did not indentify their child’s or childern’s home, primary or native language as Ebonics or as an African language system that the resolution does not pertain to them. The OUSD Policy Statement was explictly informing the hog maws and hot souce eating Negro parents in the OUSD are uncofortable with their Afrcian ancestry and do or did not indentify their childrens’ home, primary or native language as Ebonics or as an African language system that, if they believe their home, primary or native language is English, Non standard English, Black English or African American Vecaular English (i.e., the language slaves or dogs born in the master’s house) they can continue receiving the Special Education, Speech Pathology and other deficit model services the OUSD provides for Educable Mentally Retarded (EMR), Trainable Mentally Retarded (TMR) and Profoundly Mentally Retarded (PMR) pupils whose home, primary or native language is English.

With regards to whether I have sources that back up my interpretation? My reply is you should read the entire Policy Staement adopted by the OUSD Board. For, what follows is what the secoond paragraph of the Policy Statement says: (Page 1 paragraph 2 - See also Perry Depit 1998:148): “Moreover there is persuave empirical evidence that, owing to their history as United States slave descendants of West and Niger–Congo African origin, to the extent that African Americans have been born into, reared in, and continue to live in linguistic envorionmrents that are different from the Euro-American English speaking population, African-American people and their chiodren, are from home enviroments in which a language other than English is dominant within the meaning “environment where a language other than English is dominant” as defined in Public Law 103-382 (20 U.S.C. 7402, et, seq. ).”

As an additional source I cite an article written by Ms. Barbra Miner, the Managing Editor of Rethinking Schools (1998:182). This article is an interview with Mr. Issac Taggert, one of the OUSD parents on whose behalf the OUSD resolution was passed. Mr. Taggert states (1998:183): “There was no categaorical funding or general funding to assist our children. Instead, what was happening was that they were dumped into the special education classes. Or they were dumped into other language classes such as English as a Second Language (ESL) classes for Cantonese, Vietnamese, Spanish speakers, used as fillers* and language models” [*If a certain number of children were required for the constitution of an ESL class for Cambodian, Vietnamese or Spanish-speaking children, African American children were inappropriately placed in these classes and used to fill the remainging slots]”

With regards to how I “account for Morgan (1999) (p 173) who argues that what the OUSD referred to as "Ebonics" is the same as what others call AAVE? What Morgan says is precisely why we are engaged in the collquy we are having about inaccuracies and outright lies that I have discerned in the Wikipedia article on Ebonics. Since Morgan believes the OUSD was about African American Vernacular English and that Ebonics is merely a Social Dialect of English it is clear to me that what Morgan knows about Ebonics you can get what she knows under you fingernails.

References

Miner B. (1998) Ebonics and the Role of the Community: An Interview with activist Issac Taggert In Rethinking Schools Edited by Perry T. & Delpit L. Boston. Beacon Press.

Oakland Unified School District Resolution Number 9697-0063 December 18, 1996. A RESOLUTION OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION ADOPTING THE REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE AFRICAN AMERICAN TASK FORCE : A POLICY STATEMENT AND DIRECTING THE SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS TO DEVISE A PROGRAM TO IMPROVE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND APPLICATION Skills of African American Students

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 17:10, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I can't find a copy of this interview with Isaac Taggert. The quote you've provided doesn't address the issue of whether the OUSD saw "Ebonics" as separate from AAVE. Since the policy statement itself doesn't mention AAVE, it's not clear if the policy writers regard AAVE and Ebonics as being separate.

Do you have any other sources? Without them, it is rather tautological to assert that someone like Morgan is ignorant of the entire topic simply because they disagree with your interpretation of the resolution's wording.

If you'd like, I can provide additional sources that echo Morgan's interpretation of the OUSD resolution pertaining to AAVE.

Also, can you please shorten your posts? They are becoming overlong and repetitive. It should not be so hard to use one word where you have used ten. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 22:47, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

You say: Since Morgan believes the OUSD was about African American Vernacular English and that Ebonics is merely a Social Dialect of English it is clear to me that what Morgan knows about Ebonics you can get what she knows under you fingernails. This Morgan is Marcyliena Morgan. You can see some of her publications here. While it is of course possible that she's wrong, it hardly seems likely that she's an ignoramus.

And it seems unlikely that a view that the OUSD resolution was not about AAVE was or is the majority view among interested experts. John Rickford was one of the people who praised the resolution early on (here). He writes (for a wide audience, thus the talk about slang): what the mass of African American kids come to school speaking--African American Vernacular English or Ebonics (which is NOT the same as slang)--is a highly structured and systematic language. Out of context, there may seem to be an interpretation whereby some kids speak AAVE and others speak Ebonics; but if you look at the context, this option seems to evaporate; instead, by "African American Vernacular English or Ebonics", Rickford clearly means "African American Vernacular English, otherwise known as Ebonics". This is yet clearer if you look here at Rickford's summaries of his writings online: as part of the description of "Ebonics Notes and Discussion", he writes "African American Vernacular English [AAVE--the term linguists use more often for what most people are now referring to as Ebonics, with Ron Williams' 1975 term]" (brackets are his, not mine). And again, the Rickfords (father and son) write here (DOC file) of Ebonics, African American Vernacular English, Black English, Spoken Soul or whatever you want to call the informal variety spoken by African Americans (among which their own favorite is "Spoken Soul").

Again, Morgan, Rickford and others may all be wrong. But even if they are, their opinion is not negligible.

You say: Wikipedia article that posits the OUSD resolution was about African American Vernacular English is a outright lie. Then what would you say about the truth-value (and not the connotations) of this proposition: "The OUSD resolution was about the language that many have called 'African American Vernacular English'"? -- Hoary (talk) 02:35, 25 March 2010 (UTC) touched up Hoary (talk) 03:10, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes Ƶ§œš1

Ƶ§œš1 The OUSD Resolution and the OUSD Policy Statement speaks for itself. Those who use the word Ebonics as a synonym of African American vernacular English are ‘Eurocentric intellectual parasites’. As for the interview with Isaac Taggert, forgive me. It is in the Perry and Delpit edited book 'The Real Ebonics Debate' 1998 on page 183. Not the T. Perry and L. Delpit edited Special Issue of "Rethinking Schools" that also bears the title "The Real Ebonics Debate". Now addressing what I consider to be another misleading inaccuracy in the article. Under the bold heading “Lead” above the User Johnbod poses the interrogative; “The passage from the book begs a number of questions - are French-based patois covered? African versions of Arabic? Why just West Africa? I have tried another version. Johnbod (talk) 12:41, 30 June 2009”. Here is an example of another Eurocentric or Caucasio centric view of Ebonics. This person obviously did not read my contribution (highlighted in green) above. For, in a quotation of Jahn (1953:194) the answer to his question concerning so-called French based patois is made explicitly. His view that the contacts between Arabs and Bantu speaking people as being contacts that resulted in Black versions of Arabic is why I say those who use the word Ebonics as a synonym of African American vernacular English are ‘Eurocentric intellectual parasites’. I maintain that as a discussion of Ebonics in the African diaspora the Real Ebonics debate is not whether the language of descendants of enslaved Africans is Black dialect or ‘lect’ of English of French or Arabic. The Real Ebonics debate is a ‘Black thing’. That is, the Real Ebonics debate is between Afrocentric ‘proponents’ of Ebonics themselves. By this I mean, there are Islamic Black Nationalists that view the language of desendants of enslaved Africans in America as being the linguistic continuation of the Black African language system in America and throughout the Black diaspora. In this sense the Islamic Black Nationalists are ‘proponents’ of Ebonics. In fact they were the first to extend the meaning of the word Ebonics to refer the prototypical language of the first human beings on the planet earth and ispo facto the global Asiatic Black diaspora. The Eurocentric intellectual parasites who attempt to filch the term Ebonics, redefine it and use the term Ebonics as synonym for African American Vernacular English do not have a clue relative to the Real Ebonics debate. Since you have asked for brevity and I am unaccustomed to communicating in ‘sound bites’, I shall make this one attempt at smoothly elegant prose.

In its very essence, as proponents of Ebonics, the view of the Islamic Black Nationalists is that, the origin or genesis of the language of the Black man in America is the language of the original man. Hence their position is that, a true discussion of the origin and historical development of Black language in America must begin with the language of the earliest human beings on the planet earth, i.e. the original ‘Asiatic Black Man’. The Islamic Black Nationalists contend that, to frame any discussion on the origin and historical development of Black language in America in the narrow context of the period or epoch that Europeans colonized the continent of Africa and the slave trade the Europeans inaugurated during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 400 years ago, is an insult to Black intelligence.

Now I have stated over and over again and I reiterate here, "there is only one way that Afrocentric proponents view Ebonics and that is an African centered point of view". For the uninitiated Wikipedia reader; I mean by this, if one views Africa as the center or the cultural and linguistic base from which there has been a dispersion of Black or African people, then moving from that African center or base in concentric circles the dispersion or scattering of Black African people in any direction does not change the center or base. As in the case of concentric circles all of the circles have the same center. This is, what is meant by ‘concentric continuum’ in the official definition of the word Ebonics. The Afrocentric view of Islamic Black Nationalists and Afrocentric scholars who are not Islamic Black Nationalists relative to the culture and language of descendants of enslaved Africans is not complicated. Perhaps the uninitiated Wikipedia reader will best understand this if we first examine the meaning of two words. They are; 'autochthon' or 'autochthonous' and 'diaspora'. The word autochthon is a noun. The word autochthonous is the adjectival form.

Webster’s Dictionary defines the words AUTOCHTHON and AUTOCHTHONOUS as follows (1972:59) and (2001:78) “autocthon \ò-täk-thən\ n, pl autochthons or autochthones \-thə -, nēz\ [Gk autochthōn, fr aut- + chthōn earth – MORE AT HUMBLE ] 1a one supposedly sprung from the ground he inhabits. b: AN ABORIGINE, NATIVE 2: something that is autochthonous ; esp : an indigenous plant or animal” “autochonous \ò -täk-thə-nus\ adj (1805) 1: INDIGENOUS NATIVE <an ~people> 2: formed or originating in the place where found”.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines the words AUTOCHTHON and AUTOCHTHONOUS as follows: (1976:89) “au ·toch ·thon (ô-tŏk′-thən) n., pl. –thons or thones (-thə nēz′ ) 1. Plural. The earliest known or aboriginal inhabitants of a particular place 2: Any indigenous plant or animal. [Greek autōkhthōn. “one sprung from the land itself, ” indigenous  : AUTO + khthōn, earth” au · toch ·tho · nus (ô- tŏk′-thə nəs) adj also au · toch· tho nal (–thə – nəl), au · toch ·thon · ic (-thōn′-nik). Native to a particular place; aboriginal; indigenous”

In cultural anthropology, sociology and comparative linguistics the word autochthonous is used to distinguish people of the same ancestry, ethnicity or nationality that are born on the soil of their ancestral homeland from those of the same ancestry, ethnicity or nationality born outside of their ancestral homeland. In these same social sciences when people of the same ancestry, ethnicity or nationality are born outside of their ancestral homeland and yet regard themselves as being or are viewed as being no less, by blood line, still of that ancestry, ethnicity or nationality, these people are said to be still of that ancestry, ethnicity or nationality but in ‘diaspora’.

Webster’s Dictionary defines the word DIASPORA as follows (2001:320): “di ·as · po · ra \di-′as - p(ə)rə , dē-\ n [Gk, dispersion, fr. diaspeirein to scatter, fr. dia - + speirein to sow ] (1881) 1: cap a : the settling of scattered colonies of Jews outside Palestine after the Babylonian exile b: the area outside Palestine settled by Jews c: the Jews living outside Palestine or modern Israel 2 a: the breaking up and scattering of a people : MIGRATION <the black ~ to northern cities> b : people settled far from their ancestral homelands <African ~ > c; the place where these people live”

Thus, Jews born in Israel are autochthonous Jews. Jews dispersed or scatted outside of Israel are still Jews. They are Jews in diaspora. Japanese born in Japan are autochthonous Japanese. Japanese born dispersed or scatted outside of Japan are still Japanese. They are Japanese in diaspora. The same applies to Arabs, Chinese, Germans, Italians, Koreans, Mexicans, and Russians etc., if they are born on the soil of their ancestral homeland they are autochthonous Arabs, Chinese, Germans, Koreans, Mexicans, Italians and Russians etc., When they are born dispersed or scatted outside of their ancestral homeland they are Arabs, Chinese, Germans, Italians, Koreans, Mexicans, and Russians etc. in diaspora. Thus, Africans born on the continent of Africa (soil of their African ancestral homeland) are autochthonous Africans. Africans born dispersed or scatted outside of Africa are still Africans. They are Africans in diaspora. I say again "there is only one way that Afrocentric proponents view Ebonics and that is an African centered point of view". If you are interested in more on the Real Ebonics debate, the Islamic Black Nationalists vs. non-Islamic Afrocentic proponent's view I need to know. I think I have shown the Wikipedia readers that are sincerely seeking truth that those who use the word Ebonics as a synonym of African American vernacular English are ‘Eurocentric intellectual parasites’.

References

Perry T. and Delpit (1998) The Real Ebonics Debate Boston Beacon Press

Janheinz J. (1953): Muntu An Outline of the New African Culture New York, Grove Press

Marsh, Clifton E., (1984). From Black Muslims To Muslims: The Transition from Separatism to Islam, 1930-1980. London: Scarecrow Press.

Muhammad, Elijah. (1965) Message To The Black Man. Chicago: Muhammad's Temple of Islam No. 2

_____(1961) Student Enrollment Rules of Islam. Chicago: Muhammad's Temple of Islam No. 2.

        (1974)  The Flag of Islam. Chicago Muhammad’s Temple of Islam No 2

___ (1974) Our Savior Has Arrived. Chicago: Muhammad's Temple of Islam No. 2.

____(1973). The Fall Of America. Chicago: Muhammad's Temple 2.

____ (1992). The Theology Of Time. Rassoull, Abass (Ed.) Newport News: United Brothers Graphics & Printing.

(1976) New Collegiate The American Heritage Dictionary. Atlanta: Houghton , Mifflin.

Smitherman, Geneva (1994) Black Talk: Words and Phrases form the Hood to the Amen Corner. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.

(1972) Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary.

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 17:08, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I’ve looked around and I can see now how the resolution speaks for itself in that "non-standard English" seems to be a synonym for AAVE amongst those using the term "Ebonics." Debose (2005) argues (p. 131) that "there are two distinct linguistic phenomena that tend to be confused." He then goes on to say (p. 132) "it may be concluded that one component of the AA linguistic repertoire is the variety of American English that everybody speaks, in the particular form that is typically spoken by African Americans." He lists Black English/AAVE and Standard English as two likely candidates for this; whether Ebonics is a third alternative (i.e. whether Ebonics and AAVE are different words for the same variety) corresponds to a major part of a controversy that you yourself are included in.

With this in mind, it's easy to contextualize several other sources that share Morgan's (and Rickford's, etc) interpretation as confusing the two phenomena:

• Green (2002) says (p. 222) that "the Oakland School Board resolved to recognize AAE as the primary language of African American children attending schools in that district."
• this text (2001) edited by Sonja Lanehart, features a work by Guy Bailey who cites you and Williams in saying "Ebonicists argue that AAVE is a separate language altogether with roots in West African and Niger Congo languages..." (p.56)

At the same time, Salikoko Mufwene (in Lanehart) says (p. 28) "If Robert Williams' definition of Ebonics is what the Oakland Unified School District Board meant by 'Ebonics' in their December 1996 resolution, it is definitely not what most Americans, including African Americans and linguists understood by it." Which implies that he himself is not sure what they meant.

Either way, there's enough confusion that I see enough reason to fix the issue as I have done here.

I don't think you can accurately refer to something User:Johnbod has said in the article talk as an "inaccuracy in the article.” I'm also pretty sure that the best way to remedy your concern about Baugh's assertion that all the given definitions are Afrocentric is with sourcing that clearly articulates a response to this sort of thinking. Are there any sources you'd recommend? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 09:15, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes Ƶ§œš¹

With regards to your statement that; “At the same time, Salikoko Mufwene (in Lanehart) says (p. 28) "If Robert Williams' definition of Ebonics is what the Oakland Unified School District Board meant by 'Ebonics' in their December 1996 resolution, it is definitely not what most Americans, including African Americans and linguists understood by it." Which implies that he himself is not sure what they meant. Either way, there's enough confusion that I see enough reason to fix the issue as I have done here.” In 1492 most Europeans thought the world was flat, that did not make Columbus wrong. Yes indeed, the position of the OUSD was definitely not what most Americans, including African Americans and linguists understood by ‘Ebonics’ in the December 1996 resolution. The OUSD was a repudiation of the white supremacists Eurocentric lie, especially in the field of ‘linguistics’, that the word Ebonics referred to a dialect of English. As stated in the OUSD resolution the aim of the resolution was the vindication of the equal protection under the law equal rights of the children whose parents had indenfied their home language as Ebonics and the children’s right to a free and ‘appropriate’ public education.

Relative to your statement that “I don't think you can accurately refer to something User:Johnbod has said in the article talk as an "inaccuracy in the article.” What is erroneous and misleading in the first sentence of the Article is the conspicuous omission of the language of descendants of Africans in the Carribbean diaspora. A more accurate statement would have been "Ebonics is a term that was originally intended to refer to the language descendants of enslaved African people in West Africa, the Carribbean and North America. Over time it has subsequently been extended to include and is sometimes used for the language of all people of African ancestry.

The User Johnbod was referring to the first sentence in the article which states; "Ebonics is a term that was originally intended and sometimes used for the language of all people of African ancestry, or for that of Black North American and West African people”. User Johnbod contends that this sentence “is clearly wrong, judging by the passage quoted from the book below. Perhaps "in the US" was implied, but we don't do things that way in WP. Actual African languages are clearly not intended to be included.” I cited Johnbod only as an example of the Caucasio centric bias in his thinking and interpretaion of the first sentence. The inference being African savages did not have languages until their contacts with Europeans or Caucasians. In the case of Johnbods dogwhistle - French and Arabic.

User Johnbod goes on to state “The passage from the book begs a number of questions - are French-based patois covered? African versions of Arabic? Why just West Africa? I have tried another version.” Johnbod (talk) 12:41, 30 June 2009”. Now as attested by Robert Willams earlier, even before the term Ebonics was coined there was a debate between Afrocentric academicians and research scholars concerning the need for African descendants to define their language and have a way to discuss their language as an African language in diaspora without assuming to be fact that which has not been proved. By this I mean, based on the premise that the genesis of the linguistic differences that remain is the evidence that African and Caucasian languages are not the same, Afrocentric scholars must themselves cease and desist discussing the language of African descendants in diapora using appellations that inherently infer that the language of descendants of Africans in any diaspora is European or Caucasian language based.

With regads to your statement that; “I'm also pretty sure that the best way to remedy your concern about Baugh's assertion that all the given definitions are Afrocentric is with sourcing that clearly articulates a response to this sort of thinking. Are there any sources you'd recommend? " Yes, here are a few: Alleyne M (1971:120-130) (1980:23-52). Asatnte (1980:1-19) Asante M. & Asante K. W. (1985) Asante, M. (1998) Asante (1999) BlackShire-Belay A. (2001:164-190) Duncan, G., (1995:49-68), and Twiggs R., (1972) [See references for more detail]

Ƶ§œš¹ it is the ‘preamble’ phrase to Baugh’s number (iii) that creates confusuion. The phrase; “or it may refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English: either” appears to have been deliberately inserted as a preamble for the express purpose of creating confusion. If the phrase that immediately follows Roman numeral iii is in fact what Baugh has stated, the phrase that follows Baugh’s number (iii) can stand alone. The preamble phrase is unnecessary. My issue with Baugh’s (iii) is that it does not posit Africa a the linguistic base from which the grammatical structure of the language of the descendants of enslaved Africans derives and therefore it is not Afrocentric. On the other hand Baugh’s number (i) (ii) and (iv) most certainly do posit Africa a the linguistic base from which the grammatical structure of the language of the descendants of enslaved Africans derives. In other words the ‘proponents’ of Ebonics view and use the word Ebonics as (i) "an international construct, including the linguistic consequences of the African slave trade";[8] The ‘proponests’ of Ebonics view and use the word Ebonics to (ii) refer to the languages of the African diaspora as a whole;[9] and The ‘proponests’ of Ebonics posit the word Ebonics "is the antonym of black English and is considered to be a language other than English" (and thus a rejection of the notion of "African American Vernacular English" The Eurocentric intellectual parasites that use the word Ebonics as a synonym for BE and AAVE have made their academic careers in predominatly white institutions propagating their AAVE bilge as scholarship.

If you carefully peruse the AAVE literature you will notice that smug in their knowledge of English and maybe two or three other European languages the AAVE or African American ‘lect’ of English, parasites “have not considered it necessary to aquaint themselves with any of the languages spoken in those sections of West Africa from which the Negroes were brought to the New World as slaves ... but rather they have taken the position that the British dialects offer a satisfatory solution to all the problems presented by Gullah” (Turner 1974:5) Even today despite the fact that these Eurocentic intellectual parasites who filch the term Ebonics and use it to propagate their AAVE bilge acknowledge that the ancestors of the descendants of enslaved Africans are from Africa they still do not acquaint themselves with African languages. Even more deploable is that they propagate their Ebonics is an African American ‘lect’ of English bilge in complete ignorance of the vast amount of linguistic data that exists relative to the phonological, morphological and syntactical structure of autochthonous African languages produced by linguistic experts who are Africanist, such as P. Alexandre, M.A. Bryan, E. A. W. Budge, P.T. Daniels, W.V. Davies, C. A. Diop, B. Elimelech, R. Faullker, A. Gardiner, L. Hyman, A S. Kaye, A. Loprieno, S.A.B. Mercer, C. Meinhof, P. Newman, L. Trihart, I. Ward, and D. Westrmann, to name but a few.

References

Alleyne, M. (1971) Linguistic Continuity of Africa in The Caribbean in Topics In African American Studies Edited by Henry Richards New York. Black Academy Press.

Alleyne M., (1980) Intercultural Communication An Afrocentirc Inquiry Into Encunter In “International Conference on Black Communication” Edited by Williams B. and Taylor A. Belligo Italy Rockefeller Foundation

Asante M., (1980) Intercultural Communication An Afrocentirc Inquiry Into Encounter In “International Conference on Black Communication” Edited by Williams B. and Taylor A. Belligo Italy Rockefeller Foundation

Asante M., & Asante K. W., (1985) African Culture: The Rhythms of Unity Trenton Africa World Press

Asante, M. (1998) The Afrocentric Idea; Philadelphia Temple University Press

Asante M. (1999) The Painful Demise of Eurocentrism Trenton, Africa World Press

Blackshire-Belay, A. (2001) Linguistic Dimension of Global Africa: Ebonics As International Languages of African Peoples Brookyn Sankofa World Publioshers

Duacan, G. (1995) Language, Parole, and the Nature of Culture: Toward a Progressive Pedagogy of Language and Literacy for Speakers of Ebonics (Black Langauge) In “Reading: The Blending of Theory and Practice” Seventh Annual Reading ConferencecYearbook Edited by Marie Ice. Bakersfield California State University Bakersfield Press.

Turner, L. (1974) Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect Ann Arbor Universuty of Michigan Press

Twiggs, R. (1972) Pan African Language In The Western Hemisphere North Quincy Christopher Publishing House.

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 22:15, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie, you write a lot. Most of it seems to say more about your dislikes than about the subject at hand. I'll ignore the former and concentrate on the latter.

You write: The OUSD was a repudiating the white supremacists Eurocentric lie, especially in the field of ‘linguistics’, that the word Ebonics referred to a dialect of English.

That surprises me in various ways. First, I'd never heard of any sizable group of white supremacists working in linguistics. Secondly, I hadn't realized that the word "Ebonics" had even come to the attention of any but a small number of (Black) linguists until 1996. Whether or not they were (or are) white supremacists, precisely who were these linguists who, before 1996, treated "Ebonics" as a word for a dialect of English, and where did they write this? -- Hoary (talk) 04:53, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I misunderstood what you were saying in reference to User:Johnbod. I see your suggested wording would remove some information. How about this wording:

"Ebonics is a term that was originally intended to refer to the language of all people descended from African slaves, particularly in West Africa, the Caribbean, and North America. Over time, and especially since 1996, it has been used largely to refer to African American Vernacular English (distinctively nonstandard Black United States English), asserting the independence of this from (standard) English. The term became widely known in the U.S. in 1996 due to a controversy over its use by the Oakland School Board."

In addition to a wording change, this removes mentioning that the term can mean the language of all people of African ancestry, which the article does not seem to corroborate.

You cite Alleyne (1971) and Asante & Asante (1985) but don't list them it at the bottom.

It'll take me a bit of time to look into those sources you've listed and see what they say, though less time than it would take if I weren't specifically looking for a claim that iii is not Afrocentric.

One note, though. You say that, AAVE scholars tend to be unfamiliar with West African languages and posit that "British dialects offer a satisfactory solution to all the problems presented by Gullah." However, Turner's own 1949 work did much to discredit Anglicists, who completely ignored African languages, and pave the way for Creolists (who were familiar with such languages) to posit that the speech of African Americans results from a former creole that has decreolized. There are still linguists who see Black speech as reflective of region (that is, there are shared features amongst blacks and whites within a given region), but this doesn't deal necessarily with origins as much as it does the decreolization process. In such a context, familiarity with African languages are less relevant (of course, Gullah is a notable exception as it is more often considered a creole or less decreolized than other forms of African American speech in the US). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 10:09, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes Ƶ§œš¹

Are we discussing Ebonics or AAVE? If we are discussing Ebonics then I beseech you to stay focused. As I have shown in my earlier discussion of the 1979 Ann Arbor school Board case above, it is the Eurocentric intellectual parasites who posit the Ebonics is a synonym for BE or AAVE and as such is a dialect of English thesis that put forth the pidin/creole theory as their explanation of the “genesis” of Ebonics, BE and AAVE. Indeed, Turner's “1949 work did much to discredit Anglicists, who completely ignored African languages, and pave the way for Creolists (who were familiar with such languages) to posit that the speech of African Americans results from a former creole that has decreolized.” You have asked for brevity in my post so I shall once again, in as clear and concise prose as I am able, explain to you that Afrocentric proponents of Ebonics do not share the pidgin/creolists perception of the “genesis" or origin and historical development of Ebonics. In my discussion of the 1979 Ann Arbor school Board case earlier I cited and quoted from the Memorandum Opinion and Order of Judge Charles Joiner (1979:13). In that quotation JudgeJoiner has clearly stated that the pidgin/creole theory or hypthesis is about the “genesis” and historical devlepoment of “black English”, “black vernacular” or “black dialect”. From a diachronic, comparative and historical linguistic perspective the pidgin/creole theory has absolutely nothing to do with Ebonics.

Here I believe it is imperative that I explain, for the uninitiated Wikepedia reader, what I mean by the statement “from diachronic, comparative and historical linguistic perspective the pidgin creole theory has absolutely nothing to do with Ebonics”. To do so let me begin by citing the work of Susanne Romaine (1994) for she explains the pidgin creole theory much more concisely than I could ever dream. In her book Language in Society Romaine states: (1994:163,164) “Pidgin and creole languages are spoken in mainly in Third World countries. Their role there is intimately connected with a variety of political and social questions. There are probably more than a hundred pidgin and greole languages in daily use aroung thecworld, and more speakers of these languages than there are of Swedish. The exact number of is difficult to establish because it depends on how we define the term ‘pidgin’ and ‘creole’ Most pidgins and creoles are based on European languages, in particular Spanish, Portuguese, French and English. However, those based on English are more numerous than those based on any other language, attesting to the greater spread of English than any other metropolitan language. The next largest group is based on French, and a much smaller number based based on non-Europan languages, such as Sango spoken in the Central African Republic.” Romaine goes on to state: “The term ‘-based’ means that the bulk of the lexicon is drawn from that language, while the grammatical structure typically shows influence from other (usually non-European) languages. These other languges are referred to as the ‘substrate’. Thus, when scholars speak of English based creoles, they are referring to all those creoles which have taken most of their vocabulary from English. Term s such as ‘English-lexicon’ or ‘English lexifier pidging/creole’ are also used and the lexifier language is sometimes called the ‘superstrate’. While it has often been the case that scholars have treated English-based pidgin/creole as dialects of English and French pidgin/croles as Romance dialects, etc., most now recognize that creoles are languages in their own right with an independent structure. They are not parasitic systems or corrupted versions of the languages to which they are most closely related at the lexical level”

A critical examination of the pidgin/creolists literature will reveal that, while pidgin creolists view some non-African and European pidgin/creoles as being non-European language based conspicuously all African and European pidgin/creole dialects are depicted by pidgin/creolists as being European language based. I should state here that what Romaine describes as being the pidgin/creole theory is only the view of one camp of those who posit the pidgin/creole theory. For, on the issue of origins and kinship, i.e., the ‘genesis’ and language family affinity of pidgin and creole dialects, the pidgin/creolists are divided into to two camps, (1) those who posit a "polygenesis" view and, (2) those who posit a "monogenesis" view.

The pidgin/creolists who posit the polygenesis view are those who view the world's pidgin and creole dialects as having been created independently by each of the European language speaking nations that settled in the African, Asian, Caribbean and Latin American diaspora. The contention of those who posit the polygenesis view is that, in the beginning, as primarily a lingua franca, used for trading interactions, in the European Portuguese colonies there emerged a Portuguese Pidgin. In the Spanish colonies there emerged a Spanish Pidgin, and in the Dutch, French and English colonies a Dutch, French, and English Pidgin emerged, respectively. Those who posit the polygenesis view contend that, as time passed and the slave trade flourished on the West coast of Africa, in the Caribbean, and in the colonial North and South American diaspora, many descendants of enslaved Africans were born into colonial European dominated social environments, in which these transactional lingua francas or plantation pidgin dialects were acquired as their native languages or mother tongues. Those who posit the polygenesis view contend that, over time, in the new world colonies or diaspora, the pidgin vernaculars that were initially created on the West coast of Africa for trading and other transactions, became the principle vehicle for communication between the captive Africans and their European slave-masters.

According to those who posit the polygenesis view being born in captivity and exposed only to a plantation pidgin dialect, when enslaved Africans acquired these hybrid pidgin or contact vernaculars as their primary language or mother tongues, the pidgin dialects they acquired were distinguished as being Creoles. According to Dillard, the term creole (1972:300) "In linguistic usage, refers to a language which was a PIDGIN (q.v.) at an earlier historical stage, but which became the only (or principal) language of a speech community. The best known creoles are Haitian (French) Creole and Sranan Tongo of Surinam. There are related creole languages in West Africa and in the Pacific”. According to DeCamp (1977:15) “the term creole (from the Portuguese crioulo, via Spanish and French) originally meant a white man of European descent born and raised in a tropical or semi-tropical colony. Only later was the meaning extended to include indigenous natives and others of non-European origin, e.g. African slaves...Most creoles, like most pidgins, are European based, i.e., each has derived most of its vocabulary from one or more European languages. Creole French (also called patois) and creole English the are most frequent in West Africa in the New World, but Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese creoles are common in other parts of the world...”

And so, in Dutch Colonies, Dutch pidgin became a Dutch creole, in English colonies, English pidgin became an English creole, in French colonies, French pidgin, became a French creole and in the Portuguese and Spanish colonies, Portuguese and Spanish pidgins became Portuguese and Spanish creoles respectively. As stated above, not all Pidgin/Creolists subscribe to the theory that each of the new world "pidgin", "creole" dialects were the language specific creations of each colonial European speech community wherein they emerged. Clearly it is the polygenesis pidgin/creole view that has been described above by Susanne Romaine.

Now, as I have stated, there are pidgin/creolists that reject the "polygenesis" view. Instead of a multiple European language base as the genesis of the world’s pidgin/creole dialects, these pidgin/creolists are those who posit a "monogenesis" or single language origin of all pidgin and creole dialects. Those who posit the monogenesis view contend that European and non-Indo-European linguistic convergence and hybridization did not begin in the colonial era. They maintain that the empirical historical evidence is that there were Indo-European contacts with non Indo-European people at a much, much earlier period. In light of this historical fact those who posit the monogenesis view contend that linguistic hybridization occurred when the earlier or first sustained contact was made between European and non-European people. Emphasizing the tremendous similarities that exists’ among the Caribbean creoles and the parallel features that exists in the creoles of the South Pacific and the Far East, basically the proponents of the monogenesis view contend that all pidgin/creoles have a common ancestor from which all pidgin and creole dialects have been formed.

But then, the proponents of the monogenesis view do not agree on precisely which Indo-European language the proto-pidgin dialect was based. According to David DeCamp (1977:22) “During the 1950's several scholars became increasingly dissatisfied with the polygenetic theories. In 1951 Navarro Tomas argued that Papiamento was not an indigenous Caribbean blend of Portuguese and/or Spanish with African elements, but rather had its origin in the Portuguese used as a trade jargon in West Africa during the slave trade. He was by no means the first to point to the key importance of Portuguese in the history of pidgin-creole. Schuchardt had stressed the role of Portuguese, and Hesselings had seen it as the origin of Afrikaans and Negerhollands”. See Dell Hymes “Pidginization and Creolization of Languages (1977).

In the pidgin/creolists’ literature both those who posit the polygenesis view and those who posit the monogenesis view contend that, the pidgin creole dialects or language of descendants of enslaved Africans in the North American diaspora has undergone a third stage in its development and become a full fledged social dialect of English (the Gullah dialect being an exception). This third stage is described in the pidgin/creolists’ literature as a process called de-creolization. In theory the de-creolized stage is when a complete assimilation occurs. It is in the third stage that African American speech is depicted as having become so completely Anglicized and assimilated that, it is now "de-creolized" and a mere non-standard social dialect of English. See Crystal’s Dictionary of Linguistic and Phonetics (1997:99)

The problem that Afrocentric proponents of Ebonics have with the pidgin/creole theory is that because of their essentially white supremacists and Eurocentric bent, there are no pidgin/creolists who posit African American speech as being the linguistic continuity of Africa in Black America. That is, even though most pidgin/creolists acknowledge that, prior to having come into contact with European languages Africans did have fully developed languages of their own, both those who posit the polygenesis and those who posit the monogenesis view posit all African and European language pidgin/creole dialects and de-creolized dialects as being European language based. That is, pidgin/creolists acknowledge the existence of African grammatical elements in pidgin/creole dialects. But then conveniently reject continuity of the morphology and morpho-syntax, i.e., rules of grammar and posit continuity of the dominant lexifer (vocabulary) as the criterion and basis for positing a European language family genetic linguistic kinship.

In other words, in the pidginization, the creolization and the de-creolization process, the enslaved Africans did not retain, invent or purposefully contribute anything. In essence because the pidgin creole theory does not adhere to continuity of the morphology and morpho-syntax but rather posit continuity of the dominant lexifer as the criterion and basis for positing genetic linguistic family kinship the pidgin/creole theory is not predicated diachronic linguistic principles and is therefore not scientifically valid.

References

Alleyne, Mervyn. (1969) Linguistic Continuity of Africa in the Caribbean In Henry J. Richards (Ed.) Topics in Afro-American Studies (pp. 118-28) New York, Black Academy Press.

Asante, Molefi K. and Asante Kariamu Welsh. African Culture: The Rhythms of Unity (233-53) Trenton, Africa World Press.

Bailey, Beryl L. (1977) Jamaican Creole. In Dell Hymes (Ed.), Pidginization and Creolization of Languages (pp. 341-48) New York, Cambridge University Press.

Bickerton, Derek ( 1975) Dynamics of a Creole System New York Cambridge University Press

Crystal David (1997) A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics Malden Blackwell Publishers

Curtin, Phillip D. (1976) Measuring the Atlantic Slave Trade Once Again In Journal of African History. vol XVII

DeCamp, David (1977) Introduction: The study of Pidgin and Creole Languages. In Dell Hymes (Ed.), Pidginization and Creolization of Languages (pp. 13-39) New York, Cambridge University Press.

Dillard, Joseph L. (1972) Black English Its History and Usage in the United States. New York: Random House.

Greenberg, Joseph H. (1967) Essays in Linguistics Chicago, University of Chicago press.

Hall, Robert A., Jr. (1962) The life cycle of Languages. In Lingua 11:152-6

Hymes Dell (1977) (Ed.) Pidginization and Creolization of Languages New York, Cambridge University Press.

Romaine, Susanne. (1994)Language and Society. An Introduction to Socilinguistics. New York; Oxford University Press Inc.

Schuchardt, Hugo (1909) Die Lingua franca In Zeitschrift fur romanische Philologie. 33:441-61.

Stewart, William A. (1962) Creole Languages in the Caribbean: Study of the Role of Second Languages in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. (Ed.), Frank A. Rice (pp.34-53) Washington D.C., Center for Applied Linguistics.

       (1973) Toward A History Of American Negro Dialect  American Negro Dialect. in Language And Poverty. Ed. by Frederick Williams.  Chicago: Rand McNally Publishing Company.

Turner, Lorenzo D. (1965) Krio Texts With Grammatical Notes and Translations in English. (pp.9-33) Chicago: Roosevelt University

Frederick, Williams (Ed.) Language and Poverty (pp. 372-379). Chicago: Rand Mcnally College Publishing Company.

Whinnom, Keith (1977) Linguistic Hybridization and theSpecial Case of Pidgins And Creoles In Dell Hymes (Ed.), Pidginization and Creolization of Languages (pp.91-115) New York, Cambridge University Press. [See also Whinnom The origin of the European based creoles and pidgins. (1956) In Orbis 509-]

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 03:50, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I was talking about AAVE. As far as I can tell, only Ebonicists talk about Ebonics as you have here; everyone else studying black speech of the US either uses Ebonics as a synonym for AAVE or not at all.

You summarize creole and pidgin language scholarship well, though you have made an error in that you have articulated the creolist position of AAVE as being "completely Anglicized" when, according to Mufwene (cited above), Creolists belive AAVE to be still in the process of decreolization. In addition, as the Romaine quotation you provided implies, the terminology "Language-X-based" is not necessarily one of genetic classification but of identifying the primary lexifier. Even if it were true that Creolists came to this conclusion, rejecting the entire position on origins because of this classification scheme seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think that your interpretation of the Creolist position that "Africans did not retain, invent or purposefully contribute anything" comes from assuming that the Creolist position is that the creoles were created by the speakers of the lexifier-languages. This is called the "foreigner talk" or "baby talk" hypothesis of pidgin origins and doesn't have much ground amongst Creolists. Wardhaugh (2002) even points out (p. 73) that pidgins are rarely used between speakers of the substrate languages and the lexifier language(s).

More relevent to the article, I find it surprising, given what you've said here and elsewhere about relexification, that Ebonicists such as yourself do not accept the creole origin. If Ebonics is the result of West African morphology and morpho-syntax relexified, what do Afrocentric proponents of Ebonics posit to be the mechanism for relexification? Sources that articulate this position and the evidence thereof would be most welcome. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 06:15, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes Ƶ§œš¹

You are at least honest enough to admit that you were talking about AAVE. Do you also now concede that the Wikipedia section on Ebonics is actually not about Ebonics, but rather appears to be an attempt to aid and abet the Eurocentric intellectual parasites that filch the term Ebonics and use the term Ebonics to propagate their AAVE bilge? Do not be deceived by the appearance that because proponents of Ebonics are not interested in engaging in a printing war with dishonest Eurocentric parasites that purchase ink by the barrel, the proponents of Ebonics are impotent. We leave that to Al Jazera. The 1996 OUSD resolution rocked the global white supremacists world. Do you think that won’t happen again?

My grandmother told me that “lie and truth went swimming on time”. She said “lie got out the pool before did and stole truth’s clothes and went to town”. She said “when truth got out the pool truth looked around high and low for his clothes but couldn’t find em”. She said “truth saw some old rags laying on the ground, but truth knowed the rags wudn’t his, so truth gave-up lookin and went to town with his birthday suit on”. She said “when truth got into town they throwed truth in jail”. She said “they held a kangaroo court trial and run truth out of town”. My grandmother said “ever since that’s how you got the ‘naked truth’”.

With the exception of the controversial event that occurred on 911, I cannot recall an event that rocked that global white supremacists world more than the OUSD resolution on Ebonics. With regards to your interrogative “what do Afrocentric proponents of Ebonics posit to be the mechanism for relexification? Sources that articulate this position and the evidence thereof would be most welcome.” I will now share with you one of the very well known Afrocentric views of Ebonics. According to the teachings of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad it was the Caucasian English sea captain Sir John Hawkins and his crew who, in 1555, first captured, transported and sold members of the Asiatic Black tribe of Shabazz into slavery in colonial America. In his book "Message To The Black Man In America", The Messenger states; (1965:230) "From a few comes a great nation. The Lord God of Islam taught me that in 1555 a devil by the name of John Hawkins, or Hopkins, of England brought the first of our parents here for slave purposes. We were not to be citizens, not to be represented as human or to be given equal justice under the American laws".

According to the Messenger, the conditions of life for the captive ancestors, antecedents and forbearers of Asiatic Black people, were throughout the antebellum colonial period, conditions of inhuman mistreatment and oppression. As the Messenger States;(965:230) “In 300 years of slavery, we were lashed, beaten and killed; given no education; and reared and cared for like the slave-master's stock (horses, cows and other domestic animals). Our children were separated to different plantation owners. For the last approximately 100 years of so-called freedom, the so-called Negroes have been subjected to the worst inhuman treatment of any people who have lived on the earth". (Message To The Black Man In America)” Believers in the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad posit that, an untold number of slave descendants of African origin were severely "traumatized" by the experience of captivity, chattel enslavement and mistreatment. Accordingly, as time passed the cumulative effect of the unnatural conditions of captivity, chattel slavery, alienation and inhuman mistreatment, in America, was that it brought about a loss of their ability to speak and communicate in their original Asiatic Black dialects or African tongues. The Islamic Black Nationalists posit that, this was especially so in the case of captive Asiatic Black slave children. For, as stated by the Messenger above, it was a common practice among plantation owners to separate Asiatic Black slave children from their biological parents, siblings and other kin. They point out that it was this practice of the colonial Europeans and Euro-Americans that is the origin of the American colloquial expression “sold down the river”. The Believers contend that it was Asiatic Black children, especially those born in captivity, who were the first to lose their ability to communicate in their autochthonous Asiatic Black dialects or mother tongues. The Believers contend that, while the capacity for natural thinking of both races is genetically transmitted. They posit that, being children and severed from all contact and exposure to their own ethnic specific dialects, these children were never exposed to and hence never acquired their own ethnic specific Asiatic Black tongues. Under these conditions the slave children were compelled to acquire, utilize and communicate, in the ethnic dialect of their surrogate Asiatic Black slave parents or an Asiatic Black dialect that contained lexical intrusions as transfer phenomena adopted from the European slave master’s language. Grammatically, however, the Asiatic Black dialect that emerged for purposes of communication between the slave-master and the slaves on the plantation was based on the Asiatic Black thought process. Therefore, even in those instances in which the primary care-givers of slave children were adult Asiatic Black slaves, the mother tongue of these slave children was not (as the more slithery of the white supremacist contend) a European's invented “baby talk” or a simplified “foreigner talk” form of a European language.

While separation in early childhood from their biological parents and being placed among other captive Asiatic Black mammies caused a loss of the ability to communicate in their ethnic specific Asiatic Black mother tongues, the most damaging consequence of this separation of children was that, these children were afflicted by an accompanying complete loss of a knowledge of self. That is, they were not only prevented from obtaining their own ethnic specific Asiatic Black dialects, the children raised by surrogate Asiatic Black slave mammies never obtained their own ethnic specific cultural, mores, values, traditions.

The view of the Islamic Black Nationalists is that, although it was separation in early childhood and the lack of contact with their own ethnic specific Asiatic Black parents and kin that caused the loss of, ethnic specific, Asiatic Black dialects and natural culture among enslaved Asiatic Black children, this was not what caused the loss of mutual intelligibility between enslaved adult Asiatic Black people in the colonies of North and South America with the Asiatic Black people on the African continent. According to the Islamic Black Nationalists, the key factor that greatly influenced and actually determined whether mutual un-intelligibility emerged between autochthonous Asiatic Black people on the continent and enslaved Asiatic Blacks in the colonial diaspora was the extent to which enslaved Asiatic Blacks, in captivity, had contact and interaction with Caucasians or Euro-American people.

When enslaved Black people were first brought to colonial America they possessed and spoke autochthonous Asiatic Black or Afro-Asiatic languages (Ebonics). During this period, as captives and chattel slaves, some were made to work or labor in the house, as house servants or slaves, some were made to labor or work in the yard, as yard slaves, and some were made to labor in the fields. The Islamic Black Nationalists contend that the historical record verifies that, in fact the vast majority of the slaves were "field slaves" (see John H. Franklin, 1994:127). They posit that, as time passed, the result of living in varying degrees of social contact (primarily slave labor interactions) with the slave master, the master's family and the master's kind was that, as children and adults, varying degrees of competence and performance in the masters language (i.e., understanding and speaking) emerged among the slaves. As a result of this, posit the Believers, three distinctly different "slave mentalities" evolved and existed on the antebellum plantations and throughout colonial America. The house negro or house ngr slave mentality, the yard negro or yard ngr slave mentality and the field negro or field ngr slave mentalities.

As a manifestation of these three distinctly different slave mentalities, Islamic Black Nationalists posit that, there emerged three distinctly different hybrid slave dialects among Asiatic Black slaves in America. These were 1) The house so-called negro/nigger social dialects, 2) the yard so-called negro/nigger social dialects, and 3) the field so-called negro/nigger social dialects. While all three of these distinctly different slave dialects, were similar to the master's language on the surface structure (the superstrate) in their deep structure, (i.e., the substrate) their underlying thought process, as well as their rules of grammar, the language spoken by the enslaved Asiatic Black people did not follow the grammar rules of the Caucasian or European languages. Structurally, the mixed dialect spoken by the Asiatic Black slaves were based on the grammar rules of the original languages spoken by the Asiatic Black people before they were captured and enslaved.

The Islamic Black Nationalists contend that, because the Asiatic Black house slaves lived in closer proximity to and had more extensive contact with ole massa (European people) than did the other enslaved Asiatic Black people, it was the dialect of the Asiatic Black ‘house’ slaves that was most like the European slave-master's speech on the surface structure. The next most influenced and like the slave-master's language was the Asiatic Black ‘yard’ slave's dialect. The dialect that was least of all like the European slave-master's language was the dialect of the Asiatic Black ‘field’ slave. According to the Islamic Black Nationalists, because the nature of the Asiatic Black ‘house’ slave's contacts, with the European slave-master, were still slave and master interactions, the psycho-social experiential base of the Asiatic Black ‘house’ slave was still that of a slave. Therefore, even though, as a result of having had more extensive contact with European people, the Asiatic Black house slave's dialect emerged with features more like the slave-master's language, than did the Asiatic Black ‘yard’ and ‘field’ slave's dialect, the similarity of the Asiatic Black ‘house’ slave's dialect to the slave-master's language was basically only an ‘affectation’, i.e., a superficial, surface structure, mimickry. In the deep structure underlying thought process the "thinking" of the Asiatic Black house slave was not the same as the "thinking" of the Caucasian or European slave-master's.

The Islamic Black Nationalists posit that, no matter which dialect they acquired, whether ‘house’ slave, ‘yard’ slave, or ‘field’ slave, as a consequence of the linguistic convergence and the extensive linguistic alteration that occurred, and even though there has been a loss of mutual intelligibility, between Asiatic Black people in diaspora and those in the mother country, this did not change the true nature or thought process of the Asiatic Black Lost-Found. As beastly as Lost Found Asiatic Black people have been driven to behave, according to the teachings of the Messenger, Lost-Found Asiatic Black people (even Asiatic Black house slaves) did not lose their true nature of righteousness. In essence, Islamic Black Nationalists posit that the lack of contact between the “Lost found” Asiatic Black people who were enslaved and Asiatic Black people on the continent only caused a change in the ethnic specific Asiatic Black dialects. That is, the contacts that “Lost found” Asiatic Black people had with Europeans in America caused the “Lost Found” Asiatic Black people to “talk’ like some Europeans or white people, the contacts with Europeans or white people did not cause Lost found Asiatic Black people to “think’ like Europeans or white people.

The Islamic Black nationalist explain that when they say the original language of "Lost-Found" Asiatic Black people in America has been "lost", it is because, for the most part, "Lost-Found" Asiatic Black people in America are no longer able to speak and understand the aboriginal Asiatic Black languages of the mother country. They posit, that, being by nature "righteous", no matter how fluent Asiatic Black "Lost-Found" become in speaking Caucasian or European languages or how proficient they become at lying, acting wicked and behaving like Caucasians and European people, Asiatic Black people are at best only capable of "aping" or "mimicking" Caucasian speech and behavior. According to the Believers, the Lost-Found Black Man's basic nature has not changed. In the deep structure (their hearts) Asiatic Black people can never be as evil and low down as white people. But then, the question is posed, what about those Lost-Found who have a mixed ancestry? Are they not biologically aberrant and in part genetically evil? Believers are taught that, indeed during the colonial or antebellum period the colonial European slave-masters were unfettered in their licentious practice of raping helpless Asiatic Black slave women. According to The Messenger they did this with the very intent of polluting the blood of the Asiatic Black people and making Asiatic Black people weak minded and unlike their natural selves. The Messenger, states, (ibid 1974:185) "They separated us from our Original People of Asia and Africa in order to do a thorough job of making us other than ourselves, the Original Black Man. The white man went in and out of our grandparents until our blood became part of theirs...so we are today. This ties us up in his blood so that it will be easy for us to practice his way of life. In order to take us out of the life and doing of the mankind people, we had to have a knowledge of them".

The Believers are taught, by The Messenger, that during the antebellum period (under the protection of the statute laws of the United States Government) captive Asiatic Black people were regarded by their Caucasian slave-masters as being no more than animals, i.e., livestock. The Believers are taught that the desire and act of having sex with an animal is an act of sexual perversion called "bestiality". Therefore, while the evil design of the Caucasians who sexually went into captive Asiatic Black slave women was to tie up Asiatic Black and Caucasian blood and make Asiatic Black people unlike their natural selves, being by nature "the archfiend", in fact the "hell-born" intent of these white rapists was to have sex with an animal. In other words Caucasians are by nature "beast" (see Message to the Black Man, 1965:124-127). The Believers contend that, although the intent of the Caucasian "beasts" who had sex with their livestock was to pollute Asiatic Black blood and make "beasts" of Asiatic Black people, the "beasts" were not genetically strong enough to accomplish this. Genetically Black genes are dominant over white genes. Therefore, despite the fact that there has been a considerable intermixing of blood and genetic cross breeding between the two people, this has resulted only in a ‘masking’ of certain biological traits. The Believers contend that the basic bio-genetic essence of the two people did not change. In Allah's eyes Lost-Found Asiatic Black people are righteous by nature and Caucasians are still devils.

The Messenger warns his followers against involvement in the white race's way of civilization and by no means should they regard the Caucasian English language as some kind of ‘excellence’ in speech or perfection in human communication. In his book Our Savior Has Arrived The Messenger writes (1974:123-125) "The white race was to build a civilization just the opposite of Righteousness and this he has done. This is the reason why the God of Righteousness and Justice cannot use the white race's way of civilization. The God of Righteousness must remove the white race's way of civilization altogether and build upon a new Foundation, as I keep repeating. (124)...Even your education of this wicked world will not be a part of the education of the new world...In the new world you will not even be able to speak the English language. The speaking of the ‘English’ language by us will be stopped. No language of the (125) wicked should be spoken by the righteous, as there are some in Islam, in the Orthodox Muslim world, whom I have met myself, and they refuse to speak English; for it is an infidel language. This is the truth. English is a bastard language, for it is a language that is made up of other languages... So we see here why it is necessary for us to have a new language".

This quote makes it clear that the Islamic Black Nationalists do not regard themselves as being members of the Caucasian or Euro-American’s nation or “way of civilization”. They especially do not regard the "English" language as being the national tongue of their divinely formed "Lost-Found" Nation of Islam. English people and their language are seen as being "infidels" and "wicked". According to the Believers, "genetically" the Caucasian or European English speaking people are descendants of the "Anglish" people - a Germanic people that overran the isle of Britain in 449 A.D. According to the Believers, it is this "Germanic" genetic heritage of Euro-American English speaking people that is here revealed lexically to be who they are innately. They are "germ-men", "blond haired, blue eyed devils and skunks of the planet earth" (sic). As proof that the white race is a race of blue eyed devils the Believers cite Sura 20:99-102; of The Holy Qur'an. It reads; 99 Thus relate We to thee of the news of what has gone before. And indeed We have given thee a Reminder from Ourselves. 100 Whoever turns away from it, he will surely bear a burden on the day of Resurrection, 101 Abiding therein. And evil will be their burden on the day of Resurrection - 102 The day when the trumpet is blown; and We shall gather the guilty, blued-eyed, on that day,"

References

Hare, Nathan (1991). The Black Anglo-Saxons. Chicago: Third World Press.

Keeton William T. (1967) Biological Sciences New York: W.W. Norton Co.

Marsh, Clifton E., (1984). From Black Muslims To Muslims: The Transition from Separatism to Islam, 1930-1980. London: Scarecrow Press.

Moore, Richard B., (1992). The Name "NEGRO" Its Origin And Evil Use Baltimore: Black Classic Press.

Muhammad Ali M (1973) The Holy Qur’an Lahore Pakistan, Published by SPECIALTY PROMOTIONS CHICAGO THROUGH SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTS WITH AHMAIYYAH ANJUMAN ISHA’AT ISLAM LAHORE PAKISTAN

Muhammad, Elijah. (1965) Message To The Black Man. Chicago: Muhammad's Temple of Islam No. 2 _____ (1961) Student Enrollment Rules of Islam. Chicago: Muhammad's Temple of Islam No. 2.

_____ (1974) The Flag of Islam. Chicago: Muhammad Elijah

_____ (1974) Our Savior Has Arrived. Chicago: Muhammad's Temple of Islam No. 2.

_____ (1973). The Fall Of America. Chicago: Muhammad's Temple of Islam No. 2. _____ (1992). The Theology Of Time. Rassoull, Abass (Ed.) Newport News: United Brothers Graphics & Printing.

(1976) New Collegiate The American Heritage Dictionary. Atlanta: Houghton , Mifflin.

Riddley, M. (2000) Genome: The Autobiography of A Species in 23 Chapters New York Harpers Collins

Smitherman, Geneva (1994) Black Talk: Words and Phrases form the Hood to the Amen Corner. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 12:20, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Putting aside the talk of "Eurocentric intellectual parasites", "AAVE bilge", and (the wackiest so far) "blond haired, blue eyed devils and skunks of the planet earth", I'm mildly interested by the claim that "The 1996 OUSD resolution rocked the global white supremacists world."

I hadn't realized that it rocked anybody's world. If it did indeed do so, perhaps you would like to specify exactly whose world it was, and give some supporting evidence for this surprising claim, at Talk:Oakland Ebonics controversy. Concisely.

I note that you still haven't bothered to explain about your earlier The OUSD was a repudiating the white supremacists Eurocentric lie, especially in the field of ‘linguistics’, that the word Ebonics referred to a dialect of English (i) which linguists were white supremacists, or (ii) which linguists had used "Ebonics" in any way at all before 1996. If you can answer lucidly and concisely, do so. If you can only answer via a long slab of invective, skip it. If you can't answer, have the guts to admit as much. If you'd like a web soapbox for social philosophy or religious dogma, please find another website for the purpose. -- Hoary (talk) 15:05, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie, I've asked you to be brief and on-topic and your most recent post is a clear leap away from this. It seems that you are more interested in lecturing than in having a conversation. I asked you to provide the Ebonicist account for relexification West African morphology and morpho-syntax (and thereby the origin of Ebonics) and you have instead provided a very long post about the Islamic Black nationalist account. If Ebonicists, like Islamic Black nationalists, really believe that relexification is the result of African slaves' attempts at learning English but being unable to do so because they "...are at best only capable of 'aping' or 'mimicking' Caucasian speech and behavior" then it's a clear step backwards from all linguistic scholarship from the last fifty years that has produced volumes of data showing this to be untrue.

You said that AAVE scholars "do not acquaint themselves with African languages." I pointed out that this was only true for Anglicists and that Creolists are themselves familiar with such languages. You asked if I was talking about AAVE. I said yes. Where does the "gotcha" come in?

Wikipedia has a policy of presenting material with a a neutral point of view. Thus, we present scholarship in as neutral a way as we can. You've argued that one of the definitions put forth by the article as Afrocentric is not really Afrocentric. Until we remedy this, what is the problem with the article? You seem to have ignored my suggested wording for the lead, though I'm assuming it's still an issue for you. What other problems are there? Surely you aren't asking that we not mention that others have redefined "Ebonics."

Hoary, if I understand Ernie's position correctly, the 1996 resolution challenged the deficit hypothesis, which the Oakland Schoolboard had incorporated and which led to a disproportionate amount of African American schoolchildren to be put into speech therapy programs. Amongst white supremacists (as well as others), the deficit model is still the most popular although it has been refuted academically for over 60 years. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 19:42, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes Ƶ§œš¹

In response to your statement that “You summarize creole and pidgin language scholarship well, though you have made an error in that you have articulated the creolist position of AAVE as being "completely Anglicized" when, according to Mufwene (cited above), Creolists belive AAVE to be still in the process of decreolization”. Whether the dialect is a ‘creolized variety of English’, a ‘de-creolized variety of English’, or a ‘completely Anglicized’ variety of English, what you fail to grasp is the fact that, inherent in the use of any appellation that contains the word ‘English’ is the declaration that the language or dialect being discussed is in fact a variety of ‘English’. I maintain that in doing so, the AAVE mob assumes to be fact that which has no been proved. The AAVE mob has not produced a shred of evidence that what thay call AAVE even exist. They simply reject the very criteria upon which the English language is itself considered to be a ‘West Germanic’ and not a Romance language (i.e., continuity in the morphology and morpho-syntax) and posit the language of descendants of enslaved Africans in diaspora as being a ‘lect’ or vernacular of English.

The Eurocentric intellectual parasites that filch and use the word Ebonics as a synonym for what they call AAVE harp on the similarities that exist in the superstrate speech patterns of Black and white American people that nobody denies are not African. This when the task is to account for and explain the origin of the substratum differences. With regards to your statement that “the terminology "Language-X-based" is not necessarily one of genetic classification but of identifying the primary lexifier”. It is because the pidgin/creolists and the AAVE mob are bereft of an ability to produce empirical evidence that the differecences that exist in the substrate are based in the English language that the pidgin/creolists and AAVE mob simply shift from the underlying rules of grammar for positing gentetic kinship and use instead the evidence that the dominant lexifier is English. When confronted with the fact that the dominant lexifier of the English language is itself Romance language based (Latin and French) and not West Germanic, the pidgin/creole and AAVE mob are bereft of any explanation whatsoever for why, if the criterion is ‘Language X based primary lexifier’ Euro-American English and African American Vernacular English are not defined or identified as Romance languages.

I am at a loss to understand to your doubt that historical genetic kinship in languages and language acquistion entails linguistic connectedness by an unbroken chain of mimic acts and that foreign language learning entails anaptyxic assimilation, intrustions, inteference modifcations and transfer phenomena. [See Hartmann and Stork (1972:14, 118, 240) and Crystal (1997:19, 202, 394)] You asked for more on the views of those who are proponents of Ebonics and sources. Yet when you are presented evidence that there are others that have posited an Afrocentic view on the origin and historical development of the language of descendants of enslaved Africans, you will not be neutral and view this information as you do the lie that Ebonics is a synonym for AAVE. Whether you or agree with this view or whether or not it is true, do you deny that this view and the untold thousands of Believers exist? The Messenger Elijah Muhammad denounced American white people as devils long before the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini labeled Ameica ‘the Great Satan’. Do you deny that this view of white people and America exists? Do you deny that on the antebellum plantations there were house, yard and field slaves? (See Franklin J. H. 1997:126, 127). Do you deny that the Holy Qur'an (printed in Pakistan) says that the white race is a race of blue eyed devils? It appers that, as the actor Jack Nicholson told Tom Cruz “you can’t handle the truth”!

References

Crystal, D. (1997) A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics Malden Blackwell Publishers

Franklin, J. H. (1997) From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans Washinton D.C. New York McGraw Hill

Hartmann, R. R. K. & Stork, F. C. (1972) Dictionary of Language and Linguistics New York Wiley and Sons

Moultan W.G. (1970) A Lingustic Guide to Language Learning New York Modern Language Association

Ritchie W. C. (1968) On the Explantion of Phonic Interference In Wardough Edited “Language Learning: A Journal of Applied Linguistics” Ann Arbor North University Bldg.

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 04:48, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not going to discuss religion in an article talk page about language. I'm not familiar with all the works of Ebonics scholarship as you are, so I'll take your statement that Ebonicists "are not interested in engaging in a printing war with dishonest Eurocentric parasites that purchase ink by the barrel" to mean that there are no Ebonicist works that articulate an alternate account for relexification from the Creolist perspective.

It's unfortunate that you feel that there's no evidence for AAVE even existing (I don't know why you want to argue that Ebonics is separate from AAVE if you don't believe the latter exists), but this belief of yours about AAVE scholarship and your misrepresentation of the nuances of the Creolist position lead me to believe that recommending resources for you would be fruitless. One cannot fill a cup that is already full.

It's spring break. When the library opens again next week, I'll have access to most of the books you recommended. Since you've brought up no other issues of contention, I'll assume your only remaining concern is with the issue that such books should address. Regards. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 09:17, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes Ƶ§œš¹

The word Ebonics emanates from an Afrocentric thought process. That Afrocentric thought process has many dimensions. For you to dismiss the Islamic Black Nationalists view on Ebonics as being a discussion of religion is fine. Do you likewise dismiss a discussion of the Hebrew language and the Jewish thought process as a discussion of religion?

With regards to your statement that “It's unfortunate that you feel that there's no evidence for AAVE even existing (I don't know why you want to argue that Ebonics is separate from AAVE if you don't believe the latter exists)…”, I contend that word Ebonics refers to an African language and not a Caucasian or, in the case AAVE, a Germanic language system. I have produced empirical evidence in my own works and the works of the hundreds of Africanists scholars that I have cited that attest to my assertions. The pidgin creolists literature has also attested to the empirical evidence of an African lingustic substratum in the so-called pidgin and creole dialects that are African and Euopean language hybids. I denounce the pidgin/creolists because they are Eurocentric spinless phony liberals and sychophant negro sheepdogs that deny the linguistic continuity of Africa (Ebonics) by attempting to reify their lie that their so-called pidgin and creole dialects are European languages. That is, pidgin/creolists err when they, devoiusly, reject the African stuctural linguistic antecents to Ebonics that, as evidence, proves irrefutably, that Ebonics is the linguistic continuition of Africa in the Western hemisphere. They clearly propagate their specious Eurocentic Language X based primary lexifier bilge as scholarship in order to ingratiate themselves with white supremacists in the linguistic community. You stated that my belief and misrepresentation of the nuances of the Creolist position lead you to believe that recommending resources to the contrary for me would be fruitless. “One cannot fill a cup that is already full”. I say rescue me! Please share with me the diachronic or compative linguistic evidence and I stress ‘comparative linguistic’ evidence you have that an English language based AAVE exists and the evidence you have that there is a speech community where an English language based AAVE exists. Please do not waste your time if all you have to share is the works of Eurocentric spinless phony liberals and sychophant negro sheepdogs whose ‘Sambo Reseach’ denies the linguistic continuity of Africa (Ebonics) by attempting to reify the Eurocentric white supramcists lie that the so-called pidgin and creole dialects are varieties or dialects of the European languages to which they are most closely related at the lexical level. My shelves are already full of these works.

Relative to my belief about the scholarship of the AAVE proponents, what I maintain is that the proponents of the AAVE thesis have not produced any diachronic or compative linguistic evidence and again I stress ‘comparative linguistic’ evidence, that an English language based AAVE exists. Nor have they produced any evidence that there is a speech community where an English language based AAVE exists. Instead their fall-back position is to the pidgin/creolist’s specious Language X based primary lexifier bilge. I am willing to allow for the possibilty that the linguistic convergence between the African and European Languages resulted in a European language based pidgin/creole and I include an AAVE. But where are they? I simply ask for proof. As Molefe Asante and others have very aptly argued Afrocentric scholars “do not seek to impose our worldview on others: we seek only to demonstrate that our model of analysis has far greater explantory power in terms of our own agency… this is neither mysticism nor cynicism: it is Afrocentic realism” (Asante 1999:97).

You appear to believe that the field of linguistics is somehow immune to white supremacy that that the field of linguitics is not suseptable to being infiltrated by those of the white supremacist ilk. Well, for over 20 years, despite their knowledge of the existence of the word Ebonics, Euro-centric lexicographers, i.e., linguists who write dictionaries of the English language: The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, The American Heritage Dictionary, Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Random House Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Funk and Wagalls Dictionary refused to even enter the word ‘Ebonics’ in their English language dictionaries. Then in 1996 the world was made aware of the origin, authentic authorship and true meaning of the term Ebonics. Since 1997 the white supremacist lexicographers have entered the word Ebonics in their dictionaries and it is now even in the ENCARTA World English Dictionary. But rather than provide the origin, authentic authorship and true meaning of the term Ebonics, they have fraudulently defined Ebonics as a “dialect of English” and mere a synonym for the appellation “Black English”.

At Wikipedia I have been dismissed as no more than a “community civil rights activist’. Specifically the statement was "Dr. Smith's conclusions are largely based on his research and the research of other scientists on the language and culture of Africans and African Americans." A more recent issue of the Harvard Educational Review describes Smith as a "community and civil rights activist." Well, since the current President of these United States of America is a Harvard Law School graduate that has edited a Harvard Law Review or Journal and afterwards became a "community and civil rights activist" one of us set a good example. At any rate he certainly is the calibre of the mental cumen that I esteem. You would do well to examine carefully the works of Asante (1995:37, 57, 177) Asante (1998:68, 68) and the comparative linguistic works of Blackshire-Belay (1996,2001) and Garrett D. (2003,2004,2006)

References

Asante M. K. (1998) The Afrocentric Idea Philadelphia Temple University Press

Asante M. K. (1999) The Painful Demise of Eurocentisim Trenton. Africa World Press Inc.

Blackshire-Belay, Carol Aisha (1996), "The Location of Ebonics within the Framework of the Africological Paradigm", Journal of Black Studies 27 (1): 5–23

Blackshire-Belay C. A. (2001) The Linguistic Dimensions of Global Africa: Ebonics As International Languages of African Peoples In Clinton Crawford edited “Ebonics and Language Education” New York Sankofa World Publishers

Duncan, G. (2003). Talkin’ that talk: Language, culture, and education in African America by Geneva Smitherman. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 16(5), 737-739.

Duncan, G. & Jackson, R. (2004). The Language We Cry In: Black language practice at a post-desegregated urban high school. GSE Perspectives on Urban Education, 3(1) (This article may be retrieved from <http://www.urbanedjournal.org/articles/article0014.html>).

Duncan, G. (2004). Ebonics and education: A critical appraisal of the post-1996 research literature. African American Research Perspectives, Spring/Summer, 188-198.

Duncan, G. (2006). Discourse, cultural imperialism, and black culture and language research in the United States. In Shi-xu (Ed.), Discourses as cultural struggle (pp. 155-168). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 03:29, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

That's enough, Ernie Smith

Ernie, you say: For you to dismiss the Islamic Black Nationalists view on Ebonics as being a discussion of religion is fine. Do you likewise dismiss a discussion of the Jewish thought process and the Hebrew language as a discussion of religion? Your question is bizarrely loaded. There's no "likewise" between (a) a religious viewpoint on one language (Ebonics) and (b) a discussion (unless the viewpoint is specified as being religious) of another language (Hebrew).

Further, you say: You appear to believe that the field of linguistics is somehow immune to white supremacy that that the field of linguitics is not suseptable to being infiltrated by those of the white supremacist ilk. And I expect then to see examples of white suprematism. But you give none. Instead, you talk of Eurocentric lexicographers. First, lexicographers aren't linguists. (If they were, then dictionaries wouldn't be full of grammatical howlers. I'm reliably informed that some respected dictionaries class "my" etc as "personal adjectives" -- and this is just one example. Recent descriptive grammars of English such as that by Huddleston and Pullum are bristling with examples of how dictionaries not only have got things wrong but also smugly continue to do so.) Secondly, half your evidence for Eurocentrism among lexicographers is their long non-inclusion of this one word. Linguists themselves use words such as "hypercoristic" and "anarthrous"; their absence from regular dictionaries doesn't bring the charge of an anti-linguistics bias among lexicographers. Dictionaries simply don't list most words that are coined; for these, you look at (for example) "Among the New Words" in American Speech. Your other reason for calling lexicographers Eurocentric is their concentration on a non-original use, one you disapprove of, of "Ebonics". Well, tough: however undesirable it may seem, words change their meanings, and dictionaries concentrate on those that were/are most widely used.

And you say that scholars clearly propagate their specious Eurocentic Language X based primary lexifier bilge as scholarship in order to ingratiate themselves with white supremacists in the linguistic community. First off, you give a cartoonish version of it. Secondly, it's remarkable both that no (other) linguist seems to call it "bilge" and also that you seem unable or unwilling to describe any view that differs from your own with anything other than contempt. Thirdly, your apparent certainty about the (base) motives of scholars would amaze (or amuse?) anybody seriously attempting to fathom motivation in scholarship. And lastly it's all dependent on the existence of "white supremacists in the linguistic community", an existence you continue to claim with no evidence whatever.

It does not seem to me that you are saying anything of help in the construction of an encyclopedia. Feel free to talk at length, within your own website. And not here. -- Hoary (talk) 06:41, 31 March 2010 (UTC) ... tweaked Hoary (talk) 09:07, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes Ƶ§œš¹

Relative to your statemenmt that: “Since you've brought up no other issues of contention, I'll assume your only remaining concern is with the issue that such books should address." My reply is; John Baugh has stated[7] that the term Ebonics is used in four ways by its Afrocentric proponents. When I checked the footnotes I discerned that footnote number 7 says "Baugh (2000:74–5); he puts the four in a different order."

I went to pages 74 and 75 in my copy of Baugh’s book "Beyond Ebonics: Linguistic Pride and Racial Prejudice". Here is a verbatim quote of what Baugh actually states: (2000:74, 75)

“There are to the best of my knowledge, four divergent definitions of Ebonics that exist among Afrocentric proponents of the term:

1. Ebonics is an international construct, including the linguistic consequences of the African

    slave trade (Williams 1975, 1997)

2. Ebonics is the equivalent of Black English and is considered to be a dialect of English

    (Tolliver Weddington 1979)

3. Ebonics is the antonym of black English and is considered to be a language other than

     English (Smith 1992, 1997)

4. Ebonics refers to language among all people of African sescent throughout African dispora

     Blackshire-Belay 1996)”

Firstly, I question the devious re-ordering of what Baugh has stated. You should make this correction. Here is what the Wikipedia article now says as of (3-30-2010)

1. be "an international construct, including the linguistic consequences of the African slave trade";[8]

2. refer to the languages of the African diaspora as a whole;[9]

         or it may refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English: either 

3 it "is the equivalent of black English and is considered to be a dialect of English" (and thus merely an alternative term for AAVE), or

4. it "is the antonym of black English and is considered to be a language other than English" (and thus a rejection of the notion of "African American Vernacular English" but nevertheless a term for what others term AAVE, viewed as an independent language and not a mere ethnolect).[10]

Secondly, you will notice that Baugh attributes as the source for his number 2 - Tolliver-Weddington (1979). Baugh attributes as the source for his number 3 - two of my works (Smith 1992, 1997), not Tolliver Weddingtion and the Sambo research that appears in that 1979 Journal. You should make this correction. My concern is that when a Wikipedia reader attempts to confirm what I have stated about Wikipedia’s number 2 being definitely 'Afrocentric' this will be construed as my having said Baugh’s number 2, [i.e., “Ebonics is the equivalent of Black English and is considered to be a dialect of English" is Afrocentric as apposed to what is now Wikipedia's number 2. What Wikipedias has now (3-31-10) as number 3 is Tolliver Weddington's 1979 bilge and it is not "Afrocentric”. You are fully aware of the fact that I did not say this number 3 is Afrocentric. Yet you continue to present the re-ordered arrangement of what Baugh stated in the article. This I suspect is someone's deliberate attempt to mislead Wikipedia readers in this particular. Thirdly, the last phrase in Wikipedia’s number 4 is not in Baugh’s statement at all. This devious addition of a 'tag phrase' with AAVE bilge to a genuinely Afrocentric view of Ebonics is misleading the Wikipedia readers. It is asinine and it will eventally lead to a rejection of Wikipedia as a credilbe soucre for any accurate information.

As I have already stated and I reiterate here, my rejection of Baugh’s so-called Afrocentric view number 2 that Wikipedia has currently listed as number 3, [i.e., “it is the equivalent of black English and is considered to be a dialect of English" (and thus merely an alternative term for AAVE)],” is based on the fact that Baugh’s view or definition of ‘Afrocentric’ does not sqaure with what the Godfather of Afrocentrism, Molefe Asante, posits as the definition of 'Afrocentricity'. In his book "The Afrocentic Idea" Asante states: (1998:2) “ The crystallization of perspective this I have named Afrocentricity, which means, literally, placing African ideals at the center of any analysis that involves African cultue and behavior” (1998:2) As for who are Afrocentrists, I concur with Molefe Asante here also. In his book, The "Painful Demise of Eurocentricism" Asante states (1999:94) “Afrocentrists tend to be well-trained scholars who are convinced that in order to understand the African world, African phenomena in the West, and African history, it is more contructive to locate oneslef in a centered position and view Africans Afrocentrically. That is from a standpoint of African agency”. Tolliver-Weddington and the Eurocentiric intellectual parasities that present Sambo research articles as scholarship about Ebonics, in the special issue of 1979 Journal of Black Studies, are not Afrocentricists. Negro sheepdogs, that view and use the word Ebonics as a synonym for BE and AAVE are academic pimps and charaltans who whore out of both draw legs. In the paragraph at the top of page 74 preceding Baugh's list cited above Baugh states that "The Ebonics movement took place exclusively among African Americans; white scholars were not part of the enterprise" (Baugh 2000:74). The 1979 special edition of the Journal of Balck Studies is what sparked the Black linguistic War. Where Ebonics is concerned Negro sheepdog Speech pathologists see, in Black speech and language behavior, precisely what they trained to see, - "pathology".

References

Asante M. (1999) The Painful Demise of Eurocentricism Trenton. Africa World Press Inc

Baugh, John (2000). Beyond Ebonics: Linguistic pride and racial prejudice. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-512046-9.

Blackshire-Belay, Carol Aisha (1996), "The location of Ebonics within the framework of the Afrocological paradigm", Journal of Black Studies 27 (1): 5–23

Tolliver-Weddington, Gloria, ed. (1979), "Ebonics (Black English): Implications for Education", Journal of Black Studies (special issue) 9 (4)

Ziegler Dhyana (1995) Molefe Kete Asante and Afrocentricity: In Praise and Criticism . Nashville: James Winston Publishers.

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 11:02, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie, here's what you write, with my corrections to the text as I see it in the first impression (the one in which we see the full range of numbers "1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2" near the foot of the copyright page) of the first, 2000 edition of Baugh's book:

Here is a verbatim quote of what Baugh actually states: (2000:74, 75)

“There are, to the best of my knowledge, four divergent definitions of Ebonics that exist among Afrocentric proponents of the term:

1. Ebonics is an international construct, including the linguistic consequences of the African slave trade (Williams 1975, 1997a).

2. Ebonics is the equivalent of Black English and is considered to be a dialect of English (Tolliver-Weddington 1979).

3. Ebonics is the antonym of black English and is considered to be a language other than English (Smith 1992, 1997).

4. Ebonics refers to language among all people of African sdescent throughout the African dDiaspora (Blackshire-Belay 1996).”

I provided the larger part of this information on this very talk page in this edit of 9 March. At the moment, it's still visible some way above within this bloated talk page.

Now let's look at what the WP article says:

John Baugh has stated<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Baugh|2000|p=74–5}}; he puts the four in a different order.</ref> that the term ''Ebonics'' is used in four ways by its [[Afrocentrism|Afrocentric]] proponents. It may:

#be "an international construct, including the linguistic consequences of the African slave trade";<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Williams|1975}} and {{Harvcoltxt|Williams|1997}}, as summarized in Baugh's words.</ref>

#refer to the languages of the [[African diaspora]] as a whole;<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Blackshire-Belay|1996}}.</ref>

#:or it may refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of [[English language|English]]: either

#it "is the equivalent of black English and is considered to be a dialect of English" (and thus merely an alternative term for [[African American Vernacular English|AAVE]]), or

#it "is the antonym of black English and is considered to be a language other than English" (and thus a rejection of the notion of "African American Vernacular ''English''" but nevertheless a term for what others term AAVE, viewed as an independent language and not a mere [[ethnolect]]).<ref>The equivalent, {{Harvcoltxt|Tolliver-Weddington|1979}}; the antonym, {{Harvcoltxt|Smith|1992}} and {{Harvcoltxt|Smith|1998}}; both as summarized in Baugh's words.</ref>

So Baugh's second is now WP's third. WP explicitly says that the four have been renumbered. Baugh attributes his second to Tolliver-Weddington. Wikipedia says that Baugh attributes the third (Baugh's second) to Tolliver-Weddington. I see no inaccuracy here. But you say:

My concern is that when a Wikipedia reader attempts to confirm what I have stated about Wikipedia’s number 2 being definitely 'Afrocentric' this will be construed as my having said Baugh’s number 2, [i.e., “Ebonics is the equivalent of Black English and is considered to be a dialect of English" is Afrocentric as apposed to what is now Wikipedia's number 2. What Wikipedias has now (3-31-10) as number 3 is Tolliver Weddington's 1979 bilge and it is not "Afrocentric”. You are fully aware of the fact that I did not say this number 3 is Afrocentric.

I have no idea where you wrote this and I'm not going to bother to look. Possibly you wrote it within the tens of kilobytes above on this talk page. If you did, then (i) I think it is unlikely that anyone will ever read it; and (ii) any intelligent reader who does read it can make allowances. If you wrote it somewhere else, then this is even less of Wikipedia's problem. I believe that Wikipedia is under no obligation to rearrange what it says in order that any person's earlier comments elsewhere on what it says will make more sense.

Of course, you are free to disagree with me here. You may wish to start a "request for comment" about this article. I should warn you, however, that if you phrase your request in terms of charlatans, pimps, sheepdogs, whoring, parasites and your other stock metaphors, it is very unlikely that it or you will be taken seriously. -- Hoary (talk) 08:24, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes:

I have forwarded this snarl to the kennels at the Romulus and Remus Linguitics Institute for translation. I am awaiting their reply. When I get their response I shall reply. I have made my point. Meanwhile, you speak when you're spoken to and come when you're called, and some day I might make you my little puppy dog

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 14:56, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Ernie, nobody here has expressed any interest in your doggie fantasies. So can them. If you have something coherent to say about how this article can be improved, then say it, coherently and concisely. If you just like to ramble on about your own interests, do so on your own website. -- Hoary (talk) 16:01, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes

I have forwarded this cartoonish yelp to the kennels at the Romulus and Remus Linguitics Institute for translation. I am awaiting their reply. When I get their response I shall reply.

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 03:30, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes Ƶ§œš¹

I am at a loss to understand why you have not corrected the factual inaccuracy and untruth in the Wikipedia article that miscasts the decision of the Oakland School Board. It is clear to me that the idiot Hoary has no integrity. Is it your intent to deliberately mislead the millions of Amricans and people all over the world? The first sentence in the second paragraph of the article reads: “In 1996, the term became widely known in the U.S. owing to a controversy over a decision by the Oakland School Board to denote and recognize the primary language (or sociolect or ethnolect) of African American children attending school, and thereby to facilitate the teaching of standard English.[12]”

This statement is factually untrue. Firstly, the decision of the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) Board did not apply to all African American Children attending school. The decision by the OUSD Board only applied to the African American children attending school in the OUSD whose parents had indentified their primary or home language as a language other than English. To wit; (1) "Ebonics", (2) "Pan African Communication Behaviors" and/or (3) "African Language Systems". As proof of this fact I have already cited earlier the first “Whereas” clause, of the resoultion and paragraphs one, two and nine of the Policy Statement that the OUSD Board adopted when it passed the reslution. Since you have not made any corrections in this regard it appears that you are not yet convinced. As further evidence I cite here, verbatim, paragraphs three, four and five of the OUSD Policy Statement which state: (3) “The Policy of the Oadland Unified School District (OUSD) is that all pupils are equal and are to be treated equally. Hence, all pupils that have diffculty speaking, reading, writing, or understanding the English language and whose difficulties may deny to them the oppurtunity to learn successfully in classrooms where the language of instruction is English or to participate fully in our society are to be treated equally regardless of their race or national origin. (4) As in the case of Asian-American, Latino-American, Native-American and all other pupils in this district who come from backgrounds or environments where a language other that English is dominant, African American pupils shall not, because of their race, be subtly dehumanized, stigmatized, discriminated against or denied. (5) Asian-American, Latino-American, Native-American and all other language different children are provided general funds for bilingual education, English as a Second Language (ESL) and State and Federal (Title VIII) Bilingual Education programs to address their limited and non-English Proficient (LEP/NEP) needs. African-American pupils are equally entitled to be tested and, where appropriate, shall be provided general funds and State and Federal Title VIII, bilingual rducation ESL programs to specifically address their LEP/NEP needs.”

Clearly, based on what is stated, very explictly, in the three paragraphs cited just above, the Policy Statemant adopted by the OUSD Board the Board’s descision shows that the aim of the resolution was not to facilitate the teaching of “standard English” to African American pupils attending school whose primary language is an English “sociolect or ethnolect”. The decision of the OUSD Board was to vindicate the equal education rights of OUSD LEP/NEP children of African ancestry whose primary language is not English. Secondly, if you still doubt that the OUSD resolution was not to facilitate the teaching of “standard English” to African American pupils attending school whose primary language is an English “sociolect or ethnolect”, paragraph six of the Policy Statement should remove all doubt. For it reads: “All classroom teachers and aides who are bilingual in Nigritian Ebonics (African American Language) and English shall be given the same salary differentials and merit increases that are provided to the teachers the non-African-American LEP pupils in the OUSD” See Perry and Delpit (1998:148,149).

So the OUSD Board resolution was not about teaching ‘Standard English’ in as a “Second Dialect”. The OUSD resolution was about a Free and Appropriate Public Education for English Language Learners (ELL) of African ancestry. The article has clearly miscast the OUSD Board relolution. Why do you rely on the spin that the author of your footnote number 12 (Green) has made, rather than the OUSD resolution itself?

References

Perry, T. and Delpit L. (1998) The Real Ebinics Debate Boston Beacon Press Oakland Unified School District Resolution Number 9697-0063 December 18, 1996.

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 15:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Ernie is either unwilling or unable to participate succinctly, civilly, or even coherently. I was skeptical that the suggested sources said what he claimed they would say; in the ones that I looked at, there was nothing about responding to Afrocentricity of the idea of Ebonics as Black English. It's not worth inquiring about the others. I think it's about time to wrap this one up. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 06:59, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes Ƶ§œš¹

Oh! So now that you cannot deny the evidence presented to you that the article is replete with inaccuracies and untruths you have decided to end our Ƶ§œš¹ ‘good cop' - Hoary 'bad cop’ colloquy by resorting to argumentum ad hominem and ad personam slurs of your own. Well the Wikipedia readers can decide for themselves whether the sources that I have provided you on Afrocentrism are credible. You do not accept the fundamental premise that the language or dialects of the descendants of enslaved Africans in the diaspora are not European language based. In fact, to even make such as assertion you must rely on the specious the pidgin/creolist polygenetic language X based lexifier thesis as evidence. It is because the pidgin/creolist are bereft of an ability to posit their so-called pidgin/creole dialects as European languages using comparative linguistic criterion that they resort to a Language X based lexifier thesis. This Language X based lexifier thesis would be an acceptable criterion but for the fact that the English language itself has adopted the bulk of its lexicon (85%) from Latin and French. Since the bulk of the lexicon of the English language is adopted from Latin and French, using the Language X based lexifier criterion the pidgin/creole dialects that are supposedly English language based have been miss-identified as English dialects when they are in fact Latin and French (Romance) language based. Because you do not accept the fundamental premise that the language or dialects of descendants of enslaved Africans in the diaspora are not European language based, where African American speech is concerned, the literature on African language structures is deemed by you totally irrelevant or as you put it "not worth inquiring about".

For the Wikipedia readers that desire more evidence that the grammatical structure of Ebonics is African and that Ebonics is not an AAVE dialect I cite the works of several renowned researchers and scholars that have studied the phonetic structure of West African and Niger-Congo (Nigritian) languages. These include: Ayo Banjo, Kimenyi Alexandre, Baruch Elemelech, Victoria Fromkin, Joseph Greenberg, Larry Hyman, Phillip Jaggar, Alan Kaye, Peter Ladefoged, Salikoko Mufwene, Lee Trihart, and William Welmers. (See references below for specific works). It is the works of these and hundreds of other writers and the voluminous body of literature on autochthonous African languages produced by African, British, German, and French scholars that annihilated the white supremacist lie that the Nigritian Africans had no languages. It is likewise these writers and this body of literature that compelled the white supremacist pidgin/creolist to acknowledge the African substratum in their so-called pidgin and creole dialects. So absolutely overwhelming and irrefutable is the evidence that the substratum in the African and European so-called pidgin/creole dialects are rooted in the African languages the pidgin/creolist were compelled to abandoned the use of common origin and continuity of the morphology and morph-syntax (rules of grammar) as the criterion for posting language family kinship and posit instead what they call a language X based lexifier criterion. This, they must do in order to propagate their specious white supremacist thesis that all African and European pidgin/creole dialects are European language based. Ebonics is not AAVE. Ebonics is an African language in diaspora and the OUSD resolution acknowledged this fact. Now the discussion is ended.

References

Alexandre, Kimenyi (1979) Double Negation and Negative Shift in Kinyarwanda In Studies in African Linguistics (July pg179) Los Angeles Department of Linguistics and the African Studies Center University of California, Los Angeles

Alleyne, Mervyn. (1969) Linguistic Continuity of Africa in the Caribbean. In Henry J. Richards (Ed.) Topics in Afro-American Studies (pp. 118-28) New York, Black Academy Press.

Banjo, Ayo (1974) Sentence Negation In Yoruba In Studies in African Linguistics ( March 1974 pg 35) Los Angeles Department of Linguistics and the African Studies Center University of California, Los Angeles

Elemelech, Baruch (1978) A Tonal Grammar of Estako In Linguistics Vol 87 Los Angeles University of California Press

Essien, E. Okon (1978) Possessive Pronominalization and the So-called Picture Nouns in Efik In Studies in African Linguistics (July) pg121 Los Angeles Department of Linguistics and the African Studies Center University of California, Los Angeles

Fromkin, Victoria and Rodman, Robert. (1978) An Introduction to Language Second edition. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston (1993) Fifth Edition

Greenberg, Joseph H. (1974) Bantu and Its Closest Relatives In Studies in African Linguistics (March 1974 pg 115) Los Angeles Department of Linguistics and the African Studies Center University of California, Los Angeles

Hyman, Larry (1979) Tonology of the Babanki Noun In Studies in African Linguistics Los Angeles. Department of Linguistics and the African Studies Center University of California, Los Angeles

Jaggar, Phillip, (1978) And What About…? Topicalization in Hausa In Studies In African Linguistics (March pg 69) Los Angeles Department of Linguistics and the African Studies Center University of California, Los Angeles

Kraft C. H. and Kirk-Greene (1980) Hausa New York Hodder and Stoughton Ltd

Kaye, Alan and Daniels (1997) Phonologies of Asia and Africa Vol 1 and 2 Winona,Lake Eisenbrauns

Ladefoged, Peter (1968 ) A Phonetic Study of West African Languages Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Mufwene, Salikoko (1977) Some Consideration of the New Lexeme Beau in Lingala In Studies in African Linguistics Los Angeles Department of Linguistics and the African Studies Center University of California, Los Angeles

Trihart, Lee (1979) Topicality: An Alternative to the Relational View of Bantu In Studies in African Linguistics (March pg 1) Los Angeles. Department of Linguistics and the African Studies Center University of California, Los Angeles

Welmers, William E. (1973). African Language Structures. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 16:16, 8 April 2010 (UTC)