Ebonics

A term derived from a combination of the words ebony and phonics that refers to a form of language dialect spoken by many African Americans. Rarely has any issue in the field of linguistics (the study of human speech) created as much controversy and misunderstanding as the debate surrounding ebonics in the late twentieth century.

Although the term ebonics was already in use in the 1970s, it was not until 1996—when a school board in Oakland, California, passed a resolution referring to ebonics in connection with the 1988 Bilingual Education Act—that ebonics became a subject of discussion and discord across the United States. Although the initial furor has since dissipated, continuing research on ebonics has shed light on educational equality and the process of language acquisition among African Americans.

The term ebonics was coined in 1973 by Dr. Robert L. Williams, a director of black studies at the University of Missouri. He derived the term from two root words—ebony, meaning black, and phonics, meaning a sound system—using it literally to refer to black sounds or language. Specifically, ebonics refers to the language originating from slave descendants from the Niger Congo region of Africa. The term does not refer to a distinctive language but rather to language patterns resulting from the African slave trade and the subsequent segregation of blacks in the United States following emancipation.

While ebonics is often used interchangeably with Black English, most scholars agree the two terms are not identical. Ebonics speakers in Haiti and Brazil, who take their vocabulary mostly from the French and Portuguese languages, respectively, do not speak English at all but use the same patterns of language as ebonics speakers in the United States.

English or American ebonics derives from a number of sources. The grammar, colloquial expressions, and some words from original African languages are one important source. Other influences come from pidgin, or dialects that combine words from various languages. Pidgin was used especially by enslaved Africans who did not share a common country of origin or language. Because they had no other way of communicating, they combined words they mutually understood. Other contributing influences on ebonics include the distinctive dialects of English-speaking peoples from Europe, especially people from the poorer classes whose language differed markedly from the dialects of the upper classes and nobility.

On December 18, 1996, ebonics made national news when the Unified School District in Oakland, California, passed a resolution on the use of ebonics in the classroom. The school board recognized ebonics as a legitimate factor in communicating and teaching some African American students. Concerned with the growing disparity between black and white students in standardized testing situations, the board endorsed the use of ebonics as a means both to assist [Page 282]African American students in improving their English-language skills and to legitimize their natural way of speaking. The resolution called for using federal funds for bilingual education to this end.

The reaction to the resolution was immediate. The media ignored the linguistic history of ebonics and blurred the facts, a process to which the ambiguous wording of the board's resolution contributed. Despite the board's clear indication that it was neither teaching ebonics nor replacing more conventional English instruction, the media satirized the resolution as an attempt to teach “broken English” and unconventional grammar.

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