Ebonics

The term Ebonics is derived from the combination of ebony (black in color) and phonics (the association of letters to sounds in reading/writing). The concept is also referred to as Black English, Black Vernacular English, African American English, and African American Vernacular English (AAVE). The term is believed to have been coined by social psychologist Robert Williams and introduced by him at a conference in 1973. Ebonics has its roots in English and African languages. There is considerable debate over whether Ebonics constitutes a language or a dialect, or something altogether different outside the strict definitions of those two terms. While Ebonics does not figure prominently in the dialogue and policy debate on bilingual education, a summary discussion of its nature is helpful in understanding why it often appears in parallel to discussions of bilingual education but is not generally considered an integral part of it.

Although the various terms mentioned above are often used interchangeably, many scholars hold that the term was originated in order to distinguish it from past terms focusing more on English roots and influences of the language/dialect and on the low status normally ascribed to Black varieties of English. Ebonics, then, was meant to be used as a label by those interested in emphasizing the African roots of the language/dialect. It also became a useful term, early on, in discussing the possible mismatch between the language of teachers and that of their Black students. A court case in Ann Arbor, Michigan (Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School Children v. Ann Arbor School District Board, decided in 1979), gained attention when the court ordered that Ann Arbor teachers be instructed in the basics of Ebonics in order to better understand the language spoken by many of their students.

Ebonics is not concerned simply with word usage but also with pronunciation, word order, sentence structure, vocabulary, etymology, and notions of epi-stemology surrounding certain speech patterns. Interestingly, Ebonics is not spoken only by African Americans, but is spoken to various degrees by persons of diverse ethnic backgrounds. Further, not all African Americans are speakers of Ebonics.

The origin of Ebonics is directly linked to the American slave trade, in which millions of Africans were brought to the Americas and forced to learn English without formal instruction. In this situation, the speech and speech patterns of West Africa intermingled with the speech and speech patterns of English, forming a hybrid, which until recently had received scant attention at the scholarly or policy levels. As alluded to earlier, some scholars see the speech patterns of Ebonics as reminiscent of West African languages, particularly those in the Niger-Congo region, thus making English a more distant influence while placing the African languages and speech patterns at the center of Ebonics, as discussed in work by Ernest Dunn and Charles DeBose. Others, perhaps the majority of linguists, argue that English is the mother language of Ebonics, considering the centrality of English vocabulary in Ebonics. In either case, it cannot be denied that Ebonics was formed by the complex hybridization of English and West African languages and speech patterns.

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