I disagree that this is a feature not found in SAE. “He works at the library,” in nearly all contexts, is a habitual statement. The only exception I can think of is in story-telling mode. Granted, “He’s working at the library” can get questionable as to whether it’s right now or not, but the implication is a current undertaking.
It’s the full context of “works there habitually AND is there working right now” that my teachers, long long ago, told me we don’t have in SAE. There are others, nicely tabled in the wiki article on AAVE.
Could be worse. Could be Finnish.
I guess I was taking too rigid of an approach to what is called a dialect by linguists who are the experts, I only took one introductory course in linguistics out of curiosity, and that was over 10 years ago.
I am a programmer, the “fuzzy” nature of social sciences compared to theories, proofs, and deterministic systems in Mathematics, and hard science has left to a bias against linguistics because I saw it in much the same was as other social sciences such as sociology, history, political science and cultural anthropology, where analysis exists but theories are varied and argued about between different schools of thought, and cultural and political influences on theories is par for the course.
Determinations of what is a pidgin, creole, dialect, or language seemed to be influenced by trends and the current cultural and political atmostphere.
Additional, I perceived the inclusion of AAE as a dialect as having come from an American school of thought which was influenced by the history and politics of the US.
I always though of the language I heard when down in southern Alberta in the small towns and in the country as a creole influences by Eastern Europeans, Germanic people, and Blackfoot tribes which grew out of a pidgin needed to speak to the English and Scottish people who were the RCMP, the well off town folks, the Mayors, and other major players. I see that vernacular dying out too, because of the influence of media.
Another reason for my prejudice against accepting AAE is a dialect comes from my personal experience in high school up here in Calgary in the late 1980’s. My first year of high school (which starts in grad 10 up here), was in a poorer area of the city. The school was extrememly racially and culturally diverse. Part way through grade 10 a few of the Black kids adopted a Jamacian accent, although very few were of Cariabean decent. I realize the need to feel a part of a culture, and that racial identity is an important part of both social development and identity, but some of these kids were of African American decent, some were part Native North American, and the Jamacian accent seemed like pretense to me.
Because of the media proliferating the AAE dialect on TV, and in music, to an extent that white kids in baggy clothing up here in Canada imitate it, and Native North American kids adopting the dialect, the attitudes and many of the cultural behaviours, I had a strong feeling that AAE was being propigated by the media, instead of being a natural dialect. I’ve read many slave journals on the web (via the US Library of Congress), and saw how modern AAE could have come out of the vernacular spoken back then, as well as an influence from the beats and poetry of Jazz but I did not think that AAE had grown past the creole stage, with the exception of slang.
I also have heard many of the same grammatical structures used by economically depressed people of other parts of North America, and thought of much of the structure of AAE as indicative of a lack of education in proper grammar.
Reading more online (I don’t have access to an academic library, but because of a few papers regarding a certain subculture which I really wanted - I have a couple memberships to places online from which I can download papers), I can see how AAE can be considered multiple dialects, and reading how it evolved (especially in the last generation), is quite interesting.
My biases still bring doubts to my mind about the veracity of AAE as a dialect, but I am willing to accept that linguists consider it either to be a dialect or multiple dialects and since linguists are the keepers of the domain, I defer to them on judging AAE as being a dialect.
This part jumped out for me, because I happen to know a bit about this topic.
Black Americans and Jamaicans share a lot of cultural things. Language and food and music being the most prime examples.
The way in which hip-hop has influenced dancehall, and vice-versa is remarkable. We borrow heavily from eachother, with good will. It is not uncommon to hear Jamaicans using Black American slang, dressing in a ‘black American’ style, etc.
Likewise, it is common for Jamaican slang to be used by Black Americans.
Words like Batty Boy, Bloodclot, (bumba clod), suckyamama, bashment, punanny,*, etc, are a part of Black American hip-hop culture, and it is meant to be spoken with the accent intact.
Just thought I would give you that information so that you wouldn’t assume that people are putting on airs, when they really are probably only being themselves.
*spellings of my Jamaican words are probably very wrong. Sorry.
According to this site (as well as others I’ve seen), it essentially is (although McClendon’s chronology appears to be off by a few centuries):
I can’t believe I am going to attempt to tackle this, knowing full-well that I will fail, and that others will come in to disagree with me, but I feel compelled to try… this is *my own * understanding of the term, you understand…
“He be working at the library” does not actually mean he is working there this moment. It doesn’t even mean it is his regular job! I know that is crazy, but it is somehow true.
If James works at the school, and someone said to me, “Does James still work at the school?” I might say to them, “Yeah, but he be working at the library…”
This means that he often works there.
Not necessarily daily like he does at the school.
Not necessarily officially, even.
Not necessarily at this moment.
But he is often there, working.
I swear to god, if someone says to me, “James be working at the library” all of the above is understood.
If they just say, “he works at the library”, I will assume that is his regular job, and that he doesn’t work at the school anymore. Two completely different meanings.
I know it seems dumb to some, but remember, it is not some elaborate language we set out to create…it just kind of happens.
No one says, “he be working at the library” if he is working there this moment, but doesn’t work there regularly. I only hear that usage on t.v. when they are trying to portray some poor ghetto kid.
One more thing. If it is a known fact that James works at the school full time, every day, no one would ever say “he be working at the school”. We would just never say that…in that case, we would simply say “he works at the school”.
I know this is clear as mud, but it is my take on it.
A well put description of language in general.
lexi, have you ever met African-American people from an American city? It is really preposterous to me that anyone who had would think that AAVE is the same as SAE.
I speak SAE, and there is no way that the following people speak the same dialect as me:
Petey Greene
Larry Wright
Damon Wayans
Various people in 'Do the Right Thing"
I should have said African Canadian decent - which is admittedly more Caribbean, and more recent immigrants directly from Africa. I am in the west of Canada, so although some families decended from people who escaped via the Underground railroad, or moved further North after Emancipation (there are a few historically notable black cowboys from my part of the country, and many blacks married into Native tribes), Nova Scotia is as far away from here as Maine is to Idaho, and Ontario is as far away as New York state to Idaho.
European Canadian culture is quite different than American Culture, and I assume Canadian black culture differs from American black culture too.
Although racism did and still exists (although the main target of racism here in Canada is the native population), the history of Black Canadians differs from that of American Blacks.
At that high school most of the kids went from elementary school through to high school, so friends of mine grew up and had been friends with the Black kids who adopted the accent.
The kids I went to high school with, although some of them were of Caribbean decent, many weren’t, they were Black Canadians or of Native and Black decent or even African. There was no evidence that Caribbean or African American culture was anything more than an adopted identity.
As I said eariler, I am willing to accept that linguists consider it either to be a dialect or multiple dialects and since linguists are the keepers of the domain, I defer to them on judging AAE as being a dialect.
I’ve visited the US, met Black Americans here in Canada too, I’ve seen movies, heard music and seen Black comedians on TV from the states as well.
Yeah. I sorta didn’t read your post carefully. Or your location. I had intended to stay out of this thread, to avoid jumping the gun. But then I jumped the gun. Sorry.
When we (white Southerners who had grown up around people speaking the Southern version of AAVE all our lives) went with a friend to see one of the Friday movies, we’d forgotten that she’s from one of those Northern cities where there are tons of black people, but the de facto segregation is such that she’d never, you know, met any of them. (I find this quite common in Northern cities and then they have the nerve to look down on us racist-ass Southerners, who can at least name a few black people they’ve met in person!)
Anyway, I don’t think she caught one word in ten of the movie, even with us translating. I mean, she literally had no idea what was going on in the plot or how the characters were related. For her, it was like watching a foreign film from one of those countries that makes movies that don’t make sense.
[OT] That first clip reminds me of the following. When my wife and I first moved to Houston long long ago, our first apartment was in a neighborhood that it would be wrong to call a “ghetto” but we were certainly the only white people in a radius of a few miles or so. Our neighbors were quite nice, but there were some awkward inter-cultural moments. And your clip reminds me of the time that we were walking towards our house, and our neighbor was sitting outside eating watermelon, and as we approached, he asked us “You ever had any of this?” And the thing is, I am certain he was completely serious–he thought it possible I had never had watermelon before. And I’m pretty sure he thought this because I was white. It was just kind of funny.[/OT]
-Kris
or he was whooshing me, but he never seemed the whooshing type. But then, the whooshing type often doesn’t.
Hey, no problem - I know the SDMB is mostly American. I also know although we Canadians see American culture on TV (as outside observers, of course), that many Americans don’t see much Canadian culture either. Americans and Canadians are similar, but there are differences (for now… The influence of US media is changing our culture, and we are becoming more alike).
A great book on all this: Language Myths by Laurie Bauer, et al.
Some of the features of AAE are also found in other languages- for example, in French, “je ne sais pas” (I don’t know) has two negative words- ne and pas- rather than just one. You could just as well say that she is making a mistake that is characteristic of French grammar when she uses a double negative.
It’s equally possible that the attitudes of middle- and upper-class white Americans toward black people who speak AAE is coloring our view of their language.
How do they say “iron” in Pittsburgh?
Noting Nzinga’s explanation above, that is how descriptive grammarians explain expressions such as “He working” and “He be working”, and their different meanings. This is a dialect, and dialects have a way of persisting. When I was in Germany, there were people whose dialect of German was incomprehensible to me, even though I was nearly fluent in Standard German at the time.
In contrast, linguists would term ‘gansta’-speak as an argot–a set of specialized words and usages superimposed on AAE. Much of this terminology comes from the world of the gangs and their activities, and supposedly, has been broadcast to the world through rap music. Could the highschoolers heard by the OP just have been acting tough, and using terminology from the music? In any case, this argot will persist as long as the music is popular.
[Disclaimer: I really don’t know much about rap in general, or gangsta-rap in particular, so I could be way off base here]
I don’t see how this is relevant to my argument, unless you’re intimating that AAE speakers are actually deriving their speech patterns from foreign languages, or that American toddlers are commonly exposed to French.
Perhaps double-negatives aren’t frowned upon in French, but they sure are in English, at least as formally taught. In English, double-negatives, like technically-incorrect use of pronouns, are common both to young children learning the language, and to AAE. Can you see how that might color a middle-class person’s opinion of AAE, regardless of other factors like race?
Sure. Racism is certainly a factor. I’m just suggesting it’s not the only factor. In my case, I’d like to think it’s not a factor at all. And yet, when I hear an adult say: “He don’t like it,” my first thought isn’t “that’s an interesting dialect.” It’s “I’m trying to train that out of my 3-year-old right now. I guess that speaker was never educated in the particular rule of grammar I’m trying to teach my pre-schooler.” In light of many points made in this thread, I’ve learned that this is an unfair conclusion to jump to, but it’s still an understandable position, all racist causes aside.
“Ern”.
ETA - they also “redd” up their rooms, which is a complete WTF-ism, and they hold things together with gum bands.
I’m not sure you can even call the French constructions double negatives. In declarative sentences in French, negation requires two words, one of which may not be negative in other contexts. For instance:
Je ne parle pas Francais “I don’t speak French”, but also Pas un mot?, “Not a word?”, in which pas stands alone.
je ne t’aime plus “I don’t love you anymore”, in which the plus seems to function like “anymore” in English, in which it carries a connotation of negation or discontinuation. Standard English doesn’t allow the use of anymore in positive declarative sentences, although it happens in some dialects. Even then, there may be an unspoken implication of negation or discontinuation.
In short, I don’t think we can summarily say that double negatives are permitted in Standard French.