I know all black people don’t talk like that, and I don’t want anybody to take this the wrong way. But it seems that everywhere you go in the country, you will find black people who have that accent. So it’s not just a regional accent. I’m trying to put this in the least offensive way possible, because I know it can easily offend somebody.
Eubonics? My impression is that it’s not an accent so much as an identifiable language. Don’t know why or where it came from, I’ll just assume it sort of evolved naturally as they needed distinction from other oppressed ethnic minorities.
Dear Anal I believe it’s called ebonix. Brace yourself foo’! 
Ebonics that is…A Google search should help you to a start.
Actually found such a good site that I’ll post the link.
It’s not an accent, it’s a dialect. Linguists often call it “Black English Vernacular” (BEV). Do a GD search on “Ebonics” and you will turn up several threads that deal with this subject. But if you just want a short GQ answer, it’s related to Southeastern American dialects, with some influence from a variety of African languages.
To correct myself, I believe the term “African-American Vernacular English” (AAVE) is now more commonly used by linguists.
Dear Kid:
You are going to get a lot of sarcastic answers, believe me. But here’s a lead that will help: try to find a book called Black English, published about twenty years ago. It’s a scholarly study which examines such widely varying things as African verb forms, creoles and pidgins generally, and some very specific dialects of English spoken mostly by black Americans, like Gullah.
Some years after I read this book, I had occasion to learn about two hundred words of Haitian Creole, a language related to French, German, English, and some African tongues. Since I am a non-native speaker of French, I found it intellectually fascinating to see the similarities and differences between the two languages. Haitian Creole is a lot more fun, too: better puns and jokes, IMHO. But Haitian Creole is not “broken French”–it’s a separate language with vocabulary and nuance that can’t be translated exactly (or not without about thirty times as many words) into either French or English. I don’t really know whether that really describes the language spoken in the most de facto segregated sections of American ghettos, but I understand some linguists think it might. Just as it would be improper to criticize a Creole speaker who says “Li ap ale au marche,” (He/she’s going to the market right away) instead of “Elle va au marche aujourd’hui” (She’s going to the market today)(sorry no accent marks here, purists), so too it might be improper to criticize the grammar or pronunciation (unless you’re giving “standard” American English tests) of someone who says “My boyfriend, he be waitin’ for me after school.” That’s not “sloppy English”–it has a definite meaning which can’t be captured easily outside of that dialect/language.
Read the book, you’ll see what I mean.
You have to remember that much of the urban black population of the North, Midwest and West originated from migration from the South, mostly since 1900. It was originally a regional dialect, which the migrants brought with them when they moved.
Migration may explain the spread of the African-American dialect, but how would you account for the valleyspeak that most girls (and some guys :eek: ) seem to use these days? You know? Where you raise your voice at the end of every statement? Like you’re asking a question? And in an annoying pinched voice? Anyone?
Yeah, but when other people move from one part of the country to another part of the country, they generally start to take on the local regional dialect. Like when somebody moves from the South to Illinois, they will start to lose the southern accent, and talk more like the people around them. With a lot of black people, their families moved away from the South-Eastern US many years, but the accent, or dialect, or whatever you want to call it sticks. Why wouldn’t these people start to take on a more regional dialect instead of the one from a place their family moved from years ago? (It’s getting hard to make this sound non-racist. Is it just me? I just don’t want to ofend anybody unintentionally)
I don’t know why people believe this. It is rarely true, unless the person in question moves while they are still a child.
People often ask my mother if she’s “just visiting” because of her thick Texas accent. She hasn’t lived in Texas for over 20 years. Her accent is not going to change unless she hires an accent coach.
Who would they learn this regional dialect from? We may not have segregation by law anymore, but we certainly have it in fact. This is even more true of the North than it is in the South. I have read that Milwaukee is the most segregated city in the country, and also has the biggest income gap between blacks and whites. With few exceptions people will speak in the dialect that they learned as children. The fact that the white folks living on the other side of town speak a different dialect isn’t going to have much effect.
Peer pressure also plays some role in this – young African-Americans may be discouraged from trying to “talk white” by their friends and family.
As an African American who [non-black] people don’t seem to think sounds “black,” I just want to say that everything Lamia said is right on target.
One related note: Back in my HS days, one of my Dad’s friends had an accent so thick it was nearly unintelligable.
I think it’s enviorment, more than anything. I recall a domino’s driver that worked at the store nearby. Black as night, but being from Jamaca, had that pseudo-british accent. Not something you hear a lot of in the South.
It’s going away, thankfully. I had an English teacher in eight grade whom I couldn’t understand, due to dialect differences. I still wonder why they let her teach.
I was born near Dayton, OH. Moved to Atlanta, GA at age 9, and went to college in Tennessee. In Marines, Flordia, Virginia and California. Moved to Cincinnati, OH for 11 years and moved to Mississippi.
Saint Zero would ask me where I was from, because I don’t talk like folks in Mississippi, but people from the north think I speak like a southerner.
Fact is no one notices the words you say like them, it is the words, expressions, etc., that are different that they notice.
Lamia is correct in saying that AAVE is the preferred linguistic term.
Some links:
http://www.cal.org/ebonics/ (The Wolfram essay is particularly worth a read)
http://www.emich.edu/~linguist/topics/ebonics/ (This contains the Oakland school district’s resolutions on the issue.)
American blacks (even those who do not speak stereotypically black) do have some distinctive speach patterns no matter where they are from and how long they’ve been there. I’m not sure I’d call it a full out accent, it’s more of a cadence.
Jewish people too have a distinct cadence to their words, irrespective of where they are from.
Is there such a thing as a cultural accent?
I’m sorry, but that’s just a bunch of hooey. I thought we were here to fight ignorance. Please.
Jeg elsker dig, Thomas
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Hooey, schmoey. People who have a cultral link do indeed also share a linguistic one. This is the reason why we can find traces of a southern accent in blacks whose families have lived in New York for 3 generations.
A cultal link is why a phrase like “hooey, schmoey” came immediately to mind when I read your post. The culture I got that from is New York melting pot.
Really, why do you think such a thing as a cultral accent is ignorant?
Sheesh! I’m gonna have to figure out now whether Sammy Davis Jr. spoke AAVE or cultral(sic) Yiddish! ;j :rolleyes:
Well, Sammy Davis’ speech patterns would not be influenced by Yiddish, as this is a cultural speech pattern and not a regional one.
Terminus mentioned “valleyspeak”. Although it may have started as a regional accent in “the Valley”, it has now spread. I say this is a function of culture.
I am not a linguist, I’m much more of a hobbyist, but I’m not ignorant about it. So my question still stands: Have linquists found accents that can be traced culturally and not regionally?