I am a foreigner and all of us learn proper English in our home country. We never learn dialects like AAVE or whatnot.
In America, English is spoken not only by the citizens but also by so many foreigners,who will probably never undrstand sentences like"I be bae,"etc etc. Language has to be spoken so that everyone understands it!
I am just awfully irritated that you say it’s the society that says AAVE is wrong. Well, it IS wrong way to speak English!
This is an interesting article on the subject of AAVE:
http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/AAVE/worldscollide/
Great article, @Consolation, thanks.
By the way, I have some black friends, and they told me they were ridiculed by other blacks for speaking “white”.
He thought it was funny because English was created by WHITE people XD
Call me a snob, I don’t really care – there’s a reason that Pres Obama, Colin Powell, Oprah Winfrey, Clarence Thomas, and other prominent African Americans speak standard English, not AAVE.
No more airplanes or polio vaccines! The world is appropriating American culture!
Good article.
YOLO? That is just a “text” born acronym. What’s next, LOL? These are not AA specific. I’m not sure there is appropriation there, just kids of all cultures engaging in text shorthand.
And frankly, people have been saying stupid as fudge or dumb as fudge for as long as I’ve been around.
Y’all is a regional thing. Perhaps you hear these things and presume they are appropriated when they are used by all races in various regions and/or age groups? Or “all y’all” races, as they say where I’m from. Maybe we are finally melting in the pot.
Your point about white kids and language is taken tho. I think that is a result of the popularity of rap. And I think the purveyors of rap were hoping it would be appropriated for financial reasons!
And there totally is still a bias in business w/r/t some natural hairdos.
I agree with this, and I would also note that language is constantly changing, especially slang. For example, “bae” didn’t exist as a common term just a few years ago. Even if it did originate among black people, it’s not reasonable to expect that other people won’t pick it up and use it as a slang term.
I’ll bet a lot of these people do speak AAVE quite often–when they are with a group of other people who speak it. It’s possible to speak standard English and a dialect–heck, many people speak standard English and entire other languages.
I will say that I would distinguish between the migration of black slang words into more widespread use, and the white person who tries to talk in a black dialect–that guy is a “poser.” (Extra credit: discuss Eminem.)
For your extra credit, there’s also a difference in the intended audience – being an entertainer versus being a business person (or doctor, lawyer, politician, etc.). I agree it’s possible to speak standard English and a dialect well.
Last night on Jeopardy the answer was “what is foliage?” and it was deemed wrong because of the way "foliage"was pronounced. I love Jeopardy but “foliage” is pronounced a lot differently if you’re from Georgia (as the contestant) than the populace from the north.
I was stunned that the judges didn’t get that. They obviously didn’t know much. Kept waiting for Alex to give back the money. Twitter lighted up. Nope–no response from the judges. Fortunately it didn’t matter in the final outcome.
It has always been interesting to me that America has so much diversity within its own borders. We have many diverse sub-cultures not based on skin color/country of origin but on regional differences.North, deep South, Midwest, Texas and California (yeah, they are their own regions!). I’ll add Alaska and Hawaii in there too.
I can pretty much tell where someone is from by their own regional accents. Sometimes it’s a city–New York, Boston, Atlanta, Houston, Mobile, Nashville. And sometimes by their actions and attitude.
Fo (as in rhyming with go) - lee - edge. Accent on the first syllable. How else would you pronounce it?
Actually that’s what I thought what was said. With accent though on fo-LEE-edge or fo-LEE-i-age.
. So maybe a bit off but I knew what was said as did every other southern born watcher. Spelling didn’t count in this case so neither did a southern pronunciation.
Accent on the second syllable? That’s interesting. I never heard it that way.
I’m from the South and haven’t heard that pronunciation of foliage. Most people around here pronounce it with two syllables, like “fole-idge” (first syllable rhymes with “mole” and second syllable rhymes with “Midge”). Still, I would have known what word the contestant was saying.
Can people ever stop with this nonsense? I understand being from a non-Western culture can be slightly daunting in America (I’m an Indian myself) but claiming possession of things like yoga is absolutely unnecessary. I do not see any reason to get defensive and territorial about this. Isn’t it a good thing that your culture is propagating? Or does that threaten the fabric of purity in your culture – that sounds, dare I say, Nazi. My personal opinion is that we should all blend together and see and adopt what we like from different cultures.
shakes head I will never get cultural (or any kind of) chauvinism.
/rant
My wife went to a funeral Mass at a Catholic church yesterday. The program exclaims that only Catholics should participate in taking the elements of the Mass. Surely everybody would agree that it would be wrong for a non-Catholic to partake, even if you disagree with that limitation?
My point is that there are some cultural elements–and religious practices are perhaps the easiest example–that really do “belong” to one group, and that appropriation of them by others is wrong. On which side of the line to put any particular thing is not so easy, though.
I’m not sure that “which side of the line” vote would be very tough for people given specific examples. I think you’d have a clear majority vote given pretty fast.
The reason some people are territorial over their culture is because of backlash, either real or perceived, that they have received over participating themselves. I don’t think the solution is to ban non Indian people from doing yoga, or non black people from speaking AAVE, but I don’t think the idea of cultural appropriation should be mocked either, like it has throughout this thread.
If it’s perceived backlash, shouldn’t people deal in reality?
@Hunt - but what about Episcopalians? They are technically Catholic, just not Roman Catholic. Most strict Catholics would probably say they shouldn’t partake but there could easily be a viable difference of opinion.