Los Angeles Review of Books April 10, 2018

Help combat discriminationby understanding theorigins of African AmericanEnglishViorica Marian Northwestern University

As Black Panther surpassed $1 Billion at thebox office and continues to set records world-wide, what many may not realize is that while

Wakanda is a fictional nation, the language spokenin the movie is an actual language spoken in SouthAfrica. Xhosa is the native language of anti-apartheidcrusaders like Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, and Wal-ter Sisulu.

Hearing Xhosa in the film is moving and inspiring,and speaks to the power that language has on howwe perceive ourselves and others. As a psycholinguistand Northwestern University professor of communi-cation sciences and disorders and of psychology, Isee regularly how language, identity, and perceptionare tightly interconnected. Which is why it is sodisheartening to see that the actual lingua francaspoken by African Americans in the United States,African American English, is so strongly plagued bynegative bias.

To scholars who have worked in this area for

decades, there is no doubt the misconceptions aboutAfrican American English are harmful and preju-diced. Understanding the history, properties, andsignificance of this dialect can help chip away at theendemic racism that permeates this country in everysphere of its function, including our communicationwith one another.

African American English, for example, carrieswithin it influences of various African languages.Not only is it not “broken English,” but many ofits phonological and grammatical structures can befound in West African languages.

People who were enslaved from various Africanregions sometimes were placed together in the samelocation without a common language of communi-cation. The universal human need to communicateresulted in the evolution of a linguistic system thatwas influenced not only by the primary language ofthe slave owners, but also by the grammar, words,and sounds that were carried over from the nativelanguages of those enslaved.

This evolution of language can be observed inmany places around the world where slavery existed.Suriname, for example, is a well-studied example ofhow West Coast African languages interacted withDutch (the language of the colonizers) to produce acreole language.

Patois in Jamaica, similarly, contains many wordsof African origin, where English is filtered througha distinct phonetic system with fewer vowels anddifferent consonant sounds.

In the United States, African American English is

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Los Angeles Review of Books April 10, 2018

spoken by many, though not all, of the approximately13.3% of Americans (43.3 million) who identify asAfrican American, as well as by many Americanswho identify as multiracial.

And, although there is some variation across ge-ographical regions, age, income, occupation, andeducation, for the most part AAE is surprisingly uni-form across the country. It is governed by rules andfollows syntactic, phonological, and semantic pat-terns that are largely the same regardless of wherein the country it is spoken.

For example, “She tall” (deletion of “is”), “Hedrive to work” and “That the woman car“ (omissionof “s”), although incorrect in standard English, arepatterns that are all perfectly legal in other languagesaround the world. Linguistically, these changes caneven be seen as reducing redundancy without sac-rificing meaning. Other patterns add nuance andmark complexity. For example, the “habitual be” (asin “Cookie Monster be eating cookies”) can be usedto differentiate between habitual action and currentaction, depending on circumstances.

One of the more remarkable things about AfricanAmerican English is how speakers can seamlesslyswitch across dialects. This switching is a complexlinguistic skill that requires cognitive dexterity, withscientists yet to determine whether bidialectalism hassimilar consequences as bilingualism. Research intoand funding for studying linguistic, cognitive, andneural consequences of bidialectalism are scarce, duein part to the historically controversial discussionsaround ebonics.

Today, African American English continues to bea vehicle for culture, and is important for culturalaffiliation, identity, and self-expression. It is used informal writing, literature, music, and media, and canconvey not only personal stories, but also culturaland social messages. Hip hop, for example, is a genreof music that has been especially successful at usinglanguage in a way that voices powerful messagesabout race, inequality, politics, history, and socialjustice.

While there are good reasons to both support anddiscourage use of any dialect, both sides acknowl-edge the existence of linguistic discrimination. Somebelieve that speaking African American English lim-its one’s opportunities and restricts upward socialmobility. Critics argue that it is “bad” English andshould be eradicated.

To be sure, a language or dialect in itself cannot be“good” or “bad.” Such qualitative judgments havenothing to do with the actual language but insteadreflect the biases of those making the evaluation.

In the case of African American English, thesebiases are rooted in racism. If we remove racismfrom the equation, it becomes just another Englishdialect spoken in the United States, like the NewEngland, Southwestern, or Midwestern dialects.

Standard American English is itself influenced bythe many constituent dialects of its speakers. Englishwords like gumbo, yam, juke, jumbo, banjo, andothers can be traced to West African languages. Thismix of influences enriches our language and is animportant part of our country’s identity.

With a rudimentary understanding of the historybehind African American English, its linguistic pat-terns and cultural value, we can see how racism givesit the negative connotations that it in itself does notand should not carry.

Instead, we may begin to see it as a record ofa rich, and often painful past and present, shapedby many distinct people across time and geography.A language that carries within it no less beauty,meaning, power, emotion, and history as that in theBlack Panther.

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