Hebonics

Interesting, shminteresting.

No, that actually is interesting

True

So... Yoda was Jewish eh...

[quote:4c770fdece]Remark: "I like the tie you gave me, wear it all the time."
English response: "Glad you like it."
Hebonic response: "So what's the matter; you don't like the other ties I gave you?" [/quote:4c770fdece]

Although this does prove that my mum is too, she has always done her best to prove it to the rest of the world and her kids in particular... now all I have to do is persuade her she can't be High Church of England too (the "high" bit is soooooo important :roll: ) although this won't be easy, as one of her oldest friends is both and is incredbly convincing as both...

This is obviously a satirical response to the real issue of Ebonics.

I know, once you explain why something is supposed to be funny it stops being funny :?

(Just wondering why Garner is bothered by it.)

edit: To clarify, the idea behind Ebonics is that when a black person says something in English that appears to be gramatically incorrect (e.g. conjugates a verb wrong) he is, in fact speaking proper English, just a [i:5c973d1cfc]different version [/i:5c973d1cfc] of English, and therefore should not be corrected or told to speak "standard" English.

The problem with this idea - which is what I think the author of the quote was trying to say - is that there are lots of regional and ethnic dialects of English. There is no reason why, unlike everybody else, black Americans should not have to learn the difference between the English used with family and friends and the English used in formal situations.

[quote:b088129e6b="Marcia"]edit: To clarify, the idea behind Ebonics is that when a black person says something in English that appears to be gramatically incorrect (e.g. conjugates a verb wrong) he is, in fact speaking proper English, just a [i:b088129e6b]different version [/i:b088129e6b] of English, and therefore should not be corrected or told to speak "standard" English.

The problem with this idea - which is what I think the author of the quote was trying to say - is that there are lots of regional and ethnic dialects of English.[/quote:b088129e6b]

Yes but!!

The real problem with English these days is not even the English can agree what should be standard. It changes annually, and has been for centuries.

inwig

Those changes are what has made English the flexible useful living language that has become so wide spread, but there is always a danger that the language will become so compartmentalized that it does break into other languages.

It happened to Latin, there is the fossilized version that was preserved by the Church and that was used by scientists to communicate ideas between those who spoke different ones, French, Spanish, Portugese, and Italian.

English is basically a dialect of German that was brought to Britain and adapted by the Normans so they could hit on the local talent.

The people who speak English have never been hesitant to use whatever words they needed from whatever other language had them. This has given English one of the largest vocabularies ever.

But the other thing English has going for it is that there have been such popular literature written in it, the King James version of the Bible. the works of Shakespeare are still in print after 500 years, we still read Poe, Twain, Chaucer, and scores of other authors decades and centuries after their works were written. It is an incredibly useful thing for keeping the language understandable. Yes English has incredible slang, and almost every profession has its own jargon, but we still can understand "to be or not to be". We add to the language every year with every technological break through and every cultural change, it defines us, it "pays to increase your word power" You must learn to talk the talk.

I believe that Ebonics is not a good thing. It seems to be the same sort of thing the welfare system in America turned out to be, just about the worst thing that could happen. Before the Aid to Dependent Children thing started the Black community had strong families, wide spread extended families that encouraged independence and provided a safety net that the government has not improved on, in fact there are now families that haven't seen a marriage or even long term relationships between parents in several generations. It just gets harder and harder for those families to exist the way they should. Kids who don't see parents live meaningful lives, who don't see Dad adore Mom and Mom adore Dad, well you just can't expect them to invent the wheel all over and get it right all the way.

Ebonics is a way to allow a segment of society to seperate itself. to deny itself being able to communicate freely with the people who have what they might want to gain for themselves. I think it would be a dirty trick indeed if it became the "way things are".

[quote:679942a474="Garner"]grace insisted this was legit, marcia. hence my comment about being glad i left. [/quote:679942a474]

The reason I didn't think this was legit is that Jewish people were making these "Hebonics" jokes right after the talk about Ebonics started.

I was pretty sure that it was written by a Jew. We tend to be enjoy self-deprecating humour.

edit: found it on Harry Leichter's [i:679942a474]Jewish humor[/i:679942a474] page.

First of all, Marcia, English is not a dialect of German. Old English, such as it was, was a dialect of Germanic (note the ic) A few hundred years later William conquered England and added a lot of french loanwords (most of them getting their latin spelling back) and so, Middle English got more influenced by latin that the other Germanic languages, such as German, Swedish, Icelandic and so on.

Anyways, apart from Hebonics I know that in schools in the US where there's a lot of coloured children attending, they've added "English, as it's spoken on the streets in this region" to the schedule, outside of the regular English and English litterature classes.

Mynona, it wasn't Marcia that said English is a dialect of German. I may have been remiss in not acknowlegeing that there are many german[i:1181fc60e6]ic[/i:1181fc60e6] languages but the actual dialect that some scholars think was the origin of English is still spoken in the Friesian region of Germany. There was a public television series about English that featured a Friesian man saying certain words and I couldn't tell the difference from how I would pronounce those words.

Second, the " english as it is spoken on the streets in the region" is what we referred to as Ebonics and I think it is a strange thing to be doing, and I have heard a lot of comedians and other people make fun of the idea. The Hebonics joke is fairly gentle compared to what some people have said about the issue.

Not just sounds, some think young babies who don't have the ability to speak use hand signs not much different from formal hand signs used by deaf persons.

When I first hard the theory Ba mentioned I thought of the story of Babel. The idea of having ones language changed seemed more impossible before I realized that if language is "hard wired" it would be more possible to change it.

Icelandic did not evolve from anything, it was made up on purpose to piss foreigners* off.

* The rest of the world.

Not katcal, not Icelandic you're thinking about Finish.

One can actually understand Icelandic if you take away the -ur part they add in the end of all their words.

Also, English is not homogenic in the countries they are spoken. Just consider the difference between lift and elevator. Also, you have to keep in mind who you're speaking to when you say 'pants'. English is not homogenic because in all those 'other' places it's spoken, local words and expressions have remained but 'Englified'. Shoogaly. I say no more

A language is something that's under constant change, new words are added and old ones disappear or change meaning.

We talk about homogeneity and disparity about our Indo European languages, when many of them are as similar, if not more similar, as different dialects of Chinese.

[quote:07bd619519="Mynona"]Not katcal, not Icelandic you're thinking about Finish.[/quote:07bd619519]
Nope, Icelandic was made up to piss people off. Finnish was [b:07bd619519]fiendishly engineered[/b:07bd619519] to be a [b:07bd619519]high-quality[/b:07bd619519] people-pisser-offer. That's entirely different.

I know I can't see any likenesses between:

"He hamra msvargavasi pita"

"Ótce nas, súscij na nebesách" [there are few thingamajingies over c's and s's here I couldn't make, but still]

"Ein tad, yr hwn yn y neofedd"

"Faeder ure, phu phe eart on heofonum"

(points to whomever can tell me what languages those are and what they actually say. And yes, they all say the same thing)

LEEKSPIN DOT COM

The Welsh and the Czech were out getting a smoke when the vowels were handed out. The remainder was scooped up by the Hawaiians and the Finnish.

[quote:51f17d41c6="Buzzfloyd"][quote:51f17d41c6="Ba"]Actually, there's some evidence that language may be instinctive. That is, while languages are created over time and must be learned, the drive to attach meaning to sounds may be inherant to humans.[/quote:51f17d41c6]
Inherent, Ba. Is there speculation on whether this drive evolved as a response to or prior to the development of language?[/quote:51f17d41c6]

The argument for inherent language ability I'm familiar with is that linguistics has not been able to produce an all-encompassing system of rules that describes grammar where infants can instinctively master it in a few years.

To me, that seems more of a comment on the human ability to learn and cultivate instincts where broad parameters are inadequate than evidence of a pre-existing system of universal grammar in us on which we build our comprehension of language.

I think it is the skill to improve yourself that is inherent rather than the drive to attach meaning. In practice, it would mean the same thing, though.

[quote:51f17d41c6="Hsing"][quote:51f17d41c6="Buzzfloyd"]I see your point, Hsing, but there are logical lines to be drawn showing the development of modern languages from a common root (Indo-European). It makes a certain amount of sense to me that, as language first began to develop among humans, a consensus of meaning would have been required; but as tribes spread, their dialects would have changed until the point where they became other languages. And a more commonly-understood language could easily have absorbed other fledgling languages, I would have thought.
[/quote:51f17d41c6]

The spreading from one area image is exactly what I doubt, but that doesn't mean that I don't see development and relatedness of language, and that in this case the material -the language- is the provider of proof itself.
I think the point where a language was developed, and carried into different directions by its carrying tribes to develop into different languages is so beyond our grasp of history that its almost irrelevant to linguistics, but I'm not fanatically insisting on that point. I just regarded the relative strictness of the language family system as a tool to work with, not so much as a historical truth.

A lot of languages dominated large areas because of the cultural dominance of its native speakers, and not because of purely linguistically evolution, and (re-)wrote language history. And often in a very short time - from the Romans giving a Latin vocabulary to a Germanic language in vast parts of Germany, to the USSR supressing local languages for fifty years, changing some languages forever, and so on. English itself is an example too, I think. (Seeing in what large parts of the world and by how many people it is being spoken, I actually wonder it's still relatively homogeic all over the world.)

So many of similar, much older historical facts have been lost who could provide explanations for linguistical occurences today. There are huge migrations we can't reconstruct, and centuries without sources where people obviously stopped writing things down for a while but never stopped talking about them. So, I regarded the linguistic genealogies always more as a tool, though not in the sense of made up or improvised, because I am aware how meticulously every word and its history is being reconstructed and tracked down to its roots.

(Hope I made sense, all in all.)[/quote:51f17d41c6]

You made perfect sense to me. I find it equally difficult to believe all language would have spread naturally from one area. I think it requires some sort of benefit for the people who spoke that language. I could quite see easily that happen, though. Standard Dutch itself spread because of the economic dominance of the region it originated in (the two northwestern provinces that make up Holland - because of its importance for the whole country the name is now often used to describe the whole country). I think it is likely the Indo-Europeans had better tools, some sort of evolutionary advantage or some other military, economic or social benefit.

Language does not evolve without outside stimulation. Individuals do not change their language if they are isolated. It is always an outside influence. I think every development in language can be traced back to some sort of historical fact, however insignificant.

Edit to change a word and to add:
I personally support Ebonics. I seem to remember Chomsky (could have been another linguist, not sure) proved that their grammatical structure is just as complicated as that of any other form of English. There seems to be plenty of linguistic evidence for dialect status.

I don't think it isolates, they will still learn to speak standard English because it is beneficial in society. It will only lead to a lack of understanding if its speakers choose not to integrate into society, but in that case they have already isolated themselves. It is still not the cause. It is simply the recognition of a dialect and an attempt at removing the social stigmatisation surrounding it. I don't see how this treatment really differs from the treatment that should be given any dialect of English.

About The development of languages:
I remember reading something about an isolated town in the apalacian mountains where they spoke a dialect of english very simmiler to the one spoken in 17th century England. This supports the theory that languages don't change on their own.

If we are going to discuss Ebonics, we might as well discuss Spanglish and Chicano while we are at it..

[quote:92bcd067fd="Maljonic"]I remember in my English language studies a few years ago we talked about a girl called Jeannie (sp?) who spent all her life up until she was a teenager locked in a room, with no one to speak to. Does anyone else know of this story, I think it was in California somewhere?

Anyway a lot of language experts, as well as social worker of course, were very interested in her to see if she was able to develop a language or not. It's sort of the kind of experiment they've always wanted to try, isolating a human from any source of language to see what would happen, but couldn't for obvious reasons.[/quote:92bcd067fd]

Do you know what the results were? I'm interested to know how that was handled and what they found out. This conversation is very interesting.

As a product of a very secluded group of people who came together in the late 60's and pretty much isolated thier children from the outside world, we grew up pretty much all speaking with the same accent and grasp of english and our little 'cult language'. Even if our parents were not American or English, we all ended up with a sort of unplaceable 'mid-atlantic' sort of accent.

Also, because of our relative seclusion from the 'system' we developed this bizzare sort of language. Alot of it was derrivative of the hippy era (far out, grrovy, heavy, etc..) when out parents had left the 'system' or 'dropped out' and some of it was old Christian terms. Like using the word 'sheep' to mean anyone who was willing to hear the 'message' and being 'on fire' meant that you were really stoked and excited (to do gods will, of course) and stuff like that.

(you can tell what 'sysem' means, can't you? according to the cult, I am now a 'systemite')

[quote:1f69d29802="OmKranti"][quote:1f69d29802="Maljonic"]I remember in my English language studies a few years ago we talked about a girl called Jeannie (sp?) who spent all her life up until she was a teenager locked in a room, with no one to speak to. Does anyone else know of this story, I think it was in California somewhere?

Anyway a lot of language experts, as well as social worker of course, were very interested in her to see if she was able to develop a language or not. It's sort of the kind of experiment they've always wanted to try, isolating a human from any source of language to see what would happen, but couldn't for obvious reasons.[/quote:1f69d29802]

Do you know what the results were? I'm interested to know how that was handled and what they found out. This conversation is very interesting.[/quote:1f69d29802]
I encountered this too. It was used as evidence for a window of opportunity in being able to learn to speak fluently (said to lie somewhere before the age of 14). Jeannie was older than that (16 or 17, I seem to remember) and only ever managed a limited vocabulary and a rudimentary grasp of grammar.

It was used to underpin the theory that a child can only develop language skills without problems in early childhood. I assume this is because the right parts of the brain are still developing at that time.

[quote:1f69d29802="Buzzfloyd"][quote:1f69d29802="Cynical_Youth"]You made perfect sense to me. I find it equally difficult to believe all language would have spread naturally from one area. I think it requires some sort of benefit for the people who spoke that language. I could quite see easily that happen, though. Standard Dutch itself spread because of the economic dominance of the region it originated in (the two northwestern provinces that make up Holland - because of its importance for the whole country the name is now often used to describe the whole country). I think it is likely the Indo-Europeans had better tools, some sort of evolutionary advantage or some other military, economic or social benefit. [/quote:1f69d29802]
What Hsing proposes and what CY says here is what I understood the current theory to be anyway. Perhaps I have missed something?[/quote:1f69d29802]

Yeah, that is the current theory, but it does not seem to fit the rigidness of the language tree as a concept. I think that was what Hsing meant.

[quote:1f69d29802="Buzzfloyd"]There is actually evidence that language development causes the direction of cognitive development, so there is an argument to be made from that point of view; isolationist language can be a major cause in isolationist thinking, whereas language change can be a powerful tool in changing attitudes and understanding. For example, the importance of 'inclusive language' in changing perceptions of women and their role in society.[/quote:1f69d29802]
I do think language can have newspeakesque effects. I'd have thought the communities involved need to be isolated in the first place for that to happen, though. If the communities are on equal footing, they will assimilate parts of each other. I see language as a tool that re-affirms differences. The differences have to be there to cause the isolation in the first place. I'm not sure it is the cause. I do see that there will always be differences between communities, however, so I guess you may as well see it as the cause.

In the Ebonics issue, I've noticed that my dad and his contemporaries use many phrases that would be considered that, I wonder if this is another product of blacks and irish stuck in the same level of society for a while.

example: "He does be doing it."
"It does be like that from time to time".

(then again, the part of Ireland my dad's from does basically use Gaelic grammar for a lot of things- I find it very funny that he doesn't always distinguish between 'hand' and 'arm' or between 'leg' and 'foot'. Apparently Irish has one word for each limb and considers that plenty.)

I don't know too many black suburbanites who speak in Ebonics. My black suburban friends tended to speak better "standard American" English than my urban black friends. Not saying that young people from the suburbs didn't have their own slang, now. And the few urban white kids that I knew (myself excluded) tended to speak 'Ebonically' (I really dislike that term), even to the point of using what is now called euphemistically in polite society "the 'n' word" to just mean "person". Of course though, all of this was outside of school, inside school everyone pretty much spoke the same.

I don't really agree with the idea of teaching classes in Ebonics. I think that it has, if anyone even does teach like that, the inadvertant side effect of keeping black people from being able to fully succeed. I wonder if there are people out there who argue that classes should also be taught in "redneckinese" in those appropriate places.

I agree it's more "urban" speech than black speech. I'm white from Brooklyn and in an informal situation, I've been known to say things like "Don't be doing that". (I think I've stopped speaking like this after living in England for a while.) But I would never speak that way in a professional or formal situation.

I used to work for the criminal justice system, working with poor defendants and prisoners, and I would speak to them with my "urban" accent so they would find it easier to talk to me. I spoke "proper" English when I spoke with judges and lawyers, though.

The problem occurs when you can't tell the difference.

[quote:70c5885680="QuothTheRaven"]About The development of languages:
I remember reading something about an isolated town in the apalacian mountains where they spoke a dialect of english very simmiler to the one spoken in 17th century England. This supports the theory that languages don't change on their own.

If we are going to discuss Ebonics, we might as well discuss Spanglish and Chicano while we are at it..[/quote:70c5885680]

I have heard about things like that as well; like an island that was colonised by shipwrecked Irish sailors (well...let's be honest, pirates) where the people still speak with an Irish accent today. If that were true I think it would be amazing. I don't think languages change on their own- people amalgamate and bastardize new words and phrases into their own language, or speak a new language with an accent determined by their original tongue.

Well, it's a bit like French Canadian or Quebecois, that's kind of a mixture of 18th century French and words that are directly translated from English to avoid using any English words, the whole thing is ridiculous actually, they get really paranoid about not using english words and don't even notice that half their vocabulary is just frechisized English... Like using the word "chum" for "boy/girlfriend", it is not a French word guys !!!! I mean they even make a point of translating anything in a movie title that could be English, even the French don't do that !

Well, yes, obviously there's a reason, there's a good reason for a lot of silly things, does that stop them being silly ?

There is a very long history of animosity between French-Canadians and Anglo-Canadians and French Canada has had a strong separatist movement.

French Canadian culture is just as "valid" as Anglo-Canadian culture. Considering the geography and political makeup of the country, it's understandable how some French-Canadians could feel threatened.

Unlike French Canada, the people of France do not have to live in a country where the language spoken in the seat of their government, and the majority of the country, differs from their own.

Hmmm. Interesting stuff.

Here in Ireland, a lot of older people, who have Gaelige as their first language, would use Irish grammar translated directly, ie "There is a new hat on me" for "I have a new hat". ("Tá hata nua agam)

Roisín, yeah, leg/foot is cos, (cosanna pl.) and hand/arm is lamh, (lámha(sp?) pl.).

[quote:7e0f18e781="Buzzfloyd"]Interestingly, though, the French are known in for being particularly protective of their language - more so than other Europeans. Perhaps there is a cultural element that was carried over from France as well as the desire inherent among a minority to preserve their identity?[/quote:7e0f18e781]

Oh they're worse than protective, they're obsessed with the damn language... or they totally don't care and butcher it, it seems to be one extreme or the other. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the French-Canadian culture isn't valid or that their obsession with the language isn't understandable, it's just some of the technicalities that seem very silly to me, like the paradox of going over the top to frechify every single word in a movie title (sometimes even names) and then using English words in everyday language... But hey, every language has its particularities, GGodG knows French French is often ridiculous, and English can be too...