What is African American Vernacular English (AAVE)?
African American Vernacular English, is a dialect of Standard American English which is primarily spoken by the black community of the United States. You’ll commonly hear it in cities across America and on SoundCloud.
Please note that AAVE is not one finite set of vocabulary and grammar. It encompasses a bunch of sub-sub-sets which can vary from region to region. E.g., New York vs. Chicago.
AAVE is NOT Broken English
Both linguists and sociolinguists post-1970s have agreed that AAVE is in fact, a proper form of English, despite how it may appear and sound. Initially during the boom of linguistics and sociolinguistics, it was referred to as “Nonstandard Negro English”
The difference between a dialect and broken usage of the parent language is consistency. AAVE has consistent grammar, phonetics, and vocabulary, making it a d definite dialect.
Therefore, it is NOT broken English. However, a lot of music produced in AAVE (rap, drill, hip-hop, etc.) has been turned into slang with people taking parts of AAVE whether it be a portion of grammar, or vocabulary and then mixing it with their primary dialect (usually Standard American English) which can lead to inconsistency.
Grammar in AAVE
AAVE has a lot of interesting grammar rules. Arguably, the most notable feature is the use of double negatives. For instance, “he ain’t no op” would mean “he is not a cop” where “no” would NOT cancel our “ain’t”
The proper term for two negatives that don’t cancel each other in linguistics is called a negative concord.
Next, there is the notable deletion of verbal copulas. A verbal copula is simply a connector (word/phrase) that connects the subject and its complement. So in “the world is round” “is” is the copula. However, in AAVE you might hear “the world round” where the copula “is” is omitted.
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