::It's still dialectical, however, like Gullah, and inappropriate as a
::basis for standard English. Further, use of the dialect effectively
::condemns the user to a lower socio-economic status, which seems very unfair.
::Upward mobility is usually preceded by change in language to that of the
::upper group. It almost seemed like the Ebonics movement was determined
::to keep the poor in their place.
Since my degree actually happens to be linguistics ...
BEV/Ebonics is considered a valid dialect, and the rules of it are
documented. Where linguistics makes no comment is the appropriateness
or social applicability, or even correctness. If people say it and
other people understand it, then it's grammatical. Anyone who says
otherwise is William F. Buckley, Jr. :-)
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser_at_ptloma.edu
-- It's not enough to be Hungarian. You must have talent too. -- Alex Korda ---
Received on Thu Mar 09 2000 - 21:00:44 GMT