Jive (dialect)
| African-American English | |
|---|---|
| Black English | |
| Region | United States |
| Ethnicity | African Americans |
|
Indo-European
|
|
|
Latin (English alphabet) American Braille |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | None |
African-American English (AAE), also known in North America as Black English, is the set of English dialects primarily used by most African Americans and also some Black Canadians.African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), known less precisely as Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular (BEV), Black Vernacular English (BVE), or colloquially Ebonics (a controversial term), is the native variety (dialect, ethnolect and sociolect) of most working- and middle-class African Americans, particularly in urban communities, with its own unique accent, grammar, and vocabulary features. Middle-class African Americans, who are typically (and who often codeswitch), employ African-American Vernacular English in casual, intimate, and informal settings as one end of a sociolinguistic continuum. On the other end of this continuum is a prestigious cultivated variety, African American Standard English, employed for more formal or public settings and exhibiting standard English vocabulary and grammar, though retaining elements of the nonstandard accent.
African-American English shares a large portion of its grammar and phonology with the rural dialects of the Southern United States, and especially older Southern American English. Mainstream linguists maintain that the parallels between African-American Vernacular English and West African and English-based creole languages are real but minor, with African-American Vernacular English still falling under the English language, demonstrably tracing back to the diverse nonstandard dialects of early English settlers in the Southern United States. However, a minority of linguists argue that the vernacular shares so many characteristics with African creole languages spoken around the world that it could have started as, or could be, its own separate creole or semi-creole language.
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