Editing African-American English (section)

==Dialects==
===African-American Vernacular English===
{{Main|African-American Vernacular English}}
African-American Vernacular (AAVE) is the native [[variety (linguistics)|variety]] of the majority of [[working-class]] and many [[African-American middle class|middle-class]] [[African Americans]], particularly in urban areas,{{sfnp|Edwards|2004|p=383}} with its own unique accent, grammar, and vocabulary features. Typical features of the grammar include a [[zero copula|"zero" copula]] (e.g., ''she my sister'' instead of ''she's my sister''),<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Labov|1972|p=8}}</ref> omission of the genitive clitic (e.g., ''my momma friend'' instead of ''my mom's friend''),<ref name="Green 2002 119–121">{{Harvcoltxt|Green|2002|pp=119–121}}</ref> and complexity of verb aspects and tenses beyond that of other English dialects (e.g., constructions like ''I'm a-run'', ''I be running'', ''I been runnin'', ''I done ran'').<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Fickett|1972|pp=17–19}}</ref> Common features of the phonology include [[Rhoticity in English|non-rhoticity]] (dropping the ''r'' sound at the end of syllables),<ref name="Green 2002 119–121"/> the [[Metathesis (linguistics)|metathetic use]] of ''aks'' instead of ''ask'',<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Baugh|2000|pp=92–94}}</ref> simplification of diphthongs (e.g., ''eye'' typically sounds like ''ah''),<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Labov|1972|p=19}}</ref> a [[raising (phonetics)|raising]] [[chain shift]] of the [[front vowel]]s,<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Thomas | first1 = Erik | year = 2007 | title = Phonological and phonetic characteristics of AAVE | journal = Language and Linguistics Compass | volume = 1 | pages = 450–475 | doi = 10.1111/j.1749-818X.2007.00029.x }}</ref> and a wider range of intonation or "melody" patterns than most [[General American]] accents.<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|McWhorter|2001|pp=146–147}}</ref> AAVE is often used by middle-class African Americans in casual, intimate, and informal settings as one end of a sociocultural language continuum,<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Linnes|1998|pp=339–367}}</ref> and AAVE shows some slight variations by region or city.<ref>Walt Wolfram and Mary E. Kohn, "The regional development of African American Language"; in [[Sonja Lanehart]], [[Lisa Green (linguist)|Lisa Green]], and Jennifer Bloomquist, eds., ''The Oxford Handbook on African American Language'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp.&nbsp;149–151.</ref>

===African-American Standard English===
African-American Standard English, a term largely popularized by linguist Arthur Spears, is the prestigious and native end of the middle-class African-American English continuum that is used for more formal, careful, or public settings than AAVE. This variety exhibits [[standard English]] vocabulary and grammar but often retains certain elements of the unique AAVE accent,{{sfnp|Rickford|2015|pp=302, 310}}{{sfnp|Spears|2015}} with intonational or rhythmic features maintained more than phonological ones.<ref name="Green 2002 125">{{harvnb|Green|2002|p=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780521891387/page/125 125]}}</ref> Frequently, middle-class African Americans are [[wikt:bidialectal|bi-dialectal]] between this standard variety and AAVE, tending toward using the former variety in school and other public places, so that adults will frequently even [[codeswitch]] between the two varieties within a single conversation. The phonological features maintained in this standard dialect tend to be less [[markedness|marked]].<ref name="Green 2002 125"/> For instance, one such characteristic is the omission of the final consonant in word-final [[consonant clusters]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/what-ebonics-african-american-english|title=What is Ebonics (African American English)? {{!}} Linguistic Society of America|website=www.linguisticsociety.org|language=en|access-date=2018-04-01}}</ref> so words such as ''past'' or ''hand'' may lose their final consonant sound.{{sfnp|Green|2002|pp=107–116}}

===African-American Appalachian English===
Black [[Appalachian Americans]] have been reported as increasingly adopting [[Appalachian English|Appalachian]]/[[Southern American English|Southern dialect]] commonly associated with White Appalachians. These similarities include an accent that is rhotic, the categorical use of the grammatical construction "he works" or "she goes" (rather than the AAVE "he work" and "she go"), and Appalachian vocabulary (such as ''airish'' for "windy"). However, even African-American English in [[Appalachia]] is diverse, with African-American women linguistically divided along sociocultural lines.<ref>Wolfram, Walt. (2013). "[http://artsandsciences.sc.edu/appalachianenglish/sites/default/files/African%20American%20Speech%20in%20Appalachia.pdf African American speech in southern Appalachia]". In ''Talking Appalachian: Voice, Identity, and Community'', edited by Nancy Hayward and Amy Clark. pp. 81–93.</ref>

Despite its distinctiveness, AAAE shares many features with other varieties of Appalachian English, including the use of nonstandard pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. AAAE also shares features with other varieties of African American English, particularly those spoken in the South. For instance, a study of African American communities in the Appalachian region of Virginia found that the dialects of these communities shared many features with both African American English and Southern White English.<ref>{{Cite book |author1=Fasold, R. W. |author2=Wolfram, W. |date=1977 |title=Appalachian speech. Arlington, VA: Center for Applied Linguistics. |publisher=Center for Applied Linguistics, 1611 N |url=https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED130511}}</ref>

===African-American Outer Banks English===
African-American English in the North Carolina [[Outer Banks]] is rapidly accommodating to urban AAVE through the recent generations, despite having aligned with local [[High Tider|Outer Banks English]] for centuries.<ref>Wolfram, Walt; Kohn, Mary E. (forthcoming). "[https://www.academia.edu/20295897/The_Regional_Development_of_African_American_Language The regional development of African American Language]". In [[Sonja Lanehart]], [[Lisa Green (linguist)|Lisa Green]], and Jennifer Bloomquist (eds.), ''The Oxford Handbook on African American Language''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 154.</ref>

The dialect has been studied by linguists and has been documented in various works, such as the book African American Outer Banks English: A Sociolinguistic Study by Elizabeth C. Zsiga (2000). This book provides a detailed description of the language, including its grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. It also provides a history of the dialect and examines how it has changed over time.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zsiga |first=Elizabeth C |title=African American Outer Banks English: A Sociolinguistic Study. |publisher=Z |year=2000}}</ref>

===African Nova Scotian English===
African Nova Scotian English is spoken by descendants of [[Black Nova Scotians]], black immigrants from the [[United States]] who live in [[Nova Scotia]], Canada. Though most [[Fugitive slaves in the United States|African-American freedom seekers]] in Canada ended up in Ontario through the [[Underground Railroad]], only the dialect of African Nova Scotians retains the influence of West African pidgin.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Clarke |first1=George Elliott |title=Odysseys home: Mapping African-Canadian literature |url=https://archive.org/details/odysseyshomemapp00clar |url-access=registration |publisher=University of Toronto Press |isbn=978-0802081919|date=January 2002 }}</ref> In the 19th century, African Nova Scotian English would have been indistinguishable from English spoken in [[Jamaica]] or [[Suriname]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Clarke |first1=Sandra |title=Focus on Canada |date=1993 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/12615667 |publisher=Amsterdam; Philadelphia: J. Benjamins Pub. Co |language=en}}</ref> However, it has been increasingly de-creolized since this time, due to interaction and influence from the white Nova Scotian population. [[Racial desegregation|Desegregation]] of the province's school boards in 1964 further accelerated the process of de-creolization. The language is a relative of the [[African-American Vernacular English]], with significant variations unique to the group's history in the area.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mufwene |first1=Salikoko S. |last2=Bailey |first2=Guy |last3=Rickford |first3=John R. |last4=Baugh |first4=John |title=African-American English: Structure, History, and Use |date=1998 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=9780415117333 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Cambridge" />{{examples|date=December 2019}} There are noted differences in the dialects of those from [[Guysborough County]] (Black Loyalists), and those from [[North Preston]] (Black Refugees), the Guysborough group having been in the province three generations earlier.<ref name="Cambridge" />{{examples|date=December 2019}}

{{Harvcoltxt|Howe|Walker|2000}} use data from early recordings of African Nova Scotian English, [[Samaná English]], as well as the recordings of former slaves to demonstrate that speech patterns were inherited from nonstandard colonial English.{{sfnp|Howe|Walker|2000|p=110}} The dialect was extensively studied in 1992 by Shana Poplack and Sali Tagliamonte from the University of Ottawa.<ref name="Cambridge">{{cite journal |last1=Tagliamonte |first1=Sali |last2=Poplack |first2=Shana |title=African American English in the diaspora: Evidence from old-line Nova Scotians |journal=Language Variation and Change |date=1991 |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=301–339 |doi=10.1017/S0954394500000594 |s2cid=59147893 |language=en |issn=1469-8021|url=http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/46be/8b3335480643c24ae76f15b33c8be848fa54.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190223113512/http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/46be/8b3335480643c24ae76f15b33c8be848fa54.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=2019-02-23 }}</ref>

The grammar of ANS is largely based on standard English, but there are several distinct features that set it apart from other varieties of English. These features include the use of the negative concord—which is the use of multiple negative words in a sentence to emphasize the negative—and the double negative, which is the use of two negative words in a sentence to express a positive meaning. In addition, ANS also has its own pronunciation rules, such as the use of the letter “d” instead of “th” and the dropping of the “g” in words ending in “ing”.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cappelli |first=P. |title=African Nova Scotian English. In A. D. Tongue (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of World Englishes |year=2016 |pages=547–563}}</ref>

A commonality between African Nova Scotian English and African-American Vernacular English is [[Rhoticity in English|(r)-deletion]]. This rate of deletion is 57% among Black Nova Scotians, and 60% among African Americans in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, in the surrounding mostly white communities of Nova Scotia, (r)-deletion does not occur.<ref>{{cite conference |last1=Walker |first1=James |title=The /r/-ful Truth about African Nova Scotian English |date=October 1995 |url=http://www.yorku.ca/jamesw/rless.pdf |access-date=18 March 2019 |conference=New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAVE) conference, University of Pennsylvania}}</ref>

===Older African-American English===
Older or earlier African-American English refers to a set of many heterogeneous varieties studied and reconstructed by linguists as [[Theoretical linguistics|theoretically spoken]] by the first African Americans and enslaved Africans in [[British America]] and, later, the United States. Of primary interest is the direct theoretical predecessor to AAVE. Mainly four types of sources have been used for the historical reconstruction of older AAVE: written interviews, ex-slave audio recordings, the modern [[African-American diaspora|diaspora]] dialects of isolated black communities, and letters written by 18th- and 19th-century African Americans.{{sfnp|Kautzsch|2004|pp=342–344}} The use of the [[zero copula]] (the absence of ''is'' or ''are'', as in ''she gon' leave''), nonstandard plural forms (''the three man'', ''mans'', or even ''mens'') and [[multiple negative]]s (as in ''no one didn't leave me nothing'') were occasional or common variants in these earlier dialects, and the latter item even the preferred variant in certain grammatical contexts.{{sfnp|Kautzsch|2004|pp=347–349}} Other nonstandard grammatical constructions associated with AAVE are documented in older dialects too; however, many of them are not, evidently being recent innovations of 20th-century urban AAVE.{{sfnp|Kautzsch|2004|pp=347}}

===Gullah===
[[Gullah language|Sea Island Creole English]], or "Gullah", is the distinct language of some African Americans along the South Carolina and Georgia coast.<ref name="ecology_gullah">{{cite journal | last1 = Mufwene | first1 = Salikoko | year = 1997 | title = The ecology of Gullah's survival | journal = American Speech | volume = 72 | issue = 1| pages = 69–83 | doi = 10.2307/455608 | jstor = 455608 }}</ref> Gullah is an [[English creole]]: a natural language grammatically independent from English that uses mostly English vocabulary. Most Gullah speakers today are probably bidialectal.<ref name="ecology_gullah" /> A sub-dialect of Gullah is also spoken in Oklahoma and Texas, known as [[Afro-Seminole Creole]].<ref>{{Cite web |last= |date=2014-03-28 |title=Creoles in Texas – "The Afro-Seminoles" {{!}} International Magazine Kreol |url=https://kreolmagazine.com/culture/history-and-culture/creoles-in-texas-the-afro-seminoles/ |access-date=2023-12-07 |language=en-US}}</ref>

The language is derived from a mixture of African languages and English, with words and phrases from Caribbean and West African languages such as Akan, Wolof, and Fula. Gullah has been described as a “linguistic bridge between Africa and the New World” (“Gullah Culture”). The Gullah culture is deeply rooted in African traditions, particularly in the practice of storytelling and the use of handicrafts. Gullahs have a strong connection to the land, and their traditional fishing, farming, and basket-weaving practices reflect this. In recent years, efforts have been made to preserve Gullah culture and language. The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission was established in 2006 to help protect and promote the Gullah culture. The commission has partnered with universities, museums, and other organizations to develop programs and initiatives to preserve Gullah language and traditions.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor |url=https://www.nps.gov/guge/index.htm. |website=National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior}}</ref>