Editing African-American English (section)

===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>