In December 1996, national attention in the United States turned to a new resolution passed by the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). The controversial resolution defined what it called “Ebonics” as a language separate from English, so as to better meet the needs of the district’s African American student population whose way of speaking was being misunderstood and corrected by teachers who believed it to be slang or improper English. The aim of the resolution was to familiarize educators with AAVE and expand the district’s bilingual program to AAVE speakers. The decision was met with immediate backlash from politicians—such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who called the resolution “an unacceptable surrender” and “borderlining on disgrace.” Less than a month later the Linguistic Society of America unanimously passed a statement that supported the decision of the OUSD, citing the systematic nature of Ebonics as a valid reason for it to be recognized as a distinct linguistic system.
Why was Ebonics such a source of controversy in the 1990s? Does that controversy still exist?
Today Ebonics is known as African American Vernacular English (AAVE). It is considered by academics to be a specific way of speaking within the larger categorization of African American English (AAE), or Black English. AAVE specifically refers to the form of Black speech that distinguishes itself from standard English with its unique grammatical structure, pronunciation, and vocabulary.
The origins of AAVE are not clear. Some theories consider AAVE to be a surviving form of 18th-century English, noting that stringent rules governing subject-verb agreement are a recent development and that the syntax of older English matches the speech patterns of modern AAVE. This idea is supported by AAVE’s similarity to accents of the American South, which represent the accents of the white indentured servants whom enslaved Africans worked alongside on plantations. Others propose that AAVE matches the grammatical structure and pronunciation of West African languages and Creole English varieties, pointing to the respective cultural groups as the origins of AAVE.
Regardless of origin, AAVE is usually negatively perceived in white-dominated professional spaces, such as politics and academia, in the United States. Historically, AAVE has been regarded by many sectors of American society as a sign of lower socioeconomic status and a lack of formal education. These perceptions greatly fueled the backlash against the Oakland resolution. Today many Black people in America face discrimination for the way they speak; many AAVE speakers rely on code-switching to actively change the way they talk to different groups. For some, this is a way of advancing one’s career in predominantly white professions, but for others it is a means of survival against police brutality and the violent repercussions of systemic racism.
For proponents of making AAVE a language, the status of a stand-alone language legitimizes the history and systematic nature of AAVE and ensures that educators will be better prepared to teach Black students. Furthermore, granting AAVE the status of a language addresses the lack of knowledge among non-Black Americans concerning AAVE’s unique linguistic systems and rules, which are commonly perceived as erroneous diversions from standard English. The legitimization of AAVE can also potentially reduce or replace the need for Black professionals to constantly rely on code-switching in their careers.
Opponents of treating AAVE as a language often cite it as a symptom of the socioeconomic and cultural conditions of Black communities. John McWhorter, a Black linguist, states that Oakland’s proposal would not help African American students because “inner city backgrounds do not prepare many children to be receptive to education in school,” noting his belief in the inherent discrepancy between education and the cultural environment in which AAVE is used.
AAVE’s linguistic classification is still debated among academics, with some who argue that its proximity to standard English renders it a dialect of English, not a language. Critics of such a classification point out the social implications of subordinating AAVE in such a manner, citing AAVE’s unique grammatical structure and lexicon as justification for identifying it as a stand-alone language. Some also challenge standard English’s stringency and pervasiveness. Regardless of AAVE’s status, correcting or dismissing someone’s way of communicating is inherently discriminatory.
As the AAVE lexicon (e.g., “spilling tea,” “lit,” “woke”) makes its way into standard English, the debate about AAVE’s status that caught fire in 1996 is still ongoing. Despite the precedent from the Oakland schools’ resolution and academic opinion from linguists that establishes AAVE as a historically and culturally significant linguistic system, many institutions and individuals still regard AAVE as a broken and grammatically incorrect variation of standard English, negatively impacting the quality of education, livelihoods, and careers of Black people in America.