Ebonics

I decided to write about how the English language is used in African American literature. Most of the stories that we read out of the Norton Anthology of African American Literature had Ebonics. When you look up African American literature the term Ebonics automatically comes up with it. They defined it to be English for African Americans, Black English, or what they call “black speech” (a blend of the words ebony “black” and phonics “sounds”). I will be explaining what African American Language is, who created it, and also how it is used differently now than it was when it first originated.
African American Language is mostly described as Ebonics. Ebonics is defined as American Black English regarded as a language in its own right rather
“The term was created in 1973 by a group of black scholars who disliked the negative connotations of terms like 'Nonstandard Negro English' that had been coined in the 1960s when the first modern large-scale linguistic studies of African American speech-communities began”(Rickford 92). It is unsure where Ebonics came from. Some may say that it could have come from English indentured servants and other workers who African slaves interacted with. Others say that Ebonics came from Africa and it is a mix between English and west African English. Some even found similarities between Ebonics and Caribbean creole English. In December of 1996 in Oakland (CA) there was an Ebonics controversy, the school board ended up recognizing it as the primary language of its majority, most of the African American students were speaking it, so the teachers began teaching Ebonics instead of standard/ academic
Some of them have the same meaning but are just said differently. And some words we have changed and given a different meaning for but words like chillin’ that means I am relaxing, (instead of being cold) or kitchen the especially kinky hair at the nape of one's neck (instead of an actual kitchen that you cook in). “Unlike many slang terms, these 'black' words have been around for ages, they are not restricted to particular regions or age groups, and they are virtually unknown (in their 'black' meanings) outside the African American community” (Rickford 43). In Ebonics there are also rules and restrictions. Ebonics normally have sentences without present tense is and are. For example “Sarah trippin’ or “They aiight”. Ebonics speakers do not omit present tense am, instead of I am walking they would say “Ahm walkin”. They are somewhat used as contractions in sentences or phrases. “For example, if an Ebonics speaker were to say, “We be having so much fun together!” they don’t realize that according to Ebonics “be” is the correct term to use describing something past tense or something that usually happens as opposed to standard English” (Taylor