Talk:Ebonics (word)

Ebonic Plague

In 1996, when the Oakland School Board announced that students would begin getting school credit for speaking Ebonics, there was a national outcry of criticism. The TV show "Saturday Night Live" created a skit that mocked the school board. The plot of the skit was an outbreak of the "Ebonic Plague" which caused members of the skit (all white) to suddenly begin talking in a patois. It was hilarious and evidently the last straw. The school board backed down soon after.

--cheers 70.153.13.175 (talk) 22:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)Titus

Ernie Smith writes: For the totally uninitiated Wikipedia reader,on the issue of whether Ebonics is a language or dialect; I should make it clear here that, although there might be in socio and geopolitical circles, and TV skits, in the field of linguistics there is not and there has never been a debate as to whether Ebonics is a ‘language’ or a ‘dialect’. In linguistics it is axiomatic that human languages differ and there are no languages that do not, in varying degrees, have social or regional (geographical) dialects. Therefore, as in the case of all human languages, Ebonics is both a language and a dialect. Ebonics is a language because it is a system of communication for transmitting human thoughts. Ebonics is a dialect because within the common core, systematic, rule governed and predictable rules of gammar that makes Ebonics a language, there are variations in Ebonics that are related to socio-economic and geographical diffences that exist between the speakers.

Given that Ebonics is in fact a language, the crux of the issue at hand and the question that must be addressed is; to which language family, as a dialect, does the language ‘Ebonics’ belong? In other words, the real Ebonics debate is whether the empirical or hard evidence supports the thesis that, on the basis of continuity of the morphology and morpho-syntax (rules of grammar)is the language of African Americans (i.e., descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans) genetically akin to the Germanic language family to which English belongs? Or based the criterion of continuity of the morphology and morpho-syntax or rules of grammar, is Ebonics genetically akin to the Niger-Congo and Bantu languages of Africa and as such a neo African dialect that is the linguistic continuation of the Niger-Congo and Bantu language family in diaspora?

References

Kifano S., Smith E. A, (2005) Ebonics and Education in Context of Culture: Meeting Language and Cultural Needs of LEP African American Children Edited by J. Ramirez et. al. Buffalo Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Smith E. A. (1974) The Evolution and Continuing Presence of the African Oral Tradition In Black Ameica. Irvine. University of California at Irvine.

Smith E.A. (1976) A Case for Bilingual and Bicultural Education for United States Slave Descendants of African Origin Department of Linguistics Seminar Papers Series No 39 Edited By A. Kaye and D. Sears California State University Fullerton, Fullerton

Smith E.A. (1978) Historical Development of Ebonics In The Western Journal of Black Studies. Pullman Washington State University Press

Smith E.A. (1993) Black Child In the Schools: Ebonics and its Implications for the Transformation of American Education In Bicultural Education Studies In Education Edited by A. Darder, Claremont, Claremont Graduate School

Smith E. A., Crozier K. (1998) Ebonics Is Not Black English In The Western Journal of Black Studies. Pullman Washington State University Press

Smith E.A. (1993) Cultural and Linguistic Factors in Worker Notification to Blue Collar and No-Collar African American Workers In American Journal of Industrial Medicine Edited by Philip J. Landrigan, Irving J. Seliokoff et. al. New York. Wiley-Liss

Smith E.A (2001) Ebonics and Bilingual Education of the African American Child In Ebonics and Language Education of African Ancestry Students Edited by Clinton Crawford Brooklyn Sankofa World Publishers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk) 07:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Back to the matter of parody, etc.

Oh yes, the prosody or phonological segments or even morphology of language A may sound funny to speakers of language B -- just as those of language B may sound funny to speakers of language A. To me, as a non-sociolinguist, this seems profoundly banal; beyond this, I'm mildly depressed by the urges of my fellow-humans to place people in in- and out-groups. And that's about the extent of my own interest.

However, Baugh does devote a chapter (eight, pp 87-99) of his book Beyond Ebonics to "Racist Reactions and Ebonics Satire".

Much of this chapter of Baugh's is about racist reactions to and satire of AAVE (or whatever you care to call it). (Baugh here deals with Cosby and such people.) So far as this is encyclopedic, I'm sure it should go in African American Vernacular English.

However, a substantial amount of the chapter is specific to the term Ebonics (with drearily jocular derivatives such as "Hebonics" and "Mathabonics") and there is even a little about the Afrocentric concept of Ebonics. This material probably is encyclopedic -- after all, it rates a substantial chunk of a chapter of an academic book. If it merits summarizing anywhere in WP, it should go in this article. For a number of reasons, I'm reluctant to do this work. However, anyone who'd like to do so now knows where to look for material. -- Hoary (talk) 02:20, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Lead

What seems to have been the stable 1st sentence:"Ebonics is a term that was originally intended and sometimes used for the language of all people of African ancestry, or for that of Black North American and West African people " is clearly wrong, judging by the passage quoted from the book below. Perhaps "in the US" was implied, but we don't do things that way in WP. Actual African languages are clearly not intended to be included. The passage from the book begs a number of questions - are French-based patois covered? African versions of Arabic? Why just West Africa? I have tried another version. Johnbod (talk) 12:41, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Here's Williams, as quoted below:

"the linguistic and paralinguistic features which on a concentric continuum represent the communicative competence of the West African, Caribbean, and United States slave descendant [sic] of African origin. [...]"

(my emphasis). Now, this strikes me as peculiarly bad writing ("on a concentric continuum") toward a characterization of language that, so far as I start to understand it, is mushy at best. But that's what this non-linguist wrote -- or so we are told in books that are themselves reliable. Taken together with the sourced assertion in the article that --

Other writers have since emphasized how the term represents a view of the language of Black people as African rather than European.

--it's clear to me as a reader that yes, this conception of "Ebonics" does indeed include African versions of Arabic, African French, and so forth. And thus it's clear to me as somebody at a low rung (but not the absolute bottom rung) of linguistics that this notion makes no sense either genetically [note to the easily outraged: genetic is here a linguistics term] or typologically, and therefore that it's a load of cobblers. But that's what it was intended to mean. -- Hoary (talk) 10:29, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

PS I happen to have Lisa Green's book with me. On p.7 she writes:

The view of Williams and other scholars who discussed this issue [sc. that of "Ebonics"] was that the language of black people had its roots in Niger-Congo languages of Africa, not in Indo-European languages. However, during the Oakland controversy, the media and general public adopted the term "Ebonics", using it interchangeably with the labels given earlier [sc. BEV, AAE, AAVE], thus not using the term as it was intended.

-- Hoary (talk) 10:43, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Trivia removal

I've removed this newly inserted bit:

Later, Ebonics resurfaced in American popular culture, for a moment at least, when the term was the question to an answer on the American quiz show Jeopardy!. When presented with the answer "It's a colloquial term for Black English", contestant Ken Jennings (whose run on the show broke records) replied "What be Ebonics?".

Momentary resurfacing in American popular culture strikes me as trivial, as does an appearance in Jeopardy. Plus there's no indication of when this happened, plus the assertion is unsourced. I've therefore removed it. -- Hoary (talk) 10:15, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

on "standard" and "nonstandard", and on "bias"

In this edit, Abductive changes

it has been largely used to refer to African American Vernacular English (distinctively nonstandard Black United States English)

to

it has been largely used to refer to African American Vernacular English

with the edit summary

Non-standard is a loaded term

Now, I've no doubt that this edit was intended well, but:

1. "African American Vernacular English" was in bold for a reason: to point the probably large number of readers arriving at "Ebonics" in order to read about what en:WP calls AAVE to the article where AAVE is described.
2. Removal of "(distinctively nonstandard Black United States English)" removes what might be a helpful reminder of the meaning of AAVE.
3. As any open minded person who has heard the speech of Barack Obama (just to name the best known among millions) will know, Black Americans are masters of standard American English. "Distinctively nonstandard Black US English" may well be bettered as a single mouthful to describe AAVE, and I'd happily see improvements, but it seems helpful and accurate.
4. "Non-standard" may indeed be a loaded term in other contexts or in the mouths of ignoramuses. But this is about linguistics and it's a standard term in linguistics. Books on linguistics (and not only sociolinguistics) routinely and correctly point out that it in no way implies inferiority. (See this as one example of a linguist contrasting AAVE with Standard English with no slight to the latter.)

In the following edit, Abductive changes

since 1996 it has been largely used to refer to African American Vernacular English, asserting the independence of this from (standard) English

to

since 1996 it has been largely used to refer to African American Vernacular English, as distinct from the General American dialect

with the edit summary

Toning down bias

There are problems here:

1. General American is indeed merely yet another variety of English (on a par with AAVE, British "Received Pronunciation", etc) and can be called a lect and perhaps a dialect. However, unless it comes with a brief explanation, this way of referring to it as a dialect is likely to confuse naive readers, who may well wrack their brains for some "general American dialect" to subsume Brooklyn, Boston, Texas, and all the other "regional" forms of US English.
2. As the article goes on to explain, the point about the term "Ebonics" was (is?) to assert the independence of this language from [standard] English (and not only from the General American lect thereof). Like it or not, as it was originally intended (and where it means more than does "AAVE"), "Ebonics" itself has ideological freight. Thus the "bias" is that of the term itself, not the description.

In the next edit, some IP tampers with writing explicitly attributed to Robert Williams. In the following edit I revert that. And in the edit after that one, I revert Abductive's changes too, bringing the article back to the form it was in back in early October (and perhaps earlier still), aside from one change to a category.

Again, I'm sure that Abductive had the best intentions. I think it's very likely that the wording and perhaps the content of this article could be improved, and welcome well-informed improvements from Abductive or anyone else. -- Hoary (talk) 23:36, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

What do the sources say? I'm troubled by the lack of sources on any of the sentences of the lead. Abductive (reasoning) 23:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. I probably shan't be able to go searching for sources for another 30 hours or so, but certainly I'll be willing to do so then. I don't quite know what it is that you want sourced, though. (For example, the assertion that "Ebonics" has ideological freight is explained later within the article.) -- Hoary (talk) 23:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment from User:Ernie A. Smith Ph.D.

In this edit, User:Ernie A. Smith Ph.D. added the following to the article:

Ernie Smith writes:

There are two issues conflated in Wikipedia that must be separated in order for a reader to have a cohesive understanding of the dispute regarding the origin and true meaning of word Ebonics. Firstly, the issue of the origin and true meaning of the word ‘Ebonics’ is a separate and distinctly different issue from the issue of whether the native language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans is a dialect of English and ipso facto genetically related to the Germanic language family to which English belongs. The essence of this second issue is; when in fact, in Indo-European linguistics, the most prevalent view is that, continuity of morphology constitutes the relevant evidence for positing genetic kinship, why do those who posit the language of descendants enslaved Niger-Congo Africans as being a dialect of English (an Indo-European language) reject continuity of morphology as being the relevant evidence and posit instead that it is continuity of the ‘English lexicon’ or dominant lexifier language i.e., ‘English-lexifier’ that is the relevant evidence that makes Ebonics a dialect of English?

Relative to the first issue, i.e., concerning the origin and true meaning of the word Ebonics, in an earlier edit that I submitted to Wikipedia I presented empirical evidence that word Ebonics was coined in January of 1973 by Dr. Robert L. Williams, an African American psychologist who was at that time a professor of psychology at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri. As further empirical evidence that Dr. Robert Williams coined the term Ebonics in 1973, I cite an Op. Ed. article written by Dr. Robert Williams in the January 28, 1997 issue of the St. Louis Post Dispatch. In this Op. Ed. article Dr. Williams presents excerpts from a tape recording made during a small group meeting of Black psychologists, linguists and speech and language scholars attending a conference in St Louis, Missouri on "The Cognitive and Language Development of the Black Child'. At this conference, funded by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), papers were presented by psychologists, linguists, special education experts, speech pathologists and language researchers from other disciplines who viewed the native language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans as being a dialect of English. Papers were likewise presented by psychologist, linguist, speech pathologists and language researchers who viewed the language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans as being a neo-African dialect that is genetically related to the Niger-Congo and Bantu languages of Africa.

In my earlier edit submission to Wikipedia I argued and presented empirical evidence that as coined and originally defined by the author of the word Ebonics (Dr. Robert Williams) the word ‘Ebonics’ does not refer to a Black dialect of English or any other appellation that inherently infers the native language of African Americans is a dialect of English and hence genetically related to the Germanic language family to which English belongs. I posited that, with the exception of the dissertation of Dr. Ernie Smith (University of California at Irvine 1974), in which the term Ebonics is used extensively, edited by Dr. Robert Williams, the first book ever written on Ebonics was entitled Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks (1975). In this book which contains articles authored by several presenters attending this conference Dr. Williams also contributed an article entitled "The Effects of Language on the Test Performance of Black Children". In this article Dr. Williams provides what, in his St. Louis Post Dispatch article, is recorded as the ‘official definition’ of the word Ebonics. The title of my dissertation is “The Evolution and Continuing Presence of the African Oral Tradition in Black America” It should be noted that as matter of policy all University of California (UC) dissertations are copyrighted. In my dissertation (Chapter 1 page 1) the word Ebonics is defined precisely as originally and is officially defined by Dr. Williams. I also contributed a chapter from my dissertation as an article in "Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folk" (1975).

In the Dr. Williams article entitled "The Effects of Language on the Test Performance of Black Children" (1975:100) he makes it very clear that the African American psychologists, linguists, special education, speech and language professionals that were assembled rejected the thesis that the native language of Black Americans was a Black dialect of English and that the Group: “…in a barrage of criticism held that the concept of Black English or non-standard English contains deficit model characteristics, and therefore must be abolished. Following considerable discussion regarding the language of Black people, the Group reached a consensus to adopt the term Ebonics (combining Ebony and Phonics or Black sounds).” Clearly, based on what Dr. Robert Williams states here, the word Ebonics was not coined and defined as a synonym for Black English (BE), Non-standard Negro English (NNE), Black Vernacular English (BVE), African American English (AAE), African American Vernacular English (AAVE), Negro English (NE), Vernacular Black English, etc., but rather the word Ebonics was coined in repudiation of any and all the appellations that inherently infer that the native language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans is a dialect of English and genetically related to the Germanic language family to which English belongs.

Thus, the Wikipedia reader is here confronted with precisely the same issue with which the Oakland Unified School District Board (OUSD) was confronted in 1996. Does the term 'Ebonics' mean what Dr. Robert Williams, the African American psychologist who originally coined and 'officially' defined the term Ebonics, says it means, or does it mean what those who contend that Ebonics is a synonym for BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, say it means? In its effort to resolve this issue, the OUSD Board created a Task Force on The Education of African American Children (Task Force). One of the tasks assigned to the Task Force was to investigate the origin and authentic meaning of the term Ebonics. As a result of its investigation the Task Force on The Education of African American Children concluded that the irrefutable empirical evidence was that Dr. Robert Williams coined the term Ebonics. The Task Force concluded and reported to the OUSD Board that, even if the OUSD Board disagreed with the thesis that the language of all descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans belongs to the African language family, as officially defined by the author, the term Ebonics refers to an African language system. More precisely, as posited in the Task Force’s resolution that the OUSD Board adopted as District policy, the term Ebonics refers to a neo-African dialect that has grammatical roots and rules that are traced to the Niger-Congo languages of Africa.

The Task Force further informed the OUSD Board that, since the term Ebonics refers to an African Language System, when African American parents identify their child’s home language as Ebonics, on the district’s Home Language Designation (HLD) form, they are declaring a language other than English is their child’s ‘native’, primary’ or ‘home’ language. The Task Force recommended to the OUSD Board that, based on the fact that the term Ebonics refers to an African Language System, as a matter of OUSD policy, children of African ancestry whose parents have declared Ebonics as their child’s home language have a right to equal treatment and should not be discriminated against on the basis of their language ancestry. The evidence being irrefutable that Dr. Robert Williams originally coined the term Ebonics and that the term Ebonics refers to an African Language System, for the OUSD Board the answer to the question, ‘what does the term Ebonics mean’, was very simple. As posited by the OUSD Board’s resolution passed unanimously on December 18, 1996, the term Ebonics means what the author of the term says it means and any definition of the word Ebonics that does not conform to the meaning originally posited by the author is counterfeit.

In Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition the words 'counterfeit' and 'plagiarize' are defined as follows (1993 265 and 888): “counterfeit 1. made in imitation of something else with intent to deceive...to try to deceive by pretense or dissembling.” “plagiarize …to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own: use (a created production) without crediting the source ~ vi to commit literary theft: present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source – plagiarizer.”

I maintain that those who view and use the term Ebonics as being a synonym for BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, are either totally ignorant of the origin and true meaning of the word Ebonics (which calls into question their scholastic and academic acumen) or they are fully aware of the origin and true meaning of the word Ebonics and elect to use word Ebonics as a synonym for BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, with the intent to deceive. I maintain that since by definition to counterfeit is to: “try to deceive by pretense or dissembling.” the propagation of a false definition of the word ‘Ebonics’ as being a synonym for BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, with the intent to deceive, is larcenous counterfeiting. I maintain that since by definition "to steal and pass off the ideas or words of another as one’s own" and using a "created production without crediting the source" is plagiarism or literary theft, when use is made of the word Ebonics (an original idea and word coined by Dr. Robert Williams) as a synonym for BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, this deceptive pattern of practice, i.e., using the ‘word’ or ‘idea’ (Ebonics) without properly crediting the source (Dr. Robert Williams) is plagiaristic dishonesty or ‘literary theft’ that violates national and international laws protecting ‘intellectual property’ rights. This kind of plagiarism or stealth of ‘intellectual property’ via literary theft and the intentional perversion of the truth should not be tolerated and the authors of articles and books as well as publishers of dictionaries with counterfeit and plagiaristic definitions of the word Ebonics must be held accountable.

As I have stated above, being either totally ignorant of the original authorship and authentic meaning of the word Ebonics or knowing fully and well the original authorship and authentic meaning the word Ebonics but, deliberately propagating a counterfeit definition with the intention to deceive, many of those who posit the term Ebonics as being a synonym for BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, have construed the issue to be a mere semantic quibble. That is, they posit that “we are talking about the same thing but just calling it something different”. I maintain that here is a fundamental difference between ‘talking about the same thing and calling it something different’ and ‘talking about something different and calling it the same thing’. The reader will notice that not one of those cited above ; John Baugh, Lisa Green, Wayne O’Neil, Gloria Weddington, and others such as John Rickford and John Mc Whorter who also posit the term Ebonics as being a synonym for BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, has dared to deny that the term Ebonics was coined by Dr. Robert Williams. Nor has a single one of them produced a shred of evince to the contrary.

Having presented empirical evidence that the combining of the words ‘ebony’ and ‘phonics’, to create the word 'Ebonics' was the original idea of Dr. Roberts Williams I have established that, as a word associated with Black or African ‘speech sounds’, the word 'Ebonics' is the creative and intellectual product of Dr. Robert Williams. I have established that, being the creative and intellectual product of Dr. Robert Williams the word Ebonics means what the author of the term says it means and any definition of the word Ebonics that does not conform to the meaning originally posited by the author is counterfeit. Thus, I maintain whereas, there may be a dispute as to whether the language of descendants of enslaved Africans belongs to the Niger-Congo African language family, or to the Germanic language family to which English belongs, there can be no debate as to the original authorship of the word Ebonics. Given the fact that when the term Ebonics was originally coined by the author or creator of the word Ebonics an “official” definition was declared, there should be no debate as to the authentic meaning of the term Ebonics. As coined and ‘officially’ defined by its author (Dr. Robert Williams) the term Ebonics refers to an African language system. Let us turn now to the issue of whether the native language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans is a dialect of English and hence genetically related to the Germanic language family to which English belongs.

In the field of linguistics there are three methods of language classification that of major significance (See Greenberg 1967:66) (1) the genetic method, (2) the typological method and (3) the areal method. All three of these methods are equally legitimate and are considered to be reliable and valid within the context in which they are qualified and expressly used. As Joseph Greenberg states in his book; Essays In Linguistics: (1967:66) "Confusion results only when a classification reached by one method is erroneously treated as an exemplification one of the other methods, thus leading to invalid inferences." Of these three methods according to Greenberg: (1967:66) “…the genetic is the only one which is at once non-arbitrary, exhaustive, and unique. By non-arbitrary is here meant that there is no choice of criteria leading to different and equally legitimate results. This is because genetic classification reflects historical events which must have occurred or not occurred”. The reader should know that, as was posited by the Linguistic Society Of America (LSA) in defense of the 1996 OUSD resolution, in the field of linguistics the term 'genetic' has nothing to do with 'genes', as the term is used in biology. i.e., the specific sequence of nucleotides in DNA or RNA that is located in the germ plasm on a chromosome. In linguistics when the term 'genetic' is used and languages are said to be 'genetically related', the term 'genetic' is has to do with "genesis" or "origin". (See Kifano and Smith 2005:62-95)

In his book African Language Structures professor William Welmers states (1973:3): "genetic relationships" have to do with linguistic characteristic that are inherited by one generation of speakers from another, as opposed to those which are acquired from other sources." In an article entitled “Linguistic Continuity of Africa in the Caribbean” Mervyn Alleyne states that: (1971:125,126): “The most prevalent view concerning the basis for genetic classification in Indo-European linguistics is that continuity of morphology constitutes the relevant evidence for positing genetic relationship. For example, there has been linguistic continuity in Western Europe in terms of the transmission of Latin morphology (in somewhat altered form) or by the transmission of Old Germanic morphology. This makes languages like French, Spanish, etc., genetically related to Latin, and German, Dutch, etc., genetically related to Old Germanic. It is generally accepted that there has been no rupture in the development or transmission process, although obviously there has been change. English itself is considered to be a continuation of Anglo-Saxon, although in fact the vocabulary is predominantly Romance or Latin."

I should make it clear here, for the totally uninitiated Wikipedia reader, relative the issue of whether or not Ebonics is a ‘language’ or a ‘dialect’, although in soicio and geo - political circles there might be, in the field of linguistics there is not and there has never been a debate as to whether Ebonics is a ‘language’ or a ‘dialect’. In linguistics it is axiomatic that human languages differ and there are no languages that do not, in varying degrees, have social or regional (geographical) dialects. As to whether Ebonics is a language or dialect the fact is, as in the case of all human languages, Ebonics is both a language and a dialect. Given that Ebonics is in fact a language, in terms of the issue at hand, the question that must be addressed is; to which language family, as a dialect, does the language ‘Ebonics’ belong? In other words the real Ebonics debate is whether the empirical or hard evidence supports the thesis that, on the basis of continuity of the morphology (rules of grammar) the language of African Americans (i.e., descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans) is genetically akin to the Germanic language family to which English belongs. Or does Ebonics belong to the Niger-Congo African language family as the linguistic continuation of Africa in diaspora and hence, is a neo African dialect?

In his book Descriptive and Comparative Linguistics Professor Leonard Palmer states (1972:22, 23): “To reconstruct the ancestral forms which account for resemblances in the communities under observation is simultaneously to make some kind of assertion about an ancestral community… We repeat, then, that observed resemblances between speech habits, given the empirical principle of arbitrariness, force us to conclusion of historical connectedness by an unbroken chain of mimetic acts. This connectedness is what is understood by ‘relationship’. In order to establish the fact of such a relationship our evidence must not consist entirely on points of vocabulary. For … words are often borrowed by one language from another as a result of cultural contact. Thus, English has borrowed words algebra from Arabic sources. No one that account will assert English is ‘related’ to the Semitic languages. What constitutes the most certain evidence of relationship is resemblance of grammatical structure, for languages retain their native structure even when their vocabularies have been swamped by foreign borrowing, such has been the case for English and Hittite”

Attesting to what Palmer has stated just above Mervyn Alleyne states (1971:126): “If we find African elements in Afro-American dialects, the conclusion is inescapable that they belong to the base of the historical process. If we find an almost total absence of Indo-European morphology in African-American dialects, but instead find the morphosyntax can in many respects be shown to be derived from the morphosyntax of West African languages, we can reasonably conclude that there is morphosyntactical continuity from West African languages to Afro-American dialects.” Based on what Alleyne has posited just above, if the preponderance of the empirical evidence is that there is continuity of the English morphology or rules of grammar in the language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans, then the language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans must be viewed as a dialect of English. On the other hand if the preponderance of the empirical evidence is that there is continuity of the Niger-Congo African morphology or rules of grammar, then the language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans must be viewed as being genetically akin to and belonging to the Niger-Congo African language family and hence a Nigritian or African dialect.

In his book Muntu An Outline of the New African Culture Janheinz Jahn states (1953:194): “In the Afro-American world some hybrid languages have arisen: Creole, Surinaams, Papiamento and others, which are generally designated as dialects. Creole counts as spoiled French, Surinaams is also called Negro English. The vocabulary consists predominantly of European words, but the syntax and word formation follow the rules of African grammar. It is wrong therefore to call these languages ‘spoilt’ English or ‘spoilt’ French. If one considers the essence of a language to be its vocabulary, Creole and Papiamento must be called the youngest of the Romance languages, Surinaams must be call the youngest of the Germanic languages. But if one considers the grammatical structure of a language more important than its vocabulary, then the three languages mentioned do not belong to the Indo-European group.”

I maintain that based in the criteria of continuity of the morphology or rules of grammar the only way the hybrid language that resulted from the convergence of the European colonial settler’s Early Modern English (EmodE) and the Niger-Congo African languages spoken by the enslaved ancestors of African American people would be a dialect of English is that, the hybrid language of African American people would have to have an English grammar (morpho-syntax) with Niger-Congo African words superimposed. But, in America and throughout the African diaspora, this is not the case. As attested by Janheinz Jahn in quotes just above the empirical evidence is that, in each and every instance throughout the African diaspora, the hybrid languages that have evolved from the convergence of EmodE and the Niger-Congo African languages have an African morpho-syntax (grammar) with European words superimposed.

And so, I have established that in Indo-European linguistics, languages are not classified as being akin or genetically related based on the mere evidence of a common lexicon or vocabulary. In Indo-European linguistics and in this Wikipedia the English language itself is defined as a West Germanic language despite the fact that the bulk of the English lexicon is derived from Latin, French and other the non-Germanic languages. This prompts the question if: BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, actually exist as vernaculars or dialects of English, where are these vernaculars or dialects spoken? That is, based in the criteria of continuity of the morphology or rules of grammar where are the BE, AAVE and other Engish language based dialects that have English grammars with African words superimposed? Surely John Baugh, Lisa Green, Wayne O’Neil, Gloria Weddington, and others who posit the term Ebonics as being a synonym for BE, AAVE and other Engish language based appellations, can produce empirical evidence of one at least.

The enslaved ancestors of speakers of Ebonics came primarily from the West Coast and Niger Congo Africa speaking Nigritian and Bantu languages. The ancestors of speakers of English came from England speaking European settler English a Germanic language. Therefore the morphology and morph-syntax of Nigritian and Bantu languages and the morphology and morpho-syntax of the Indo-European Germanic English language are not derived from a common origin or linguistic base. Since the morphology and morph-syntax of Nigritian and Bantu languages and the morphology and morpho-syntax of the Indo-European Germanic language are not derived from a common origin or linguistic base, the Nigritian and Bantu languages and the Indo-European Germanic languages were not genetically related. Given that the Nigritian and Bantu languages and the Indo-European Germanic languages were not genetically related, the Nigritian and Bantu language Ebonics and Indo-European Germanic language English are not genetically related. In other words, from a comparative linguistic perspective the language being discussed as Ebonics is the consequence of linguistic convergence - not linguistic divergence. That is, Ebonics does not have a Germanic or English grammar with an African Lexicon superimposed. Throughout the African diaspora the empirical evidence is that as a consequence of linguistic convergence the descendants of enslaved Africans acquire and speak, as their native or primary language, mixed African and European dialects that have African grammars with European lexicons superimposed. Simply put, the linguistic differences that remain is the evidence that Ebonics and English are not the same. That is why the term Ebonics was coined and why the only legitimate meaning of the term Ebonics is the official definition posited by Dr. Robert Williams. [Ernie Smith, Ph.D. Professor of Linguistics]

REFERENCES

Alleyne, M. (1971) Linguistic Continuity of Africa in The Caribbean in Topics In African American Studies Edited by Henry Richards New York. Black Academy Press.

Crawford C. (2001) Ebonics and Language Education of African Ancestry Students Linguistic Society of America Chicago January 1997 Resolution on Oakland Ebonics Issue (p358) Brooklyn Sankofa World Publishers

Delpit T. (1998) Linguistic Society of America’s Resolution on the Oakland Ebonics Issue Chicago January 1997 In Real Ebonics Debate (pg160) Boston Beacon Press

Greenberg J. (1967) Essays in Linguistics Chicago, University of Chicago Press

Janheinz J. (1953): Muntu An Outline of the New African Culture New York, Grove Press

Kifano S., Smith E. A, (2005) Ebonics and Education in Context of Culture Edited by J. Ramirez et. al. Buffalo Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition (1993). Springfield MA Merriam Webster Inc. Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition. (2001) Springfield MA Merriam Webster Inc.

Palmer L. (1978) Descriptive and Comparative Linguistics London, Faber & Faber

Random House Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2001) New York. Random House.

Romaine, S (1994) Language and Society :An Introduction to Sociolinguistics Oxford, Oxford University Press;

Shipley, J.T. (1984) The Origin of English Words. Baltimore. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Smith E. A. (1974) The Evolution and Continuing Presence of the African Oral Tradition In Black Ameica. Irvine. University of California at Irvine

Smith E. A., Crozier K. (1998) Ebonics Is Not Black English In The Western Journal of Black Studies. Pullman Washington State University Press

Smith E.A (2001) Ebonics and Bilingual Education of the African American Child In Ebonics and Language Education of African Ancestry Students Edited by Clinton Crawford Brooklyn Sankofa World Publishers

The American Heritage Dictionary Of The English Language, (1976). Boston. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Welmers, W. (1973) African Language Structures Berkeley. University of California Press

Williams, R.L. Rivers, W. (1975). The Effects of Language on the Test Performance of Black Children. In R.L. Williams (Ed) Ebonics: the true language of black folks, (pp. 96-109) St Louis, Institute of Black Studies.

Williams, R.L. (1997, January 28). Ebonics as a bridge to Standard English: [Letter to the editor], Saint Louis Post Dispatch.

Williams, R.L. (1997). The Ebonics controversy: Journal of Black Psychology 23 (3), 208-214.

Well, this is very interesting.

I suggest that the writer (i) reads Wikipedia:No legal threats and (ii) thinks hard about whether the paragraph starting "I maintain that those who view and use the term Ebonics" constitutes a legal threat. If it is not, the writer should clarify this. If it is, then an administrator (not me) is likely to block the writer.

If it's made clear that this is not a legal threat, then an adult discussion can start about some of what's above. -- Hoary (talk) 16:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I think of it less as a threat and more as a misguided rant. The article in its present form (and nearly all versions of the article dating to 2007) a) credits Williams' early research and coining of the term and b) how the term's definition has become broadened since then. While not a lawyer myself, I see little of concern in the current article. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 19:30, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Matters of law aside, the assertion that any definition of a word that doesn't conform to the definition of that word posited by its coiner is "counterfeit" is a most interesting one. Lexicographers could happily label the uses of typewriter, computer etc to refer to machines as "counterfeit", the only correct meanings -- or anyway the more correct meanings, as I can't be bothered to consult the OED right now -- being people who do this or that. ¶ I am also amazed and amused to read that a language resembling the subject matter of, for example, Lisa J. Green's African American English: A Linguistic Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002; ISBN 0-521-89138-8) has, morphologically -- or morphosyntactically -- less to do with English than with Bantu/Nigritian languages. Perhaps the writer understands "morphology" and "morphosyntax" rather differently than do most people. Reality check: most whites in north America have little trouble in understanding blacks (even blacks talking to each other) or anyway less trouble than they have in understanding the most anglicized (Americanism-ridden) forms of Friesian, Dutch, etc. (Unless of course they want to have trouble: racism can conquer all.) -- Hoary (talk) 03:42, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

On page 8 on the Introduction in Green's book (thanks for that link BTW), she even mentions Smith's contentions about the redefinition of the term. It sounds like Smith is very vocal about his assertions. I did a little digging, and found this, specifically "Dr. Smith's conclusions are largely based on his research and the research of other scientists on the language and culture of Africans and African Americans." A more recent issue of the Harvard Educational Review describes Smith as a "community and civil rights activist." While it's a good thing to have subject matter experts who wants to contribute to the project, when those contributions revolve around original research and activism, then I start to get concerned. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 04:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not at all persuaded by the arguments presented above by the user identifying himself as Smith. He quotes nuggets from elderly work in historical linguistics that (at least of context) seem obscure at best (and often seem slightly garbled to boot, as if inaccurately retyped) --

And so, I have established that in Indo-European linguistics, languages are not classified as being akin or genetically related based on the mere evidence of a common lexicon or vocabulary. [Hoary: Well of course not.] In Indo-European linguistics and in this Wikipedia the English language itself is defined as a West Germanic language despite the fact that the bulk of the English lexicon is derived from Latin, French and other the non-Germanic languages. [Hoary: Yes indeed.] This prompts the question if: BE, BVE, AAE, AAVE, VBE, NNE etc. actually exist as vernaculars or dialects of English, where are these vernaculars or dialects spoken? [Hoary: In the US, primarily.] That is, based in the criteria of continuity of the morphology or rules of grammar [Hoary: If "criteria" isn't just a typo for "criterion" then what's the other criterion? Does "morphology or rules of grammar" mean "morphology or syntax", and if not, what does it mean? Etc.] where are the BE, BVE, AAE, AAVE, VBE, NNE etc dialects that English grammars with African words superimposed? [Hoary: This is a cartoonish idea of a lect.] Surely John Baugh, Lisa Green, Wayne O’Neil, Gloria Weddington, and others who posit the term Ebonics as being a synonym for BE, BVE, AAE, AAVE, VBE, NNE etc can produce empirical evidence of one at least.

I can't start to speak for the third or fourth of these. Baugh, who I think has given the term "Ebonics" more attention than Green has, does not call it a synonym of AAVE or any of the others, as this very Wikipedia article (when not vandalized) makes clear. Yes, he says it is used to refer to the same language, but that doesn't make them synonyms.

Our interlocutor manages to infer something very improbable from work in historical linguistics done when most present-day linguists (if even born) were still in short pants, presents a bizarre interpretation of dispassionate analyses of AAVE done since then, issues a demand for evidence for the validity of this straw man, and seems to demand that the term "Ebonics" should be treated in Wikipedia as if it were a registered trademark. Despite the impressively long list of references at the end, he doesn't cite any discussion of the history of AAVE or Ebonics published recently by a university press or similar (or in a peer-reviewed linguistics journal). I'm not even slightly convinced. -- Hoary (talk) 02:35, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

In response to Hoary's analysis Ernie Smith writes:

As I have stated above, being either ignorant of the original authorship and authentic meaning of the word Ebonics or knowing fully and well the original authorship and authentic meaning of the word Ebonics but, deliberately propagating a counterfeit definition with the intention to deceive, many of those who posit the term Ebonics as being a synonym for BE, AAVE and other English language based appellations, have construed the issue to be a mere semantic quibble. That is, they posit that “we are talking about the same thing but just calling it something different”. I maintain that there is a fundamental difference between ‘talking about the same thing and calling it something different’ and ‘talking about something different and calling it the same thing’. The Wikipedia reader will notice that not one of those cited above; John Baugh, Lisa Green, Wayne O’Neil, Gloria Weddington, and others such as John Rickford and John Mc Whorter who also posit the word Ebonics as being a synonym for BE, and other English language based appellations, has dared to deny that the word Ebonics was coined by Dr. Robert Williams. Nor has a single one of them produced a shred of evidence to the contrary.

I have not engaged the subject of BE, AAVE and other English language based appellations that inherently infer that the language of descendants enslaved Niger-Congo AFricans is a dialect of English because, based on criterion contintunty in rules of grammar, any and all appellations that infer inherently that the language of descendants enslaved Niger-Congo AFricans is a dialect of English, beg the question of genesis. Hoary makes the naked assertion that English dialects that have West Germanic Grammars with African words superimpmposed exist as the language of descendants enslaved Niger-Congo AFricans in America.

Where in America are these dialects or vernaculars of English that have West Germanic Grammars with African words superimpmposed? John Baugh, Lisa Green, Wayne O’Neil, Willaim Lavov, Robin Lakoff, John Rickford, John Mc Whorter, Gloria Weddington, Walt Wolfram William Srewart and others, all posit the bulk of the lexion in the dialects or vernaculars of English that they call BE, AAVE and English language based appellations as being derived from West Germanic English language.

I contend that, there is an internal inconsistency in the view that the word Ebonics is synonymous with BE, AAVE and the other English language based appellations. My contention here is based on the fact that; as I have shown, in Indo-European linguistics, the most prevalent view is that, a common origin and continuity of the morpho-syntax or rules of grammar constitutes the relevant evidence for positing genetic kinship. In this Wikipedia the English language itself is defined as a West Germanic language despite the fact that the bulk of the English lexicon is derived from Latin, French and other the non-Germanic languages. This means that the English language is not classified as a West Germanic language based on the origin and continuity of its dominant lexicon or vocabulary.

What is incongruent in Hoary's position is that, the enslaved ancestors, antecedents and forebears of African American people came principally from the West Coast and Niger-Congo areas of Africa speaking Niger-Congo and Bantu African languages. The ancestors, antecedents and forebears of the speakers of English came from England speaking British settler Early Modern English (EmodE) (a West Germanic language). The morph-syntax of the Niger-Congo and Bantu African languages and the morpho-syntax of the British settler EmodE are not derived from a common origin or linguistic base. Therefore, the Niger-Congo and Bantu African languages and the British settler EmodE language were not genetically related.

Yet, as if the language of descendants of enslaved West Coast and Niger-Congo Africans did originate from a common British settler English linguistic base, (EmodE) those who contend that Ebonics is a dialect or vernacular of English, posit there is a continuity of the West Germanic EmodE morpho-syntax or rules of grammar and thus Ebonics is genetically related to the English Germanic language family. The question is posed; how can there be an EmodE linguistic continuity in the language of descendants of enslaved Africans, when their ancestors, antecedants and forebears did not originally speak EmodE in the first place. I think Hoary's off his meds again? (hows that for a argumentum ad hominem rant) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk) 07:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

This is the talk page of a Wikipedia article, not a forum for discussion and not an outlet for original research or original analysis. If we talk about anything, it should be how to improve the article. Let's get back on topic, folks. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 07:57, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

IP, you say: I think Hoary's off his meds again? It's not good to get into a habit of saying things such as this, as various editors of this encyclopedia (other than myself) are, or pretend to be, most upset to be referred to in such a way. (Personally, I don't care. I just wonder if you are asking or saying.) ¶ That trivial matter aside, you ask, or wonder, how can there be an EmodE linguistic continuity in the language of desecenadts of enslaved Africans, when their ancestors, antecedants and forebears did not originally speak EmodE in the first place. The question is bizarre. Nobody has suggested that the ancestors of Black Americans spoke Early Modern English. They speak a lect of English, a language that (if you're diachronically inclined) can be plotted back to Early Modern English. (Of course the history of a language is of no concern whatever to any infant who's learning that language.) Such is the consensus among linguists. If you disagree, you may care to write a book saying why the consensus is mistaken. If the book found a reputable publisher, I'd read it with interest. CUP, OUP, and Wiley-Blackwell are among the publishers that are putting out surprisingly large numbers of books on linguistics; good luck persuading one of them to bring out your book. Until such theories come out via a university press or similar, I'll pay them no attention. -- Hoary (talk) 16:42, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

In response to Hoary's analysis Ernie Smith writes:

In the neuroscience area of medicine there is a brain injury or disease called subdural hematoma. According to Weiner and Goetz, one of the clinical manifestations of this brain injury or disease is "a depressed level of consciousness" (1994:45). Weiner and Goetz indicate that the "depressed level of consciousness can occur before focal findings, and may have trivial or no trauma history." There are two types of subdural hematomas, the acute subdural hematoma and the chronic subdural hematoma, and they are classified according to the interval of time that occurs between the instance of a head injury and the development of clinical manifestations. Of these two subdural hematomas, the chronic subdural hematoma: "is more common in patients with cerebral atrophy (i.e. the elderly and alcoholism)" (Weiner and Goetz 1994:223). Also, however, studies of the prolonged use of cocaine have produced irrefutable evidence of the tremendous brain damage (cerebral atrophy) that can occur from such use. This suggests that ‘alcoholism’ is not the only form of 'substance abuse’ that can be associated with cerebral atrophy as the underlying mechanism of chronic subdural hematoma.

I have initiated my response to User Hoary’s analysis with a discussion of subdural hematoma because I suspect that therein lies the etiology of his or her patently deficient critical thinking skills. This response will show that, while the User Hoary’s critique purports to be about Ebonics, actually his/her critique has nothing to do with Ebonics: User Hoary’s critique is about ‘a lect of English’ which implies, inherently, that the language of Black Americans is a dialect of English, and, thus, is genetically related to the West Germanic language family to which contemporary American English belongs. Now the User Aeusoes1 has stated: “This is the talk page of a Wikipedia article, not a forum for discussion and not an outlet for original research or original analysis. If we talk about anything, it should be how to improve the article. Let's get back on topic, folks.” — Ƶ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet

I agree, one hundred percent, with user Ƶ§œš¹ “If we talk about anything, it should be how to improve the article”, and I agree that, when I say, I think Hoary's off his meds again? it's not good to get into a habit of saying things such as this because various editors of this encyclopedia (other than myself) are, or pretend to be, most upset to be referred to in such a way. I want to improve that article. The problem is: this person User Hoary seems to be unfettered in his/her ability to make slyly disparaging remarks and insults. The User Hoary drew first blood by making jest of typos and what he or she deemed to be my lack of ideally competent English composition. I refused to be insulted and replied with an appropriate slur of my own. If Wikipedia will keep a tight check on the rabid insults of User Hoary, I will, likewise, refrain from making such denigrating retorts. In Black American culture ‘playing the dozens’ is a pastime sport. (See Smitherman G. 1977:128-134) See also Folb E. (1980:235)

The User Hoary asks the following, in response to the question that I posed in my article: “I just wonder if you are asking or saying.) ¶ That trivial matter aside, you ask, or wonder, how can there be an EmodE linguistic continuity in the language of descendants of enslaved Africans, when their ancestors, antecedents and forebears did not originally speak EmodE in the first place? The question is bizarre”. Now, we cannot proceed as adults if my questions are belittled as ‘bizarre’. If this slur is being made by User Hoary, it verifies my suspicion that subdural hematoma is the etiology of his/her patently deficient critical thinking skills. Given that the name User Hoary appears at the end of the critique, and given that the style of criticism reeks of User Hoary’s DNA, I am predisposed to posit this critique and the slur; “the question is bizarre” to User Hoary as his bilge.

Needless to say, as the Wikipedia reader can discern, I do have retorts of my own in reply to these unprovoked slurs. The User (Hoary) continues his/her critique by positing that: “Nobody has suggested that the ancestors of Black Americans spoke Early Modern English. They speak a lect of English, a language that (if you're diachronically inclined) can be plotted back to Early Modern English”. In response to this slur concerning my bias, predisposition or tendency to favor diachronic linguistics I say that, as a graduate of the University of California at Irvine with a Ph.D. in Comparative Culture and a Subspecialty in Comparative Linguistics, and, in 1978, having been appointed to the rank of Full Professor in the Department of Linguistics at California State University at Fullerton where I taught Linguistic Ontogeny (529), American Dialects (305), Minority Dialects (107), and Bilingualism (411), I am, indeed, diachronically inclined. In fact, the word Ebonics came into existence because of an irrationally, incongruent, Eurocentric deviation from universally accepted comparative, diachronic or historical linguistics principles. (See Smith E.2001) (Wade N. (2005)

Having addressed the User Hoary’s slur concerning my being “diachronically inclined” and the User’s slur that “The question is bizarre”, I will now address the User’s statement that: “Nobody has suggested that the ancestors of Black Americans spoke Early Modern English. They speak a lect of English, a language that …can be plotted back to Early Modern English”. At the beginning of my article the issue of the origin of the word Ebonics is bifurcated from the issue of whether, from a diachronic linguistic perspective, Ebonics is a dialect of English, and, hence, genetically related to the Germanic language family. In the essay that I submitted to Wikipedia for editing and discussion, I asserted that I participated in the 1973 “Cognitive and Language Development of the Black Child” Conference in St. Louis, and was there when Dr. Robert Williams coined the term "Ebonics". I am even credited by Dr. Williams as the scrivener who framed the wording of the official definition of the term Ebonics (See Williams, 1997:210). So, I say with absolute authority that the term Ebonics does not refer to “a lect’ of English”, and the word Ebonics is not a synonym for any appellation that inherently infers that the language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans is a dialect of English, thusly, making it genetically related to the West Germanic language family to which contemporary American English belongs.

The Wikipedia reader will notice that the User Hoary has not denied that Dr. Williams coined the word Ebonics in 1973. Given that the User Hoary is bereft of any empirical evidence that Dr. Robert Williams did not coin the word Ebonics in 1973, we can proceed to the issue of the meaning of the word Ebonics. In my essay, I contended that Dr. Williams posited an “official definition of the word Ebonics in 1973, when he originally coined the word. I notice that the User, Hoary has also, not denied that, when Dr. Williams originally coined the word Ebonics, he posited an “official definition” of the word Ebonics. Since the User appears to be bereft of a shred of empirical evidence that Dr. Williams did not posit an “official definition” of the word Ebonics when he coined the word, we can proceed to an ‘adult’ discussion of whether or not any definitions of the word Ebonics, that do not conform to the definition posited as the “official definition” by Dr. Williams, are counterfeit or legitimate. For, the User Hoary seems to be suggesting that when a counterfeiter puts the name ‘Rolex’ on a one jewel, gold plated, Hong Kong watch, that makes a one jewel, gold plated, Hong Kong watch a genuine Rolex? (See Smith E. and Crozier K. (1998)

The intent of the official definition of Ebonics posited by Dr. Williams and agreed to by the Conference members assembled is this: Ebonics is the language spoken by descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans, and is the linguistic continuation of the Niger-Congo African tradition in Black America. Since the User Hoary does not deny that when Dr. Williams originally coined the word Ebonics he, also, posited an “official definition, it appears that what the User Hoary really wants to refute is the basic tenet of the definition that Dr. Williams posits as the meaning of the word Ebonics. Now, I am perfectly willing to engage in this discussion with the User, Hoary if it will improve the article. But I shall, at every turn, critically address the logical fallacies and snide slurs of Captious and Sophists User Hoary.

Let’s return now to User Hoary’s statement that: “Nobody has suggested that the ancestors of Black Americans spoke Early Modern English. They speak a lect of English, a language that … can be plotted back to Early Modern English”. The Wikipedia reader will notice that; while the User Hoary does not deny that the enslaved ancestors, antecedents and forebears of Black Americans did not originally speak Early Modern English, he/she has not stipulated that the ancestors of Black Americans spoke Niger-Congo and Bantu African Languages. There are two incongruent implications here: First, if the ancestors of African ancestors did not, originally, speak EmodE, then, what did they speak? That is, the User Hoary implies that, the enslaved African ancestors of Black Americans did not have the cortical capacity for fully human thoughts. Possessing only mating calls, distress signals and feral grunts the African ancestors of Black Americans were primitive, docile, sub-human savages that had not developed a fully human language or communication system of their own.

Implied also is that because they possessed only the rudiments of a language to start with, the "scant baggage" of mating calls, distress signals and feral grunts that the enslaved the African ancestors of Black Americans possessed most certainly could not have been the grammatical nor the lexical base upon which Black American dialects of English were developed. In other words, the enslaved African ancestors of Black Americans did not, originally, speak Early Modern English, for they were sub-human tabula rasa or blank slates upon which the ancestors of EmodE speakers imprinted a human language upon their savage minds for the first time. Since possession of the cognitive faculty of language or the capacity to speak and transmit thoughts, systematically, using highly structured, rule governed signs and symbols is the specie specific attribute that distinguishes homo sapiens from the ape and lower primates, this view denies that Niger-Congo Africans are human beings: The User Hoary appears to be of the ilk that propagates this asinine point of view.

On the other hand, there is a second implication that is as equally incongruent. This view, postulated by those who contend that Black Americans speak a dialect of English, acknowledges that Niger-Congo or Black Africans are human beings, and that the ancestors, antecedents and forebears of Black Americans possessed fully human Niger-Congo and Bantu African languages. However, also implied in this view is that, in the transmission process, the enslaved African ancestors, antecedents and forebears of Black Americans gave up African languages. That is, they broke with the African linguistic tradition and accepted EmodE, or what User Hoary calls a ‘lect’ of English, as their mother tongue. It is this view that I was addressing when I submitted my initial contribution to Wikipedia. I contend there is an internal inconsistency or incongruence in the view that Black Americans speak a dialect of English”. Firstly, while this view concedes that the enslaved African ancestors of Black Americans spoke Niger-Congo and Bantu African languages, it posits a complete break with and discontinuity of Niger-Congo and Bantu linguistic system, (i.e., the morpho-syntax or rules of grammar) and a wholesale adoption of the morpho-syntactical or grammar rules of Early Modern, English by enslaved Niger-Congo Africans and their descendants. The proponents of this view ignore or deny, entirely, the existence of African Niger-Congo and Bantu language elements in the grammar of Black American English. They posit the less than ideally competent English grammar (non standard usage) that exists in the dialects of Black Americans are EmodE survivals that were imperfectly obtained or learned by the enslaved African ancestors of Black Americans, or as being colonial Scots-Irish Celtic language features acquired from Scots-Irish overseers and indentured servants. When asked to explain the irrefutable evidence of non-EmodE and non-colonial Scots Irish features that exist in the English dialect of Black Americans, they attribute the existence of a ‘scant few’ African words to borrowings initially made by EmodE speakers and then taught to their enslaved Niger-Congo African vassals.

I maintain that the postulation that there is morpho-syntactical continuity from EmodE to Black American dialects to the English language or dialects of Black American urban inner cities as a result of EmodE speakers having mutilated or dummied down their EmodE grammar in order to communicate with the enslaved African ancestors of Black Americans is not supported by the empirical comparative linguistic evidence. Neither is the notion that, in the transmission process, the enslaved ancestors of Black Americans gave up their African Niger Congo and Bantu languages and accepted the ersatz EmodE grammar (baby talk) as their primary language or mother tongue. I maintain further that the view or thesis that any and all African elements that exist in the English language or dialects of Black American urban communities are borrowings made by EmodE speakers and taught or transmitted to their enslaved Niger-Congo and Bantu African slaves is oxymoronic nonsense. In fact, the view that the enslaved African ancestors of Black Americans gave the up their Niger-Congo and Bantu languages for an ersatz EmodE (baby talk) implies that the African ancestors of Black Americans did not have much of a language anyway. Thus, this is a view that differs only to a minute degree from the view that the African ancestors of Black Americans had no language at all. In essence, both views support the ‘deficiency hypothesis’, known, thusly, in the bio-behavioral and social sciences.

With regards to User Hoary’s closing remarks that “the issue is not (Of course, the history of a language is of no concern whatever to any infant who's learning that language.) Such is the consensus among linguists. If you disagree, you may care to write a book saying why the consensus is mistaken. I would read the book with interest, if it was published by a reputable publisher. CUP, OUP, and Wiley-Blackwell are among the publishers that are publishing a surprisingly large number of books on linguistics; good luck persuading one of them to bring out your book. Until such theories come out via a university press or similar, I'll pay them no attention”. I strongly urge this User Hoary to read my article entitled Cultural and Linguistic Factors in Worker Notification to Blue Collar and No-Collar African American Workers (1993) In American Journal of Industrial Medicine Edited by Philip J. Landrigan, Irving J. Seliokoff et. al. New York. Wiley-Liss

References

Alleyne, M. (1971) Linguistic Continuity of Africa in The Caribbean in Topics In African American Studies Edited by Henry Richards New York. Black Academy Press.

Crawford C. (2001) Ebonics and Language Education of African Ancestry Students Linguistic Society of America Chicago January 1997 Resolution on Oakland Ebonics Issue (p358) Brooklyn Sankofa World Publishers.

Delpit T. (1998) Linguistic Society of America’s Resolution on the Oakland Ebonics Issue Chicago January 1997 In Real Ebonics Debate (pg160) Boston Beacon Press.

Folb E. (1980) Runnin Down Some Lines: The language and Culture of Black Teenagers Cambridge Harvard University Press.

Greenberg J. (1967) Essays in Linguistics Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

Holloway J.E. (1991) Africanisms in American Culture Bloomington Indiana University Press.

Janheinz J. (1953): Muntu: An Outline of the New African Culture New York, Grove Press.

(Kifano S., Smith E. A, (2005) Ebonics and Education in Context of Culture Edited by J. Ramirez et. al. Buffalo Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Smith E.A. (1993) Cultural and Linguistic Factors in Worker Notification to Blue Collar and No-Collar African American Workers In American Journal of Industrial Medicine Edited by Philip J. Landrigan, Irving J. Seliokoff, et. al. New York. Wiley-Liss

Smith, E.A. (1997) What is Ebonics What Is Black English In Real Ebonics Debate Edited by Perry T. and Delpit L. Chicago-Boston Beacon Press.

Smith E. A., Crozier K. (1998) Ebonics Is Not Black English In The Western Journal of Black Studies. Pullman Washington State University Press.

Smith E.A. (2002) Ebonics A Case History In The Skin the we Speak Edited by Lisa Delpit and Joanne K. Dowdy New York New York Press.

Smitherman G. (1977) Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America Boston Houghton Mifflin Co.

Wade N. (2005) Languages May Speak Volumes. New York New York Times article.

Weiner, W J. and Goetz, C G. (1994) Neurology for the Non-Neurologist Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott Co. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk) 13:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

1. I maintain that the postulation that there is morpho-syntactical continuity from EmodE to Black American dialects to the English language or dialects of Black American urban inner cities as a result of EmodE speakers having mutilated or dummied down their EmodE grammar in order to communicate with the enslaved African ancestors of Black Americans is not supported by the empirical comparative linguistic evidence. / I don't know of any linguist who claims that AAVE mutilates, dumbs down, or dummies down English. (I don't say such people don't exist: presumably a certain proportion of people who earn PhDs later become crackpots.) AAVE is just as good/intelligent a language as is standard US English, or French, or Swahili, or Kabardian -- which is a fact that is understood by anyone who has bothered to read and understand such a mass-market book as Pinker's The Language Instinct. Slaying straw men isn't helpful.
2. I strongly urge this User Hoary to read my article entitled Cultural and Linguistic Factors in Worker Notification to Blue Collar and No-Collar African American Workers (1993) In American Journal of Industrial Medicine / I'd be willing to do so, but the download costs money and I have trouble believing that a paper of just six pages in a journal of industrial medicine could do more than merely summarize the intellectual underpinnings of the particular research covered. The paper is 17 years old; how persuasive have its intellectual underpinnings been among later writing on AAVE?
3. In Black American culture ‘playing the dozens’ is a pastime sport. / It is indeed! Unfortunately I don't have any of the works of Smitherman on me now and only have recourse to the web. Here, thanks to Google, we see playing the dozens explained: "whereby agonists aim to win a verbal duel by creating the most insulting, humorous, spontaneous comments about the agonists' relatives, especially their mothers". If you'd like to participate in such a duel, please do so with somebody else, somewhere else.
4. If Wikipedia will keep a tight check on the rabid insults of User Hoary [...] / Wikipedia has little patience for rabid insults. The best place to complain about an outbreak of them (whether from me or anybody else) is probably "WP:AN/I" "Wikiquette alerts". -- Hoary (talk) 14:13, 1 March 2010 (UTC) .... amended Hoary (talk) 01:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes:

When I submitted my previous contribution to Wikipedia Talk Ebonics I was under the impression that an anthropoid above the level of Homo fernus or pithecanthropus erectus was inviting an edit colloquy pertaining to the subject - Ebonics. It appears that what I am in fact confronted with here is something less than a primate. I believe more akin to the Canis familiaris Or Canis lupus. It is clear that what User Hoary lacks in intellectual competence he/she certainly makes up in frothing growls, snarls, barks and yelps. Given User Hoary’s inarticulateness I have forwarded, to the Romulus and Remus Linguistic Institute, a copy of the growls, snarls, barks and yelps that Hoary makes this time for translation by the female Canis familiaris whose turpitude produces such progeny.

The User Hoary is clearly unable to address the logical implications of his/her AAVE thesis that the language of Black Americans is a vernacular or ‘lect of English’. Therefore, I shall restate what is obviously implied by the thesis using what is in Cognitive Linguistics called ‘dog whistles’ (See Wikipedia section on dog whistle politics). To begin, the most publicized, and by a 1979 federal court decree, in Ann Arbor, vested with a veneer of being a cogent and authentic theory, on the origin and historical development of African American speech, is the Pidgin/Creole Hypothesis. The linguists and social scientists that hold this view are commonly called Creolist. In their view, writes William Stewart (1973:351) "The American Negro dialects probably derived from a creolized form of English once spoken on American plantations by Negro slaves and seemingly related to Creolized forms of English, which are still spoken by Negroes in Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean..." In the Pidgin/Creolist’s literature we find that, because of their essentially Caucasio or Euro-centric bent there are no Pidgin/Creolists who posit African American speech as being the linguistic continuation of Africa in Black America. Instead, what we find is a uniform depiction of the antebellum contacts between Europeans and African people as being contacts in which, Africans were primitive, dimwitted and docile savages who, not having the cortical capacity for fully human thoughts, had not developed a fully human language or communication system of their own. The impression is given that Africans had only the rudiments of a language to start with. Therefore, the crude feral grunts and signaling system that the Africans possessed most certainly could not have been the grammatical or the lexical base upon which the pidgin dialects were developed.

Evidence of this uniformity of opinion among Pidgin/Creolists is provided In the Memorandum Opinion and Order issued by the Judge of the U.S. Federal District Court in Ann Arbor Michigan wherein the Judge, (Charles Joiner) states: “The issue before this court is whether the defendant School Board has violated Section 1703(f) of Title 20 of the United States Code as its actions relate to the 11 black children who are plaintiffs in this case and who are students in the Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School operated by the defendant School Board. It is alleged that the children speak a version of “black English,” “black vernacular” or “black dialect” as their home and community languages that impedes their equal participation in the instructional programs and that the school has not taken appropriate action to overcome the barrier”. Clearly, this is entirely different from the 1996 Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) ‘Ebonics’ controversy wherein the parents had identified “Ebonics” as the home language of their children on the OUSD home language identification forms. In this Ann Arbor case the parents of the 11 children had identified the home language of their children as “black English”, “black vernacular” or “black dialect”. Further on in his Memorandum Opinion and Order Judge Joiner states (1979:13) “All of the distinguished researchers and professionals testified as to the existence of a language system, which is a part of the English language but different from the standard English used in the school setting, the commercial world, the world of the arts and sciences, among the professions and in government. It is and has been used at some time by 80% of the black people of this country and has as its genesis the transactional or pidgin language of slaves, which after a generation or two became a Creole language. Since then it has constantly been refined and brought closer to the standard as blacks have been brought closer to the mainstream of Society” Notice that the Judge said “all” of the experts testified that the very “genesis” of the language system called ‘black English’ or ‘black vernacular’ was “the transactional or pidgin language of slaves”.

Webster’s Dictionary posits the following as the etymology and definitions of the word “vernacular’ “ver nac u lar \və (r)-‘nak-yə-lar\ adj [L vernaculus native, fr verna slave born in his master’s house, native] (1601) 1 a : using a language or dialect native to a region or country rather than a literary, cultured or foreign language b: of relating to, or being a nonstandard language or dialect of a place, region or country c: of, relating to, or being the normal spoken form a language” (See Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition (2001:1308). The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1976:1423) posits the following as the etymology of the word ‘vernacular’ “[From Latin vernāculus, domestic from verna, native slave, probably from *Etruscan.]”. *Note that the word ‘Etruscan’ is associated with origin of the word vernacular. In The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1976:1126) the word Romulus is defined as: “Romulus: The son of Mars a vestal virgin who, with his twin brother Remus was abandoned as an infant to die but was raised by a she wolf. He later killed Remus and founded Rome in 753 B.C.” One needs only to see the picture and the word ‘Etruscan’ adjacent to the words ‘she wolf’ in this dictionary to decode this dog whistle. The appellation AAVE is ‘dog whistle’ for “dog in the master’s house”.

As I have stated earlier above when asked to describe the process by which the pidgin English dialect was invented and the method by which it was taught to the African slaves, it is the Pidgin/Creolists who, with a veneer of reason, put forth the "baby talk" theory. The essence of this theory is that, initially, the African slaves had no competence in the European languages to which they were exposed, what so ever. That being the case, in order to communicate with the African savages it was incumbent upon the European slave-masters to devise a communication system. The Pidgin/Creolists contend that this was done by Europeans greatly "simplifying" their speech. This, greatly simplified speech is depicted as being a form of speech comparable to that used by adults when they talk to "babies". It is this, "baby talk", a simplified, corrupt or mutilated form of English that was taught to the African slaves, who then adopted it and made it their native tongue. This is precisely the view that was held and explicitly put forth by the godfather of modern Pidgin/Creolists and proponents of the AAVE thesis; Professor George Phillip Krapp of Columbia University. Even though he conceded that, there was no evidence to support his "baby talk" hypothesis Krapp was one of the first to posit the condition of dominance and subordination as being very significant in the creation of the English based plantation pidgin/creole dialects. Inferring that Africans were docile tabulae rasae or "blank slates" upon which the Europeans imprinted their infantile like linguistic creations, in his work "The English of the Negro" G.P. Krapp (1924) describes the assimilation process as follows: “The assimilation of the language of the Negroes to the whites did not take place all at once. Though the historical evidence is not as full as might be wished, the stages can be followed with some certainty. When the Negroes were first brought to America they could have known no English. Their usefulness as servants however, required that some kind of communication between master and slave be developed. There is little likelihood that any of the masters exerted themselves to understand the native language of the Negroes in order to communicate with them. On the contrary, from the beginning the white overlords addressed themselves in English to their Black vassals. It is not difficult to imagine what kind of English this would be. It would be a, very much, simplified English - the kind of English some people employ when they talk to babies".

One of the most ardent of the contemporary proponents of the pidgin/creole theory is John McWhorter. In an article in the Black Scholar (1997:11) this author states: "African influence on Black English is light and indirect. Most non-standard features of Black English are directly traceable not to Mende, Yoruba, or Kikongo but to regional dialects spoken by the British settlers whose English was what African slaves in America were exposed to." McWhorter offers no explanation of the process by which the original Niger-Congo African linguistic base or core vocabulary and structure was superseded by British settler EmodE. Consider McWhorter’s assertion that "African influence on Black English is light and indirect". Citing Mende, Yoruba, and Kikongo as names of some of the specific African ethic groups or tribes from which the enslaved Africans came, McWhorter admits there was an African linguistic continuum or base from which the language of enslaved Africans came into direct contact with British settler EmodE. But then, in the very next breath, he claims the "African influence on Black English" was "indirect". The question is posed, why would Africans need to have British settlers transmit African linguistic features to them "indirectly", when Africans were native speakers of their African languages already?

McWhorter next provides examples of some so-called Black English features and makes the naked assertion that the grammatical patterns in the examples he presents are identical to patterns found in modern "up-country" dialects of English spoken in Great Britain. His examples of Black English are supposedly traceable to British settler English. Yet, he does not cite one source to attest that the examples are authentic Old English, Middle English or even Early Modern English (EModE) utterances. The examples he uses certainly are not the Early Modern English found in the King James Version of the Holy Bible. McWhorter simply presents some structural features as examples and asserts that; "all of these things can be heard today in Great Britain, and one can sometimes even be surprised by the oddly "African American" sound of some up-country white Britishers".

In the science of forensics, just as certain fallacies or mistakes in reasoning are related to the deductive and empirical pattern, so are other fallacies associated with the practical pattern. These fallacies are the ones traditionally called the fallacies of relevance: i.e., the reasons used to support a conclusion are irrelevant to that conclusion. They are bad reasons. They seem to support the conclusion, but they really do not. A person using irrelevant reasons may use them in a variety of different ways. The following list is by no means exhaustive, but it does contain the fallacies of relevance that appear most frequently in the practical patterns used by those of User Hoary's ilk as dog whistles in their critique. A careful study of this kind of deviousness should make the Wikipedia reader sensitive to such dodges and thus be able to spot the ones which are similar but do not fall precisely into these groups. These logical fallacies, incidentally, occur both in actively trying to support a position and also in trying to refute someone else’s position. They are as follows: 1) Argumentum ad baculum (appeal to force or substitution of bombast for argument, i.e., I’m right because I say so. In other words, ‘might makes right’). 2) Argumentum ad Hominem (appeals to interest, motives or prejudices, i.e., a diversion from an intellectual appeal i.e., an attempt to have an argument accepted or rejected not because of any merit or deficit intrinsic to the argument but the character of the person presenting the argument. 3) (Argumentum ad Ignorantium (arguments based upon ignorance, i.e., ignorance of the point at issue. Something cannot be so because he or she has never heard of it) 4) (Argumentum ad Ignoratio elenchi (ignoring the issue entirely, i.e., an evasive tactic that avoids the truth or validity of the opponents argument entirely) 5) (Argumentum ad Misercordiam (appeal to pity or sympathy) 6) Argumentum ad non sequitur (an inference that does not follow from the premise or statement (as a response) that does not follow logically from anything previously said). 7)(Argumentum ad Personam) (baiting an opponent by attacking him personally, insulting him, criticizing his friends and doing anything that will cause him to lose his temper). 8) Argumentum ad Populum (appeal based popularity i.e., seeking to gain support for a position by maintaining he is just a plain old ordinary folk like everybody else. This fallacy is also called the ‘band wagon”, appeal, i.e., something should be done because everybody’s doing it). 9) Argumentum ad absurdo (appeal to ridicule) 10) Argumentum Reductio ad absurdum (reduced to absurdity, e.g., extending the word some to all and then showing example that all is false). 11) Argumentum ad Tu Quo Que; (evasion of the issue, i.e., refuting the claim of an opponent with an identical or exaggerated counter claim). 12) Argumentum ad Verecundiam (appeal to invalid use of expert opinion or biased authority, i.e., when persons who are experts in one field are cited or present themselves as experts in a field in which they have no training or qualifications) (See McBurney, O'Neill, Mills (1961) Argumentation & Debate) Kalish D. (1964) Logic: Techniques of Formal Reasoning Freely Argumentation and Debate (1967)

Hoary’s paragraph number 1 is both Argumentum ad Ignorantium and Argumentum ad Verecundiam (appeal to invalid or biased authority). In Hoary’s paragraph number 2 after having extolled the virtue of and expressed esteem for linguistic works published by the reputable publisher Wiley-Blackwell, (aka Wiley-Liss) when confronted with empirical evidence that I have ‘been there and done that” User Hoary’s Argumentum ad Misercordiam (appeal to pity) reply is; he/she is too poor to access works of linguists published by Wiley-Blackwell Liss, because it costs too much to download. Specifically the yelp or howl was; “I'd be willing to do so, but the download costs money”. This trash can’t even afford a book published by Wiley-Blackwell. Has this mutt Hoary had anything published ever? The tramp goes on to say says “I have trouble believing that a paper of just six pages in a journal of industrial medicine could do more than merely summarize the intellectual underpinnings of the particular research covered”. This is Argumentum ad Hominim or Argumentum ad Personam (attacking the person instead of his ideas). When I initially submitted my article to Wikipedia it was critiqued and rejected as prolix. Now this Hoary ‘hound’ has an aversion to the brevity of my article that appears in a refereed Journal published by the venerable publisher Wiley-Blackwell. Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition (2001:550) defies the word ‘hoary’ as, “1: “gray or white with or as if with age, 2: extremely old  : ANCIENT <~ legend>”. This leads me to believe that maybe it is not substance abuse (alcoholism or drugs) but rather, ‘old age’ that is the etiology of the chronic subdural hematoma. I surmise this based on the last growl wherein Hoary snarls: “The paper is 17 years old; how persuasive have its intellectual underpinnings been among later writing on AAVE?” This junk yard dog appears to have an aversion to superannuated literature that contains universally accpted truths. Does this aversion to the truth in superannuated or old literture include the; Torah, Holy Bible, Vedic Scrtptures, the Holy Quran, and Shakesphere?

REFERENCES

Alleyne, M. (1971). Linguistic continuity of Africa in the Caribbean. in R. J. Henry (Ed.), Topics in Afro-American studies. New York, NY: Black Academy Press.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1976:1423) Applebome, P. (1997) Dispute Over Ebonics Reflects Volitile Mix New York Times Company page A19.

Asante, M. (1991) African Culture: The Rhythms of Unity Trenton, N.J. Africa World Press.

Bennett, J. (1909) Gullah: A Negro Patois South Atlantic Quarterly October 1908 and January 1909

Bickerton, D. (1975) Dynamics of a Creole System London Cambridge University Press

Blackshire-Belay, (1991) (Ed) Language and literature in the African American Imagination Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. _________. (1996), The location of Ebonics within the framework of the Africological paradigm. In Journal of Black Studies 27, 5-23.

Chambers, J. Jr. (Ed.), (1983) Black English: Educational Equity and the Law Ann Arbor: Karoma.

Dillard, J. L. (1972). Black English - Its History and usage in the United States. New York: Vintage Books. ________ (1976). American Talk. New York: Vintage Books.

Freely, A. (1967) Argumentation and Debate Belmont Wadsworth Publishers

Greenberg, J. (1967) Essays in Linguistics Chicago. University of Chicago Press.

Hartmann, R.R.K. and Stork, F.C. (1976) Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, New York. John Wiley and Sons

Hymes, D (1977) Pidginization and Creolization of Languages London Cambridge University Press

Jahn, J. (1961) Muntu: An outline of the new African culture New York. Grove Press.

Kalish, D (1964) Logic: Techniques of Formal Reasoning New York Harcourt Brace

Krapp, G.P. (1924). The English Of The Negro. New York: American Mercury.

Joiner, C. Judge. (1979) Memorandum Opinion and Order United States District Court. Martin Luther Kung Junior Elementary School Children, et al. V. Ann Arbor School District Board Detroit.

McBurney, J. H. O'Neill, J.M. and Mills, G. E. (1961) Argumentation & Debate New York, McMillian Co.

McWhorter, J. (1997) Wasting Time On an Illusion In The Black Scholar Oakland Black World Foundation

Perry T., Delpit, L. (1997) Oakland School Board Resolution No. 9697 0063 December 18, 1996 In Real Ebonics Debate. Boston Beacon Press

Palmer, Leonard R. (1978) Descriptive And Comparative Linguistics: A Critical Introduction London: Faber & Faber

Rickford, J. R. (1997) Suite for Ebony and Phonics New York, Discover. Volume 18 Number 12 page 82

Romaine, S. (1994) Language and Society: An introduction to Sociolinguistics Great Britain: Oxford University Press.

Smith, E. A. (1976) A case for bilingual and bicultural education for United States Slave Descendants of African origin Seminar paper Series #39. Fullerton, CA Dept. of Linguistics, California State University Fullerton.

Smitherman, G. (1977). Talkin and testifying; The language of Black America Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

            (1997)  Black English/Ebonics: What it be like Milwaukee.  Rethinking Schools Fall Vol 12. No 1.  page 8. 

Stewart, W. (1973:351) Toward a History of American Negro Dialect In Language and Poverty Edited by Frederick Williams Chicago Rand McNally College Publishing Co.

The Holy Bible King James Version Book of Proverbs Chapters 3-29

Turner, L. D. (1973) Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Twiggs, R. (1973) Pan African language in the western hemisphere Quincy MA: Christopher.

Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition 2001:1308)

Weiner, W.J. & Goetz, C.G. (1994) Neurology for the Non-Neurologist Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott Co.

Welmers, W. E. (1973). African Language Structures. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Williams, R. L. (1975). Ebonics ; The true language of Black folks. St. Louis: Institute of Black Studies.

            (1997) The Ebonics Controversy  In Journal of Black Psychology Volume 23 Number 3. Thousand Oaks. Sage Periodicals. pages 208 - 214.  

Wofford, J. (1979). Ebonics; A legitimate system of oral communication. Journal of Black Studies Volume 9. pages 367 - 381

Woodson, C. G. (1933) Miseducation of the Negro Washington D.C.: The Associated Publishers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk) 17:49, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, Ernie, it seems that you have much more free time than I do. I have other deadlines to meet, so allow me to skip to the final paragraph of the above.

In Hoary’s paragraph number 2 after having extolled the virtue of and expressed esteem for linguistic works published by the reputable publisher Wiley-Blackwell, (aka Wiley-Liss) when confronted with empirical evidence that I have ‘been there and done that” User Hoary’s Argumentum ad Misercordiam (appeal to pity) reply is; he/she is too poor to access works of linguistics published by Wiley-Blackwell Liss, because it costs too much to download.

No. I'm sure I can afford to download the paper. I buy what seems likely to present value for money to me. (Thus I will not buy a lawnmower, no matter how low its price. I have no lawn. This says nothing about my estimate of the value of the lawnmower to other people.)

The tramp goes on to say says “I have trouble believing that a paper of just six pages in a journal of industrial medicine could do more than merely summarize the intellectual underpinnings of the particular research covered”. This is Argumentum ad Hominim or Argumentum ad Personam (attacking the person instead of his ideas).

Rubbish. Look at the title of the article and the number of pages within it. This does not purport to be a theoretical article.

Does this aversion to the truth in superannuated or old literture include the; Torah, Holy Bible, Vedic Scrtptures, the Holy Quran, and Shakesphere?

When I want to read about language I'll start with what's newest, because linguistics is a developing science. I believe that the average age of the content of most reading lists for university linguistics courses is very low.

Now, this is the talk page for a Wikipedia article. If you have concrete proposals for the article, make them. Feel free to call me a hound, a dog, a tramp, neurologically impaired, a coke fiend, a chronic alcoholic, senile, etc -- none of this worries me at all. But don't do so on this page, as it's not obviously relevant to the article. You can instead do it on my user talk page, or, if you have a serious objection to the results of what you diagnose as my neurological disorder, then somewhere such as WP:AN/I. And avoid leveling these or similar accusations at anybody else: doing so would probably get you into trouble.

If you have new material of your own for publication, then have it published. But that's not what Wikipedia is for. If you like some aspects of the very general concept behind Wikipedia, you might consider having a textbook published at "Wikibooks". If its conditions seem irksome, then of course you can use another website, perhaps your own, and retain as much control as you like. -- Hoary (talk) 00:17, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

To Ernie:

• Your posts are way too long. You may be used to using long paragraphs to get your point across but when your first post or two doesn't show any coherence, nobody bothers to give your posts sufficient attention. You also don't need to follow your posts with a string of references. In other words, shorten your posts
• Please take time to familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's policies, which include WP:NPA, WP:V, and WP:COI.
• You recommended a difficult-to-find article in a medical journal from 17 years ago. I've found it and read it. As an article about language, it's basically garbage. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:32, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Dr. Ernie Smith writes

What is this? You dare to refer to the language of all descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans as the language of “dogs born in the master’s house” yet when you are served this ‘dog whistle’ slur in kind, you want to go belly up and think you can just run away with your tail between your legs? . Come on Hoary! The fun has just begun. You got down on my line. Major mistake! You are out of your league and out of your class. From the very beginning your comments on my article have been laced with arrogant Eurocentric invective, vituperative and vitriolic ad hominem, ad personam, ad populum, and reductio absurdum non sequiturs. Even here you dare to you present me with more ad absurdo frothing growls, snarls, barks and yelps. The fact is, as the whole wide world can see, the reason you skipped to the end of my latest contribution is because you do not have the cognitive capacity to address the content of the article in terms of its validity, internal consistency and naked truth. You have been exposed as a pretentious fool. Given your inarticulateness and my lack of expertise in the area of your specific sub-primate animal communication I again forwarded a copy of the frothing growls, snarls, barks and yelps you utter as bravado to the Romulus and Remus Linguistic Institute, for translation. With regards to your argumentum ad baculum admonition that I should “avoid leveling these or similar accusations at anybody else: doing so would probably get you into trouble”, you are not my friend. What do you care?

For the Wikipedia readers that are not sure or who view, as a reach, my assertion that the appellation AAVE is a Eurocentric‘dog whistle’ for “dog born in the master’s house” Webster’s Dictionay posits as the etymology and definition of the word ‘slave’ the following: ‘slave \’slav\ n [ME sclav, fr. OF ; esclave, fr. ML sclavus, fr. Sclavus Slav; fr. the frequent enlsavement of Slavs in Central Europe] (14c) 1 : a person held in servitude as the chattel of another 2 : one that is completely subserviant to a dominating influence.” Notice that the etymological origin of the word slave is Latin and that the word slave originally referred to the Slavs or Slavic people. That the Romans regarded as being and treated the Slavs like dogs is reported in any number English literatue classics. (See I, Claudius: From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius (1989) The Roman Emperor Gaius Caligula and His Hellenistic Aspirations (2007)

References:

Adams G. W. (2007) The Roman Emperor Gaius Claigula and His Hellenistic Aspirations London Oxford University Press)

Graves R. (1989) I, Claudius: From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius New York Vintage Press International Edition

Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition (1993). Springfield MA Merriam Webster Inc.

Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition. (2001) Springfield MA Merriam Webster Inc.

Ernie Smith 17:03, 6 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk)

Ernie Smith writes Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]

You acknowledge that the 17 year old article was in a Medical Journal. I referenced that Journal article of mine in rebuttal to that canis familiaris Hoary’s remark concerning his esteem for works published by reputable publishing firms such as Wiley Blackwell. The Journal of Industrial Medicine is a scholarly referred journal published by Wiley Liss the parent of Wiley Blackwell. My article is about Ebonics. That white supremacists and many Black American sheep dogs that have been reared nursing at the udder of white supremacists do not view Ebonics as a language but rather, as primal utterances of dogs born the master’s house, certainly is not a profound revelastion. Since you apparently are of the ilk that does not view Ebonics as a language it is logical that; “as an article about language”, you would view my article as ‘basically garbage’. Given that you view my article as being “basically garbage” it appears that you also call into question the acumen of the editors at The Journal of Industrial Medicine and likewise relative to works published by Wiley Blackwell = ‘basically garbage’.

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 18:46, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Do you have something meaningful to say or are you now making it your business, as a scholar, to call other people names? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:56, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I've invited an uninvolved admin to come and take a look. -- Hoary (talk) 00:30, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes:

Ƶ§œš¹ Have I called you names?. If I have misspelled your Ƶ§œš moniker, it was an inadvertent error. I until you called my article in the Journal of Industrial Medicine ‘basically garbage’ I had regarded you as a neutral observer of ad absurdo (appeal to ridicule) colloquy between user Hoary and myself. Thus far you have not called me any names. If you do call me names you rest assured that I will reply in kind. So Hoary, you call an administrator right away! For, my intent was to correct the factual un-truths and mis-information that I had discerned, relative to the subject of Ebonics, that Wikipedia is presenting to the whole wide world.

Ernie Smith 71.246.35.80 (talk) 05:10, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I still don't understand what those untruths are. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:34, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Untruths

On the issue of un-truths Dr. Ernie Smith writes:

Ƶ§œš¹ there were at least two dozen academicians, language scholars and researchers in the small group assembled at the Conference in St. Louis when the blending or portmanteau of the words ‘ebony’ (black) and ‘phonics’ (sounds) to yield the word ‘Ebonics’ occurred. Hence, I maintain that the Wikipedia inference that the coining or portmanteau of the word Ebonics occurred during a dialogue between Dr. Robert Williams and Ernie Smith is not accurate and misleading. I cite as evidence of this an article written by Dr. Robert Williams that appears in The Journal of Black Psychology (August 1997). In this article, entitled "The Ebonics Controversy", Dr. Williams states: (Page 209, 210) "I coined the term Ebonics On January 26, 1973, in St. Louis Missouri.... In the spirit of Kugichagulia, the second principle of Nguzo Saba, the African American scholars and I decided that we needed to become self-determined and take over this issue and name our language. We must name and define our reality rather than let others do that for us. Thus, on January 26, 1973, the African American linguists and I met to name and define our language"... (see also St. Louis Post Dispatch January 1997). Clearly based on what is stated in quotes just above Dr. Robert Williams and Ernie Smith were not the only discussants in the room when the genesis of the word Ebonics occurred. Therefore, the assertion that “the initial mention of "Ebonics" was made by the psychologist Robert Williams in a ‘dialogue’ with linguist Ernie Smith is factually inaccurate. Would it not have been be just as easy to say “the initial mention of "Ebonics" was made in 1973 by the psychologist Robert Williams in a ‘discussion with linguist Ernie Smith and a group of language scholars and researchers that took place at a conference on the "Cognitive and Language Development of the Black Child", held in St. Louis, Missouri ?

References

Williams, R.L. (1997, January 28). Ebonics as a bridge to Standard English: [Letter to the editor], Saint Louis Post Dispatch.

Williams, R.L. (1997). The Ebonics controversy: Journal of Black Psychology 23 (3), 208-214.

Ernie Smith 08:40, 8 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk)

That makes sense. I've changed the article accordingly. That seems to be a relatively minor issue. Are there any others? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 09:33, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

An abstract of the J Black Psychol article (and the article itself, for those willing to pay $25) can be found here. -- Hoary (talk) 15:00, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding more untruths

Ernie Smith writes:

Ƶ§œš¹, what Baugh posits as four ways that Afrocentric proponents view Ebonics is not accurate and misleading. The proponents of the term Ebonics view and use the word Ebonics only one way. That way being; from an Africa centered comparative linguistic perspective. In fact, a careful analysis of what Baugh posits as number (iii) reveals that this view is not Afrocentric at all. That is, the view that Ebonics “is the equivalent of black English and is considered to be a dialect of English" (and thus merely an alternative term for African American Vernacular English|AAVE” is Eurocentric. The other three views, numbers (i), (ii) and (iv), are Afrocentric. But when carefully examined one fines that they are actually three variations on a common theme. That theme being; Africa is the genesis and geographical center from which the language of Black Americans originates. Thus the three variations of the Afrocentric views are:

"(i) "an international construct, including the linguistic consequences of the African slave trade";[7] (ii)to "refer to the languages of the African diaspora as a whole;[8] or it may refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English: either" (iv) it "is the antonym of black English and is considered to be a language other than English" (and thus a rejection of the notion of "African American Vernacular English" but nevertheless a term for what others term AAVE, viewed as an independent language and not a mere ethnolect)".[9]

Now I should make it clear here that, whereas the first sentence of view number (ii) that Baugh attributes to Blackshire Belay is indeed an Afrocentric view on Ebonics, i.e., to “refer to the languages of the African diaspora as a whole”, the second sentence or phrase Baugh attributes to Blackshire Belay, .i.e., “or it may refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English language|English: either” is not Afrocentric and to posit this phrase as an Afrocentric view is in fact an outright misrepresentation of what Blackshire Belay has posited. That is, nobody denies there are Eurocentric counterfeiters and plagiarizers that use the word Ebonics as a synonym for BE, AAVE and other appellations that “refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English language”. This does not make Blackshire Belay’s report of such counterfeit usage her Afrocentric view. In short there is only one way that Afrocentric proponents view Ebonics and that is an African centered point of view.

References

Asante, M. (1998) The Afrocentric Idea; Philadelphia Temple University Press

Asante M. (199) The Painful Demise of Eurocentrism Trenton, Africa World Press

Ernie Smith 06:41, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

There are two ways we can remedy this. One option is to modify the first sentence to remove or qualify what Baugh means by "Afrocentric." Another option (and one that I prefer, if we can do it) is to follow that paragraph with further academic discussion or even report on a scholarly response to Baugh's work.

It doesn't seem like Blackshire-Belay is cited as backing up anything but ii (at least not as it's attributed in the article). Am I missing something or did you misread that? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 07:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Let's look at what Baugh writes. Here it is:

Readers who are interested in a thorough history of Ebonics would be well advised to consult Tolliver-Weddington's (1979) edition [. . . .] it also accentuates the definitional derailment of Ebonics from an international entity to one that Tolliver-Weddington describes as follows:

a language (dialect) that is spoken by Black Americans living in low-income communities and that [has] some specific characteristics observed in the phonological and grammatical system. Such agreement has led to numerous false assumptions and misunderstandings about Ebonics. (1979:364)

There are, to the best of my knowledge, four divergent definitions of Ebonics that exist among Afrocentric proponents of the term:

1. [. . .]

2. Ebonics is the equivalent of black English and is considered to be a dialect of English (Tolliver-Weddington 1979). [. . .]

Baugh is citing Gloria Tolliver-Weddington's compilation, the Journal of Black Studies vol. 9, no. 4. I do not have this (and I do not know what the "agreement" is).

Still on the same p.74 of his book Beyond Ebonics, Baugh also quotes Asante, writing in the same special issue of Journal of Black Studies:

[I]nformation about Black English has proliferated, creating a misunderstanding of the scope and function of the language. Ebonics as a designation for the language, usually referred to as Black English, attempts to remove some of the ambiguity created by connecting black with English.

(That's Baugh's emphasis.)

Now let's turn to the definition that Baugh attributes to Blackshire-Belay. It's the fourth in his list of four, and here it is (from his p.75):

4. Ebonics refers to language among all people of African descent throughout the African Diaspora (Blackshire-Belay 1996).

He backs this up (on p.23) with a lengthy quotation from this work of Blackshire-Belay. Here's how it ends:

I extend the term Ebonics to include all languages of African peoples on the continent and in the Diaspora that have created new languages based on their environmental circumstances. (Blackshire-Belay 1996:20)

Ernie, you write:

Now I should make it clear here that, whereas the first sentence of view number (ii) that Baugh attributes to Blackshire Belay is indeed an Afrocentric view on Ebonics, i.e., to “refer to the languages of the African diaspora as a whole”, the second sentence or phrase Baugh attributes to Blackshire Belay, .i.e., “or it may refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English language|English: either” is not Afrocentric and to posit this phrase as an Afrocentric view is in fact an outright misrepresentation of what Blackshire Belay has posited.

But here's what the article now says:

it "is the antonym of black English and is considered to be a language other than English" (and thus a rejection of the notion of "African American Vernacular English" but nevertheless a term for what others term AAVE, viewed as an independent language and not a mere ethnolect).

This makes no claim that inclusion of AAVE is Afrocentric; it merely attempts to explain one implication of what Blackshire-Belay says, an implication that I think will be important to most readers. Perhaps that could be rephrased better. Instead of "nevertheless a term for", how about "nevertheless encompasses"?

That is, nobody denies there are Eurocentric counterfeiters and plagiarizers that use the word Ebonics as a synonym for BE, AAVE and other appellations that “refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English language”.

I don't know what "counterfeiters" or "plagiarizers" you are referring to. Anyway, above we have a clear example of Asante (hardly a Eurocentric writer) using (and indeed seeming to advocate the use of) "Ebonics" to refer to the language that he says is "usually referred to as Black English".

In short there is only one way that Afrocentric proponents view Ebonics and that is an African centered point of view.

Afrocentric proponents may indeed agree on viewing Ebonics in a similar way, but Baugh not only points out that the actual meaning of "Ebonics" shifts among writers, he also makes a point of saying that the multiplicity of meanings has caused problems, notably in the paragraph that closes his second chapter. -- Hoary (talk) 14:08, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Dr Ernie Smith writes:

Ƶ§œš¹ I agree with your second option, i.e., “to follow that paragraph with further academic discussion or even report on a scholarly response to Baugh's work”. You should know that after checking the references again I discerned that you are abolutely correct. Indeed, it is not Blackshire Belay that Baugh posits as his source for Afrocentic view number (ii). Based on the footnote number 8 that appears after the first phrase in numder (ii), i.e., “refer to the languages of the African diaspora as a whole;[8]” Baugh actually attributes this view to; Williams (1975) and Williams (1997). This prompts the question; is the second phrase that appears to be a continuation of number (ii) which states; “or it may refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English: either” also included as what Dr.Williams posits? For if it is attributed to Dr. Williams, I still say it is not Afrocentric and to posit this phrase as an Afrocentric view is in fact an outright misrepresentation of what Dr. Williams has stated.

Ernie Smith 15:00, 9 March 2010 (UTC)~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk)

Here's the intended framework of a sentence that may well be too intricate:

Ebonics may:

(i) be [Williams's concept],

(ii) refer to [what Blackshire-Belay uses it to refer to];

or it may refer to what is normally regarded as a variety of English: either

(iii) it "is the equivalent of black English and is considered to be a dialect of English" (Tolliver-Weddington), or

(iv) it "is the antonym of black English and is considered to be a language other than English" (Smith).

-- Hoary (talk) 15:15, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes:

Ƶ§œš¹ There is an Afrocentiric view of the world and there is a non Afrocentric view. As defined by Robert Williams the word Ebonics posits an Afrocentric view relative the origin and historical development of the language of descendants of enslaved Africans in America and throughout the diaspora. The view that the language of descendants enslaved Africans in America and throughout the diaspora is a dialect of English or some other European language is a non Afrocentric view and it has nothing to do with Ebonics. The counterfeiters and plagiarizers that have for years attempted to filch the word Ebonics and with the intent to deceive used the word Ebonics as a synonym for BE, AAVE and other such appellations clearly have Hoary confused. [See Smith (1997) and Smith and Crozier (1998)]. In the “About Wikipedia” section on the main page of Wikipedia we are told the following as the etymological origin or genesis of the word “Wikipedia”: “Wikipedia (pronounced /ˌwɪkɨˈpiːdi.ə/ WIK-i-PEE-dee-ə) is a multilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia project based on an openly-editable model. The name "Wikipedia" is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites, from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning "quick") and encyclopedia. Wikipedia's articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information.” Now, just as the word Ebonics is a is portmanteau of the words ‘ebony’ and ‘phonics’ the word or name Wikipedia is portmanteau of the words ‘wiki’ and ‘encyclopedia’. According to the ‘About Wikikpedia’ section the word or name ‘Wikipedia’ is from the Hawaiian word ‘wiki’ meaning ‘quick’ not the word ‘wickiyapi’ an Algonquian Indian word from which the word ‘wickiup’ is derived. Thus the word 'Wikipedia' is not derived from the Algonquian Indian word ‘wikiyapi’ and its origin has nothing to do with the word’wickiup’ that means “a hut used by nomadic Indians of the arid regions of the western and southwestern U.S.” (see Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (2001:1347) As defined by its author the word or name ‘Wikipedia’ is not a portmanteau of the word ‘wicked’ and ‘pedophile’ and it has noting to do with “wicked pedophiles”. User Hoary thinks it is allright to encompass meanings for the word ‘Wikipedia’ that the founders of ‘Wikipdeia’ never intended and defend the use of any and all counterfeit meanings on the web all over the world. I accept what is presented in quotes above as being the origin and true meaning of the name “Wikipedia”. I believe the meaning posited for Wikipedia above is the only authenthic meaning of word ‘Wikipedia’. I wonder how the author(s) originator(s) of the name ‘Wikipedia’ would feel if there were counterfeiters and plagiarizers going all over the world misrepresenting and outright mis-using the name “Wikipedia”?

References

Smith, E.A. (1997) What is Ebonics What Is Black English In Real Ebonics Debate Edited by Perry T. and Delpit L. Chicago-Boston Beacon Press.

Smith E. A., Crozier K. (1998) Ebonics Is Not Black English In The Western Journal of Black Studies. Pullman Washington State University Press.

Ernie Smith 16:26, 9 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.35.80 (talk)

I'm not aware of having expressed any opinion on the word "Wikipedia". But since you bring this up, Ernie, if the name "Wikipedia" were indeed used within serious writing to mean "wicked pedophilia", and if this use were discussed within a book published by OUP, then I'd be in favor of noting the matter within Wikipedia's entry on itself.

What is this "plagiarism" of which you write? Is it possible to "plagiarize" a single word? If you're talking about plagiarism of something else, then of what? And plagiarism by whom?

Who has "counterfeited" what?

Since you are using words that suggest arguments that might lead to lawsuits, I'd point out that this website tells us that "Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization." Has Williams registered "Ebonics" as a trademark, or even described it as a trademark? If not (as I suspect), the way you keep on about the etymology and meaning of "Wikipedia" puzzles me considerably.

You say The view that the language of descendants enslaved Africans in America and throughout the diaspora is a dialect of English or some other European language is a non Afrocentric view and it has nothing to do with Ebonics. Perhaps you would like to explain how this squares with the quotation above by Asante.

I see it as the job of this article to tell people what has been meant by the word "Ebonics" when these uses have merited description in intelligent, nonpartisan works such as Beyond Ebonics, a book published by OUP and written by a Stanford professor who's been the president of the American Dialect Society. Now, some of the uses of the word may in your view (or for that matter in mine) be regrettable or worse. If this is what you believe, you're free to take the matter up with those who, in your view, misuse the word. But this article is not the place, and neither is this talk page.

Of course teaching at Stanford, having been prez of the American Dialect Society, having your book published by OUP -- none of these guarantees infallibility. I'm willing to believe that Baugh is wrong. If you believe that he is wrong (and not merely that he says things that you wish he wouldn't say), let's see some convincing arguments for this, rather than unconvincing attempts at analogy with "Wikipedia", etc. You'll probably have to cite one or more books published by university presses that show Baugh to be mistaken. Not merely two papers, however excellent they may be, by one of the sparring parties (who happens to be yourself).

Lastly, I'm puzzled by your great concern with etymology. That one word of a natural language is known to have been invented as a blend (or, if you prefer, a "portmanteau") of two others does not guarantee that it will continue to represent those two. Words change their meanings, sometimes very quickly. (For that matter, even registered trademarks can do so. Consider "spam".) -- Hoary (talk) 17:26, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes:

I have forword this snarl to the kennels at the Romulus and Remus Linguitics Institute for translation. I am awaiting their reply. When I get their response I shall reply. I think have made my point. I would not be surprised if a pedophile porn web-site suddenly appears with the name Hory's Wickedpidiah very soon.

Ernie Smith 17:58, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

It seems like, although all the potential definitions are Afrocentric according to Baugh, Smith here is arguing that iii and iv are Eurocentric (or not Afrocentric enough). If it's argued in Smith (1997) and/or Smith & Crozier (1998) that those putting forth iii and iv are somehow illigitimate, I don't personally have an a priori problem with incorporating that viewpoint in the article.

I do echo Hoary's point, though, that this article is attempting to describe how people use the word. If we are to incorporate information that basically states that those involved with the original coining of Ebonics disaprove of its broadening, we must be careful not to appear to endorse or overrepresent the significance of this view. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 00:57, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Possible change of meaning

If I understand the above rather long discussions correctly, Dr Smith argues that the term "Ebonics" was coined by Dr. Robert Williams during a discussion in which several other people took part, and that therefore Dr. Williams's intentions and understanding of the meaning of the term control it, and any attempt to use it with a significantly different meaning is illegitimate and in some sense a "counterfeiting", piracy, or plagiarism. As Dr. Smith should know, that is not how language works and particularly it is not how the English language works. Terms enter the language, whether by coining, adoption, transformation, or other means; such terms then are subject to shifts in meaning, often drastic shifts, as they are used by various people. Such shifts may be rapid and intentional, or gradual and unconscious. Wikipedia should be interested in what reliable sources say the term now means, and what it has meant over its history. Dr. Williams's intentions in coining the term are clearly relevant to this, but not definitive if others have generally used the term in a different sense than he intended, even if he (or others on his behalf) strongly objects to such changes. DES ^(talk) 20:27, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Ernie Smith writes to the Wikipdiad Web managers

Thanks for the 'typo fix' suggestion. It certainly makes things simpler for me. As for your other admonitions, concerning my responses to this person Hoary, I have been attempting to improve the article via a constructive colloquy with the editor Ƶ§œš¹. This Hoary person appears get his or her orgasmic jollies making asinine slurs and commentary that does not address the subject of Ebonics nor the inconsistencies in his or her logic. I have verbally cleaned this person Hoary’s clock and yet this person Hoary keeps coming back for more. Clearly this person Hoary loves the sadomasochistic verbal exchanges that he or she has invited and is having with me. You would do better to make your admonitions to this Hoary person because I will not tolerate ‘dog whistle’ insults and racial slurs from Hoary, you or anyone else. So you just block my edits all you want. Blocking my edits won’t make the inaccuracies and outright lies that Wikipedia is disseminating on the subject of Ebonics accurate or true. If this person Hoary wants to discuss Black English or African American Vernacular English he or she should take his or her discussion to the Wikipedia Black English or African American Vernacular English section or page. Ebonics is not Black English, African American Vernacular English or any other appellation that implies inherently that the language of descendants of enslaved Niger-Congo Africans is a dialect of English and genetically akin to the Germanic language family to which English belongs. If you do not understand this fact then why was the Wikipedia African Diaspora project initiated? You should have called it the Black Anglo Saxon Diaspora Project instead. But then, there would have to be historical linguistic evidence that Black Anglo Saxons brought Early Modern Black English, African American Vernacular English dialects to colonial America from somewhere in Germanic Europe.

Ernie Smith 04:24, 21 March 2010 (UTC)