From Africa to the New World, Written By Gena Smithman

For this blog I thought it was interesting to learn how African-American English, Black English, Black Idioms were formed and differed from the different African dialects. I used to think Black English was not an actual dialect, but more towards broken English slaves used to talk to slave masters, since they weren’t native to European countries. According to the article Black dialects are Africanized form of English that mirror Black African’s linguistic cultural African heritage and the conditions of many platforms of social, political and human injustice: Basically being black in America from the beginning “is hawrd”. (P3)” From Africa to the New World”.  The author describes Black language as being Euro-American speecj with Black American meaning nunance, tone, and gesture, the idioms used by Black Americans is 80-90 percent of the time. The author also shows the beauty on Black English because of the rhythmic patterns it holds. Examples of this are…

GRAMMAR AND STRUCTURE RULE IN WEST AFRICAN LANGUAGES & BLACK ENGLISH

REPETITION OF NOUN SUBJECT WITH PRONOUN                             

My father, he work there.

BLACK ENGLISH

Question patterns without “do” same for of noun for singular and plural

What it come to?

One boy; five boy

No tense indicates in verb; emphasis on manner or character of action

I know it good when he ask me

Black American English illustrates the beauty and power of the idiom that lies in its brevity. Essentially being able to say the same thing in standard written English, which has take 10x as many words. Ima gon’ ona ead n’ say (I’massuming) the Black idioms used when referencing the same topic are shortened because they are said with meaning and straight to the point. The author describes Black English in this way as being a mix and adapted language, stemming from slaves who had to accommodate their condition. He also mentions it has been a discriminated combined language and style interwoven unavoidable language within African- American culture.

In this day and age integrating different languages and those dialects should be more common than not. Especially in a place like America because it is a big melting pot of cultures and people. Slowly but surely with some ELL programs in place, students are able to enjoy their home languages outside of their houses and regular friend groups. However, for this to become more wide spread, it starts with teacher being able to combat this hierarchal language problem by being accepting and open to the diversity of their students’ background: this is in the choice of literature they deiced to teach, which should reflect and accurately represent the diversity of dialects their students share. Problems that come with addressing this issue I believe come from the Anglo-Saxon systemic school structures that have not been reformed since the constitution was first drafted. Meaning students and teachers are unable to enjoy the fulfillment of their education or teaching because of the constraints they are being boxed in with. The research I conduct for our upcoming project will based around the theory that students and teachers become more knowledgeable when they work cohesively together as they are rather than the teacher asking the student to memorize text and conform to the English standard set by the school.