It depends on your definition of the word "language", I suppose. If I define "language" as Lego Tie Bomber, you’re going to lose...

But granting a definition of Language which permits Ebonics, what is the argument in favor of teaching (about?) it while not teaching in other languages?

Or do you advocate teaching in those as well?

I oppose teaching in our public schools in a foreign language (Bilingual education) or in a vernacular such as Ebonics for purposes of cultural integration.

Lack of langistic and cultural assimilation by immigrants is what is causing many of the recent cultural and economic problems in Europe; immigrants to the US have traditionally acquired native level language skills within a very few generations, and this has helped with their economic development immensely.

The degree to which this has or hasn't happened translates fairly directly into economic development, as can observed with the Mexican immigrant population in the US.

It's on those grounds that I'd decry teaching in Ebonics, it would mostly serve to hold back black Americans from integrated economic advancement.

Poor English has been and will remain a mark of second class citizen status.

I believe that the historical record bears these relationships out across time periods.

The language is recocnized virtually universally among linguists. It has its own internal rules which are every bit as regularized and consistent as the rules of standard English, and is as natural, as well-structured, and as standardized as any other language on the planet.

The problem with this discussion is always the same: those who "oppose the teaching of ebonics in our schools" have generally not taken the time to understand what that means, or to look at what the studies on the matter have found. But here it is in brief:

If you want kids who speak a separate vernacular to become fluent in standard English, you don't tell them that the way they, their friends, and their family members all speak is wrong. Because they will basically think you a fool. Or a tyrant.

The effective way to teach such children standard English is, first, to make sure the teachers understand the children. Then, when the children speak in their own language, you challenge them to rephrase in standard English instead of their own language.

Studies on this have consistently shown that kids in such programs learn the standard language better than kids taught any other way.

This issue has, unfortunately, been caught up in the "bilingual education" fight. This is too bad, since that's a separate issue. Ebonics-based programs are meant to address a completely separate problem, and are structured differently.

So my question for you is this: if studies have repeatedly shown that "teaching Ebonics in the schools" makes kids speak, read, and write better in standard English--which is exactly what the studies do show--why on Earth would anyone oppose that?

More importantly: why has it been so hard to get this information out to more people?

Ebonics is a patois of English, just as Quebeçois or Cajun is a patois of French, so it should be recognized as such, still DEMANDING that students learn Standard English for communication outside the 'hood.

If Ebonics is a legitimate language then professional wrestling is a legitimate sport.

Young people today, in general, have very poor communication skills, and this is especially true in urban areas. I ride the bus, daily, here in Philadelphia, and what I hear from the young folks is ebonics, laced with large amounts of profanity.

My grandfather emigrated to the US from Lebanon in the early part of the last century, speaking no english. By the time he was an adult, his english was quite good. He raised all of his children to speak english, and they all, without exception, became very successful. Not bad for 1st generation Americans.

The bottom line is, ebonics is not a language, it does not possess "internal rules which are every bit as regularized and consistent as the rules of standard English." The rules change with the release of every new rap CD. And, if ebonics is so "respected" then why doesn't Jesse "Shakedown" Jackson speak it, or Louis Farakan? Also, it's kind of funny when you hear a black US Congresswoman use the term, repeatedly, pacifically, instead of specifically, in a congressional hearing. Who is that helping?

The challenge presented by children who speak a patois or creole language (which is what Ebonics is) is completely different from the challenge presented by children who speak languages more highly removed from Standard English.

When you have a creole tongue, the most effective way to teach the standard is to acknowledge the creole tongue, and use a regular compare-and-contrast method to teach the children the standard. Study after study has consistently shown that this works better than any other teaching method. Not just in English, but in countless other languages where a creole tongue butts up against a standard tongue.

For children who speak unrelated tongues--say, Arabic or Spanish vs. English--this method obviously cannot work. Here, immersion is preferable and has been shown to work much better. This is why "bilingual education" programs are so disastrous. In those cases, you are allowing the children to limp by without ever coming to grips with English.

The Ebonics-speakers, on the other hand, are already immersed in their own culture and their own language. They communicate very effectively and often quite eloquently with each other. Like a lot of vernacular-speakers, they often take pride in outsiders being unable to understand them. In this they are no different from people all over the world who for race or class reasons are separated from the mainstream of a society.

Once again, I repeat: the studies show that teachers who understand the basic Ebonics dialect, and who use a compare-and-contrast method to teach standard English, wind up with students who speak, read, and write the best Standard English. And that such students do better in all subjects as a result of their greater Standard English proficiency.

That being the case, my question is this: do we want black kids who speak better Standard English and do better in school, or don't we?

First a clarification, then a funny story, then I'll comment.

Clarification: A creole is actually a combination of two or more languages; ebonics, unless it includes copious amounts of Spanish or another language, is a patois, which is a regional dialect.

Funny story: Sierra Leone has a creole which, I believe, is a mixture of English, Portuguese and French and some local languages. The word for "go away" is "fuck off." Seriously. It does NOT mean "fuck off," it means "go away." Anyway, one early creole translation of the Bible had Jesus tossing the moneychangers from the Temple with the words, "Fuck off now ..." Translators found a synonym in subsequent versions. An ebonics version of the Bible, particularly with the dialect's casual, copious profanity, would frighten a lot of people.

Comment: Part of the problem is the word "ebonics" is a ridiculous term that deserved all the criticism it got. If proponents had called it a regional dialect, or even a patois, they'd had gotten a lot farther and any legitimate points would have had a better chance.

Turning to the issue of classroom instruction, teachers should use standard English when teaching class so students will get used to hearing it and learning from it; however, there's nothing wrong with some compare and contrast to faciliate learning and making sure to not stigmatize students when they speak. In other words, civility and good manners.

But as social policy, regional dialects should never be encouraged -- before you know it, people will be demanding government documents in the patois, and then official recognition, which will highlight the economic differences, and then we will have a full-blown colonial situation here. The idea is to integrate folks of all races, dialects and languages, into the larger culture, not give people an excuse for separatism.

Ebonics is not a language and comparing it to Creole is not a realistic comparison. Creole was created out of the combination of several languages. It was spoken to keep the master from understanding. Once slavery was ended, Parents in the French West Indies would try as hard as they could to teach their children proper French. They knew it was their best way out of poverty.

The two major disconnects with that and ebonics is ebonics was created out of a subculture of uneducated free men, not out of necessity and urban parents don't see it as a problem. They see education as the white man's oppression. If he, meaning an urban youth, learns proper english, he is giving in to "the man". Then he goes to school and his teacher speaks it to him. He is essentially taught it is OK and doomed to a life of minimum wage.

I have a certain way I speak around my friends. It is not all that different from proper english, but we have some words and phrases that others wouldn't understand. I think that is fine, but to suggest that my teachers should understand it and that they should recognize it as a legitimate language is just stupid. Unless of course, like Jesse Jackson, you make a living off of keeping good men from making it by convincing them that it's not their fault, it's the society they live in.

As it happens, Jesse Jackson was vehemently opposed to the use of Ebonics in the classroom. He said all the same things you guys are: Ebonics is not a language. Kids should learn Standard English to be successful. Ebonics is stupid. There is no such thing. All the same stuff exactly, gang.

Now, you can sit there and repeat the phrase "ebonics is not a language" as much as you want. That's known as "proof by repeated assertion." You might as well continually state that the Earth is flat or that George Bush cheated to win the 2000 election. Saying it over and over again won't make it any more true.

The simple fact is that the Ebonics language--or Black Vernacular English if you prefer--is a language by all standard definitions of what makes a language.

In the meantime, while you continually assert that this language does not exist, kids are growing up speaking it. Its structure is well understood by linguists. It can be described, written in, and even spoken with fluency by non-native speakers. It does not change any faster or more irregularly than any other language. It is not inferior for the communication of ideas, and its use does not indicate sub-normal intelligence.

However, stubborn refusal to recognize this tongue is crippling the development of standard English skills among countless black children.

I ask my question again: do we want kids to grow up with better Standard English, or don't we? If we do, is it not incumbent upon us to look at what study shows to be the most effective way to teach Standard English?

"There is no such thing as Ebonics, we will teach exclusively in Standard English and refuse to recognize anything else" is the method the schools are using now, and it is failing these kids.

Very little real reporting has been done on this issue. The great problem with the Ebonics controversy is that instead of investigating the issue and attempting to understand it, both the press and the general public have routinely--and continually--reacted without investigation. Instead of stopping, learning, and thinking, we pontificate about how important Standard English is. In the meantime, no one is arguing with that.

I'm waiting for an answer to my question. One that doesn't merely repeat that "Ebonics is not a language" and that "kids should learn Standard English." If the recognition of Ebonics and a compare/contrast method of teaching students Standard English results in higher proficiency in Standard English than any other teaching method, and raises test scores across the board in all subjects, what the hell is the objection?

I think the knee-jerk objection comes when people hear the term "teaching Ebonics," which implies that the students will, well, be taught Ebonics. I.e., students will be taught to diagram Ebonics sentences like they are taught to diagram English sentences. Or they think you're talking about "teaching in Ebonics," which implies that subjects like math and science will be taught by teachers who speak in this dialect. Both ideas are of course completely ludicrous and deserving of being mocked.

What you're advocating is not "teaching Ebonics" or "teaching in Ebonics" or even (as you phrased it) "teaching about Ebonics." Really, it's more like "teaching away from Ebonics." Which makes eminent sense.

If the recognition of Ebonics and a compare/contrast method of teaching students Standard English results in higher proficiency in Standard English than any other teaching method, and raises test scores across the board in all subjects, what the hell is the objection?

You made two conditions here, and I was objecting to the "recognition of Ebonics" in a political sense, not the use of an effective teaching method. If you can find a way to keep those things separate in public schools, let me know.

But if there certain successful teaching methods such as compare and contrast, fine, let teachers talk about them and use them. No objection.

Just to lighten the discussion for a minute, every time the subject of Ebonics comes up, I always remember a Dennis Miller Saturday Night Live "Weekend Update" bit back when the Oakland, CA school board (I believe) had resolved to teach Ebonics.

Dennis discussed the story, then stated that the district had held its first annual "Ebonics Spelling Bee," and congratulated the winner: Yung Chang (accompanied by a picture of a young Asian kid).

Still makes me laugh.

I'm going to show my ignorance now.

Local language dialects form part of local cultures. Local cultures have been under pressure for a while now from "dominant cultures" delivered via mass media, and it seems uncontroversial to declare this as a negative thing, even if we don't agree on its importance. Certainly, I doubt many people are cheering on the destruction of diversity when it happens.

What does this say about the ebonics debate? When we condemn ebonics, are we telling blacks that their culture has no value? What effect does such a statement have?

I don't know. Just asking.

(BTW, none of this implies that I don't consider the teaching of Standard English in schools to be important.)

Dean,

I think that Jerry Kindall summed it up best. The problem, I suspect, is not with the idea of recognizing that these people are speaking a different language and need to learn English. It's that the language used to frame the discussion didn't suggest that this was the goal. There are more than enough fools and idiots in education to make it eminently believable that the goal of "Ebonics" is to avoid having to teach.

That it was not the idea was unfortunately lost, somehow, is more a testament to our media than anything else, I suspect. But of people want to get this idea across, they need to be very careful that they're not allowing for the idea of actually using ebonics for any purpose other than teaching English, and that everyone who tries will be shot (or otherwise appropriately dealt with).

Failing to teach children English would be such a disaster for cultural integration that people panic even at the suggestion of it. It's unfortunate for people to panic, but that tendency has to be recognized if any good is going to be achieved by ebonics proponents.

Here's a dirty little secret about the Oakland school district uproar:

The entire program that they were proposing to use involved teaching the teachers to recognize and understand the dialect with reasonable proficiency, and to teach the kids as early as first grade with a methodology whereby they would compare their own way of saying things (the way they learned from their parents, friends, siblings, church, and so on) against standard English.

In response to the uproar of the "plan to teach Ebonics in the schools," they announced that there would be no Ebonics program. Instead they would teach teachers how to understand black vernacular, and challenge kids to learn standard English via a compare and constrast method.

Do you note the difference? If you said "not much" you're close, because the only difference is that they dropped the use of the term "Ebonics." The program was otherwise unaltered.

Note, by the way, that identical programs have been used with success all over the world. They've been used in Quebec for kids speaking French dialects, to help them learn standard French better. They've been used in Carribean island nations, in Sweden, and in many other countries were strong local dialects clash with the dominant tongue.

Well then you obviously have no problem with the report about a Klingon interpreter being sought by a county in Oregon.

Surely teaching these children English, the dominant language of the land will do them more good than perpetuating inner-city slang?

BTW Dean do you support Qwanzaa too?

Now, Dr. John McWhorter's work in the area is very interesting. Linguistically, whether something is characterized as a different language, as a patois, or as a dialect or accent is somewhat of a grey area. Political considerations are very strong, of course.

In Japan, the regional dialects/accents are more distinct than standard American English and African-American Vernacular English, but are considered merely accents by the government, which also insists that the quite distinct Ryukyuan languages of Okinawa are merely dialects of Japanese as well. The differences between Quebecois French and the standard French of France can be quite large as well.

It's clear that there is a large set of standard rules that do govern Ebonics, and that the differences are larger than, say, my tendency to employ the double modal on occasion. ("might should," "might could," etc.) It's also apparent that someone can understand both standard English and Ebonics, and be able to switch easily between them. However, there is a large difference between the approaches suggested by Dr. McWhorter, where teachers would understand sentences uttered by kids, and then ask them to repeat them in standard or formal English (the emphasis here being mostly on not insulting the dialect), and the approaches of others, which include actually teaching Ebonics formally. (I have no doubt that formally teaching AAVE would be no more exciting than normal classes in grammar, as well as being less useful.)

The creole v. dialect issue, as concerns AAVE, is unlikely to be answered in the comments here, so let's just say that it's a raging issue in the linguistics community.

Dean, I suppose the issue for me is that I have never bumped into anyone who used black vernacular and didn't understand standard American English. (Unless you count that time in the movies where a couple of the back rows made fun every time an English character pronounced schedule "shedual.") I've never seen any evidence that kids in Oakland or anywhere else face anything like the language barrier a Spanish-speaker would. Additionally, while Ebonics is a language as far as linguists are concerned, it's very difficult to write in Ebonics with precision - a trait Ebonics shares with conventional conversational English. The smack I type in blogs and the gurgling that comes out of my mouth in conversation is far removed from the prissy-ass usage necessary for composing process docs and use cases.

And FWIW, I always suspect linguist of being as eager to name new languages as entomologist are to name new bugs. There's a big "I found it!" factor.

Unfortunately, Dr. Rickford, in the pages you linked, does make a non sequitur when he skips from the usefulness of teaching standard prestige dialect English by using AAVE and other dialects and creole tongues, to supporting the standard bilingual education for speakers of all tongues, including ones very unrelated to English. The experimental data supports him in the first case, but not the second.

Dean, The Linguistics Society of America agrees with you, and so do I.

Soooo, lemme get this straight:
-Ebonics is a real language
-the most effective way to teach standard (AKA "real") English to "Ebonics speakers" is to teach them with Ebonics

ok so far?

Now. We also have:
-Spanish is a real language
-the most effective way to teach standard English to Spanish-speaking students is to ... teach them in ... English?

Why do I smell a contradiction here?

"they often take pride in outsiders being unable to understand them."

That is the key to street talk. I'm not going to call it Ebonics. It is nothing more than a way of speaking that alienates non-natives. As soon as phrases are picked up in the mainstream, those phrases are dropped on the street.

Damnit, Dean, I came into this thread with some lovely preconcieved notions that I was pretty comfortable with. Now I'll have to study the issue and respond on my own site.

You might have actually changed my mind. I'm still not entirely convinced, though, and Casey's question is one that I want to see answered.

This discussion reminds me of the scene in "Airplane" where the old woman translates for the two men speaking in "jive."

Casey: The contradiction you smell is not. As Dean has already explained, when two languages are as similar as "standard English" and "Ebonics," the compare and contrast method works well, because both the teacher and the student can generally understand either language. (Understanding being easier than speaking.)

When teaching Spanish the "compare and contrast" method doesn't work, because the languages simply aren't similar enough, so you fall back on "immersion." Which is only the second most effective method when the languages are similar enough for "compare and contrast" but the first-most effective when they're not.

I imagine if you already spoke Spanish and were trying to learn to speak Italian rather than English, compare and contrast would work pretty well even in that situation; the two languages are rather similar in a lot of ways (although spelling will throw you off).

Whoops, got the Spanish example backward. Second paragraph should begin "When teaching English to Spanish-speaking kids, the 'compare and contrast' method doesn't work..."

Ok Dean, you convinced me. I think the problem with this issue IS indeed the way it has been framed.

From what I'd read of things in the media in the past, I wrongfully assumed that you were talking about teaching subjects in Ebonics.

Your points (and linked bits) about compare and contrast versus immersion are very good. With all that in mind, I'm not opposed to the teachers understanding Ebonics and using compare and contrast to teach Standard English.

Yes I think that really is the point Dave. And if I've sounded intemperate in this discussion, it's because I'm simply frustrated in general, not at anyone in particular.

Kids who come over from Poland, or Mexico, or Korea, face an entirely different set of problems. What they were immersed in from birth is quite alien from what they're hearing in school. There the best method is to immerse them in the new language, whatever that language is.

"Ebonics" may be a goofy-sounding name, and that may be the biggest part of the problem.

But let me tell you: not long ago I took a college-level English class. The black people, most of them from Detroit (where the vernacular is the norm) had a much harder time than suburban blacks or whites. This may have something to do with poor schools. But they were having trouble with conjugations that I had mastered by 4th Grade. Choice 1 is to think they're stupid. But some of them, I've known in other contexts, are very smart people. So why were they struggling with simple things like where to use "is" or "are"? I suggest it's because no one's suggested to them that there's a difference between the way they were raised to speak and the Standard English--and that if they'd had it presented to them in a more creative fashion, things might have "clicked" better for many of them.

Black vernacular is terribly close to standard English. That's the problem, because it's close but it's not the same; there are different verb tenses, different sentence structures, and yes, a whole different set of what we call "slang" but which is so common as to count as something more profound than that--much like IB Bill's excellent "fuck off" example.

I remember reading that among the people of New Guinea, Price Phillip--the husband of Queen Elizabeth--is generally known as "Fella belong Mrs. Queen." Which in one sense sounds like wonderful slang, but in another sense tells you something profound about how their language works.

One reaction to such things is to curl up your nose in disgust at how stupid the Wogs are; the other is to be amused and delighted and to explore the differences in ways that facilitate better communication.

I also must say: When discussing this, it's important not to think of yourselves as adults. It's important to think this:

What is life like for the 7 year old? He's in 2nd grade, and he's struggling to understand why his teachers seem to speak in a way that's utterly alien from the way everyone else he knows speaks. He tries hard in school, starts to grasp this weird stuff they're teaching him, then goes home and hears everything completely differently.

Extend that through a life of wondering why you cant seem to "grasp" English. Or even grow to "hate English" as a subject.

Comparison/contrast and general respect for various vernaculars has been shown to increase proficiency in the standard tongue. The Swedes found that among certain Swedish dialects. The Canadians have found similar results in Quebec. Why would we expect anything different here?

Now, frankly, as an adult I probably would take a class in Black Vernacular. Why not? But my interest there is completely different--I really would be learning it as a second language, or a second dialect. I think that would make an interesting and, yes, entertaining College class. I'd never put it into grammar schools or High Schools though, except maybe some sort of advanced Honors class in Junior or Senior years.

Yeah, the New Guinea creole (called "Tok Pisin") is great. I recall that "gras bilong fes" (grass belong [to] face) is the phrase for "beard." Although the words happen to be English words, they don't hear it as "grass belong face," to them it just means the same thing "beard" means to us.

Simple. McWhorter, Sowell and Ogbu -- all respected Black sociologists -- have studied the very real academic performance gap between Black students and Whites, Asian Americans, and increasingly Hispanics. They've found that within substantial chunks of the Black community, academic achievement, along with proper English, are scorned as "acting white." Academic excellence, the key to upward economic and social mobility, is ridiculed and discouraged as a trapping of race traitors.

This attitude is amplified by the effect of gangster culture. (No, I won't say rap here - that would be over-inclusive, though a lot of rappers do swim in the gangster ocean...)

Using so-called Ebonics to teach standard English would further establish and entrench the notion of Black separatism -- the idea that there is a separate Black English that ought to be spoken, and that there is a separate White English. At some point, we have to choose -- do we want to establish and maintain separate but equal minority cultures in the U.S., or do we want to have an inclusive culture where race isn't that improtant?

Teaching English by stressing the patois will only maximize the existing bias against academic achievement. It really doesn't matter if teaching English via Ebonics is useful; a lack of English language learning isn't the problem, a bias against properly spoken and written English is... as if the language can't be owned by anyone who uses it well.

So enuff of yo wack ass shiznit.

To address your primary question head on - yes, the objective is to have an education system that produces graduates capable of understanding and using the English language in an effective manner. The concept of training educators to recognize variances, in order to link the variance to proper useage is not the issue - at issue is the degredation of the 'standard' of the language. This is important for a couple of related reasons - first, improper or inept useage of language is almost universally interpreted as an indication of a lack of intelligence or education, no matter where you go, or which language you're talking about. Secondly, while 'recognition' of Ebonics as a legitimate, daily useage structure in areas that it is prevelant sets up the users to fall into the trap described when they venture out beyond, into the wider language pool, as it were. Thus, while arming the educators with the knowledge that it exists is not only fine, it is essential, but equally essential that they know to stress that it is a variance - not the wider use acceptable norm. To do any less, while possibly racking up tons of points in the 'feel good, false self esteem' category, does a tremendous disservice to the children who've now been set up to be viewed, for the rest of their lives, as uneducated, ignorant or unintelligent hicks.

Taking a page from the book of example written by the waves of immigrants that came to the United States over the years, adoption and mastery of the language of common and official discourse is the way to go. It is one thing to hold onto and celebrate a cultural heritage - it is quite another to insist upon that to the point of resistance to fusion with the larger populace, and quite counterproductive to insist at the same time for acceptance and inclusion, while re-inforcing a difference - both internally within a community, and to the general public at large. The two goals seem at cross purposes to each other.

I am no expert but from the perspective of a kid who grew up around classroom educators (8 members of my immediate family are teachers, tow of which are ESL teachers) this discussion has covered ebonics which diverged into two themes.

1) How do we help these kids learn? Dean has been convincing that compare/contrast is one of the best methods to teach dialects.

2) The other argument is social/cultural one that involves much more than what is the best way to teach kids who have a strong dialect that interferes with their ability to learn standard English. Policy makers are using the debate over ebonics to address other issues. This is why ebonics was decried, not for its efficacy as a teaching tool. Unfortunately this debate is limiting our kids. It is not about the means (how to teach), it is about the end (what will it/does it mean if black children are taught standard english. Is black culture being crushed? Does diversity suffer? ....)

Once the issue has been framed, the heart of the debate is not whether compare/contrast is a viable tool, but what is the social cost/value of teaching standard English. Is teaching standard English a threat or an opportunity for kids who use the ebonics dialect? Answer that question and I believe you can make a decision whether you support Dean's position of "using ebonics to teach standard English".

I agree with Dean, why handicap kids. Let them learn. They will be better able to influence the world around them. Thanks to Dean for bringing a great topic for discussion.

Check your prejudices at the door.

Consider the difference between receptive and expressive language. Receptive is what you can take in, either from hearing or from reading; expressive is what you can produce (spoken or written).

Fluency in a language (or dialect) is mastery of both receptive and expressive language.

Most "ebonics speakers" understand standard english perfectly (receptive language); the point is to get the children to master expressive language in standard english.

Another concept is "code switching"--the notion that we all have different word useages that are acceptable in differing venues--one for church (for example), one for on-the-job, one for the playing field--and that there is something in the brain that allows the correct "code" to be selected. Think of this: you and your football buddies yell and curse at the game; it is the "code switching" mechanism that lets you be sure that you wouldn't use those words and that intonation in church.

Think about the child who has mastered Standard English encountering Elizabethan English for the first time--did you understand Shakespeare without help?

I read this thread at the time my dyslexic daughter was first encountering Shakespeare. Al (my daughter) is in 8th grade. Her receptive language is at college level; expressive language is orally at the same level, the written is about ninth grade. Her teacher (bless her gifted & creative heart) got Al (my daughter) to understanding using "compare and contrast" and "translate this speech into..."

The "teaching ebonics" debate is a great one for illustrating how one's ideology or preconceptions can get in the way of acting effectively,.

Using compare and contrast to teach standard English to Ebonics speakers makes the assumption that the Ebonics speakers don't already understand or use standard English. Doesn't it?

I don't believe Ebonics speakers do not understand or use standard English. I don't see the benefit in using compare and contrast to assist Ebonics speakers in learning a language they clearly already know how to and do speak.

Outside of the group of people they normally associate with, to which they would speak Ebonics, they obviously have the ability to communicate with others in standard English. In fact, they would have to be able to do so.

To me, using Ebonics in a compare and contrast method of teaching standard English would only encourage another avenue of alienation... between those who do and those who don't use Ebonics.

Just my .02, for what that's worth...

"I'm sorry. I don't speak 'Jive'"

- Airplane!

This discussion brings to mind memories of when I was a child growing up around the corner from a little Italian girl. Raised in a home where little, if no English was spoken, she found herself entering the local elementary school with few English skills. She was isolated from the other children and fell behind in her studies. This youngster had a rather interesting solution. She refused to answer her parents unless they addressed her in English.

She learned as a matter of necessity. She learned because her parents supported her decision. Her English improved and so did theirs.

I have an individual that I work with who came from Poland 15 years ago and could not fill out an English job application. 15 years later the individual is a fluent, highly skilled machinist.
Why did he learn English? Because he had too.

In my education, I have taken several courses in both Spanish and German. The little German I remember was not learned in the classroom. It was learned in pubs and train stations trying to get from Frankfurt to Lucern. The Spanish I recall, was learned struggling to communicate with production people in the workplace.

The point I am making is that taking a language in a classroom and actually learning it requires full immersion in the language and the practice of using it day in and day out for extended periods of time. Studying Ebonics, discussing Ebonics and implementing an Ebonics based curriculum is nothing more than mental masturbation at the expense of the taxpayer. How do you expect these kids to learn English when you teach them one thing in the classroom and they walk out the door into another world?

And so we see, once again, that the people railing against "ebonics" by and large have not bothered to read up on the issue, do not understand what is meant by its use in the classroom, what the proposed programs are, or any of the supporting data on the subject. They are content to repeat, once again, either that ebonics are not a language (despite the fact that linguists universally recognize that it is) and that it's wrong to teach ebonics in the schools (despite the fact that no one has proposed that).

Hard not to get snippy when faced with that, you know?

So then I could sue someone for every time my English papers were marked down for spelling thing the proper (ie English) way? I was taught/nee drilled in Wales on how to spell the right (English) way.

American students need to learn English or they will be held back in later life. What exactly is so difficult about this concept to understand? If you can't communicate you can't function. This is not prejudice as some would have you believe but fact.

Andrew, I have a question.

How many times do I need to say that people need to learn better standard English skills, before you'll believe that I think people need to learn better standard English skills?

Every time I go into this debate, I hear the same two things: 1) Ebonics doesn't exist, and 2) Kids need to learn standard English. I respond with the scientific evidence for the former, and that improved standard English skills are the overriding goal in the latter.

So, here is is, again:

1) Learning standard English skills is absolutely vital and absolutely crucial for success in life. No one is arguing with this.

2) Scientific studies have shown conclusively what the best way to teach standard English to these children is.

So my question is:

Should we be using the method which has been repeatedly proven to work best for teaching standard English skills, or should we use one which has repeatedly been shown to be inferior?

If I have to repeat one more time that the entire goal of these programs is to improve standard English skills, I will douse myself in gasoline and set myself on fire.

Agreeing with weezee's point about expressive vs. reactive language, there are some interesting case studies showing that young black students who mostly speak AAVE have no trouble understanding standard English phrases, and when asked to repeat those phrases back, will automatically translate them into AAVE.

It of course takes excellent training for teachers to do it correctly, but the correct teaching style is somewhat just that, a matter of style. It's simply recognizing that the nonstandard dialect is a consistent one, with known rules, and using that to encourage people to use formal English in formal situations. Taking the approach too far has its own drawbacks, of course, like most anything.

Dean, do you have any other links besides the one that (seems to) only provide a cheering section to the "Ebonics is a good thing" crowd?

Sorry if I sound sarcastic, but the Stanford link is really weak. The only research I encountered was the study that indicates teachers who "constantly interrupt" their pupils to correct them tend not to do well. Well, durrh.. :)

Ok, you've mentioned the "Swedish link" research about dialects in Sweden (and the use of compare/contrast for language instruction there). I'm not so sure this is a universal trait... Are there any other reliable studies? Has Joanne Jacobs weighed in on this? Ok, so maybe that's not conclusive, but to my mind she's established herself as authoritative in education, so I'm willing to listen. :)

If I may offer a piece of humble respect:
Certain Other People we've discussed tend to Display Signs when they're in some quicksand; I would respectfully suggest that, sometimes, (very, very rarely, natch!) you tend to present your view as "established scientific fact", whether it is, or not...

I hasten to point out this is not a flame; we all have bad habits (Lord knows I've displayed some here). But can anyone really claim to demonstrate anything conclusively? From what I've been able to learn about the scientific method and statistics, the best you can generally do is reject a hypothesis. You really can't "accept" or "prove" a hypothesis; the best you can say is that you can't deny it. In other words: you haven't falsified it yet.

If you go back a tad, you'll see this is consistent with my posts in the "evolution vs. creationism" thread: we can only falsify the theory of evolution, we can never "prove" it...

Of course, some theories are more applicable to a series of attempted falsifications than others; again, I cite Newton's Theory of Gravity. It stood up to every test until (nearly) the 20th century. But, I'm not sure the theory concerning Ebonics Training is in that category. :)

This is just me talking, but I have serious trouble with the precept that a person not born in the US, who's birth tounge is very much not Western European (say a Slav, or a Pole) will have less trouble learning Standard English than someone born in America, who has learned a dialect of English as their birth tounge.

Add to this categories of immigrants such as the Vietnamese, who grew up with a root language nothing like Indo-European, and you can (perhaps) understand my skepticism... Especially when you factor in the relative success of Vietnamese immigrants as compared to (say) Mexicans or (Lord Forbid) native African-Americans...

Speaking from personal experience (I live in the 'hood), I believe that adult speakers of Street Talk CHOOSE to speak that way. It is also something they CHOOSE to teach their children.

This may not be only a language education issue. It is a cultural issue. There is a desire among urban blacks to alienate themselves from mainstream society. We can compare and contrast all we want in the classroom, but that will serve no purpose on "the street."

I am fully aware that linguists have recognized ebonics as a language. That's no big surprise. If they took the time, they could probably conlude that CB Trucker Talk is a language too.

The way to teach English to Truckers is to take points off when they say "10-4 good buddy." They will 10-4 that real quick if they want a decent grade. If they don't care about grades, and if their Trucker parents don't care about grades, then so be it.

I grew up in the south. There is a distinctive speech pattern associated with living in the region. It is not a language, it is a dialect and unfortunately one which causes people to assume that you are less than bright. I grew up with a mother who continually insisted that it was a window not a winder, I was going to the store not goin to da sto. People choose to speak in a certain manner. They choose to teach their children to speak in a certain manner. The larger issue is how you speak is perceived. My grandmother thinks to this day that my mother is "uppity" because she chose to speak standard English rather than in the dialect of the south. The tragedy that we eperience is that the community of people who speak Eubonics feel that speaking standard English is "uppity" or not true to their roots. The reality is every time one of my collegues ( who has her Masters degree) "axes" me a question, I cringe inside and have to bite my tongue from saying ASK ASK ASK not AXE. I think less of her for not speaking standard English when she is more educated than I am.

Casey: Go pick up The Language Instinct by Stephen Pinker. Although the book isn't about Ebonics, you'll find ample documentation there that relates to this exact subject. You should also look at the material provided by The Linguistics Society of America on the matter. Also, you should go back and look at Rick Ford's pages thoroughly, because he's providing far more than a cheerleading section. He's got copious references to studies done around the world on the compare/contrast method for teaching mainstream tongues to dialect speakers.

To counter your observation: A thing I have observed in online discussions is that when someone makes the same point repeatedly, and people continually ignore that point, it means they really aren't interested in discussing the issue.

For example, I have already addressed your question about the Vietnamese immigrants. Jerry Kindall did too. Vietnamese is nothing like standard English, and so the compare/contrast method of teaching them English would be silly. Ditto Spanish-speaking, Polish-speaking, Chinese-speaking, etc. kids. For completely unrelated tongues, the most effective method is immersion, and "bilingual education" is destructive nonsense.

Cajun Creole, Quebec French, carribean creoles, and Ebonics, however, are are similar enough to the mainstream tongues that they're based on that such programs can work for them. Have, in fact, been proven to work for them.

Furthermore, "Ebonics is a language" is as uncontroversial in linguist circles as "humans evolved from other mammals" is in biological circles. I can respect disagreement from the scientific consensus. But if you're going to do that, shouldn't you start by demonstrating that you understand what the scientific consensus is, and what it's based on?

The way to teach English to Truckers is to take points off when they say "10-4 good buddy." They will 10-4 that real quick if they want a decent grade. If they don't care about grades, and if their Trucker parents don't care about grades, then so be it.

So, Frank. A question or two:

You're in charge of a classroom of twenty-five 6-year-old children. They've been taught to speak trucker-talk by every single person they know until they've walked into your classroom.

I take it that you will happily spend your entire year with these children pretending that you don't understand them, demanding that they speak exactly like you, and grading them down whenever they deviate from the way you talk.

I also gather that you believe those 6 year old children are intentionally speaking "wrong" just to differentiate themselves from you. So, presumably, you will view such children as being defiant, because if they only those 6 year olds would try harder, they would speak better English to you. So you would not be above punishing them for speaking wrongly, right? In the interests of educating them, I mean?

I'm just making sure I understand the methodology you plan to use on kindergarteners, first graders, second graders, and etc.. You plan to pretend not to understand them, constantly correct them, and tell them that everything they know about how to speak is incorrect, right? That the way their parents speak, their siblings speak, the way the people in their church speak, on the playground, around the neighborhood, is simply wrong, right? That's all you're going to do, because of course, you believe that all these people are speaking wrongly simply as a way of alienating themselves from you.

I also take it that you've read about the studies on how well this teaching method works, and have decided that those studies are irrelevant. Right?

I'm just making sure I'm understanding your position here.

Hokay, the book sounds like a good start.

Apparently I missed your comment about Vietnamese learning English. I admit I haven't read every single post on this thread word for word. :) I now see your distinction between compare & contrast to immersion (which you obviously can't do with Vietnamese vs. English).

I'm not sure what you're aiming at in your final paragraph, unless it's that I'm ignorant about linguistics? My main point is that most facts/data are not (as you wrote earlier -in boldface-) "scientifically proven fact[s]". The best you can do is state that a proposition is not false, which is much different from proven. I also know that it can get pretty tricky for scientists within a certain field of knowlege to develop a consensus on definitions; for example, there are three major variations (all with significant differences) on the definition of "species". Just for laughs, ask a mathematician for a definition of "number".

Since you are apparently the repository of all wisdom (Ok, I'm pullin' yer leg on that part), just what is the distinction between a "language" and a "dialect" or "patois"?

Sure, pinning scientists down on what's a fact is often challenging. I'm merely telling you what the conventional wisdom is, and relaying the fact that this issue is uncontroversial among those who study it for a living.

As for the difference between a patois, a dialect, a language, and a creole: linguists argue about this like biologists argue over the differences between genus and species and subspecies and such. Some things are clearly within defined boundaries and some are near the edges and subject to debate.

So far as I know, the basic definitions are:

Dialect: a variation on a language that's generally comprehensible to speakers of the mainstream tongue without huge effort or only a little practice. The more advanced the dialect, though, the less comprehensible it becomes to the mainstream tongue, and given enough time a dialect can morph into a separate language.

Patois: I don't know much about this, but it seems to be just another word for Creole.

Pidgin: a pseudo-language that mixes two languages together. These are usually only encountered when groups of adult speakers of two or more languages try to communicate. Pidgins are fairly primitive, and useful only for very basic communications: dickering over prices, finding the bathroom, saying please and thank you, etc.

Creole: a mix of two or more languages that develops into its own language. Creoles are usually created spontaneously by children who grow up in an environment where adults regularly use a pidgin language to communicate. The kids--quite spontaneously, mind you--develop the pidgin into a full-blown language. The adults who started the Pidgin almost never learn to speak the Creole, but their kids, grandkids, etc. do.

Creoles are languages, by the way. They're just one where the parent languages are very obvious and well-known because of their recent lineage.

There is, in fact, debate over Ebonics: is it a creole, or is it a very strong dialect that's emerged into its own language? How much of its roots come from slave days when slaves kept some of their native words and ways of speaking, and how much of it is entirely organic to North America? We know it's mostly based on English, but it contains unique words and patterns of its own, some of which may or may not have come from African tongues.

Part of the problem with these discussions is that a lot of people tend to assume that things like "Yo, wassup, word to yo mutha" and stuff like that constitute "ebonics." This usually indicates people who haven't heard the tongue spoken for real, or haven't listened closely enough--possibly because they've just never heard it, or because they were busy turning their noses up.

I've heard real Ebonics. It is fucking well incomprehensible to mainstream English speakers, and having them slow down and slowly repeat it word for word won't always make it comprehensible either. Sentence structure, word usage, conjugation is wildly different.

And no, it is not just a lot of slang that the kids get off the latest CDs, although that's part of it. Although slang ceasees to be slang once it's used universally by the speakers of a tongue, by the way.

There are middle class blacks who cannot speak this language. I work with a girl here at work who lives in Detroit, and she hates it. She tells her friends, "stop talking that shit, speak in English to me." She knows what the hell I'm talking about. She's actually disturbed by it, and kind of bothered that some white people recognize that it exists. Some other blacks I've known are like that--it seems to be an instinctive thing, they're uncomfortable with whites knowing about it and think we're only curious because we want to spy on them.

Call it a secret language if you want--that seems to be how it evolved. But damn it, it exists. Linguists have been studying it and writing about it for decades, and let me tell you, you don't get doctoral theses on stringing together a few hundred slang words and calling it a "language."

Like lots of creoles and dialects--the Gypsy tongue, Yiddish, various Carribbean dialects--the usual pattern has been for the mainstream society to turn their nose up at the language and see it as a sign of low intelligence and illiteracy and stupidity. That doesn't mean Yiddish ain't a language, though, because it is. And no, having heard a few words like "oy vey!" and whatnot doesn't mean you've ever actually heard someone speaking Yiddish.

I'm real tired of people telling me it doesn't when I've heard it and it is not just a bunch of catchy slang and muttering. And no, you cannot understand it by speaking loudly and acting like they're being obnoxious. This is the equivalent of screaming at the bloody wogs becuase you know they can speak English if only they'll try and if only you yell loudly enough and glare at them.

By the way, here's still more good reading on the subject.

Dean, I "pacifically" said "adult" speakers choose to speak that way. And they choose to teach their kids to speak incorrectly. It is their choice.

As for the young kids you are speaking about - yes, you tell them they and their parents and their neigbors are wrong. Tell them to go home and ask their mom or grandmom, why. Get back to me with grandmom's answer.

And if you want to discuss the validity of something just because they give PhD's in it...well I'm sure we all have our own thoughts on academia.

One quick question:

Do speakers of ebonics watch TV? They must be bilingual.

Hokay. Thanks for the clarification! Even if it sounds like the linguists could use some more specific quantification in their definitions; [grin] I suppose this is common among "social" sciences.

So Ebonics != "jive". I suspected as much.

I'm not so sure about your assertion that 'you don't get doctoral theses on stringing together a few hundred slang words and calling it a "language." '; there's some pretty silly stuff being published out there. (*NOTE that this is separate from the question about the existence of Ebonics!) [g]

In a perfect world, where everyone in society had a goal to achieve some level of lingual proficiency, and to that end their goal was communication with their fellow countrymen, teaching ebonics may be a good way to help integrate into American culture. However, as we all very well know we do not live in a perfect world. Far from it. I agree with the previous postings that ebonics is another way of SEGREGATION. Take for evidence that every time the mainstream picks up (gains understanding) of parts of the language, it changes. The point there being that only a select few can really understand it at any one point in any given geographical location. WHEREAS A USEFUL LANGUAGE SHOULD BE AIMED AT HELPING EVERYONE UNDERSTAND, NOT CHANGING WITH THE PURPOSE OF EXCLUSION. Now, children at very young ages are probably not involved in creating these changes... it is the people that they learn from: their parents, guardians, mentors, role models, whomever they look up to and hang out with. Children on the whole are very bright and pick up very quickly on even subtle changes, do not think that they do not or cannot adapt to different uses of a language. Therefore, in as much as the adults (and even older children) change the language (possibly and likely for purposes of exclusion), the children are quick to pick up and use the new meanings.
So with all of this going on, my question is why would we as a society even attempt to teach such a language?
I have heard repeatedly that there are "rules" to ebonics. My guess is that if you looked at these rules, they would reflect general rules of English (hence they are closely related). In which case JUST TEACH ENGLISH IF THE KIDS ALREADY HAVE THE GENERAL RULES (from ebonics or whatever other dialect a person may speak). This doesn't mean that you have to degrade or denigrate ebonics or the children that speak it, but at the same time we should teach English solely as a way to promote integration and deny any chance of segregation of any kind. Instead of teaching ebonics, teachers should be able to understand it (because they teach at a school where it is used or prevalent) and therefore the individual teachers can use the compare and contrast method. That is the extent to which it would be most useful since we would still be achieving the "compare and contrast" method of teaching (which seems to be a big selling point for some) but at the same time the curriculum would still emphasize the importance of speaking proper English as the main method of communication in this country. When used as a teaching tool by the teachers, I can agree that the "compare and contrast" method is highly effective. But I reiterate, that method's place in teaching language is to bridge the gap between whatever language skills the child has and English. NOT teach one dialect (that constantly changes to keep people "out of style" or confused) then try to bridge from that to English. It isn't that English is unduely difficult to learn. Millions of people speak the language and communicate effectively. It is the standardized method of communication here and should be the PRIMARY focus of language classes in school if not the ONLY focus at a young age (to prevent confusion and undue difficulty of trying to understand more than one language at the same time).
To summarize, ebonics is in my view a word used to describe a dialect. This dialect, however, is peculiar from the others in that it's uniqueness isn't solely in the different ways one expresses him or herself, but also in the fact that there is an effort to alter the language to stay one step ahead of the "mainstream." Because ebonics changes so often and meanings change with little or no reason except to change and confuse those who are meant to be excluded, I am absolutely 100% against any such language/patois/slang/dialect being taught to any child in a school in this country. In as much as the changes to the language are exclusionary it becomes a tool for segregation, which I am 100% against. Finally, there is NO reason why a person does not know how to speak proper English (verb tenses and nouns included). No matter where a person comes from, it is a learnable language just like any other. The person (child) must simply CHOOSE to apply him or herself to learning it. NO ONE SAID IT WOULD BE EASY FOR EVERYONE. NOTHING IS. But that doesn't mean would should start making exceptions.

Peace.

Curious - Where does one go to learn "Ebonics." If it is a real language then how does one go about learning it? Does one buy a book. (At least it would be recent since there seems to be no evidence that the "language" was recognized until the Oakland school board declared so.)

As many have said sometimes you just have to stop catering to every little whim of someone who claims they are mistreated and tell them to face up to reality.

The language recognized as the official language of this country, as attested to in our constitution, is English. The efforts to force schools to teach in various and sundry languages is nothing more than catering to people too lazy to learn the English language. Those who wish to learn will learn those who don't just make up excuse after excuse.

Actually, if you had bothered to read any of the numerous links provided on this page--which almost no one who argues with me about this ever bothers to do--you would find out that this language has been documented by lingusts going back about 200 years, has been studied intensely by professional linguists for a couple of generations, and that several books are currently in print either describing it or written in it.

The problem is that most people are horribly reactionary about this. They decide what they think first, then they don't bother looking at any evidence after that.

Hi Dean! Thanks for your web-page, I'm writing a paper on AAVE/Ebonics or the politics of language and I find it very interesting to read these responses. I wonder sometimes, though, if some of the people giving opinions bothered to read the revised version of the Oakland Resoluion. After all, it does not propose to teach in AAVE, which is, after all, a vernacular dialect. It merely proposes a method which is intended to help black students acquire better English skills. It also establishes AAVE as a valid dialect which constitutes the "language patterns" which "African- American students bring to school".
Crackpot Conservative seems very paranoid about AAVE speakers consciously changing their language to fool white or "mainstream" speakers. If anything serves as a tool of segregation it is NOT successfully teaching black students to speak and write standard English, which then prevents them from getting good jobs etc. As for the idea that children must choose to speak standard English instead of the English their family and friends speak it seems a bit absurd to expect this. People are perfectly capable of switching from standard to non- standard forms of speach according to the situation they are in if they are fluent in both. And it's hard to choose to speak the language of those who often discriminate against you, who have a history of discriminating against you, instead of the language you associate with family and friends, which builds part of your own identity.

I have read all of your links. I still think that the use of the ebonic "language" makes the users sound uneducated. It would only keep them in the middle and lower classes, but I don't care because I know that as long as I speak PROPER ENGLISH I WILL ADVANCE IN LIFE WHILE EBONIC SPEAKERS STAY BEHIND!!

I have read all of your links. I still think that the use of the ebonic "language" makes the users sound uneducated. It would only keep them in the middle and lower classes, but I don't care because I know that as long as I speak PROPER ENGLISH I WILL ADVANCE IN LIFE WHILE EBONIC SPEAKERS STAY BEHIND!!

Intresting disscusion, I am trying to become "fluent" in AAVE and it does seem to change constantly. what was the norm yesterday, today marks you as a poser(ignorant, white-guy trying to be cool) This makes it hard to learn and keep up with. This change seems to be most frequent when refering to ileagal acts, substances, ect. The base language is more stable. Any suggestions to help me learn more? i have been to most of the links and they don't have alot of how to speak it or other help to learning it.

I'm a teacher preparing a project on AAVE for my middle school students. This thread is absolutely maddening to read as a whole. It is clear to me that most of the posters have neither read any of the research nor spent any time with inner-city children. The ignorance and racism("people too lazy to learn the English language")is stunning.

Ebonics is language, it is beautiful, and white Americans need to be educated that it does not denote illiteracy. While this may have been the case one hundred years ago, it is not today. Many college graduates, in fact some of the most intellecual people I know choose to speak ebonics much of the time. Whether or not it technically fits the definition of language is a mute point. It is part of an American cultural heritage, deserving respect. Its time we let go of our out-dated ideas and images associated with ebonics, and grow up.