What is AAE?

I do apologize for the lengthy summary--the article itself was pretty extensive.

In this article, the writer (whose name does not appear on the handout) argues that naming and labeling is extremely important, and is no less important when discussing AAE. AAE is short for African American English, and in the past has been labeled as "broken" English, "Black English" and "Ebonics", among others. AAE, he or she estimates, is spoken by about eighty to ninety percent of African Americans, but other races and ethnicities, though in the minority, are also a part of the AAE speech community.The article aims to point out that AAE is either a dialect or a language, not simply slang or "broken" English. Though the writer concedes that AAE appears to break the rules of Standard American English, he or she argues that there is no universal standard for speaking English in the United States. There is a formal written standard known as SWE, or Standard Written English. In accordance with SWE rules, AAE implements errors such as subject/verb disagreement, misuse of verbs, and poorly constructed sentences.

Many have attacked AAE as an incorrect form of English, through which attacks there are implications that AAE speakers are uneducated or lack the intelligence to learn Standard English. However, linguist John Rickford argues that AAE speakers are, in fact, implementing their own rules in the dialect or language. These rules simply differ from those of Standard English. The writer then shows an example of someone trying to replicate AAE unsuccessfully because they fail to follow the rules of the language. She also states that AAE compares to many other forms of language, and specifically cites that AAE is much like French--as AAE stems from English, so does French stem from Latin.

The author then further attempts to prove AAE is not slang by showing that slang is a short-lived group of words shared by a particular group of people. However, AAE has endured and evolved for centuries. He or she then attempts to prove AAE is either a dialect or a language, showing that a dialect encompasses rules of English while at the same time varies in systematic ways. A language, he or she states, consists of phonology, semantics, and syntax. While a dialect can encompass these as well, many try to distinguish between a dialect and a language by implementing the use of mutual intelligibility--that is, if AAE, Appalachian English, and Standard English speakers can understand one another, it must be a dialect. However, mutual intelligibility has proved unreliable, as Chinese speakers from different dialects do not always understand each other, just as those from different Swedish languages are able to. He or she states that, more than anything, distinguishing dialects and languages is more of a political judgement, not a linguistic one.

Finally, AAE incorporates camouflaged forms of phrases--ones that look similar to Standard English but possess unique meanings in AAE. AAE speakers also invent their own slang from previously known phrases. For example, the phrase "get my groove on" was adapted for slang to encompass phrases such as "get my chill on" (relax) or "get my grub on" (eat).