I know its not a mother tongue but a tiny part of me thought this was going to be about Perl.
A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect
141–150 of 262 posts
Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect
#142Why not white redneck english then? I've met numerous people in West Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, etc. that speak as different a form of english as ebonics represents. It's perfectly fine for the english language to spawn related children, but the purpose of language is understanding / communication, and it's ideal for the people of a country to be able to communicate in a standard language to maximize efficiency (in trade, social interaction, you name it). I'd argue it's ideal to navigate people that speak broken english (whether they're caucasian, african american, hispanic, asian, whatever) back toward speaking a more standardized version of it.
Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect
#143I can understand the argument for supporting AAVE in schools, but at the same time, I strongly feel that this kind of split is exactly what leads to less diversity and more segregation in the long run. In an ideal world, we'd all be neutral about which dialect we hear and speak whichever we're more used to ourselves. In the real world, it just gives people another data point by which to divide the rest of their world…
>I can understand the argument for supporting AAVE in schools I can't. Schools are supposed to teach you the official language and all the skills you need to succeed in society. AAVE won't help you (or be useful) at work, or in academia, unless you are studying AAVE as your job. I agree that it will be divisive in the long run, I think you are right that encouraging AAVE to continue and legitimizing it and calling it…
> Schools are supposed to teach you the official language and all the skills you need to succeed in society.
What makes you think SAE is the only language you need to succeed in society? I live in Oakland, and I wish I learned AAVE in school. It would absolutely be useful to succeed in society. Ditto for Spanish.
Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
> determination of dialect/language difference is mostly political I heard that expressed as " A language is a dialect with an army and navy " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an... I found it quite true when you look at cases like Dutch vs. Afrikaans or Swedish vs Norwegian vs Danish. Declaring your dialect a "language" can be a tool of nationalism.
As counterexample I would still call American English and Brazilian Portuguese dialects, even though they have armies and navies. I'm not sure if I would call Afrikaans a dialect.
Americans self-identify with English just as much as Brazilians identify themselves with Portuguese. This issue arises when this is not the case.
Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think you read the article. "Schools should recognize the legitimacy of AAVE as a language for their students, and teach those students to recognize when and how to switch between AAVE and American English as appropriate. But most schools don’t do that. They simply teach students that the way they speak is wrong. Don’t talk this way; talk our way. Wheeler says we’re still not doing right by children who grow…
Unless these kids are going to be reading books written in ebonics, perhaps they don't belong in higher reading groups? Same works for Spanish speaking kids - if they don't speak / understand English, they would be placed in remedial classes, right? Since the world (outside the neighborhood) speaks standard English, they are probably served well to learn that that's what they need to know to succeed. The approach adv…
To reiterate your parent: The point is not that they should not be taught ASE. The point is if a young child writes, "No tengo", you'll say, hey, we need to get a Spanish speaker in here to teach this kid some ESL. But if they write, "I ain't got none", you'll say, hey, we need to put this kid in remedial English because that's incorrect.
But that's just factually false. Both of these children speak a proper first language at home, and both need to be taught to respond to English questions in English without being taught that their first language is somehow wrong.
Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
> determination of dialect/language difference is mostly political I heard that expressed as " A language is a dialect with an army and navy " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an... I found it quite true when you look at cases like Dutch vs. Afrikaans or Swedish vs Norwegian vs Danish. Declaring your dialect a "language" can be a tool of nationalism.
As counterexample I would still call American English and Brazilian Portuguese dialects, even though they have armies and navies. I'm not sure if I would call Afrikaans a dialect.
Americans self-identify with English just as much as Brazilians identify themselves with Portuguese. This issue arises when this is not the case.
Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect
#147I'm not an expert, but find this fascinating. A somewhat related subject, English as spoken in Ireland is referred to as Hiberno-English:
Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect
#148Thanks for the submission. This is an interesting article about applied linguistics for primary education in the United States. Approximately around 1900, the United States reached its peak period of receiving immigrants who were not English-speaking when they arrived. Today, nearly all Americans speak one variety or another of English, even though only about one-fourth of the United States population consists of per…
"There are, alas, social disadvantages in the United States from having nonstandard speech patterns" This is, of course, true not only in the US but in many other countries and often popularized in plays, movies, etc., Eliza Doolittle. In German, where people are quite possessive of their regional dialects, Bayerisch speakers are sometimes derided. And it's not just nonstandard speech patterns, either. Unique names t…
"We find, however, no negative relationship between having a distinctively Black name and later life outcomes after controlling for a child's circumstances at birth."
Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect
#149I think in order for a language to gain any significant amount of respect it needs to be used in commerce and more than just illegal commerce.
With a comment like that, either you didn't read the article or you just brought your own bigotry to it and left with it in tact.
In ASE, we spell that "intact". Tact is what he lacks. ;)
(Sorry to be a prat, but it was so deliciously topical.)
Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect
#150I think ebonics if a load of crock, but as an aficionado of linguistics, I don't understand the resistance to double negatives in "proper" English. The "ain't got none" construct exists in many other languages. The double negative reinforces each other, instead of canceling each other out.
> I think ebonics if a load of crock, but as an aficionado of linguistics... I was under the impression that modern linguists generally agreed that good linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive. Could you elaborate here?
You are correct.
A lot of this discussion is a complete embarrassment, I expected better from HN :(