A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect • Hacker News Board

Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect

#151

Post by Cushman » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 12:43 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #142

Why 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…

Why not Spanish? You can't get here from there. If a child speaks a coherent first language at home, you can't "navigate them back" to ASE, it will only confuse them (and further reinforce your preconception that they are speaking "broken" English). You need a teacher who speaks their first language fluently to instruct them on the standard language, and when it is appropriate to use.

(And, as stated in the article, this is not a new nor should be a controversial idea; it has been school board policy in Oakland for 17 years.)

Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect

#152

Post by SilasX » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 12:45 AM UTC

jdmichal wrote: post #125

joshrotenberg wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Link with more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an... a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot Yiddish is fascinating. (And entertaining when spoken by Mel Brooks as an Ind ... er, Native American).

I could pretty readily read (Latin-transliterated) Yiddish with just a couple years of German language classes. > "Eine Sprache ist ein Dialekt mit einer Armee und einer Flotte"

I read an intro to Yiddish when I was in the same position as you, and my immediate reaction was, "Wait, this is just German with some rough edges!"

Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect

#153

Post by eridius » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 12:46 AM UTC

derleth wrote: post #122

eridius wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the double-negative construct exists in other languages. It doesn't exist in English. You may as well be asking why people insist other people use English words instead of German words when talking to them.

> Yes, the double-negative construct exists in other languages. It doesn't exist in English. Are you insisting Shakespeare didn't speak English? > I never was nor never will be. -- Richard III http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/02/grammar-myths-3/

He most certainly did not speak modern English, which is the English we're talking about.

> Students of English language and literature will also know that, had you lived in England up to the 17th century, you’d also have been doubling your negatives with gay abandon and not incurring the wrath of the grammar police.

The key part here is "up to the 17th century". If you had bothered to continue reading, you would have seen

> After the 17th century, certain writers attempted to make English spelling and grammar more systematic, and relate the rules of language to those of logic.

followed by

> Double negatives, when used to express a negative idea, aren’t acceptable in standard English

Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect

#154

Post by mtviewdave » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 12:47 AM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #69

JoelSutherland wrote: post #40

Earlier 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…

So should there be AAVE-English academic dictionaries with entries like "ain't: are not", etc.? What about l33tsp34k and txtng spk, u wnt 2gt dctnrz 4 it 2?

>So should there be AAVE-English academic dictionaries with entries like "ain't: are not", etc.?

This is already the case in Standard English dictionaries: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aint

>What about l33tsp34k and txtng spk, u wnt 2gt dctnrz 4 it 2?

Actually, given how often I see it, I wouldn't be surprised if "U" was the standard English spelling for the second-person pronoun (or at least an acceptable variant), by the end of this century. It wouldn't be the first time an English pronoun's spelling collapsed down to a single letter ("I" was originally "Ic").

Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect

#155

Post by Cushman » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 12:47 AM UTC

Hairy_Sandwich wrote: post #70

blocking_io wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article points out, if it were 'bad English', the rules of AAVE would not be consistently applied. However, speakers know how to use the rules and they always apply them. Saying that 'calling it a language' is bad is truly ignorant. As far as linguists are concerned, it is a language. If you say otherwise, you are simply wrong. There is nothing inherently better about the English you speak compared to their En…

I don't think there are any rules to "AAVE" either, one speaker of this dialect? creole? language? or whatever we're calling it, would not be able to point out grammatical errors in the speech of another. I think the following would all be considered valid AAVE: I ain’t tell nobody nothing about no sushi. or I didn’t tell nobody nothing about no sushi. or I didn’t tell nobody about no sushi. or I didn’t tell nobody a…

> I think the following would all be considered valid AAVE:

Here's an idea: Stop guessing about a language you don't speak, put your linguist hat on, and go out and find an actual attestation. I suspect you will be surprised.

Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect

#156

Post by Cushman » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 12:57 AM UTC

eridius wrote: post #153

derleth wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, the double-negative construct exists in other languages. It doesn't exist in English. Are you insisting Shakespeare didn't speak English? > I never was nor never will be. -- Richard III http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/02/grammar-myths-3/

He most certainly did not speak modern English, which is the English we're talking about. > Students of English language and literature will also know that, had you lived in England up to the 17th century, you’d also have been doubling your negatives with gay abandon and not incurring the wrath of the grammar police. The key part here is "up to the 17th century". If you had bothered to continue reading, you would hav…

Shakespeare most certainly did speak, and write, Modern English. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_English . If your claim is that he did not speak an identical dialect to you, well, neither do many English speakers who use double negatives for emphasis (or because they are grammatically required) every day.

Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect

#157

Post by grumpygremlin » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 12:59 AM UTC

The main problem 'AAVE' is that it is impossible to express complex or precise ideas with it. The entire point of the pidgin is ambiguity. How much this affects the thought processes who speak it as a primary internal dialect is. I believe, a major factor in why blacks have made little progress compared to any other minority group.

Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect

#158

Post by SilasX » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 1:04 AM UTC

Cushman wrote: post #145

omonra wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

But it still would be right to put both kids (the Spanish- and AAVE-speaking) in remedial English because both are at a low level with respect to American Standard English. The fact that they're good in another language doesn't somehow mean they're at the class's expected level in ASE.

Unless, of course, the class is so young that they can reasonably be expected to learn from mere immersion, at which point the advice of this article is correct, that you should provide the "AAVE-native" students the awareness that there are two forms of English going on, at they have to be able to switch to the standard one and use it in the appropriate context. (Spanish-native students generally figure this out on their own.)

Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect

#159

Post by Cushman » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 1:11 AM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #158

Cushman wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

But it still would be right to put both kids (the Spanish- and AAVE-speaking) in remedial English because both are at a low level with respect to American Standard English. The fact that they're good in another language doesn't somehow mean they're at the class's expected level in ASE. Unless, of course, the class is so young that they can reasonably be expected to learn from mere immersion, at which point the advice…

Not remedial English. ESL. There's a big difference. English class is where speakers of ASE learn the grammatical rules of their language in ASE. Doing that again, or more slowly, will not help someone who does not speak ASE at home. ESL is where a speaker of your native language teaches you ASE as a foreign language, because it is.

Only once they are fluent in ASE (and that should happen rapidly for young AAVE speakers, mind) will English classes geared toward native speakers be productive.

Re: A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect

#160

Post by omonra » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 1:19 AM UTC

Cushman wrote: post #145

omonra wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

Your argument seems to rest on the premise that teaching them in Standard English will imply that ebonics is wrong. And that is somehow bad. I, meanwhile, just don't care. The world will not care about their feelings - and the earlier they learn SE, the better.

I am only interested in what is the most effective way to learn SE (any variety that news anchors speak in Anglophone countries).

I want them to succeed outside the area where people speak ebonics. And I think the best way that would be achieved is if they learn proper English at school, full stop. The difference with Spanish is that spanish-speaking kids simply would not understand English. These kids do. It just seems an exercise in protecting their feelings.

P.S. This comes from someone who actually was in an ESL (English Second Language) class in high school. And we actually had native-born black kids there - circa early 90s.