AAVE is as complex as Standard American English

[Asajj Ventress]

You sound retarded.

You sound like a yuck mouth hillbilly.

retard

 

[Lil Big Daddy]

Goofy ass c00n.

Says the faggett caping for his cac daddy’s language you silly little bytch.

 

[FeverPitch2]

@Reactor1804 Put your tampon back in, hormonal ass nikka.

 

[Lesfilles]

Black people use words cleverly... I remember one poli-sci class I had, another brother was talking about an encounter he had back when he was in HS and said "I stole dude in the face" and this white chad dude is like "how can you 'steal' someone's face" and I was like...."stole...as a verb, meaning to take by surprise, quickly and quietly."

He said nothing else.

 

[invalid]

Black people use words cleverly... I remember one poli-sci class I had, another brother was talking about an encounter he had back when he was in HS and said "I stole dude in the face" and this white chad dude is like "how can you 'steal' someone's face" and I was like...."stole...as a verb, meaning to take by surprise, quickly and quietly."

He said nothing else.

I don't get the way in which you defined the word to the white dude, how it contributed to his understanding of its meaning in the expression "I stole dude in the face"?
Stole/Steal - in this expression would primarily mean "to hit" and then you could say by surprise or quickly.
But you don't really get the "to hit" understanding in that definition.
Or at least, I would not equate "to hit" with "to take".

 

[invalid]

That is very interesting.

Have you checked out US census records for relatives from 1940 and 1950 and prior? I am learning a little bit about my relatives from those records online through Heritage Quest. It shows info about their age, occupations,living arrangements, neighbors etc. A litlle bit of black life in general back then.

Has anyone else checked out the old US Census records for their relatives?

If you're just getting into genealogy, you can check your family in every census record going back to the 1870's.
1890's census records are not available due to a fire that destroyed the records, I believe.
If you are descended from slaves and know the name of the family that owned your ancestors, you should be able to find them listed on slave schedules by gender and estimated age on the 1860, 1850, and 1820 census under the name of the owner.
For some reason, I don't think the 1830 and 1840 federal census records are available. There may be state or local census records available during those years.
If you are descended from free blacks, you should be able to find them directly on the 1860, 1850, and 1820 census records.
Even more, if your family was free, there are resources online that already traced free black colonial families back to their origins. The trick is to be able to match your family with the families in the database.

If you are getting into genealogy, just don't stop at census record.
For every person in your family tree, you should compile the following;
1) Birth Certificate
2) Census Record for each decade they were alive (No census records after 1950 are available yet)
3) Death Certificate

Additional records to attain are;
1) Military Records
2) Baptismal Records
3) Directories
4) Newspaper Articles
5) Yearbooks
And anything else that is a traceable record of an ancestor.
The more records give you a more accurate picture of their life.

This should be done for each individual in your family tree, or, at least, those for whom you are directly descended or may be immediately related.

If you want to become the super genealogist, if your furthest back black ancestor was mulatto, then you can start tracing back the white side of the family line back to their origin. So if the owner/father of an enslaved ancestor was a German Jew, you would try to trace their origin back to Germany or wherever they came from.

Typically it's good to do this because you might find diaries, wills, estate sales that may give you more information about your enslaved ancestors, like where they were purchased, from whom, etc. It could lead you on a trail back to the ship they arrived on and then their place of embarkation, which would be the locale from which they may have been stolen, thus a place of origin.

 

[Deuterion]

I don't get the way in which you defined the word to the white dude, how it contributed to his understanding of its meaning in the expression "I stole dude in the face"?
Stole/Steal - in this expression would primarily mean "to hit" and then you could say by surprise or quickly.
But you don't really get the "to hit" understanding in that definition.
Or at least, I would not equate "to hit" with "to take".

He described a rape.

 

[Dafunkdoc_Unlimited]

I don't get the way in which you defined the word to the white dude, how it contributed to his understanding of its meaning in the expression "I stole dude in the face"?

That's the thing. We don't want 'them' to completely understand what we're saying. Also, it's partially their fault that they don't properly utilize the language to it's fullest potential like we do. Some terms are just understood (by US) to encompass multiple levels of comprehension and unspoken nouns/verbs/adjectives that complete a thought. To give you one example: a bum comes up to you and asks for some change, you reply 'Ankles.' , and keep going about your way. If you aren't from the NY/NJ/CT area and didn't come up during the 80's, this term will make NO sense to you, but best believe we used the HELL out of it. What does it mean? It means 'No, I don't have any change and even if I did, I wouldn't give it to you so don't grab me by my ANKLES as I walk away from you.' With one term, we definitively negated a request for remuneration and expressed our displeasure towards the person asking for it.

In OUR language, one word carries a ton of meaning. If you don't understand our culture, you won't understand our language.​

 

[Lesfilles]

I don't get the way in which you defined the word to the white dude, how it contributed to his understanding of its meaning in the expression "I stole dude in the face"?
Stole/Steal - in this expression would primarily mean "to hit" and then you could say by surprise or quickly.
But you don't really get the "to hit" understanding in that definition.
Or at least, I would not equate "to hit" with "to take".

The hit is implied in the context of the conversation.

 

[get these nets]

I have a cool book breaking down AAVE a bit, by John McWhorter in his actual discipline, language.
Its very good.

 

[Asicz]

He made an interesting point in a interview about white comedians during podcast at least 50% of the time use black English.

 

[get these nets]

He made an interesting point in a interview about white comedians during podcast at least 50% of the time use black English.

White comedians have been stealing content from Black comedians since forever. They used to go to Black clubs and write down jokes they heard, and then pass them off as theirs back when Blacks couldn't perform in white venues. When Blacks got their shot, mainstream audience was gonna be receptive because they'd been listening to Black humor already(via white copy cats).

====

The book that DTM recommended was great, this lecture is based on some of the same ideas. I was actually shocked that he defended/promoted AAVE, having heard him voice his opinion about social issues. I have a theory about his incentive for doing so.

 

[EndDomination]

I’ve been saying this for years.
A lot of AAs refuse to legitimize the language, and White people feel comfortable disrespecting it bc they know their Black friends will just clap and grin along.

Every English class needs to have A Signfiyin Monkey as a portion of the curriculum.

 

[EndDomination]

fukk this article.
Anybody who says Black people speak a language separate from English is an idiot and most likely a cac.
You never see any articles or studies about how Southern cacs talk.

There are though.
And we as AAs have more than one language, Louisiana Creole, Gullah and AAVE are just three.
There are regional dialects as well.

 

[KingsOfKings]

Hip, Woke, Cool: It’s All Fodder For the Oxford Dictionary of African American English (Published 2022)

The new lexicon, with Henry Louis Gates Jr. as editor in chief, will collect definitions and histories of words. “The bottom line of the African American people,” Gates said, is “these are people who love language.”

www.nytimes.com