If you are a regular reader of this blog, you would have come across my previous two post on Ebonics. As I have written before on this blog and other blogs that have covered this topic, I think Ebonics is an important component of African-American culture. That said, to excel in Mainstream American and certainly corporate America, it is important that those of us who speak Ebonics can also speak standard English with ease. In the video below, a professional brother gives us an excellent demonstration of how it is possible to shift between the two dialects. He goes from William Jeffery Wilson III from 5th avenue to DaShawn MoQuan Jackson from Martin Luther King Blvd in less than 5 seconds.
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This guy wishes it was pollen.
Video from C&D
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5 years ago
9 comments:
That really made me laugh lol. What you wrote is so true though.
lol.. that was funny. Sad but true though.
lmao...
as a teacher, i'm really trying to emphasize to my students that they have to be bilingual. they can speak AAE (african-american english, which is what "ebonics" has been deemed), but they MUST be able to code-switch to SAE (standard american english).
this was COMEDY, but brotha has skills. don't hate, he's bilingual!
BTW: classical one...
there is no such thing as "talking white" or "talking black"...that is what SOME like to call it to relegate our language/dialect to something other than appropriate.
but there has been studies upon studies that can trace the connection with the way several Black folks speak to several of the african languages. for example...in many West African languages (which is the region most of the slaves came from) there is no "TH" sound. so when we were enslaved and unable to gain access to education, we had to piece together a language based on what we already knew. that is why many Black folks say "dis," "dat" "dere"...because in the West African languages there is no "th" sound. now, there is also no "th" in many other languages, such as French, but when a french person says "dis" no one bats an eye. but when black folks say it, it is somehow less than.
This was shown to us in my journalism as an example of "what not to do" in reporting. lol
@torrence-Not when a fly is in his mouth.
@classical one-the prisonner's wife hit it on the nose.
@the prisoner's wife-We see I2I on the Ebonics issue, and yes this guy is bilingual. Thanks for breaking it down.
@dominican enigma-Really, that means this video has been around for some time then. If you are in the field reporting just watch out for the flys.
The correct term for Ebonics is African American Vernacular English. I learned this from a book by John McWhorter. It's an actual dialect that is spoken by Blacks and Whites mostly in the south. Just thought I'd add that fact. Nice blog.
LMAO. great.
The French language has a "th" as in the name "Thibault". The "h" is silent. That guy in the video was funny. He looked like he was just blind-sided to the max.
I consider myself to be a "wordsmith", and as such, I pretty much speak the Queen's English, both in pronunciation as well as grammatically. It pains me to see the English language going down the tubes. I agree that we can speak Ebonically, but, should know when to put it aside and speak proper English. My biggest problem is that so many of us don't know when we are speaking improperly or writing improperly, and it causes many an argument between myself and the younger generation. I see "there" instead of "their" or "they're"; "here" instead of "hear", and so forth. This is a subject that I could can digress upon ad in finitum, but, I won't. This was a lovely visit, and I will return. Thanks for creating such a great place for dialogue and interaction. Peace.
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