Hooked on Ebonics?
 

An article taken from CNN.


Do you believe that teaching Ebonics in school would be beneficial to the future leaders of tomorrow? When would Ebonics ever be used or come in handy and what are some of the downsides to teaching this language to students?

To me, i feel like this is just another idea that racist people are trying to use to separate themselves from blacks by allowing them to learn more about a language that would ultimately never be used somewhere like the workplace or serious conversations. Teaching Ebonics also gives the schools a bad look since schools are ultimately supposed to be a place for preparing students for the future right? Well, in the real world Ebonics is not a language that would ever be needed for anything besides casual talk between two uneducated people. Ebonics to me is a form of idiocy disguised as a language which does nothing but further continue the amount of idiots in the world and giving help to people who deserve no shut needed help (speaking of racists).

So...what do you think? If Ebonics was taught at your school (when or while you were there) would you take it or agree with the idea?

It shouldn't be formalised.

By the way, your prejudices bleed like capped motherfucker without private healthcare. First, not only is it not a language, it isn't even a dialect so much as a comprehensive slang set. Second, uneducated does not equal intellectually inferior. Thirdly, educational institutions are more than preparation for the workforce.

Smell ya later, homes.

just cause it is old doesn't mean that there aren't something new and points that weren't brought up now available to us. And if our police force learned Ebonics it would be more humorous than it would be beneficial...(i hear a good plot for Reno 911!) In all honesty, yes, Ebonics is considered a 'foreign language' and yes, '[high]schools are made to prepare you for the real world'. Just because school offers things that might not be meant for the 'real world' like art doesn't mean it is not a place for preparing for the future. I mean, even P.E. has it's future insights. All i am saying is what if Ebonics was turned into a regular language class?

Well, actually, it is a language! and just because it is from American doesn't mean it isn't foreign, the word just means that it is not English because English is the national language and any other language is foreign.

You know nothing, you are nothing, please leave your school because they have failed you.

Slang is not a new language.

Is it just me, or does it seem more like that article's saying they're teaching a class where they treat students as though Ebonics is their first language and they need to learn proper methods of speaking English?

I don't see how it's really that different from any other speaking skills course. =/

(Reopened to see if I'm just a moron and can't interpret a news article correctly.)

I think you're right about that.

Also, it looks like the program has led to rising test scores, and better communication skills for the students. If they are correct about the end result, then no one should have a problem with it.

Indeed

Seconded!

I love the verb conjugation that ebonics uses. Rather than the obviously confusing "I am" "You are" "He/She is" "They are" "We are," the verb "to be" becomes "I be" "you be" "he/she be" "they be" "we be."

“I can't even talk the way these people talk. 'Why you ain't, 'Where you is'… And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth.” -Bill Cosby

I don't see how it helps to have it in the schools at all. I mean, you go to any normal English class and they won't accept Ebonics either, so what makes this so special? Sounds like a waste of time since you should be able to get the same effect by teaching proper English without having to involve Ebonics or whatever other slang is popular with the students.

Wait huh? This article is about the school teaching formal English and correcting the students in order to prepare them for the work force. The schools acknowledge that ebonics is fine for the home, but not really in the work force. Oh well you're banned so what does it matter?

Learning Ebonics may be a helpful skill, but English is the main language spoken within America and Bush is supposedly planning on making English the official language of America (technically, it isn't yet). I agree that knowledge of Ebonics could help teachers understand what students are saying, but to consider it as an actual dialect and have it as a possible requirement would be opening up a can of worms.

Yes, a lot of people do speak Ebonics, but a lot of people speak internet speak and Klingon as well, so by letting Ebonics become a dialect could open up a whole new problem of people inventing their own "dialects". Granted, I guess Klingon could count as a language, even though it's just some made-up language for Star Trek, but nonetheless there is already a huge split between African American and Caucasian culture and this could create and even bigger split. Would this really contribute to unity?

If anyone else replies without having read this thread, they get banned from Political.

Well, I'm not going to say much about whether ebonics in schools is a good thing or not, except that I think that this is the most retarded shit I've heard in ages. But as far as the language/dialect debate goes, ebonics/BEV (black English vernacular) has a standardizable grammar and vocabulary that is different from standard English, and so it is at least a dialect. Stephen Pinker in his "The Language Instinct" actually goes into this topic of BEV to some extent. Is it a language? Hard to say - linguists themselves have a hard time telling languages and dialects apart. The running joke about this is that a language is a dialect with an army. Just so you know.

I think it makes sense to teach kids the difference between what is acceptable at home versus what is expected of you on a professional level. That being said, I've faced repeated discrimination due to my accent and certain aspects of my dialect. I can't quite decide if it's these kids who have to change, or society's perception of what it is to "sound educated." I have a University degree, and people still treat me like a retard because of my dialect and accent. Is it my fault or theirs? Iono.

Also, it's bloody amazing how confused people were by that article. Even the poster didn't know what it was about. o_o

You know what I don't understand? Why single out ebonics as far as dialects go? There are dozens of dialects all around the states, yet no one has any beef with them.

Really? Could you educate us, or at least me since I don't know them? What are these other dialects of English which use notably different sentence structure to what is generally accepted?

I still don't understand why people would choose not to learn how to speak/write English properly when they have the option. Accents are one thing, but to butcher the language just for the hell of it.. Why?

Here's one I've become rather familiar with the past few years.

I don't want to get into the silly semantics argument going on, but I'd like to ask why anyone gives a fuck about how other people communicate? If you're not ready to learn how to jive-talk, don't bitch about people not knowing the Queen's English. Saying ebonics butchers English is like saying French butchered Latin. Language changes, boo hoo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...glish_language

Anything from the American list.

I really doubt that ebonics is out to butcher English on purpose. It was just created naturally because of the environment it's in. People like to use words that other people don't understand to make them feel a part of something.

Main Answer: If we can't understand one another, then how will we communicate. Yes, many of the phrases and such are easy to understand, but language does change and if it changes to a degree that we can not understand one another, then how can we ever communicate effectively. Not understanding how people communicate and miscommunication is the reason why some conflicts and wars begin.
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I do understand the importance of change within the language, but the creation of Ebonics is different from the formation of French from Latin in the sense that French was altered slowly and for a more political viewpoint rather than changed within a few decades and used as more of a racial divide. French, Spanish, and Italian are Romance languages that branched from Latin due to new regions and politics, but Ebonics is different since it is more racial than political or regional. If people within a similar region (city, state, etc.) mainly spoke Ebonics, then I could understand teaching the language, but when you have schools that have the majority that speak standard American English and others that speak Ebonics, then it could become confusing and troubling when teachers have to repeat sentences in both American English and Ebonics.

People in the South have their own "dialects". People in the New England area do as well, but it is very doubtful to see many professors who are willing to say, "You need to have this assignment completed by the end of class. Or, in other words, git-r-done before I tan your hide and send y'all to the liberry so you won't get no recess." Also, I know some of the African American students at my university consider Ebonics to be as sacred as the "N" word, where they don't want white people to speak it and feel offended if they try.

I do understand the importance of change within a language, but they need to recognize the other "dialects" within the country as well and not single out Ebonics when teaching different dialects.

RacinReaver and Guiinrubbersuit, thanks. It's interesting to see what qualifies as a dialect. Even more so to see some of the official divergences that are recognized.

I have a hard time wrapping my mind around some examples such as spelling changes. Like that in Baltimore you would spell shower as sharr, eagle as iggle, oil as ull, wash as warsh, etc. But I guess that's just my ignorance. I don't know if these are accepted spellings in writing or not.

knkwzrd, of course languages change. But don't you think it odd that neighbours will one day speak the same language/dialect, and then the next one neighbour speaks ebonics while the other speaks standard english? That's not how things have happened in history, and *is* a deliberate attempt to speak the language incorrectly, though on a scale that legitimizes it. And is not at all the same as the examples provided where it was an influx of different languages that became part of the local english. Nor is it the same as one redefining one's language to reflect an accent that has developed. It's just changing shit for the hell of it.

Don't really mean to argue too much. I find it most interesting that there are all these dialects which are so well regarded. I always assumed that different accents or colloquialisms (sp?) were more or less ignored among those that spoke the same language. Didn't realize that such a divide occurs between those who speak different dialects within the same country.