Talk:Ebonics (word)/Archive 3

Junk references elsewhere to "Ebonics"

The list of what links to "Ebonics" brings a lot of surprises. One of the first I noticed was Urdu, which, until I fixed it, contained this not-gem about Dakkhini Urdu:

The Dialect is very reflective of the relaxed attitude of the people which allows the coinage of words, much like ebonics.

By "ebonics", the author meant AAVE, but that's the least of the problems.

It could be a good idea to go through this list of incoming links, of course leaving what's in talk pages (though perhaps commenting on some of it), changing many of the links so that they instead point to the AAVE article, and, most importantly, removing folk linguistics and ignorant opinions, as well perhaps as some racism. -- Hoary 07:29, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I went through a few just now. There aren't all that many, though, so it shouldn't be too hard to dab. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 09:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

But before dabbing any, do read it twice to check that it doesn't say anything silly. Really, those I saw were pretty bad. What's irritating is that deletion can be taken to constitute "removal of information", thus requiring a note on the relevant talk page. -- Hoary 09:42, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said "Be cool, baby. Reason will prevail." Something like that. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:30, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Or, much more likely, your hard work. Yesterday a lot of articles were pointing to this one, now much fewer are; it wasn't me who did all of that. Thank you! -- Hoary 04:08, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

No problem. Of the ones left, African American Vernacular English and Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks seem the most appropriate. Ebonic and Ebonix are redirect pages to here and they might be better as redirects to AAVE but I don't think it's worth the effort to change it. I don't understand what patrick.tanksley refers to. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:34, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Exactly what I was thinking. -- Hoary 07:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Criticism

I was really hoping to find some opinions on ebonics, positive and negative, in the article itself. The links are there though. I was also surprised to nee no mention of the term "jive talk", which as far as I understood was virtually synonymous with ebonics. 68.46.232.25 14:03, 16 August 2007 (UTC)Cliff

I think that the article briefly deals with the pros and cons of the concept of Ebonics, so far as Ebonics is separable from African American Vernacular English, q.v.

AAVE is a lect; it's strange for an encyclopedia to present positive or negative opinions on a language or lect. Unfortunately, though, ignorance about language has led to some silly talk about AAVE, and perhaps that article should say a little more about this.

Earlier, the term jive was erroneously supplied as a synonym for AAVE. Please see this on why it was cut. -- Hoary 14:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Ebonics is a course, not the language itself

It is my understanding that the term "Ebonics" was originally the name of an instructional course in AAVE, and not the name of the language itself. Thus there is no such concept as "speaking in Ebonics", etc. Something referencing this fact (after verification, of course) should be placed as close to the beginning of the article as possible. Mal7798 (talk) 01:52, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

You seem to make two assertions here, one tentative, the other direct.

First, on chronological precedence. The article presents good evidence that the term was used in 1973, and incontrovertible evidence that it was used in 1975 -- though so far by only a very small number of people. Both times are pretty early. I'd be very interested in evidence for any instructional course in AAVE titled "Ebonics" (or anything else) from that time or earlier. I understand that you say that (for now) you have no such evidence, so I'm not complaining about its absence, just hoping to see it.

Secondly, on the implication of chronological precedence. Let's suppose we find evidence that yes, back in (say) 1971 somebody was giving a course titled "Ebonics", and thus that the course title got there first. And further, that the instructor didn't intend "Ebonics" to be used as the name of the language and didn't use it in that way. Well, so? Words acquire additional meanings; this is a most humdrum and indisputable fact of linguistic change over time. (An example referenced in this very article: phonics.) Nothing about that putative earlier use of the word "Ebonics" would prevent its later use for something rather different.

Incidentally, if back in the early 70s or earlier there had been an instructional course titled "Ebonics", either about something other than AAVE or about AAVE called something other than "Ebonics", I'd wonder what the course was about and why it was titled "Ebonics".

Well, I await the evidence. -- Hoary (talk) 02:37, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

The term appears to be a portmanteau of "ebony" and "phonics", the latter being a literacy-instructional method, rather than a specific course. I do not recall hearing the term "phonics" before 1987 (when I graduated from high school), first hearing it in the Hooked on Phonics title (a literacy-instructional course using the phonics method), and I was surprised to find that phonics was merely synonymous with "sounding it out", because as far as I knew at the time, sounding it out was the only method of literacy instruction. The term phonics had to be created to distinguish it from the "whole word" method which came to prominence, from what I recall, approximately in the late 1980s. The popularization of the term "Ebonics" has to have followed that of the term "phonics", and I don't believe the concept of phonics was called anything other than "sounding it out" or merely "learning to read" by mainstream society before approximately 1987. A portmanteau using "-phonics" would have had little meaning if the term was not already in mainstream use. The existence of a title using the term more than a decade earlier does surprise me. It suggests the etymology of the term is different than what I thought. Terms like "Ebonese", "Ebonish", or even "Ebonic" (singular) would seem more standard if the term was meant to refer to a language. I always thought the use of the term as an alternate name for AAVE was based on misunderstandings, but that is apparently not exclusively true after all. Mal7798 (talk) 23:44, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

The article quotes Williams as saying: Ebonics derives its form from ebony (black) and phonics (sound, the study of sound). (Williams's book is rather elusive, but this particular passage is quoted in accessible and authoritative books.) A good dictionary will confirm that the word "phonics" can indeed have the meaning of "phonetics", although it is seldom used for this purpose. (And I imagine that the use will become completely obsolete if it isn't so already, as (i) the trivially longer "phonetics" (a) is well established and (b) usefully emphasizes the etic/emic distinction with "phonemic", and (ii) there's obvious risk of confusion with the pedagogic meaning.)

You say: The popularization of the term "Ebonics" has to have followed that of the term "phonics". I see no reason for this. Anyway, "phonics", used to mean what most people would call "phonetics", was (at least among those who were interested in such things) well known at the time when "ebonics" was coined. Was "phonics", in the sense of "phonetics", well known among the general public? I doubt it, but this wouldn't have mattered: people would have recognized the neologism "ebonics" as a derivative of "ebony" with the "-ics" suffix of "economics", "statistics", etc. -- Hoary (talk) 02:30, 25 December 2008 (UTC) .... slightly retouched 02:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

"what the hell 'ebonics' is"

Here's a list of the most recent edits:

1. edit in which Paaerduag replaces The term Ebonics with Ebonics is a term that; no edit summary.
2. edit in which Hoary reverts this, with the edit summary undo: no need for four words where two will suffice
3. edit in which some IP removes a category, with no edit summary
4. edit in which the IP blanks the whole article, with no edit summary
5. edit in which Thingg reverts the article to the state in which Hoary left it
6. edit in which Paaerduag reverts to his phrasing, with the edit summary I think when people open this article, they want a nice simple statement of what the hell "ebonics" is. I provide that statement: what is ebonics? It is a term.

Sadly, vandalism of this article is commonplace. (Thanks to Wikipedia, I now know that the world has a vigorous minority of fools.) But Paaerduag's edits, which of course aren't vandalism, surprise me.

Paaerduag's list of contributions throws some light on this. That second edit of his was made on 27 December and it's his/her first in eight days (and, as I write, the latest). A great number of his/her preceding edits were to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), under the rubric "Introductory Sentence Proposal". Paaerduag writes (here):

I propose to standardize the introductory sentences in all articles across wikipedia into the following format:

[Indefinite/definite article] + [Article title] + [relevant conjugation of the verb to be] + [definition/overview etc.]

(NB: The article may be omitted if it is inappropriate/unnecessary.)

Paaerduag wrote cheerily:

Thanks for any feedback and comments on this proposal

and got a moderate amount of feedback, some positive, some negative. One of the comments read:

you could rewrite the start of Ebonics to for example "Ebonics is a term that was..." but I don't see how that would be an improvement

This remark seems to have acted as a "red flag" to Paaerduag.

If Ebonics is merely a term, then this is a dictionary entry (though an oddly longwinded one). And if it's a dictionary entry, it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia.

I have mixed feelings about this article. It's only worthwhile so far as it describes something other than AAVE or this or that specific US outburst of affrontedness. But on balance I do think that a good article on "Ebonics" helps to avoid misunderstandings, and more importantly the article (in something not so far from its current state) survived an AfD.

And when I was taught about crafting prose, I heard that, other things being equal, two words were better than four.

So I'm inclined to revert Paaerduag a second time. Still, let's see what a third party thinks. -- Hoary (talk) 05:03, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

First, I chuckle. Second, to respond is the action that I now wish to take.. I don't see any improvement (rather, a minor increase of wordiness) to the article by replacing : The term Ebonics with Ebonics is a term that... Editorial energies are probably best concentrated on more important stuff. Pinkville (talk) 22:27, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Lead

What seems to have been the stable 1st sentence:"Ebonics is a term that was originally intended and sometimes used for the language of all people of African ancestry, or for that of Black North American and West African people " is clearly wrong, judging by the passage quoted from the book below. Perhaps "in the US" was implied, but we don't do things that way in WP. Actual African languages are clearly not intended to be included. The passage from the book begs a number of questions - are French-based patois covered? African versions of Arabic? Why just West Africa? I have tried another version. Johnbod (talk) 12:41, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Here's Williams, as quoted below:

"the linguistic and paralinguistic features which on a concentric continuum represent the communicative competence of the West African, Caribbean, and United States slave descendant [sic] of African origin. [...]"

(my emphasis). Now, this strikes me as peculiarly bad writing ("on a concentric continuum") toward a characterization of language that, so far as I start to understand it, is mushy at best. But that's what this non-linguist wrote -- or so we are told in books that are themselves reliable. Taken together with the sourced assertion in the article that --

Other writers have since emphasized how the term represents a view of the language of Black people as African rather than European.

--it's clear to me as a reader that yes, this conception of "Ebonics" does indeed include African versions of Arabic, African French, and so forth. And thus it's clear to me as somebody at a low rung (but not the absolute bottom rung) of linguistics that this notion makes no sense either genetically [note to the easily outraged: genetic is here a linguistics term] or typologically, and therefore that it's a load of cobblers. But that's what it was intended to mean. -- Hoary (talk) 10:29, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

PS I happen to have Lisa Green's book with me. On p.7 she writes:

The view of Williams and other scholars who discussed this issue [sc. that of "Ebonics"] was that the language of black people had its roots in Niger-Congo languages of Africa, not in Indo-European languages. However, during the Oakland controversy, the media and general public adopted the term "Ebonics", using it interchangeably with the labels given earlier [sc. BEV, AAE, AAVE], thus not using the term as it was intended.

-- Hoary (talk) 10:43, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Trivia removal

I've removed this newly inserted bit:

Later, Ebonics resurfaced in American popular culture, for a moment at least, when the term was the question to an answer on the American quiz show Jeopardy!. When presented with the answer "It's a colloquial term for Black English", contestant Ken Jennings (whose run on the show broke records) replied "What be Ebonics?".

Momentary resurfacing in American popular culture strikes me as trivial, as does an appearance in Jeopardy. Plus there's no indication of when this happened, plus the assertion is unsourced. I've therefore removed it. -- Hoary (talk) 10:15, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

on "standard" and "nonstandard", and on "bias"

In this edit, Abductive changes

it has been largely used to refer to African American Vernacular English (distinctively nonstandard Black United States English)

to

it has been largely used to refer to African American Vernacular English

with the edit summary

Non-standard is a loaded term

Now, I've no doubt that this edit was intended well, but:

1. "African American Vernacular English" was in bold for a reason: to point the probably large number of readers arriving at "Ebonics" in order to read about what en:WP calls AAVE to the article where AAVE is described.
2. Removal of "(distinctively nonstandard Black United States English)" removes what might be a helpful reminder of the meaning of AAVE.
3. As any open minded person who has heard the speech of Barack Obama (just to name the best known among millions) will know, Black Americans are masters of standard American English. "Distinctively nonstandard Black US English" may well be bettered as a single mouthful to describe AAVE, and I'd happily see improvements, but it seems helpful and accurate.
4. "Non-standard" may indeed be a loaded term in other contexts or in the mouths of ignoramuses. But this is about linguistics and it's a standard term in linguistics. Books on linguistics (and not only sociolinguistics) routinely and correctly point out that it in no way implies inferiority. (See this as one example of a linguist contrasting AAVE with Standard English with no slight to the latter.)

In the following edit, Abductive changes

since 1996 it has been largely used to refer to African American Vernacular English, asserting the independence of this from (standard) English

to

since 1996 it has been largely used to refer to African American Vernacular English, as distinct from the General American dialect

with the edit summary

Toning down bias

There are problems here:

1. General American is indeed merely yet another variety of English (on a par with AAVE, British "Received Pronunciation", etc) and can be called a lect and perhaps a dialect. However, unless it comes with a brief explanation, this way of referring to it as a dialect is likely to confuse naive readers, who may well wrack their brains for some "general American dialect" to subsume Brooklyn, Boston, Texas, and all the other "regional" forms of US English.
2. As the article goes on to explain, the point about the term "Ebonics" was (is?) to assert the independence of this language from [standard] English (and not only from the General American lect thereof). Like it or not, as it was originally intended (and where it means more than does "AAVE"), "Ebonics" itself has ideological freight. Thus the "bias" is that of the term itself, not the description.

In the next edit, some IP tampers with writing explicitly attributed to Robert Williams. In the following edit I revert that. And in the edit after that one, I revert Abductive's changes too, bringing the article back to the form it was in back in early October (and perhaps earlier still), aside from one change to a category.

Again, I'm sure that Abductive had the best intentions. I think it's very likely that the wording and perhaps the content of this article could be improved, and welcome well-informed improvements from Abductive or anyone else. -- Hoary (talk) 23:36, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

What do the sources say? I'm troubled by the lack of sources on any of the sentences of the lead. Abductive (reasoning) 23:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. I probably shan't be able to go searching for sources for another 30 hours or so, but certainly I'll be willing to do so then. I don't quite know what it is that you want sourced, though. (For example, the assertion that "Ebonics" has ideological freight is explained later within the article.) -- Hoary (talk) 23:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)