A linguistics professor at Washington University created the term in 1973, then detailed it in his 1975 book, Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks[?].
It was, briefly, a controversial topic in the United States, mainly over its linguistic status. Proponents of various bills across the country, most famously in a unanimously-passed proposition from the Oakland, California school board on December 18, 1996, desired to have Ebonics officially declared a language or dialect. Doing so would affect funding- and education-related issues. Other opinions on Ebonics range from it deserving official language status in the US, to it being dismissed in precepts consistent with racism, while many non-linguists doubt its status as a distinct language or dialect. Proponents of Ebonics-education believe that African-American students would perform better in school if textbooks and teachers acknowledged Ebonics as a different language or dialect from standard[?] American English. Most linguists and education-experts believe that it is easier to learn literacy skills in one's native tongue and then transfer it to a different language or dialect. No proposal suggested actually teaching Ebonics; rather, teachers were encouraged to accept that some or all of their students have a non-standard dialect as their native tongue, and to teach standard English not by proscribing non-standard characteristics, but by treating the issue as a need for education in translation. Ebonics also clarified the speech of black students for teachers. For example, it showed that the dropping of the final -d or -t from past participles was not, as many educators had believed, a sign that black English avoided the simple perfect (since speakers of Ebonics use irregular preterites appropriately).
As a language develops, its use by isolated and diverging people also becomes isolated and divergent. "Ebonics" is largely based on the Southeastern American-English accent, an influence that has no doubt been reciprocal as the dialects diverged. The traits of Ebonics which separate it from standard English include: Changes in pronunciation along definable patterns, distinctive slang, as well as differences in the use of tenses. Some of the changes can be traced to common similarities among West African languages.
Sociologists, linguists and psychologists generally believe that it is common for oppressed people (as, for example, African slaves in the Americas) to adopt a radically different dialect from their oppressors. This is done to subtly rebel against the oppressor and his culture, and to differentiate themselves, as well as to foster pride among their community. Slaveholders, and white Americans of more recent years, generally considered the changes in speech to be due to inferior intelligence. While many aspects of Ebonics seem like simplifications of standard American English, there are unique aspects that help make Ebonics as complex as any other language or dialect.
Some of these characteristics, notably double negatives and the use of bin for has been are also characteristic of general colloquial American English.
See also:
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