1. African American English (AAE) Phonology 1
 r-deletion (NOT unique to AAE)
guard god
nor gnaw
sore saw
poor pa
fort fought
court caught
 l-deletion (some speakers)
toll toe
all awe
help hep
Fromkin & Rodman, p. 412
1/18

2. African American English (AAE) Phonology 2
 Consonant cluster simplification (NOT unique /OPTIONAL)
passed pass
meant men
 Neutralization of [I] and [E] before nasals (NOT unique)
pin pen
bin Ben
tin ten
 Loss of interdental fricatives (NOT unique)
thing fing
this, that, these, those  [d]
2/18
Fromkin & Rodman, p. 412

3. African American English (AAE) Syntax 1
 Double / Multiple negatives (NOT unique to AAE)
He don’t know nothing.
3/18
Fromkin & Rodman, p. 412

4. African American English (AAE) Syntax 2
 Deletion of ‘be’
SAE AAE
He is nice / He nice
He’s nice
They are mine / They mine
They’re mine
I am going to do it / I gonna do it
I’m going to do it
4/18
Fromkin & Rodman, p. 415.

5. African American English (AAE) Syntax 3
 Deletion of ‘be’ Exceptions
SAE AAE
He is / he’s as nice He as nice as he say he is
as he says he is
*He’s as nice *He as nice as he say he
as he says he’s
How beautiful you are How beautiful you are
*How beautiful you’re *How beautiful you
Here I am Here I am
*Here I’m *Here I
5/18
Fromkin & Rodman, p. 415.

6. African American English (AAE) Syntax 4
 Habitual ‘be’
SAE AAE
John be happy. John is always happy.
John happy. John is happy now.
He be late. He is habitually late.
He late. He is late this time.
Do you be tired? Are you generally tired?
You tired? Are you tired now?
6/18
Fromkin & Rodman, p. 415.

7. African American English (AAE) Vocabulary
Nothing in Fromkin & Rodman
7/18

8. Multiple Negation
See p. 186 / 189
8/18

9. Why do minority languages survive?
 “Ultimately, the survival of the minority language is closely bound up with the preservation or affirmation of a distinct ethnic identity and culture.”  “Maintaining a separate ethnic identity” or “Rediscovery and assertion of a distinctively Afro-Caribbean identity”
9/18
Montgomery, pp

10. History of Jamaican Creole
 Late 17th century  British settlers raising sugarcane  Slaves imported  CONTACT Language—pidgin arose (English vocabulary; simplified syntax; African influences in pronunciation, maybe 10% of the vocabulary, and some syntax)  Subsequent generations of slaves learned this language (used with masters and fellow slaves)  evolved, “transformed into a much more complex and flexible language called a CREOLE (defined technically as a pidgin which becomes the first language of a group)”
10/18
Montgomery, pp

11. Standard English and Jamaican Creole 1
Standard English Jamaican Creole
 Plurals
the other girls di addah girl dem
with those other girls wid dem addah girl
 Possession
the man’s hat di man hat
the man’s woman di man woman noh
didn’t like tis like dis
11/18
Montgomery, p. 84.

12. Standard English and Jamaican Creole 2
Standard English Jamaican Creole
 Past time
I went yesterday mi go yeside
I told you so already me tel yu so aredi
I had already walked home mi ben waak huom aredi
I have finished sleeping mi don sliip [sic]
 Present
what are you doing out there? whey [sic] you a dhu out yah?
where are you going? whey [sic] you a go?
Montgomery, p. 84.
12/18

13. Jamaican Creole Continuum
Broadest Creole Standard English
13/18

14. Schematic of Hypothetical Repertoires (Six speakers)
Broadest Standard
Creole English
Speaker 1 2 3 4 5 6
14/18
Based on Montgomery, 85, THOUGH modified and expanded.

15. Linguist’s View of Language Varieties
“All language varieties are equal:
 there is no significant difference in the complexity of their linguistic structure;
 they all have resources for creating new vocabulary as it is needed,
 and for developing the grammatical constructions their speakers require.”
Holmes, Janet An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 4th edition. London: Pearson, p. 202.
15/18

16. But…
“Though linguists present this ideal of equality between the languages and dialects used by different ethnic and social groups, it has no social reality.”
Holmes, Janet An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 4th edition. London: Pearson, p. 202.
16/18

17. A Social Network E A B D C Uniplex Multiplex 17/18
Matthews, P.H. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, see “social network”.
17/18

18. Social Network Influence
“It is not surprising that people’s speech should indicate the types of networks they belong to. The people we interact with are one important influence on our speech. When the people we mix with regularly belong to a homogeneous group, we tend to speak the way the rest of the group does, provided we want to belong to the group and like the people in it.”
Holmes, Janet An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 4th edition. London: Pearson, p. 194.
18/18