African American, was: "AAVE" (the abbrev. itself)

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Oct 8, 2004, at 5:13 AM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:

> ...I think this very thread is a good example of what I'm talking
> about.  We were having a pretty close look at a narrow
> issue--when the term _African-American_ became common enough
> in the scholarly community to be used as part of the name for
> a variety of English--and it very quickly got sidetracked into
> displays of nineteenth-century examples of the term, which
> have no relevance to the issue at hand. And this is among
> people attuned to such concerns...

and now, wresting the thread back to jesse's original query, i can
report on an antedating of AAVE references to 1991.  the following is,
as far as john rickford and i can determine, the earliest use of the
label in his publications:

Rickford, John R., Arnetha Ball, Rene'e Blake, Raina Jackson, and Momi
Martin. 1991. Rappin' on the Copula Coffin: Theoretical and
Methodological Issues in the Analysis of Copula Variation in
African-American Vernacular English. Language Variation and Change
3:103-132.

this article is a revised and expanded version of a paper given at the
1988 NWAV conference in Montreal, but the 1988 title was (i have a copy
of the title page of the prepublication version):

Rappin on the Copula Coffin: Theoretical and Methodological Issues in
the Variable Analysis of BEV Contracted and Deleted _be_

no apostrophe on "rappin".  the more wordier "variable analysis of...
contracted and deleted _be_", instead of the compact "analysis of
copula variation".  and BEV instead of AAVE.

john tells me that they "got 'religion'" at some point after 1988,
thanks to jesse jackson.

by the way, john and i can't decide which jesse (jackson or sheidlower)
is "the other jesse" in this discussion.

arnold