Black English (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

>
> What, then, is Plebian?  Let us define it by examples of its grammar.
>   -   The conjugation of "to be"” is complicated, and I am not sure I
> have it entirely correct.  Let me try: Certain ombinations such as "I
> are" and "he am" are not allowed.  Allowable combinations are (I
> think):
>
>      o I am/is            We is/are
>      o You is/are         You/y’all is/are
>      o He/she/it is       They is/are
>
>      o I was              We was/were
>      o You was/were       You/y’all was/were
>      o He/she/it was      They was/were
>
>   -   for the negative, "ain’t" can be used in all persons and
> numbers
>   -   Some intermingling of the past tense and the present perfect,
> e.g. "He’s got" does not mean "he has had" but rather "he had"
>   -   Double negatives are used freely, and have the negative rather
> than the positive sense: "ain’t no such thing as…".  Triple
> negatives can also occur, e.g. "We don’t take nothing from nobody."
>   -   "he does not" is contracted to "he don’t"
>
> Observe that the above is NOT "bad grammar" but rather a DIFFERENT
> grammar than that of Patrician.
>
> If Plebian were merely a "substandard" form of "correct" English, then
> one would expect that the growth in compulsory education over the last
> two centuries would have wiped it out, or at least forced it into
> decline.  But no, Plebian is alive and flourishing, is quite
> persistent, and shows no signs of decline.  Hence we have no choice but
> to rank it as a dialect equal with and competitive to Patrician.
>
> Philologists should be looking into the differences between Patrician
> and Plebian and the question of why, after several centuries, neither
> dialect has managed to dominate the other.
>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> Now to contradict my own title.  Black English does exist.  What is it?
>
> It is nothing more than a phonetic variation of Plebian English, with a
> notable amount of vocabulary not shared with other variations of either
> Patrician or Plebian English.
>
> A way to demonstrate:  transcribe a sample of BE, keeping the original
> grammar but using standard rather than eye-dialect spelling.  Compare
> it with a similar transcription of speech from a white speaker of
> Plebian.  Can you tell the difference?
>
>     - James A. Landau



I think there are more grammatical differences in Black Plebian English grammar vs. White Plebian English grammar than James allows for.  For example

BPEg:  "He crazy."
WPEg:  "He's crazy."

This is a different conjugation of "to be".
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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