Black English (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Alison Murie]

On Oct 16, 2009, at 12:24 AM, Herb Stahlke wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Black English (UNCLASSIFIED)
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>
> When we're at our cottage and watch Canadian TV news and Canadian
> produced shows, black Canadians who don't have Caribbean, Haitian, or
> various African accents tend to speak the same English as other
> anglophone Canadians.  The exception is Canadian rappers.  On Canadian
> variety shows, I've heard black Canadians rap in AAVE
> indistinguishable from that of black American rappers, to my ear at
> least.  When they're interviewed, however, they speak Canadian
> English.   I should note that our TV sample is skewed:  the only
> channel we can get on the SW shore of Georgian Bay right at the foot
> of the 50 meter high Niagara Escarpment is CKCO, the CTV affiliate in
> Kitchener-Waterloo.  Sometimes it even comes in in color.
>
> I haven't picked up on an African-Canadian English, and I have no
> knowledge of the dialects spoken in urban areas, though, like the
> Golden Horseshoe wrapping around the western end of Lake Ontario.
>
> Herb
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Our experience, a few miles from the Canadian border in NY, was the
same. We got
TVO, CTV, CBC & one other Canadian channel & no US ones (except as
picked up by,
e.g., CTV).
AM

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