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Ebonics The Untold Story of Its Roots and Evolution
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Bonx emerged as a result of centuries of
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historical circumstances that shaped the
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African-American experience in the
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United States. Enslaved Africans brought
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forcibly to America from diverse
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language backgrounds had to communicate
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not only with English-speaking
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slaveholders, but also with each other.
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The linguistic fusion that occurred
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birthed a unique form of English, one
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shaped by West African linguistic
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patterns, the conditions of slavery, and
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as importantly, the type of English that
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was spoken around the slaves. This is
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the part that doesn't get talked about
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enough that southern whites had and
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still do have a way of speaking English
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that's very similar to what is
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considered Ebonics. Black people came to
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the Americas speaking various languages
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like Igbo, Euroba, Kongo, Mindi and
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many, many more. But on the plantations,
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these languages were suppressed.
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Communication with slaveholders,
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overseers, and among enslaved people
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from different African regions required
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a common tongue. The language inevitably
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was English. But the English that
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enslaved Africans encountered was not
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the formal British English of textbooks.
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It was the English of rural southern
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whites, rich in dialect, full of
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regional idioms, and heavily inflicted
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by the Scott, Irish, Anglo, and other
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European immigrant influences that
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define the South. This southern English
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was a key ingredient in the development
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of what we now recognize as Ebonics.
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