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P i d j i n s C r e o l e s a n d     E b o n i c s

     Ebonics (A contraction of EBOny-PhoNICS) describes the dialect or pidjin spoken by inner city residents in the U.S. This pidjin is also called Black English. Pidjins evolve when English is mixed with a native tongue and are characterized by a simpler grammar and a reduced vocabulary. These features typically make the pidjin an efficient cross cultural communication medium and very easy to learn.

     More accurately, Ebonics refers to the teaching of Black English in the public schools. The Ebonics movement in Oakland, California was an effort to obtain official recognition of this dialect and to sanction its teaching. A few in the movement would probably like to see Black English develop into a creole with a formal writen representation related to its African heritage.

     A majority in the movement supported the goals of (1) teaching inner city children to read in their native tongue and (2) classifying this effort as teaching English as a second language -- making it eligible for funds earmarked for this kind of special instruction.
Officially, Teachers (not students) will be taught to recognize, understand, and respect the legitimacy and richness of the language structures and slang unique to their African American students

     Proponents of Ebonics argue, convincingly, that those who grew up speaking the inner city dialect or pidjin have some of the same problems with standard English as those who encounter English as a second language.

     Black English and the teaching of Ebonics is of interest to orthographic reformers and proponents of "world English" because it is a simplification of standard English. The people who oppose Ebonics are the same ones who oppose any simplification of grammar and spelling. Most of the material on the Web related to Ebonics generally pokes fun at this dialect in much the same way as most of the material on the Web related to spelling pokes fun at any non-standard spelling proposal. See George Bernard Shaws comments on this

     In some cases, the non-standard form may be more rational than the standard form. The ridicule is based primarily on the fact that something non-standard appears strange. The implication is that the non-standard variant of English speaking or spelling is either uneducated or crazy. Certainly any educator who would support the teaching of a substandard bastard dialect or pidjin must be crazy.

     Ebonics, like other pidgins, is intelligible, fairly consistent, and is generally simpler and easier to use - particularly for those coming from a particular language tradition. For example, Chinese pidgins are easier for native Chinese speakers to learn and use than standard English. Aboriginal pidgin is probably easier for native Australians than standard English.

     That pidgin's are easier for those encountering English as a kind of second language is well documented. A common finding from Downing’s studies in Papua New Guinea (1987) was that children made more progress when their initial literacy instruction was in their mother-tongue, than if it was in a second language. They could learn to read quickly in Tok Pisin, an English pidjin. When these children started learning English, one or two years later than those taught to read first in English, they soon achieved equal scores and were faster and more confident.

     There are probably several reasons for this and it is important to identify these reasons if one wants to duplicate the success with ebonics. In New Guinea, there is a written form of the pidjin and newspapers written in Tok Pisin. The written form has a simpler grammar than English and a simpler spelling. The New Guinea children may have been facilitated in becoming literate not only because they began reading in their mother tongue, but because most New Guinea languages including Tok Pisin have easily masterable spellings.

     There are good reasons for teaching inner city children to read their own dialect or pidjin but no one is advocating this. Those promoting this approach have often been sidetracked by the language purists who oppose spending any tax funds in non-traditional ways.

     Pidgin forms of English developed as lingua franca when British traders from the 17th century on needed to communicate quickly with peoples of other languages. From a base of English mixed with the other tongue or tongues, a simple grammar with minimum vocabulary would develop, so that it could be picked up very quickly.

      Until recently, pidgins were regarded as 'bastard jargons' that had no claims to being proper languages at all. Today nationalisms, linguistic scholarship and growing literatures have together raised the status of pidgins as well as of creoles - which are new languages that have developed from a mixture of old ones and now have a life of their own. There are around sixty surviving English-based pidgins and creole (Crystal 1987).

Definitions of dialect, pidjin, and creole.

All the significant phonemes found in most creoles can be adequately represented in the roman alphabet but the spelling under-differentiates, and is diaphonic rather than precisely phonemic. Complete representation of all the speech sounds is not regarded as necessary. The complexity of vowels, usually the hardest part of spelling and auditory discrimination, is reduced to a minimum. In fact, bilinguals tend to perceive creoles as having more significant phonemes than do monolingual Creole speakers.

Lessons may be learnt from the 'user-friendly' features of English pidgin spellings:

• No doubled consonants.
  
• No superfluous letters (no silent letters) - since there is no hangover from any tradition.
  
• Consistent representation of morphemes in compound words, so that the spelling of units of meaning did not change with inflections or affixes
  
• Consonant clusters and digraphs are simplified and reduced, with a preference for CVCV or CVC structure.
  
• Slurred vowels are represented rather than omitted in the spelling - but their spelling is consistent, the common forms being <i> or <e>.
  
• Vowels can be inserted to prevent tricky strings of consonant, e.g. BOKIS for BOX.
  
• Comprehensive simple vowels cover a variety of shades of phoneme, without troubling to distinguish between them e.g. ARURUT for ARROWROOT (This is similar to the English spelling of. BANANA which has three different A sounds: /aah/, /aeh/, /uh/). Such (diaphonic) broad-band representations of the sounds in a language that may overlap phonemes for practical purposes can be especially useful when a spelling system represents more than one dialect, and was a principle used in Pitman’s Initial Teaching Alphabet, to cover all English dialects.

The spellings of pidgins could be regarded as exemplars for English spelling improvement.

The vexing problem with literal transcriptions of this kind is that the simple English, dotted with pidjin, inevitably connotes a childishness . We are culturally trained to expect people who use phrases like "coax'em me" to end up in prison - or at least to be victims of some sort or another. The mere hint of pidjin, against all good will on the part of the reader, is sufficient to mobilize a reading that is Eurocentric and paternalist. Nevertheless, the voice of the other, as refracted here, reifies the scandal and horror.

Comments

EBONICS

Ebony Phonics - Black English

This California initiative was a hot topic on TV news in the first month of 1997. Any challenge to the conventional way of teaching language arts is an opportunity for those with Simplified Spelling Society to make a point and get heard. Part of the argument is that those who speak pidgin need special help with standard English. We might be able to switch the argument around and say that those who speak standard English should look at the simplifications found in pidgins. (e.g., I be, you be, we be, they be)

It has generally been the case that the unsophisticated have been the ones to simplify language while the well educated typically come up with ways to slow change or make the language/grammar/writing system more complicated.

The consensus among the commentators has been that Black English is a dialect of English and therefore those who speak it cannot claim to be learning English as a second language.

Berstein, D. 197?. Black English

Crystal, David. 1987. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge University Press

Crystal, David. 1995. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press.

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Ebonics   The graphic is worth the visit "I can't believe its not English" in a bottle. This is a good (negative) summary of the issue which includes links to sound clips. No attempt is made to hide the opinions of the author: "Afro-centrism has once again reached a new low. Its latest malignancy has taken shape in Oakland California. The school system there voted to institutionalize the legitimacy of gutter language and slang. www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3070/ebonics.html

Ebonics Bulletin Board

Oakland School Board Policy, Jan. 1997 ...DEVISE A PROGRAM TO IMPROVE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND APPLICATION SKILLS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDENTS No. 9697-0063  Purpose: to facilitate the acquisition and mastery of English language skills, while respecting and embracing the legitimacy and richness of the language patterns whether they are known as "Ebonics", "African Language Systems", or other by some other description.

News Story

SYNOPSIS OF THE ADOPTED POLICY ON
STANDARD AMERICAN ENGLISH LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

On December 18, 1996 the Oakland Unified School District Board of Education approved a policy affirming Standard American English language development for all students. This policy mandates that effective instructional strategies must be utilized in order to ensure that every child has the opportunity to achieve English language proficiency. Language development for African American students, who comprise 53% of the students in the Oakland schools, will be enhanced with the recognition and understanding of the language structures unique to African American students. This language has been studied for several decades and is variously referred to as Ebonics (literally "Black sounds"), or "Pan-African Communication Behaviors," or "African Language Systems."

This policy is based on the work of a broad-based Task Force, convened six months ago to review the district-wide achievement data (see Appendix 1) and to make recommendations regarding effective practices that would enhance the opportunity for all students to successfully achieve the standards of the core curriculum (see Appendix 2). The data show low levels of student performance, disproportionately high representation in special education, and under-representation in Advanced Placement courses and in the Gifted and Talented Education Program. The recommendations (see Appendix 3), based on academic research, focus on the unique language stature of African American pupils, the direct connection of English language proficiency to student achievement, and the education of parents and the community to support academic achievement (see bibliography in Appendix 4).

One of the programs recommended is the Standard English Proficiency Program (S.E.P.), a State of California model program, which promotes English-language development for African-American students. The S.E.P. training enables teachers and administrators to respect and acknowledge the history, culture, and language that the African American student brings to school. Recently a "Superliteracy" component was added to ensure the development of high levels of reading, writing, and speaking skills. The policy further requires strengthening pre-school education and parent and community participation in the educational processes of the District.

The recommendations of the Task Force establish English language proficiency as the foundation for competency in all academic areas. Passage of this policy is a clear demonstration that the Oakland Unified School District is committed to take significant actions to turn around the educational attainment of its African-American students.

Oakland's Standard: English

The Board of Education adopted a policy on teaching English, not Ebonics. Unfortunately, because of misconceptions in the resulting press stories, the actions of the Board of Education have been publically misunderstood.

Misconceptions include:

*Oakland School District has decided to teach Ebonics in place of English. *The District is trying to classify Ebonics (i.e. "Black English,") speaking students as Bilingual. *OUSD is only attempting to pilfer federal and state funds. *OUSD is trying to create a system of perverse incentives that reward failure and lower standards. *Oakland is condoning the use of Slang. *Oakland has gone too far. *Ebonics further segregates an already racially divided school district. *There is no statistical evidence to support this approach or that this approach will improve student achievement.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

1.The Oakland Unified School District is not replacing the teaching of Standard American English with any other language. The District is not teaching Ebonics. The District emphasizes teaching Standard American English and has set a high standard of excellence for all its students. 2.Oakland Unified School District is providing its teachers and parents with the tools to address the diverse languages the children bring into the classroom. 3.The District's objective is to build on the language skills that African-American students bring to the classroom without devaluing students and their diversity. We have directly connected English language proficiency to student achievement. 4.The term "genetically-based" is synonomous with genesis. In the clause, "African Language Systems are genetically based and not a dialect of English," the term "genetically based" is used according to the standard dictionary definition of "has origins in." It is not used to refer to human biology.