• Lvxferre@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    22 days ago

    Warning: I’ve edited the comment that you’re replying to. I’m saying this for the sake of transparency, as you’re clearly quoting the earlier version.

    The key here is that AAVE is not written, but AAE is. That “V” is for vernacular, it excludes written English by definition.

    Now, I’m not sure if those white kids are using AAE or simply borrowing things from AAE into their written English. I simply don’t have data on that.

    There’s been bleed over for centuries, but with the Internet and social media it’s merging faster, which is common for dialects of people that interact frequently

    Varieties merging or splitting is rarely the result of just more contact between people; it’s all about identity. If things are happening as you described them, it’s simply that those white kids stopped seeing black people as “the others”, to see them as “part of the same group as us”.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      22 days ago

      That “V” is for vernacular, it excludes written English by definition.

      Yeah. But most people “write” online like they speak…

      https://commonwealthtimes.org/2021/02/18/aave-is-not-your-internet-slang-it-is-black-culture/

      If people followed rules about language, yeah, vernacular would just be spoken speech. But that’s not how it works. The rules are made to reflect what people are doing. The rules don’t control what people do.

      So yes, while the word vernacular commonly meant only spoken words, there ain’t nothing stopping nobody from typing like they speak.

      And people been doing it for a long time

      • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        22 days ago

        Yeah. But most people “write” online like they speak…

        That’s a common misconception.

        While your written and spoken varieties do interact a fair bit, no, people don’t “write like they speak”. Not even online.

        And that is not simply an “ackshyually”. A lot of AAVE features simply don’t transpose into writing - like prosody, non-rhoticity, /ɪ/-breaking, /äɪ/-monophtongisation… at most you can consciously approximate them into writing, but they won’t be there.

        If people followed rules about language, yeah, vernacular would just be spoken speech. But that’s not how it works. The rules are made to reflect what people are doing.

        That is not about people following/not following “rules”, it’s about nomenclature - it’s exactly the reason why “AAE” and “AAVE” are necessary as separated terms.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          22 days ago

          at most you can consciously approximate them into writing, but they won’t be there.

          A lot of the difficulty older white people have with it, is it’s spelled phonetically to maintain those things.

          I gave you a link, lots of people have talked about this, it’s not just some idea I came up with.

          You’re still talking like language has to follow the rules.

          That’s backwards. The rules change to follow the language

          Ain’t you old enough to have heard “ain’t ain’t a word because it ain’t in the dictionary”?

          Well, now it is.

          And now the dictionary lists “figuratively” as one of the definitions for “literally”.

          Insist on following rules, and the dictionary wouldn’t update.

          I don’t know how to put it anymore plainly, I’m sorry if you still don’t understand