African Americans: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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[[African-American English]] is a [[Variety (linguistics)|variety]] ([[dialect]], [[ethnolect]], and [[sociolect]]) of [[American English]], commonly spoken by urban [[working class|working-class]] and largely [[wikt:bidialectal|bi-dialectal]] [[middle class|middle-class]] African Americans.<ref>{{cite book|last=Edwards|first=Walter|chapter=African American Vernacular English: phonology|editor-last=Kortmann|editor-first=Bernd|work=A Handbook of Varieties of English|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|year=2004|volume=2|page=383|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dptsvykgk3IC|title=A Handbook of Varieties of English: CD-ROM|isbn=9783110175325}}</ref>

African-American English evolved during the antebellum period through interaction between speakers of 16th- and 17th-century English of Great Britain and Ireland and various West African languages. As a result, the variety shares parts of its [[grammar]] and [[phonology]] with the [[Southern American English]] dialect. Where African-American English differs from Standard American English (SAE) is in certain pronunciation characteristics, tense usage and grammatical structures that were derived from West African languages, particularly those belonging to the [[Niger-Congo languages|Niger-Congo]] family.<ref name="Aave">{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural School Psychology|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-0387717982|page=405|url=https://www.google.com/books?id=PaO3jsaGkeYC|access-date=October 21, 2014|date=February 18, 2010}}</ref>

Virtually all habitual speakers of African-American English can understand and communicate in Standard American English. As with all linguistic forms, AAVE's usage is influenced by various factors, including geographical, educational and socioeconomic background, as well as formality of setting.<ref name="Aave"/> Additionally, there are many literary uses of this variety of English, particularly in [[African-American literature]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Green|first1=Lisa J.|title=African American English : a linguistic introduction|date=2002|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0521891387|pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780521891387/page/164 164]–199|edition=1. publ., 4. print.|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780521891387|url-access=registration}}</ref>