Dare To Ask Talk And News About Our Differences - This topic has 18 replies, 19 voices, and was last updated 19 years, 4 months ago by
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Brian: From experience, it’s not a lack of ability. Perhaps it’s a need by your co-workers to express their unearned concept of uniqueness. Have you observed any special talents of the folks who choose to do this? If so, latch onto it & learn. (I did) If not, skipit.
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Name : JIM30702, Gender : M, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Baptist, City : columbia, State : SC, Country : United States,Why Blacks’ mispronouncing words could be related to two things: 1) Messed up Education system; in that teachers in the states just don’t care about the welfare (no pun intended) about blacks and how they are taught, or how well they learn (here’s your diploma, now get outta here!) and 2) Community. When you have large groups of any kind of people condensed in a particular area, you are bound to get diversity. For example, if you go to England and spoke with a black man, he would most definitely sound British in comparrison to their North American counter-parts. Instead of just pointing out blacks, you could also ask why white Americans from the South sound like a bunch ‘rednecks’? (how-dee, yaalll. how-ya-dewin’?)
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Name : Murray C., Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Unitarian, Age : 31, City : Halifax, Nova Scotia, State : NA, Country : Canada, Occupation : Draftsman, Education level : Technical School, Social class : Middle class,Please take this as an honest question: Why do black people seem to have the inability to pronounce certain words correctly? I mean words like ‘ask’ (which comes out ‘axe’) or anything with ‘th’ (which comes out ‘f’). I work with a lot of highly educated (more than me) black people, and none of them pronounces these words correctly. Any ideas?
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Name : Brian, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Catholic, Age : 35, City : Dearborn, State : MI, Country : United States, Occupation : Licensed Customs Broker, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I am an African-American woman and correctly pronounce words like ‘ask’ and those ‘th’ words you are referring to. From my point of view, the reasons some African Americans mispronounce those words may be due to speaking too rapidly. Or it could be due to a particular person’s accent. People pronounce words differently in certain areas of the country. Also, it may depend on how a person’s family members traditionally speak. When you grow up hearing certain words pronounced (or mispronounced) it’s difficult to condition your speech to pronounce those words differently than how you are used to hearing and saying them.
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Name : Tina24607, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Baptist, Age : 29, City : Chicago, State : IL, Country : United States, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,It is not that African Americans cannot ‘properly’ pronounce English words; it has more to do with African American Vernacular English (AAVE). In AAVE, the proper way to use words that end in “th” is to pronounce it like an f. The ‘mispronounced’ axe for ask is also AAVE. A good book about varieties of English and sociolinguistics is ‘Sociolinguistics and Language Learning by Sandra Lee Mckay and Nancy H. Hornberger.
Also if you have a chance to take some more college classes, I highly recommend taking a class in sociolinguistics because it may help answer some more of your questions about why people speak the way they do. I found it really interesting, too.
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Name : David25856, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 28, City : New York, State : NY, Country : United States, Occupation : Teacher, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,In my school all ethnicities including white mispronounce ‘ask’ as ‘axe’ (it’s a common mispronounciation) but I don’t really hear the sounding of ‘th’ as ‘f’. Maybe it’s just a regional thing.
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Name : K.J., Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Catholic, Age : 17, City : Bronx, State : NY, Country : United States, Occupation : High school student, Social class : Middle class,The oddities of English spelling and the variations in regional accents, notwithstanding, it is difficult for me to see how ‘ax’ could ever, in any way, be a correct pronunciation of a word that is spelled ‘ask.’ You can carry on all you want about ethnic this and racist that, but it seems to me that when you attempt to legitimize pronunciations and usages that are clearly incorrect, all that you accomplish is to hold people back. The vernacular may be acceptable in the family or the home community, but people must learn standard English to survive in this economy. As a professional, I would never hire anyone in my office as either a professional or a secretary or a receptionist (ie, anyone who deals with clients) who couldn’t speak properly. By the way, Jimmy Carter pronounces nuclear ‘nucular.’ Every time he opens his mouth and does it, he manages to sound like an idiot, too. Like it or not, there are rules about what constitutes proper pronunciation, spelling, grammar and punctuation. Learn them or get left behind.
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Name : Marcia, City : New York, State : NY, Country : United States,I think is is more of a southern accent than a Black accent. I live in Baltimore and the whites here are notorious for having the same poor language skills. I am from the west and my parents never allowed me to adopt the pronunciation skills of Bawl-i-mere. I also found that whites in the south, Atlanta and Florida, have the same problem. Maybe White people are more concerned with outward appearences so they work on their linguistics more. I believe most Blacks are more concerned with aquiring the knowledge than correct pronunciation. If those peole are working with you they must have acquired a certain level of intelligence and I am sure they don’t spell ‘ask’ as a-x-e. Jesse Jackson is a very intelligent man but he keeps his accent.
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Name : Opal, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, City : Baltimore, State : MD, Country : United States, Occupation : College Student, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,First, there is no such thing as ‘African-American Vernacular English.’ To proport such a myth as a valid explanation of anything only serves to perpetuate the stereotypes that keep people in this country from ‘the right to pursue happiness.’ I know both educated and uneducated blacks and whites, and I have noticed that the majority of differences in speech are due to region first and lack of education second. I don’t know any educated blacks who mispronounce words, or rather, pronounce them differently than whites in the same region, but if you think you do, perhaps you should listen closer to their white counterparts before judging their speech.
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Name : Mandi, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Baptist, Age : 21, City : Boston, State : MA, Country : United States, Occupation : student, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I’m taking a linguistics class this semester. We spent a good deal of time learning about African American Vernacular English (AAVE), which is derived from various African languages, particularly one called Gullah. I’ve heard some people say that blacks ‘mispronounce’ words out of laziness, but I don’t believe that. It’s just a different vernacular. The British have viewed American English with contempt for centuries, but does that make our language any less valid? I don’t think so. How do you pronounce ‘aunt’? If you say ‘ont,’ does that make it lazy or wrong to say ‘ant’? People generally speak the way their parents speak, and the parents of the parents (and so on) of most black people can be traced back to Africa. My linguistics professor (a white man) told us that he considers the syntax of AAVE more expressive, technically speaking. Pronunciation, unless it interferes with communication (and people often unwittingly do let it color their perceptions of others, unfortunately), is actually pretty arbitrary.
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Name : SR28429, Gender : F, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Agnostic, Age : 21, City : Austin, State : TX, Country : United States, Occupation : student,Certain speech patterns are not native to all groups of people. If you were to go to South Africa, you may find there are many words you wouldn’t be able to pronounce properly because you’ve never been trained to make those types of sounds. Some linguistics studies show that some English (American) words were not native to speaking patterns of some African groups – pointedly, some African Americans have mastered ‘enunciation’ to mainstream American standards and some have not because, although we may be been born and raised here, these patterns are not native to us.
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Name : T27532, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 25, City : Houston, State : TX, Country : United States, Occupation : Entrepreneur, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I am an African-American female and have found myself asking the same question. I do not have the pronunciation trouble cited in the original question. In fact, I used to teach public speaking. Articulation and enunciation are, therefore, very important to me.
I agree with the person who stated that it can be hard to overcome how family members speak. If you grow up hearing something the wrong way and no one takes the time to correct you, that speech pattern becomes second nature.
I can say, though, that I have heard non-blacks make similar mistakes, probably for the same reasons: Education, environment and even attitude. I think many people today don’t take the time to listen to how they speak.
Brian, I don’t know just how well-educated your co-workers are, but we do have models of great African-American speakers in our culture: Oprah Winfrey, Colin Powell, James Earl Jones and Maya Angelou, to name just a few.
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Name : R. Davis, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 35, City : Towson, State : MD, Country : United States, Occupation : Writer/Editer, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,AAVE is actually a very interesting subject, Amanda. I thought it sounded like a fancy but empty term until I began studying linguistics. It does exist…if you travelled to certain places in Louisiana, you could hear some Gullah-laden English at its most extreme, though it is dying out (to the dismay of some African Americans and linguists). It may sound ‘uneducated’ to our anglicized ears, but it’s just a variation on English. I suggest you read some David Dalby, writer of ‘The African Element in American English.’ Dalby’s a reader in West African languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and chairman of the Centre of African Studies in London. This article includes a tentative list of Africanisms in American English, including the words/phrases, bad-mouth; bug; cool; dig [meaning ‘to understand’]; gam; guy; hip; jazz; okay; tote.
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Name : SR28436, Gender : F, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Agnostic, Age : 21, City : Austin, State : TX, Country : United States, Occupation : student,HEY BRIAN I OFTEN WONDERD THE SAME THING AND THE ANSWER IS THEY JUST DONT CARE!! THE EASYEST WAY IT ROLLS OF THEIR TOUNGE IS THE WAY U AND I HEAR IT.
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Name : BIG-DADDY, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Christian, Age : 254, City : STERLING HTS, State : MI, Country : United States, Occupation : AUTO WORKER, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,
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