Transcripts For CSPAN2 Talking Back Talking Black 20170704

My name is cynthia and i want to thank you for coming tonight. Im a librarian here at midmanhattan library and im very happy to present john john mcwhorter. John has come more than once. Been very kind. That. This is his third visit. Tonight hell be speak about miss most recent book, talking back, talk black joan mcworther is an associate prefer of english and comparative literature at Columbia University where re teaches linguist sticks, western service, and american studies. A New York Times best selling author, ted speaker and a the author of 16 books, and tonight he is going to be speaking about his most recent book talking back, talking black. Without further adieu, john mcworther, please. Thank you. For coming. My last book pay talking back, talking black had a very compact thesis. I wanted to see if i could make the general public have a more positive view of the dialect that most black americans use in casual situations because the general idea is that black english is some sort of lapse or stain or scourge. That bothered me. Never heard that way but the mr. Perception continues, and we linguists shake our head at the idea that the general pock, including the educate public have, is theres something wrong with the black people talk. Started to feel as if a lot of why the public doesnt get it is linguists fault, and i include myself so i thought, somebody needs to put something out there that maybe addresses all of this in a new way. First, what die mean by black english and these days if you call the academic literature you will more often fine it called africanamerican vernacular english. I learned it as black english in the 80s and i formed habits, im going to stick with black english, but what is meant by that . Okay. It doesnt only mean the slang that is more commonly used by black people,s especially black young people than other. But its not only the slang. We linguists arent shaking our heads about slang. Would not waste a become on just the slang of black english. The slang is maybe oneeighth of it. Thats not what we mean. What we real where mean twice other things. First of all, there is the different in linguistises we call i sonnology in the real world you call it an accent. You could see white people have the accent but any american has a sense on some level theres a black way to sound and if it bothers you for me to say that it will be talking about that in about 15 minutes. Most people have a sense that you can usually tell that a person is a black american, even if youre not looking at them. You would know from looking into their over the phone even notify slang were being used. Thats been pron science particularly again and again. Americans both white and black are very good at that. To a linguist, black english has a different ponology. Its a system and how you put words together. The way were all taught grammar is grammar is a bunk ol thing a bunch of things that people do wrong, and to the extent that black english has grama, its bad grammar. And english is legitimate grammar. More to the point the grammar is absolutely central to what we mean by theres a different way of speaking. So slang, which ill never mention again, and then really mainly the sound system and the grammar, that is what im talking about when i say black english. And who speaks it . Definitely not all black americans. Definitely not. There are black americans who do not speak black english on any of those three levels. However, its impossible to put an exact figure it to, especially because, as with almosting anything that is interesting, we talk about decline. They control it only in the sound or the sound and the grammar but the vast majority. This corresponds to the gut sense we have that there is a black way of speaking or a black sound. So thats what i mean by black english. Not the same thing as southern white english. Its a black heritage. Thats what black english is. And a great many people think of it as trash, and this goes on decade after decade after decade and there are scholars who have come before me who have done magnificent, detailed work on black english, and yet whenever the dialect comes up in the news for some reason, people always have the same misimpression and its frustrating. Ive wondered if it has had to be that way there are two things that linguists have often said about how black inning like be perceived. There are two major prongs. Theres a message we have given the public. One of them is that if you dont like black english, then youre not liking black people. That means that if you diss black english, youre a racist. Thats been said, not usually those words but thats a point people make in classes. You can read nit a become or have conversations about it. Dont think that goes through and not just because i have a reputation of being a contrarian on race issues. Any linguist would agree on me. The people who think that black english are bad gram user say the same thing about poor southern white grammar, which is very similar. Nobody is saying those people are using perfect english grammar and black people doing the same thing are getting it wrong. Theres a general sense we have in this country in the educated angelo people are breaking language and people say less books rather than fewer books and its wrong to say billy and me went to the store rather than billy and i win to the store. Could do a whole talk on that but we have sense that people mess up their grammar, and so you can listen to black people using construction that are considered bad grammar in the same way as very similar and often the same construction are seen as bad grammar when white people use them. You dont have to be ary assist. Something ive heard white people say i would be a racist if itself didnt think this bad grammar. Understand black people have been condemned to bad grammar because of slavery and jim crow. You may disagree but thats not a bigot, so racism alone doesnt help us here. Im not saying its not part of it. Certainly racism plays a part. But is its the only part and more to the point, can the racism be changed . Its not the only part. And by its not the only part i dont mean aid 85 . Its not the only part. Another aspect of it is that linguists will say black english is okay because its systemic. That means you look at the thing that are commit black english and they actually fall rules in the same way as your own language follows rules. That means it is a structured and legitimate form of speech. And you know, im sorry to say this to my own dissertation adviser and all the people who came before me and the ones right along with me and the ones that have come after but folks i know youre watching andry say it. The systemic argument done i mean the verb to be which is very different in black english than in standard english. So, a black person might say, he my sister and you dont have the verdict to be but the same per would never say i your sister. Thats bad grammar in black english. It has to be im. You use the verb to be with some persons and numbers but not others. So its omitted as linguists put it only in certain contexts as we put it. So well learn how to speak black inning wish and be indistinguishable, they have to learn how to the to be is used. Its a high stack of paper about the verb to be in black english. I get kneeling feeling that most people think is, okay, its systemic buteye i that are leaving the verb to be out at all. Its english and youre supposed to clue and it mate be structure evidence but its bad structure. The mafia is a system. Nobody wants a mav that ya to run a town. A piano is systemic. Systemickity does not milwaukee the rules. Thats where i started with this book itch thought, is that it . A matter of saying youre a racist if you dont like the dialect and or, its systemic . Well, the American Public thinks its a broken system. And so, talking back, talking black, gets across four fix points designed to get under or maybe around the typical arguments. Ill just quick i outline them. One of them is this. Black english is full of things that it does not do that main stream standard english does. This verb to be is not there. Black english is more come complex than mainstreet standard english but all we can hear is the bad grammar, the slang also gets in the way. So all sorts of things in black english that would be more challengerring to the foreigner to learn than learning the language of the wall street journal. Two quick ones. All these things sound like what we classify as slang. Theyre not slang. Theyre beautiful. For example. You could listen to i picture a little black boy their first time i heard is is one of my cousins. Sound like theyre overusing had. So what had happened was she had come to my house and then she had said i wants lemonade, then i had said ill get you some, then i had come out and i had dropped the pitcher and i had bent over to clip i and she say what are you doing some i said, i had a bad day. Had, had, had, where does it ebbets, then you notice the had is at the end. Now, some people listen to that and think, well, that person doesnt know how to use the thats not what it is. Black english has something you can find in languages spoken by obscure groups of people all over the world. It has narrative tax task that is separate from the regular task. If youre a linguist you wait for it. Theres going to be the pastor the past that you use to say i spilled the lemonades on the floor, and then a different sufficient fix profix or some little word. As if in the english we didnt have the ed. Black english with a speech variety with a narrative. Not that my wasnt know how to put ed on the end but when he is telling a story hi would use it now because he announce speaker of black english. When he is telling a story he piles in the hads. We wouldnt think about that anymore we explain when you use a and the, win talk about the day. Human beings speak language subconsciously, same thing with black english. Nobody walks around thinking of had. If theres an awareness people would see it is a joke. Its a kind of grammar and more complex than what you have to do to tell a story in standard english. Another example, done. You done ate it . You hear somebody say, and the natural thought is, that person is saying something blackly and you mean, done ate . Shouldnt be it done eating . Or ate it. And you move on. Done is really interesting, and i dont mean just shut until that its endless complexity meaning that theres no system at all. That would be a way of tricking you into thinking something is complex. Its actually a very precise usage that took people a long time to figure out. Its interesting. At first you think, is it the recent past like you done ate it . Which presumably happened ten minutes agoment no there other things people use done forment i done had a crush on you since i was 12. Thats not recent. Its distant past, its in between. Its challenging but its not random. Nobody walks around using some bit of stuff in a language randomly. Thats not what black people are doing anymore anybody else is doing. Turns out that done is counterexpectation, and whenever you hear a black person using done where if you dont speak black english you would use the past. This is something you wouldnt have expected. You done ate it . Somebody thought would be there are for him to eat if dub had a crush on you suns you were 12 mean wouldnt have noun it bit you are now 40 and i had a crush on you. And i done took the subway. Just took the subway. This is grammar. This is what people study. This is books this thick. Black english has lots of those things. Im giving you two for the purpose of time. Black english is full of these things solve you listen to as trash because it has slang and breaks mainstream standard english rules. There are thing that are more complex than what we think of as english, and i wish that that had been made clearer to the public than it has back because it has to be stressed. People respect complexity. Not that its different but complexity, and black english is very complex. Thats the first thing. Second thing. If were on our way to understanding that black english is not wrong, and its not not wrong because the people who speak it are black but is a not not wrong because its systemic and complicate, then we can address this prickly issue whether its wrong say that somebody does or does not sound black, because it can be really tricky to talk about sounding or not sounding black because given the way black english is perceived, and given the way black people are often perceived, its very hard not to hear that person had a black sound as meaning something negative, sounding like some kind of slur. The idea must be theres something wrong with the black sound. Then we think it must mean that the person uses bad grammar, quoteunquote, et cetera, et cetera. But actually, what would be surprising is if there were no black sound, because human speech starts in one place and then theres some people who go in this direction some people who go in that direction. Now, latedin latin started here. People who went this direction spoke spanish bosselatedin changed in random ways. Same thing with dialect. People speak a different english than people over here and this is every bit the point, even when the people live like this because its not always a matter of gee geography. You talk like the people yous most intimate with. Sounds are always changing in any language. Listen to most americans now its going to be point under 40 and youll notice there are more likely to say, i caught a fish rather than i caught a fish. Very subtle. But the au sound is melt interesting the a sawn. Hawks make lacy circle inside the lazy circles in the sky. Ever more common. More regions in america decade. Thats a sound change. Thats one example of what is happening in all human speech all the time. So, of course, black people have a sound. The sound has nothing to do with sinuses. Its just that the vowels are a little bit different. This has been studied in sources so obscure that it seems almost wilful. Nobody wants to touch this. You find it in journals that have nothing to do with linguistics where they only sprint one issue and its in finland but its been proven again and again, a person will study one vowel at a time, and basically never tell the world. Great. So, about three years ago i decided what would happen if you just used especially modern technology and analyze a few black peoples vowels and a few white peoples vowels. Wouldnt you find the vowels sit in a different place the mouth . I put two students on this, coal cole, and sam. And it was just like this. One morning i was driving and listening to npr and i had hand experience, and somebody was talking about tax policy and i thought, black. How do you know . In the back of my mind. I wasnt tabulating is this person no. I just thats a black person. And how do i know . And it was interesting because were trained to think, no, if youre white, im a racist for even supposing that, and black people often think, no, theres not a black way to talk because it seemed like its playing into the whole idea that theres racism. On a certain level. But i think all of us know, southern whites dont sound exactly like black people. What i was listening to on npr was not a southerner, it was black person. Check and it whatment i thought what were the vowels . There are some. Its kind of hard to talk about in this format. It would be kind of boring, but there are different vowels. Theres also a different tamber. This is just where you happen to produce your sound. Itself youre an opera singer your taught to place your voice in a different way. Different languages have different tamber in that way. Different tie dialects have different tamber there are subtle factors tamber that tip you off subconsciously that this person is viola davis and not Melissa Mccarthy. An interesting thing is, what about your kids . Your kid i asked my mother, 1973, im sure people ask it all over the place and imaginer who white and your kid says howell you can always tell somebody is black even if you cant see them, you. The impulse is to say thats not true. Black people sound like southerners and you know thats not true. Or the impulse is to say, no, everybody talks in different ways, shouldnt stereotype. Your kid has an iq over 40. Theyre going to think, im not stereotyping. Im hearing the truth. What do you tell the kid . And i think that we need to get comfortable saying, black people have a slightly different sound because they often spend more time with one another just like white people sound more like one another because they tend to spend more time together and thats true of all human groups thats not racist, its just true and harmless. Theres knock wrong with the way viola davis sounds as our posed to the way Melissa Mccarthy sounds but she definitely sound black. She does the voice of a queen on the disney cartoon series, forever sofia i. Its in my house because i have small children, once i had my back turned and the queen said something and i i had never seen that character, and it what that little bell that went off. The queen is black. Is she . And i turned around and i forget what the keen looks the queen looked luke and i went on imdb and who does the queen . Viola davis. Was hearing what any american can hear. Theres a black sound . I have a chapter about that in the book. Third thing. In the book, is the answer to an objection that is traditionally leveled against arguments that black english is okay. They cant talk that way in a Job Interview. Somebody always says that. Somebody is talking about what some of the complexity might be about how you shouldnt mock the language because youre mock thing speakers and somebody would say thats true but through cant talk that way at a Job Interview. But, okay, nobody said they were going. Nobody needs to be told that. And i think that why you get that response is because of a sense that we often have that the way somebody speaks casually is going to interfere with their ability to speak the formal variety where i that are. With black english its worse because everybody thinks its a mistake. Even if we understand that its not mistakes, theres a sense if you use that system it will keep you from using the standard. That is an american kind of misimpression, perfectly understandable american misimpression, because our dialect diversity here is relatively thin. English has not been here for 2,000 years as it has been in england where different ways of speak have didnt doing this much longer. So there are kinds of english there that barely sound like english to us. America is 15 minutes old and we dont have that depth of this. Not going to call i dialect diversification. That sounds like a disease. But there hasnt been as much of this going on. Creole, south carolina, hawaii pidgeon, but those varieties are spoken literally on the geographical margins of the speaks and louisiana creole french is extinct and its not that many people who speak those. For the most that there are dialect differences but theres a certain vanilla speak to the way english goes here. Black english is the most die very gent form of english divergent form of english that most people in the United States hear. What we miss is that living in two very different dialects of the same thing is a very ordinary human experience, and in the legions places where this is normal, noworrieses that speaking the home thing is going interfere with speaking the formal thing. Nobody in sicily is worried that somebody who speaks sicilian is going to use nate Job Interview instead of standard italian. In sicily, standard italian is one someone takes in college and then theres sicilian which is different enough from that that it if you rolled the dice again and sicily war separate country, sicilian would be considered a different language and if you have seen the god godfather or to hoe the characters speaking textbook College Classroom italian be redick hisment when you see a sicilian in, say, the godfather, speaking that language theyre speaking something almost as different from italian as spanish. But they speak standard ill at that timan in school in the Job Interview no debate in sicily whether sicilian threatens standard italian. Would never occur to anybody. Similar is in most arab speaking countries you. Know somebody who speak as i rannic. They really moon i speak latin and french. They speak two things them standard language, then what they learned on their mothers knee is something so different that it is, although often the speakers feel funny having it put this way, its a different language. Moroccans, the language they learned at home is like french. Then they went to school and learned latin. A moroccan will say i learned moore rock can and then i learn arabic. Any araric arabic speaker the idea this egyptian arabic is a threat to standard arabic, no. As i mention this theres an article in the the new yorker that addresses that. This article dwells on standard arabic and egyptian arabic. Black english is the same thing. Its that black English Speakers are going to hit you with some terminology diglosic two tongued. Not a tumor just made up for black people in the United States. This is people speaking all over the world; the idea that you learn something on your mothers knee or fathers knee, and then you good to school and pretty much that same way of speaking whats your teachers use and that same way of spikes on the printed page and everybody around you speaks that way and so you have learned this standard formal way of speaking at home. That sounds so normal to us. Thats very strange as a linguistic experience. I venture at least every second person in the world would never dream of that being the situation, and that was even more the case until about 200 years ago when literacy became widespread in many parts of the world such that vernacular languages were used on the page. For a very typical experience no figures on this bought very typical experience the way you speak most spontaneously is with your family and friend. You go to and cool and whats own the paging different. Its not a different but its you make your way and you learn that school way. That is humanity. Thats how it works. Only about 100 of the worlds 7,000 languages are written in any real way. So most people have to make kind of a jump. Black english is that situation. Black people have a larger english than most white people. I wanted to call on of my very first books a larger english and they didnt like that. So what i meant was that black people have more english. So, nobody is going to try to use black english at a Job Interview. If we understand its really an okay form of speech but different, Something Else that any black person intuit is theres a way you speak here and then another way you speak there. So black english is not a problem in that way. So the Job Interview issue just falls awayment then theres the fourth and final thing. Minimum minimum central. Theres something that minstrel speech and white people made fun of black people and came up with a cartoonized version of black speech. Theres something about minstrel speech and black english, and speak black english has something to do with this Cartoon Version of black speech foisted upon us started in 1840s by whites. Whatever that relationship is supposed to be, it lingers. Theres a sense that to celebrate the language to say someone has a black sound, all of that has something to do with minstrelty and a lot of that comes down to actually one word, am. So if one is inclined to looking through old minstrel show scripts or watching horrible old movies or books, Uncle Toms Cabin you get used to people using am minute more. Those am the best cigar is ever smoked. They were making 2014 black speech and that is the sort of thing that birdie about black english and black people talking differently because theres that history. Thats completely understandable but bears mentioning that because black english is normal human speech, coherent human peach, speech, used by the sophies tick indicatinged brain, it changes. All language does and black english has changed, too, and not just in the slang. Anybody knows that an episode of good times now has slang that sounds quaint, sounded fierce and urgent at the time. Forget the slang. Its the sound system and the grandmotherar that the grammar that changedded too. Black people then dont sound like black people now. Theyre not with us to show it but things were quiet different. It was different in the sound system. If you listen to an ancient gospel recording, listen to a gospel recording from the 30s, for example, and you listen to the black preacher talking you listen closely, he doesnt sound like a black preach were today and often he sound vaguely irish or caribbean. His torn black singers in 18 90s and the 00s, and i tell you now and you will listen to dark skinned black people who sound more west indian irish than anything that we sense as a black sound today. You listen to one of them you think that person must have been strangle they all sound that way. You listen to recordings of exslaves in the 30s and there were a great many made where you can listen to somebody talk neglect 1840s. They dont sound like jamie foxx and morgan freeman. The vowels were in different places back then. Fascinating. Same things with grammar and this am business. One of the injuries science is the counterintuitive and nothing i thought was real until i checked it out was that black people did used to use am in that way. You would never know it because it sounds to utterly foreign now, but actually it was done. Just as today be is used in a way that were familiar with. People be going there all the time inch a very similar way it was am. You 0 know it from home to harlem, claude mckay writing about poor black might migrants from the south. He was trying to give a loving portrait of these people and their lives in harlem in the 1920s, and nobody uses be in the way were used to which is confounding. Youre waiting for it because its a core of black english today but they use the am and then you go through the transcripts of exalives and they use am all the time. Charcoal and honey am good for the baby. Its something about talking about child cair and says charcoal and honey am good for the baby. Its so common that you realize, became, that is the way people talk because those are the sorts of things that change over the years in any human speech. So, minstrel speech is often quite distorted. I talk about the actual distortions. Theres an extent to which the way black people are depicted speaking in minstrel shows were reflective of the way the dialect sounds them as opposed to now. So minstrel shows were absolutely repulsive. And many places they were just entertainment. It wasnt that you win went to a this or that or maybe youll go do a minstrel show. It was all there was. People singing and doing skits s and would be blacked up. But the language wasnt a complete distortion. It actually gives you a window into into something that many of us would consider a nontoppic. The history of black english. Its not just slang and mistakes its a whole other system of speaking black english. Those four things are what the book is about, and to wind up, ill just give you two quick thing it sheds a new kind oflight on. Harry reid in i believe 2010 was discovered to have said that barack obama can speak negro die electric when dialect when he wants to. Everyone thought, what does he mean . Harry reid is somebody who has had the benefit of a very long life, and the truth is that negro dialect is what it was called in the earliest sources. He didnt know what could call it. Ebonics . But negro dialect. People say is he saying that barack obama bro uses bad grammar snow no. President barack obama can speako things and switch into black. Calling it negro dialect was not great but he is refer to something that makes barack obama a larger speaker than, say george w. Bush ties reesey than, say, david letterman, a largerrer repertoire. Speaks negro dialect when he wants to. It wasnt minstrel speech. What reid could have said was black english. No reason to know the term africanamerican vernacular. To be honest ive known both white and black people who thought there was something wrong with the former president , unfortunately, switching between mainstream and black english. People think hes being phony and white people think he is pretending to speak that way and its condescending to black audience i was into by a black correspondent who thought barack obama should not talk that way in public at all. Very interesting. No, he has a larger english and he uses black english with big surprise black people. He is bidie electrical. Thats bidialectal. One more. Action. Axe. Ask, axe. People say, whats with that . The question is, whats wrong . Black people use axe because axe is part of this dialect known as black english. Why do they say axe . Not because its heard if youre descended by africas to gok. Axe is used because it was the form of ask that was most often used by the sort odd people from grate britain and ireland who black people worked likeside and just lie legions of very white people across the pond, black people said, axe. It was perfectly natural. So, today, most black people switch between axe and ask, ask is formal, axe is black english. Black english is the home variety, comfortable, casual, and so that is what axe is. Its not a lapse. Its because black people have more english than other people. Now, there are those who may think that my saying that is partisan in some way. Im making some sort of Ivy League Defense of the disadvantaged person, that im saying this because its the way my family talks, that this has something to do with the crazy leftism in the academy. I beg anybody to consider that is not exactly my reputation in many circles. I do not make arguments based on what used to be call kneejerk lib lewis liberalism. I am arguing on the basis of fact, not my gut. And back to axe. One over facts is that ask and axe competed as far back as old english. Youre reading in a language that might as well be german and you have axeness there chaucr like axe. What is with sneaks with axe . Its a symptom of a larger english. I was talking to you about talking black. Thank you. [applause] i dont have a question elm just want to make a comment. [inaudible] question. You mentioned tamber. [inaudible question] one aspect of it is something that is called shimmer, for example, and it is difficult to demonstrate this because nobody has conscious control over it but to the extent that andintuition might be usually sorted with black women but black men theres a huskiness. Thats this shimmer, and so theres a slight quality and you couldnt teach anybody that if they wanted to be taught it. Its just what you subconsciously grow up imitating from the people around you. Theres that shimmer that leads to the fact that there are many black people who dont have the vowels that im talking about. So sometimes were talking about the difference between mainstream nord english feel, black english, fill, fill. How aim filling. Subtle. Thats vowel. I can do that by measuring somebodys mouth. Its actually not me who doubt but my students who do it. The shimmer is subtler but means if somebody doesnt have the fouls, fill you can also tell. The npr person who im not going to name because they would feel about this but that person is someone where they barely have the vowels but you know it in a heartbeat and its because of this different tamber. Its magnificently subtle. [inaudible question] its not the kind of done i couldnt demonstrate this any more than you could walk like your mother. Its Something Like its something subconscious and what i mean by the tamber is, if youre going home on the subway, read your kindle and notice that you know the color of everybody around you and when one person is saying something very standard and that guilty light guess on in your head and you think black, think to yourself, how did i know, and part of it will be youll think there was a huskiness. You will have heard precisely the tamber that i mean. I wish i could do it for you like i could play some notes on a clarinet but i cant do that. I was born on the Lower East Side and a lot of young people spoke pig latin. Did you ever hear pig latedin . Yes. I dont know why but they didnt speak ordinary english. I think they made move individuals pat big latin. Could you talk about that. There irvarious forms of gibberish. A term that people use and the popular kind of gibberish in that era and i learned pig latin, too, now days the youngins use something called d op after everything. That is another kind of this gibberish. Thats a word game. Those are always itsa, at yea i remember it well. Mr. Mcwhorter, i enjoyed your lecture and like to ask, it was mentioned that barack obama used code switching to be able to start off in one dialect and then switch off into another. Would you agree that when people who are hispanic will say a few phrases in spannish and then quickly go in english. Is that good example of code switching . Same thing. Black people can do that, too but just not into a different language. Code switching. My question is to what extent do you think that the traditional gramatticcal system we all learned in grade school has become arbitrary at all . You mean what your taught are the proper grammar rules . Yes. Yeah. All of that is all those things you taught are the right way to say it are in the empirical sense fiction. All of those little rules are something somebody made up, usually the late 18th century, based on no coherent principle at all and that include this ones we feel deeply. The one about billy i went to the store. Dont have time but it makes no sense. Just something somebody made up but the fact on matter is were human beings and always going to be such thing as fashion, and we cant get away from that. All of us are going to subscribe to and it the truth is, billy and me went to the store is perceived as wrong. Nat going to change you. Have to pick your battle. And so people do need to be taught that theres a certain collection of things you have to observe in formal situations if youre going to be taken seriously and thats just the wait it has to be. Its unfortunate because those ruled just dont if you know the history of them, you realize, why in the world are we still paying any attention to that it . Was just some person who said it. But were stuck with it. So, the the formal rules have to be taught. It would be unfortunate if not. However, what we need realize is the person who says billy and me went to the store thats what most people say most of the time in English Speaking world are not making a mistake. Theyre mayoral casual english. You have to learn casual and formal. People should learn how to express themselves in graceful prose and there are techniques but this things about sentences ending in prepositions and split infinitives but just in saying this can predict i wonder if this since cspan is here i can predict that in my box as soon as this is put on the air ill get all these angry email is shouldnt be a professor, that i need to learn this and i need to learn that. I sorry. Thats okay. You get used it, and im going to keep being a professor. So if you want to send me one of those, im not leaving. [applause] thank you. Hi. I want to say thank you and i want to ask about african grammatical retention. Now more like in any grandmothers generation people who were from the west indies and the south and africas ive met now sound very much the same. So if you could talk about that and also, im really proud of our great oral tradition as african people. You know, its one of those things. There are a lot of people who have said that black english is african whatever that is african with english words. Wish that were true. That would be neat. There are languages like this and its the west indian creole, and his known such as creole of those languages its generally speaking but they are African Languages with english word inside them. Black english has so much more english influence that you cant say that, but black englishs sound system is definitely influenced by African Languages. From, not having r at the end of a syllable so stow instead of store, mo in instead of more, and its the melody. The song its sung on. And no english sounds like that, that wasnt create by africans and their languages are tonal. The real african englishes are spoken in care ben colonies or caribbean colonies, nigerian thats there are sides where day say that theres no relationship. A lot of them for some reason are canadians, i love them to pieces, but they say that. Then theres some people who say that gulla used to be spoken all over the United States where there was any black presence and that gulla became black english. Thats one of those things you want it to be. That gulla was spoke in delware and then became black english. Evidence is not there for that and the fought has gone on for 35 years. The truth is in the middle. There was some sort of relationship between gulla creole and west indian and what became black english but an equal part of black english is actually british and irish. Construction are things said by white people in small towns and the country and that feels odd to us because we dont know those people. Those arent the british people we ming but hat an a hybrid history. So some african, youre going to get more of the africa in west indian englishes. Good evening. Your talk has brought a lot of questions to me. And a lot of comments as well, which i this is not appropriate to good into right now. But one of the request is have for you is, is ebonics the same as black english . Same thing, yeah. Okay. Then ill take just a ask another question. If when you talk about timber, is it when there was an opera that was sung by white people name escapes me now not pouring porgie and bess. Think Gertrude Stein some used black voices in that. What i know is that she didnt say that however, i will that she said it. All that during rehearsals someone said Something Like that so, that is a tough peace and it isnt done much because the music is bad so, its hard to say but that wasnt why. The black people were used for real reasons rather than for the timber. Its funny because the people wanted to use back for the timbre theyd be afraid to say that there is one. She was not have thought that. Thank you, thats an interesting question. Any other questions . I can do two more. This is my favorite part, i told you. My question is about the collar. I wonder if the name itself is from another language . Im the of the opinion that gullah means french for mouth. Im wondering if the name gullah and the black people had known that adopted it saying that if i am an animal i will speak and ergo, i am better because i am an animal which speaks. So, im wondering what is your thought on that. Nobody knows for sure where the term gullah is from. For it to be from gaul is interesting and i dont know what the source of your reasoning is. I speak french. Gaul means animal. When a french person tells you you are a goal, you are an animal. Otherwise you have a. [inaudible] obviously, having grown up in a french speaking countries i hear a lot of goal of being thrown around and that is a short way of saying. [inaudible] i am now asking what is your thought because i really believe that gullah has that french fruit, the louisiana aspect and im wondering if that ties in to the linguistics or entomology and im not sure. You got to think all around the subject in trying to come up with answers. Thats a neat idea but im not sure theres a Strong Enough current of french or french creole in the history of gullah, in particular, that i would be inclined to favor that explanation over the one that usually answered which is that gullah comes from gola as in angola because of that slaves came from angola but the problem with that explanation is to your point is back the african language that survives through songs and people dont do what they mean anymore is monday from sierra leone. If you look at the basket making patterns they are mostly from up there as opposed to down south in angola. The question would be, why would angola come the name of the language. Windows. So, maybe. Thank you, professor for the talk. I have a finding because english is not my first language. I find that the accident is formed by your first native language when you are two years old, you listen all day long for two years and you catch that accident. You put that in your system. Its very hard to change. It can be changed but for very few people. Like chinese, most people dont even look at me and its the same thing. I came to america and noticed black people talking, different from white people but i say its because the carrier over from the language in africa when they were brought here from slavery like 200 years ago. So, the difference is the most different in the accident for any part of any race. Is that true . Im looking for confirmation. Im sorry but no, not in this case. I can see how it would seem in that way from your perspective. That is definitely the way slaves, whod grown up in africa, would have sounded for example, in the first groups miniseries, i forget how they had levar burton talking but he had a very thick accent. Then you have the generation that are born in this country and they are surrounded, not only by their many whites were native and especially on the plantation there were whites around, but there were black patient people around you would been born on the plantation too. What you got then was something brandnew that was different than the weight whites spoke because slaves were their own community but it wasnt african. This is how we know, this is something clear in the city of new york. We know how african sound when their speaking english as a second. I dont mean an african has grown up with english but an african who learned english later. Its an accident that sounds very different to most of us because its only been commonly heard in the United States for 40 years. If you think about it, this person from nigeria doesnt sound anything like the black person from chicago. Black americans, in my eyes, black americans are true americans because they have been here as long as white people. So, yes, its so different and if i heard somebody from africa like 20, ten years ago i can tell the difference immediately. Hes not american, hes africanamerican. The black american because they were born here and have been here for generations already but i have another thing to ask you. When i keep talking english with everybody here i can get rid of my accent quickly but if i switch back my talk on the phone with my chinese friend for a couple months my english is not as fluent as i can be. I think that is part of a theory to become i talked better and talk with english. Its always in your system but you can get rid of most of it but not all the time. No, you cant and its hard. Thats why black americans for generations still have the slightest difference when they talk. The analogy is correct in that when the community is separate in that way some influence from the faraway place, original home, can persist. But in black english the vast majority of the difference is due the segregation that happened here. Deftly, as i said to the other person, there is a dusting of african influence hi, i lived in atlanta in the 1990s and people say that i sound. [inaudible] have you heard that expression . [inaudible] is gullah. [laughter] i wasnt hearing it just now. [laughter] i want to make one more comment. I think a lot of black english is about being consciously musical that people really know and like theres a beat to it. When you are angry theres a beat and when youre joyous theres a certain beat so theres a lot of connection to music. Also, romantically come up black speak musically. No matter what i say in the setting about that i am wrong but that is definitely a part of the dialect and thats what you could call the aspect of it theres a cosmic reality with caribbeans and actual africans. Yes. Its another way that the dialect gives a largess that is a broader, richer, repertoire than Many Americans have had anyway to possess. And yet, to end this on a positive note, i can assure you, within about two years there will be some new story in which black english is about you also to things about drop to beat and bad grammar and degradation et cetera but i have this hope that just my little book will change opinion on this matter across the United States and beyond. I hope you will all join me in pushing that effort home. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] heres a look at some authors recently featured on the tvs after words. Our weekly Author Interview program. Rachel snyder and jonathan reported on how low and moderate income families manage money. Utah senator, mike lee, recalled the forgotten men and women who fought against a large federal government during americas founding. In the new America President and ceo, annemarie slaughter examines how technology has impacted foreign affairs. In the coming weeks on after words, motherboard and Senior Editor brian merchant will retrace the creation and development of the iphone. Syndicate a calmness naomi klein will offer her thoughts on the Trump Presidency and what it means for the future of american politics. This weekend on after words, Temple University press are keith davis will look at gender identity. Next i was inspired to write this book by a very strange policy that we have in the city of philadelphia which was our Public Transportation authority used to require that everybody who bought a monthly pass had to have a sticker, a gender marker and am for mail or ask for female. This created a sex identity discrimination within the city and one transgender woman, charlene, was a friend of mine and an activist for transit rights in philadelphia and brought a lawsuit against the company for gender identity discrimination because when she offered her after mark passed she was turned away and the individual bus driver said she cant use us because youre not a woman, in my opinion. Then she brought back a pass with an eminent sticker on it and the same thing happens. You are not a real man, you cant use the past. This got me thinking in that case, its clear that there is no legitimate reason to have our sex identity on a pass to get on a bus. In the city of philadelphia the spark a lot of grassroots activism to get the stickers removed from the bus passes. Eventually, the city got rid of them but it never admitted that had discriminated against charlene or anybody else based on their gender identity. It got me thinking that if this is ridiculous in this instance what about other sex ids that will we carry around the car drivers license or passports, birth certificates, are they necessary. After words airs on the tv every saturday at 10 00 p. M. And sunday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern. You can watch all previews afterward programs on our website but tv. Org. Every summer, but tv visit capitol hill to ask members of congress what are you reading. Heres a look at some of their answers. I just finished up double in the gold by gilbert keith. Its all about the life of Thurgood Marshall before he was anyones judge both litigating cases in the south at tremendous risk to himself. There is a daniels but i want to read bringing out the best in people. I think every once in a while to get a new perspective on how you lead a team, i always say you need people and you manage assets. Kingdom of ice which harry reid had recommended and i just wrap it up with the traffic novel called all the light we cannot see by anthony door, moving into a narrow road to the north which is another novel and the sixth extinction by elizabeth pool. We also want to hear from you. Send us your Summer Reading list via text or video or post to our basic page at facebook. Com com or emails booktv at seaspan. Org. [inaudible conversations] good evening, everybody