Black English

Black English is not exactly a "linguistic buffalo," for as children, most of the 35 million Afro-Americans living in the United States depend on this language for their discovery of the world (Jordan 363). What is commonly called English, less and less defers to England, and is no longer a specific matter of geography or an element of class privilege. More than 33 countries use this language as a means of intra-national communication. Countries as disparate as Zimbabwe and Malaysia, or Israel and Uganda, use it as their non-native currency of convenience. Obviously, this tool cannot function inside these countries on the basis of rules and values absolutely determined somewhere else--such as the United States or Britain.

In addition, there are five countries, or 333,746,000 people, for whom English serves as a native tongue (Jordan 364). Approximately 10-12 percent of these native speakers are Afro-American. Obviously, numerous forms of English now operate inside a natural continuum of development. For example, it can be supposed that the Standard English in Malaysia is not the same as the Standard English in Zimbabwe. Certainly, the standard forms of English for black people in the United States do not copy that of caucasians. In fact, the structural differences between these two kinds of English have intensified, becoming more "black" or less "white," despite the expected homogenizing effects of television and other mass media (Jordan 364).

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in all parts of the United States--as far away as Oregon (Dillard 117). Today, many black activists believe that English is a foreign language, inexact and inadequate to fully express the human-rainbow totality of the essence of being black (Kalamu ya Salaam 67). It is also a language that is symbolic of the enslavement of the Afro-Americans. Since Afro-Americans were denied access to their heritage during the colonial period and through modern times--until recently--Afro-Americans developed their own approach to English and began to express themselves musically with this language. During slavery, religious service was often the only organized form of collective self-expression for the African slaves which met human needs and was also acceptable to the dominant population. The music that is considered classic "Negro Spirituals" was codified into a cultural force in the late 1800s. The spirituals were "spruced up" and presented as concert music, beginning in 1871, by the Fisk Jubilee Singers (Kalamu ya Salaam 68). It was not until the early 1900s that the music known as Gospel developed. The two best known exponents of this music were Mahalia Jackson and composer/pianist publisher Thomas A. Dorsey. Initially, Jackson, Do

Category: History - B