So which is it? I am curious to hear your responses. If someone out there is majoring in Linguistics, I'd be particularly interested to know what you have to say. In case there is any confusion, I am referring to what is loosely known as "African American Vernacular English (AAVE)", not the original definition of Ebonics which (if I'm not mistaken) was used as a general term to label the language of all people with African ancestry.
[QUOTE="stevenk4k5"]I believe it would be classified as a dialect.entropyecho
What's the difference between a language and dialect?
There are no hard and fast criteria for dialect versus language; however, I think that most would characterize it as a dialect of English, since most of the underlying syntax and structure exist, with elements of vocabulary and enunciation being the main differences. The school board of Oakland would apparently disagree, since they declared an intent to teach "in students native language of Ebonics" and to more or less teach English as a foreign language. The Oakland school board, though, is notably insane.
I ask because back in the day in my high school Linguistics c1ass, we had a segment on Ebonics and "Skater-talk". We had to write paragraphs using their respective conventions for h.w.
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