The Origin of Black English

According to J.L. Dillard some 80% of black Americans speak the Black English, and he and many commentators stress its African origins. The history of Black English in the United States is complex, controversial, and only partly understood. Black English is a term going back only to 1969. It is used almost exclusively as the name for a dialect for American English spoken by many black Americans. Records of the early speech forms are sparse. It is unclear, how much influence black speech has had on the pronunciation of southern whites; according to some linguists, generation of close contact resulted in the families of the slaves owners picking up some of the speech habits of their servants, which gradually developed into the distinctive southern ‘drawl’. (33,23)

 From the early 17-th century, ships from Europe traveled to the West African coast, where they exchanged cheap good for black slaves. The slaves were shipped in barbarous conditions to the Caribbean islands and the American coast, where they were in tern exchanged for such commodities as sugar, rum, and molasses. The ships then returned to England, completing an ‘Atlantic triangle’ of journeys, and the process began again. The first 20 African slaves arrived in Virginia on a Dutch ship in 1619. Britain and the United States had outlawed the slave trade by the American Revolution (1776) their numbers had grown to half a million, and there were over 4 million by the time slavery was abolished, at the end of the United States Civil War (1865).

The policy of the slave-trades was to bring people of different language backgrounds together in the ships, to make it difficult for the groups to plot rebellion. The result was the growth of several pidgin forms of communication, and in particular a pidgin between the slavers and the sailors, many of whom spoke English.

The black slaves who were arriving in Jamestown, Va. In 1619. Manhattan Island in 1635 and Massachusetts in 1638 have used the Afro- European varieties for communication among themselves. In 1692, justice Hathorne recorded Tituba, an African slave from the island of Barbados in the British West Indies, speaking in the pidgin of the slaves. Tituba was quoted as saying “He tell me he God,” The words of the phrase are English, but the structure and grammar of the phrase are congruous with that pf the West African languages that Smitherman identifies. (32, 8)

During the early years of American settlement, a highly distinctive form of English was emerging in the island of the West Indies and the Southern part of the mainland, spoken by the incoming black population. The emergence of slave trade was a consequence of the important of African slaves to work on the sugar plantations, a practice started by the Spanish in 1517.

First the industrial revolution then the Civil War disrupted slavery and promoted African-American migration within the U.S., s a result of which slave dialects were transplanted from Southern plantation to the factories of the North and Midwest. Slave labor in the south gave birth to diverse linguistic norms; former indentured servants from all parts of the British Isles, who often became overseers on plantations, variously influenced the foundation of Black English. There was a widespread exodus to the industrial cities of the northern states, and black culture became known throughout the country for its music and dance. (15, 36). Black English was born of slavery between the late XVI c.- early XVII c. and middle XIX c. and followed black migration from the southern states to racially isolated ghettos throughout the United States.

Slave labor in the south gave birth to diverse linguistic norms; former indentured servants from all parts of the British Isles, who often became overseers on plantations, variously influenced the foundation of B.E.V. first the industrial revolution the Civil War disrupted slavery and promoted African American migration within the United States, as a result of which slave dialects were transplanted from Southern plantation to the factories of the North and Midwest. An artifact not of race but of a speech community, Black English originated as a pidgin (a simplified language used in a commercial context to facilitate communication among speakers of different languages) that the slaves coming from a variety of language backgrounds used to communicate among themselves.

In the XVIII century, more records of the speech of slaves and the representations of their speech were produced. In fact, J.L. Dillard claims that “By 1715 there clearly was an African Pidgin English known on a worldwide scale. In 1744, an ad in The New York Evening Post read: “Ran away … a new African Fellow named Prince, he can’t scarce speak a Word of English.” In 1760, an ad in the North Carolina Gazette read: “Ran away from the Subscriber, African Born, speaks bad English. In 1734, the Philadelphia American Weekly Mercury read: “Ran away …; he’s Pennsylvanian born and speaks good English.” (33, 16)

Quotations from Black English speakers became abundant in the records of Northern states by about 1750, nearly half a century before the earliest records in the Southern colonies were found in Charleston, S.C. (10, 1)

Black characters made their way into show business in 1777 with the comical Trial of Atticus before Justice Beau, for Rape. In this farcical production, "one of our neighbor's," says "Yes, Maser, he tell me that Atticus he went to bus 'em one day, and a shilde cry, and so he let 'em alon". Much like Tituba's statement, the statements above use English vocabulary, yet the structure and grammar of the statements well in keeping with that of the West African Languages.

Other informative evidence in tracing the development of Black English lies in newspaper ads reporting runaway slaves. In locating and identifying a runaway slave, the slaves' speech played an instrumental role. It is important to remember that the slave trade was not outlawed until 1808, and even then it was not strictly adhered to. Smitherman reports that "As late as 1858, over 400 slaves were brought direct from Africa to Georgia". Consequently, there was a constant influx of Africans who spoke no English at all. This produced a community of people with a broad array of mastery of Black English and even Standard English. (32, 84)

 This is made clear when we see the newspaper ads that reported runaway slaves. This stratification of language is vital in the development and the development of the perception of Black English, if it is remembered that not all Blacks were slaves in Early America. Successful runaways were likely to be those who attained a relative mastery of Standard English. The mastery of Standard English would prove invaluable to a slave who had to travel a long distance across American soil to win his freedom. Further more, early Black writers, such as Frederick Douglass, wrote in the Standard English of his time. A mastery of Standard English was also beneficial in passing as a free Black. In a very real and disturbing way, Black English became the language of slavery and servitude. (35, 212)

 During the Civil war period, abolitionists made the speech of slaves know to all serious readers of that era. Writers such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Thomas Halliburton produced many works that indicated their knowledge of the existence of Black English. While the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves were significant historical events, their impact was mitigated severely by the Jim Crow era. Although everyone labeled "Negro" by the Jim Crow laws did not speak Black English, it is safe to assume that those Blacks who did speak Black English far outnumbered those who spoke Standard English.