In
a language, there are many varieties spoken by people. One of the reasons was
because of the ethnic background of those people. One country to another mostly
speaks different language although many features are actually similar.
Politically, every country wants to emphasize its existence by claiming that it
has a special language different from others.
Still,
to emphasize its belonging, each country develops its language and makes sure
there are distinctions between it and another language which seems similar with
it. Let us take Malaysia and Indonesia as an example. Their languages are
similar in some ways since both came from Malay language. The Malay existed
hundred years ago and has been popular and widely used as a trading language and,
even, a lingua franca almost in all south East Asian regions
(bukittingginews.com). To say that Bahasa Indonesia is different than Malaysia
language they develop standards of each language. Another reason of having a
standard is may be to have a uniform for the country realizes that it has many
traditional or tribe language. This phenomenon also happens in Indonesia.
Having
a standard may gives benefit in some point of view. However, socially, the
impact is it rise stereotypes which categories people into two—they who cannot
speak the standard and they who can speak the standard. The stereotypes arise
in educational issue, social class issue and ethnic background issue. In the
United States, one of the major interesting issues regarding to the ethnic
background according to the linguists is the AAVE.
AAVE
is African American Vernacular English, nonstandard English spoken by
lower-class African Americans (Trudgill: 2000). Another linguist, Yule (1996),
states “…, the speech of many African-Americans, technically known as Black
English Vernacular (BEV), is widespread social dialect, often cutting across
regional differences.”
When
we see that The United States is a multicultural country, we can easily
conclude that there are many dialects there not only from they who are originally
from the country but also the immigrants who has been Americans (because of the
interference of the mother tongue) and they who were born in The United States
but parents were immigrants. However, AAVE stereotyped as a lower-class dialect
since it was spoken by the African Americans who’s coming to the United States
were as slaves. Furthermore, because of the differences between AAVE and
Standard English, it was marked as false and because of the slavery it was
marked as inferior.
Outside
the historical view of the AAVE, the differences occur in the dialect are
grammatical features. This also happens in other dialects. So, we cannot say
that AAVE is a “bad speech” because those differences are the impact of
acquisition of English in African Americans.
Finally,
the AAVE nowadays is not only used by the African American but also other
ethnic group especially in many songs. The idea that it is inferior is opposed
by many people. Moreover, since the idea against racism has been widely spread
and accepted, I think what Yule said above can be accepted that AAVE nowadays
is a dialect. It is just one of many dialects Americans have.