Ebonics is not Black English
by ERNIE SMITH , KAREN CROZIER
Abstract
The December 18, 1996 resolution of the Oakland Unified School District Board officially
recognizing Ebonics as an African Language System, and not a dialect of English, sparked anew
much debate concerning the speech and language of African American people. In the aftermath
of the resolution passed by the Board, due in part to some abstruseness in the wording, a
considerable amount of confusion and controversy emerged. A great deal of the confusion had
nothing to do with the abstruse wording, but rather, was due to the popular press and media's
misapprehension and use of the appellation "Ebonics" as being a synonym for the phrase or
appellation "Black English ". As an African centered term that legitimizes the language of Black
Americans as an African based linguistic system, rather than allowing the deviancy model to
persist, this article traces the true origin and meaning of the term Ebonics. In this article it is
posited by the writers that inherent in the very use of the phrase "Black English" there is a tacit
inference that the language being discussed is a variant of English and hence that, there is, ipso
facto, a genetic kinship between "Black English" and the Germanic language family to which
English belongs. The writers contend that since Ebonics was not coined as a synonym for the
appellation "Black English" and when it is used as such those who do so reveal an ignorance of
the in fact origin and meaning of the term "Ebonics" that is so profound their confusion is
pathetic.
Introduction
The features of the language of Black or African Americans, i.e., United States slave descendants
of West and Niger-Congo African origin, has been recognized, described and discussed for
several decades. When an exploration is made of the literature on the language of slave
descendants of African origin it will be found that the appellation "Black English" is a post
1950's label. This is because, prior to the 1950's Blacks in America were not referred to as
"Blacks".
Prior to 1950 the most prevalent term used to designate the race of United States slave
descendants of African origin was "Negro". Thus, in the pre-1950's literature on the language of
the descendants of African slaves, the appellation used to designate their language was "Negro
English", "The Negro Dialect", "Negro Speech", Non-standard Negro English or Negro NonStandard English and "Nonstandard Negro Dialect" etc. (Defrantz, 1975)
In the late 1950's, during what is commonly called the civil rights era, the appellation used for
the language of the descendants of African slaves changed. United States slave descendants of
African origin began to call themselves "Black" and the word "Black" became acceptable. With
the widespread acceptance of the word "Black" there was, in the literature on the language of the
descendants of African slaves, a concomitant substitution of the word "Black" for "Negro" in
front of the word "English". Throughout the 1960's and on into the 1990's, although the
appellations "Vernacular Black English", "Black Vernacular English", "Black English
Vernacular" and more recently "African American Vernacular English" have gained some
popularity, the most prevalent phrase used is "Black English".
What is Black English?
In the 1970's and in the 1980's several books appeared on the language of slave descendants of
African origin with "Black English" as their title. To name but a few, there is Black English: Its
History and Usage in the United States (Dillard, 1972), Black American English: Its Background
and Its Usage in the Schools and in Literature (Stoller, 1975), Black English: A Seminar
(Harrison & Trabasso, 1976) and Black English: Educational Equity and the Law (Chambers, Jr.,
1983).
Conspicuously, in none of these works is there a phrase that explicitly defines "Black English".
Presuming, inherently, by the very use of the word "English" that the language of slave
descendants of African origin is a variant of "English", the inference is also made that, being a
dialect of English, there is a genetic kinship between "Black English" and the Germanic language
family to which English belongs. The fact is, from a comparative or diachronic, i.e. historical
linguistic perspective, in terms of the "base" from which the grammatical features of Black
English derives, nothing could be further from the truth.
In a search of the literature on "Black English" in an attempt to find the empirical data that
undergirds the view that the language of African Americans is in fact a dialect of English, it was
discovered that, although there is ample debate on the issue of whether "Black English" emerged
as a result of a pidgin/creole hybridization process as opposed to being the result of African
slaves being taught Old English, "baby talk", the pre-1950's conceptualization of Black English
was that, the base from which the features of "Black English" derives is "English". In the post1950's, among Eurocentric scholars, that view has not changed. This brings us to the issue of
what is the criteria used for defining and classifying any language, including English, in terms of
its "genetic" or familial kinship?
Genetic Classification and Kinship in languages
In the American Heritage Dictionary (1976), the word English is defined in part as:
1. The people of England collectively. Used with the. 2. The West Germanic language of the
English divided historically into Old English, Middle English, and Modern English and now
spoken in the British Isles, the United States and numerous other countries. (p. 433)
While we are given here a definition of the word "English" that tells who the "English" people
are and that English is a "West Germanic language", the question still remains, how is it known
that English is a West Germanic language? That is, by what criteria was it discerned and decided
that English is related to or akin to German and belongs to the West Germanic family of the
Indo-European languages? Was this determination based on grammar rules, vocabulary,
historical origins or what?
Palmer (1978) states in Descriptive and Comparative Linguistics: A Critical Introduction that:
... observed resemblances between speech habits ... force us to the conclusion of historical
connectedness by an unbroken chain of mimetic acts. This connectedness is what is understood
by `relationship'. In order to establish the fact of such a relationship our evidence must not
consists entirely of points of vocabulary. For ... words are often borrowed by one language from
another as a result of cultural contact ... What constitutes the most certain evidence of
relationship is resemblance of grammatical structure, for languages retain their native structure
even after their vocabularies have been swamped by foreign borrowing, such as has been the
case for English ... (p. 23)
As Palmer indicates, in comparative or historical linguistics, languages are not considered to be
related merely because they share vocabularies. "What constitutes the most certain evidence of
relationship is resemblance of grammatical structure". Of course, this prompts the question, what
precisely is meant by the word "grammar" or "grammatical structure"?
In their text Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction (1993), O'Grady, Dobrovosky and
Arnoff state:
"In investigating linguistic competence, linguists focus on the mental system that allows human
beings to form and interpret the words and sentences of their language. This system is called a
grammar ... One of the fundamental claims of modern linguistic analysis is that all languages
have a grammar. This can be verified by considering a few simple facts. Since all languages are
spoken, they must have phonetic and phonological systems; since they all have words and
sentences, they also must have a morphology and a syntax; and since these words and sentences
have systematic meanings, there obviously must be semantic principles as well. As these are the
very things that make up a grammar, it follows that all human languages have this type of
system". (pp. 3-4)
As defined in the quote above, in linguistics, the word "grammar" means the phonetic,
phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic system of a language. Clearly, if it is based
on a criteria of continuity in the rules of "grammar" that English is defined and classified as
being a Germanic language - and by grammar is meant the phonetic, phonological,
morphological, syntactic and semantic systems, - then it stands to reason that "Black English"
would be defined and classified as being a dialect of English because there is continuity in the
grammar of "Black English" and the English of non Blacks.
There is however, an incongruence in the empirical evidence. That is, those who put forth the
thesis that Black American speech is a dialect of "English" have not documented the existence of
a single Black dialect in the African diaspora that has been formed on an English phonetic,
phonological, morphological, syntactical and semantic base (i.e., grammar) (Jahn, 1961). But
lets, for the sake of argument, assume the view that in the colonial era contacts between the
English speaking Europeans and the Niger-Congo African people, a "contact vernacular" or trade
"lingua franca" was invented by English speaking European people. If we accept this view then,
such a hybrid dialect would have to hove been based on the "grammar" of the "English"
language. Because the English would not have known the "grammar" of the Niger-Congo
African languages, the English speaking people could not have invented a hybrid dialect on an
African "grammar" base. The problem with this view is that a hybrid dialect that has an English
grammar base with African words superimposed has not been found. If this view were valid,
surely there would be at least one such dialect documented in the diaspora where the enslaved
Niger-Congo African were taken by the English.
The fact of the matter is, when a critical analysis is made of the grammars of the so-called "Black
English" dialect and the English spoken by the Europeans and Euro-Americans, the empirical
evidence is that their grammars are not the same. Throughout the diaspora, the documented
evidence is that, while there has been an extensive borrowing or adoption of English and other
European words, the grammar of the language of Niger-Congo African descendants follows the
grammar rules of the Niger-Congo African languages (Alleyne, 1971; Jahn, 1961). In other
words based on a criteria of continuity in the rules of grammar, there is no empirical evidence
that "Black English" ever even existed.
Of course an alternative thesis could be that it is not continuity in the rules of "grammar" but
rather the etymology and continuity of the "lexicon" that is the relevant criteria and basis for
defining and classifying languages as being related. Clearly, if it is the dominant lexicon and not
the grammar of a hybrid dialect that is the criteria for establishing familial kinship, and the bulk
of the vocabulary of "Black English" has been borrowed or adopted from the English language
stock, then "Black English" is in fact a dialect of English (Romaine, 1994, pp. 163-165).
But then, if the criteria for positing the kinship of African American speech is the etymology and
continuity of the dominant lexicon and not continuity in the rules of grammar, this prompts the
question, why is there a double standard? That is, it is a universally accepted fact that the English
language has borrowed the bulk of its lexicon from the Romance or Latin language family. Yet,
the English language is not classified as being a Latin or Romance language. As shown in the
dictionary definition above, English is classified as a Germanic language.
The fact is the use of "vocabulary" to classify the language of African Americans as being a
dialect of English is fundamentally incongruent. For, if the dominant lexifier of the English
language is actually Latin and French, Latin and French being the origin of the bulk of the
English lexicon then, ipso facto, the etymology of the dominant lexicon of "Black English" is
Latin and French. The etymology of the dominant lexicon of "Black English" being, Latin and
French it logically follows based on this criteria that the dialect being called "Black English"
would more properly be called "Black Latin" or "Black French". In other words on basis of the
grammar or the etymology of the lexicon African American speech cannot be classified as an
English dialect at all.
There is however, another possible definition or meaning of the phrase "Black English" - one
that does not hinge on the criteria for classifying a language but rather, one that has to do with
how the word "Black" is perceived and defined. Those who posit this view contend that, "any
definition of Black English is closely bound to the problem of defining "Blackness" (Harrison &
Trabasso, 1973, p. 2). There is, they posit, a wide range of characteristics and experiences among
Black people, from those in the inner-city street culture, to those in the Wall Street, middle and
upper class.
Concomitantly, there are many Blacks who are exposed to the English of the upper class and
educated native English speakers, while other Blacks have only been exposed to the dialects of
English of the poorer whites. That is, there are Blacks of mixed African and English European
ancestry (Black Anglo-Saxons) who, because they can actually prove their English heritage,
claim they are merely dark complexioned English descendants. In their view as English
descendants, albeit mulatto, English is their primary language.
There are still other Black people who are not mulattoes but who, as domestic servants or
members of the Black bourgeoisie, reside in very close proximity to affluent Euro-American
people and there are Black people who, though they have not lived in close proximity to EuroAmericans, have had the benefit of an excellent English language instruction.
The argument is made that Black people who are, by whatever method of acquisition, fluent in
their ability to perform "ideally" in Euro-American Acrolectal English(1) or what is more
commonly called Standard American English (SAE), do not cease being "Black". Even assuming
that many Blacks learn their English from contacts with poor whites, since white trailer trash
English, (i.e., the English of ethnic Scots, Irish and Welsh descendants) is only marginally
"English", "Black English" cannot be the English of a Black person whose models were not
themselves English speakers. Thus, the only valid use of the appellation "Black English" has to
be with reference to the "Standard Black English" spoken by a Black person who has "mastered"
and is ideally competent in his use of the grammar and vocabulary as well as read and write
SAE.
It must be stressed, that this Standard "Black English" is not the "Black English" that is often
described as having characteristics distinctively different from the SAE idiom. In fact, in terms
of its grammatical structure, the Standard "Black English" spoken and written by Blacks who are
fluent or ideally competent in SAE is identical to that of the Euro-American's SAE (Meier, 1997,
p. 20).
Also based on how the word "black" is defined, but slightly different from the first two
connotations, there is yet another definition or meaning posited for the appellation "Black
English". The proponents of this view posit that, in any dictionary of the English language one
can find the word "black" defined. For example, the definition one finds in the American
Heritage dictionary (1976) is:
1. Being of the darkest achromatic visual value; producing or reflecting comparatively little light
and having no predominant hue. 2. having no light whatsoever; a black cave. 3. Belonging to an
ethnic group having dark skin; especially, Negroid. 4. Dark in color or having parts that are dark
in color. Used with animal and plant names: black bass; black birch. 5. Soiled, as from soot. 6.
Evil; sinister: black deeds. 7. Cheerless and depressing; gloomy. 8. Angered; sullen. 9.
Sometimes capital B. Attended with disaster; calamitous: the stock-market crash on Black
Friday. 10. Of or designating a form of humor dealing with the abnormal and grotesque aspects
of life and society and evoking a sense of the comedy of human despair and failure. 11.
Indicating or incurring censure or dishonor. (p. 136)
In Webster's Seventh Collegiate Dictionary (1972) the word `black' is defined as:
1a. Of the color black b: very dark 2a: having dark skin, hair, and eyes: SWARTHY b: of or
relating to a group or race characterized by dark pigmentation; esp: NEGROID 3: dressed in
black 4: SOILED, DIRTY 5a: characterized by the absence of light b: reflecting or transmitting
little or no light <~water> 6a: thoroughly evil: WICKED b: expressive of condemnation or
discredit 7: invoking the supernatural and esp. the devil 8a: GLOOMY, CALAMITOUS; specif:
marked by the occurrence of disaster b: SULLEN, HOSTILE 9:COMPLETE, UTTER". (p. 87)
Clearly, if the meaning of "Black English" is based on the definitions of "black" as given above,
then "black" English is; "NEGROID" English. It is "Soiled", English. It is Evil, English. It is
Sinister English: It is Cheerless and depressing English. It is gloomy English. It is Angered
English. It is sullen English. It is Indicating or incurring censure or dishonor" English. It is
DIRTY English. It is characterized by the absence of light English. It is reflecting or transmitting
little or no light English. It is thoroughly evil English. It is WICKED English. It is expressive of
condemnation or discredit English. It is invoking the supernatural English. It is CALAMITOUS
English. In essence, "Black English" has no positive connotations whatsoever.
Thus, a critical examination of the literature reveals there are at least four distinct connotations
that the appellation "Black English" can have. The first is that "Black English" is a dialect of
African Americans that is "based" on mutant (baby talk) Old English and Middle English archaic
forms. The second connotation is that "Black English" is a hybrid dialect of African Americans
that has as its genesis the transactional or pidgin/creole language of the West and Niger-Congo
African slaves (Joiner, 1979). The third connotation is that "Black English" is the English spoken
by mulattoes, house Negroes and Black bilinguals who have "mastered" the grammar and
vocabulary of Standard English. The fourth connotation is that "Black" English is not the
"ideally competent" or prestige dialect but a very base, vile and despicable form of speech. Let
us now to turn the postulation of the Africologist or Africanist scholars that the native language
of the descendants of Niger-Congo African slaves is not a dialect of English.
The Meaning and Misuse of the Appellation Ebonics
The term Ebonics was coined in January 1973, by Dr. Robert L. Williams, a Professor of
Psychology at Washington University in St. Louis Missouri. Dr. Williams coined the term
Ebonics in a hospitality suite during a small group discussion held with several African
American psychologists, linguists and speech communications professionals attending a
conference convened by Dr. Williams on the "Cognitive and Language Development of the
Black Child".
Etymologically, "Ebonics" is a compound of two words: "Ebony" which means "Black" and
"phonics" which means "sounds". The term Ebonics means literally, "Black Sounds". As an all
encompassing nonpejorative label, the term Ebonics refers to the "linguistic and para-linguistic
features, which on a concentric continuum, represent the language and communicative
competence of West and Niger-Congo African, Caribbean, and United States slave descendants
of Niger-Congo African origin" (Williams, 1975, p. 100).
In the sense that Ebonics includes both the verbal and para-linguistic communications of African
American people, this means that Ebonics represents an underlying psychological thought
process. Hence, the non-verbal sounds, cues, and gestures etc, which are systematically used in
the process of communication by African American people are encompassed by the term as well.
This is the original and only intended meaning of the term Ebonics. The consensus among the
African American psychologists, linguists and speech communications professionals was that, as
evidenced by the deep phonetic, phonology, morphology and syntactical patterns (grammar)
African American speech, Ebonics, does not follow the rules of English grammar.
In phrasing the definition of Ebonics, the Africologists consensus, in 1973, was that it is the
West and Niger-Congo African linguistic structure which has been retained and it is this African
deep structure that causes African American children to think and speak differently. The
Africologists consensus was that it is because of this African deep structure and thought process
that African American children likewise score poorly on standardized scales of English
competence and performance. That is, Black children recognize many English words but do not
comprehend English grammar. What is more on the Scholastic Aptitude (SAT), College
Entrance Examination Board (CEEB), Law School Admissions (LSAT), Medical College
Admissions (MCAT) and Graduate Record Examination (GRE) they discover how poor their
knowledge is of Euro-American meanings of many words.
In essence, in their phrasing of the definition of Ebonics, the Africologists consensus was that,
segregation and poverty or being "disadvantaged", is not the origin or root cause of the African
American's limited English proficiency. The consensus was that, although being denied,
deprived and socio-economically disadvantaged has served to limit the African American's
exposure to and acquisition of the English language usage or idiom of the Euro-American
people, as West and Niger-Congo Africans in diaspora the "genesis" or origin of the grammar of
African American's language difference is Africa, - not segregation and poverty.
Thus, when the term Ebonics was coined it was not as a mere synonym for the more commonly
used appellation "Black English". Rather, the term Ebonics was coined in repudiation of the
white supremacists lie that, Niger-Congo Africans were savages who had no fully developed
languages originally and that the very genesis of human speech for Niger-Congo Africans and
their descendants was an Old English "baby talk" or pidgin/creole English vernacular. When
Ebonics is used as a synonym for Black English, the deliberate intent of those who do so is to
appropriate the term Ebonics and use it to further propagate the caucasio-centric discourse that
African Americans are sub-human and should not be viewed otherwise.
An African grammar with English Words
Some of the pre-1950's scholars who posited African American speech as being the linguistic
continuation of Africa in Black America were Carter G. Woodson (1933), Lorenzo Turner
(1949) and Melville Herskovits (1940). The Post-1950 writers were Janheinz Jahn (1958),
Nathan Hare (1965), Adrian Dove (1968), Mervyn Alleyne (1971), Robert Twiggs (1973), Ernie
Smith (1974), Robert Williams (1975), Anita DeFrantz (1975), Aisha Blackshire-Belay (1991,
1996) Garrett X Duncan (1995) and Karen Crozier (1996). It is these scholars that have
consistently maintained that in the hybridization process, it has been the grammar of the NigerCongo African languages that has been dominant in the speech of African Americans.
These scholars have consistently maintained that merely because the speech of AfricanAmericans has adopted, very extensively, many words from the European stock and shares a
common vocabulary with English, this does not make African American Ebonics a dialect of
English. These scholars have steadfastly argued that it is improper to use terminology that has
been devised to describe the grammar of English to describe African American linguistic
structures. For example; the scholars who view African American speech as being a dialect of
English describe the absence of word final consonant clusters as being a; "lost", "reduced",
"weakened", "simplified", "deleted" or "omitted" consonant phonemes (Baratz, 1969; Burling,
1973; Fasold, 1973; Labov, 1975; Thomas, 1973; Welty, 1971; Wolfram, 1973).
When viewed as an African Language System that has adopted European words into its usage,
the Africologist describe African American speech as having retained the canonical form or
shape of the syllable structure of the Niger-Congo African languages. "Thus, in Ebonics,
homogeneous consonant clusters tend not to occur. Not because the final phoneme has been
lost", "reduced", "weakened", "simplified", "deleted" or "omitted", they never existed in the first
place, - and they do not exist or tend not to occur, in the Niger-Congo African descendant's
speech today.
Hence it is by relexification that in Ebonics English words such as west, best, test, last and fast
become; wes, bes, tes, las and fas. The words; - land, band, sand and hand become; lan, ban, san
and han. Left, lift, drift and swift become; lef, lif, drif and swif. And wept, crept, slept, except
and inept become; wep, crep, slep, excep and inep.
Similarly, because the canonical form or shape of the syllable structure of Ebonics is that of the
NigerCongo languages of Africa, i.e., strongly a consonant vowel, consonant vowel (CV) vocalic
pattern, by relexification, in Ebonics, entire sentences will have a CV vocalic pattern. Thus, in
Ebonics, a sentence such as "did you eat yet?" will exhibit the CV, CV, vocalic pattern / j i j E t /
or / j u w i j E t/. The reply "No or naw did you?" will exhibit the CV vocalic pattern / n) j u/.
The sentence "did you eat your jello? will by relexification exhibit the CV pattern /j u w i c o j E
l o/
Because they view African American speech as an English dialect Euro-centric scholars contend
that in sentences such as "You the teacher" and "That teacher she mean", a copula verbal or the
verb "to be" has been "deleted," "dropped," or "omitted." In contrast, because Africologist view
the language of African descendants as an African language system, the Africologist contend that
in sentences like "You the teacher" and "That teacher she mean" there has been no "deleted,"
"dropped," or "omitted" copula or verb "to be". As an African language system that has an
equative clause or equational sentence phrase structure, the verb "to be" never existed in the first
place, and it does not exist or tends not to occur, in the Niger-Congo African descendant's speech
today.
Because they are absolutely convinced that the language of Black American's is a vernacular
dialect of English, Euro-centric scholars have also posited the existence of "double subjects" in
so-called Black English. Viewed as being an English dialect, Euro-centric scholars mistakenly
divide sentences such as "That teacher she mean" and "My sister she smart" into noun phrase
(NP) and verb phrase (VP) constituents - as English would be properly divided.
In contrast Africologist, do not divide sentences such as "That teacher she mean" and "My sister
she smart" into NP and VP constituents. Equally convinced that Black American language is in
fact an African linguistic system, as an African language system, the division of an equative
clause sentence structure is into "topic" and "comment" constituents. According to the
Africologists, the pronoun "she" that follows the common nouns "teacher" and "sister" in each
sentence is not a constituent of the "topic" segment of each sentence. It is a person-aspect or
recapitulative pronoun that belongs to the "comment" segment or portion (Kraft & Kirk-Greene,
1979, pp. 36-37).
In sum, Ebonics is not a dialect of English. The term "Ebonics" and other Afro-centric
appellations such as "Pan African Language" and "African Language Systems" all refer to the
linguistic continuity of Africa in Black America. Euro-centric scholars use the term "Ebonics as
a synonym for "Black English". In doing so they reveal an ignorance of the in fact origin and
meaning of the term "Ebonics" that is so profound their confusion is pathetic (Johnson, 1979;
Jones, 1979; Seymour & Seymour, 1979; Smith, 1979; Weddington, 1979; Wofford, 1979).
Lacking any logical explanation for why, in the entire African diaspora, there is not a single
hybrid English and Niger-Congo African dialect that has an English grammar as its base with
African words superimposed and lacking any logical reasons for using vocabulary as their basis
for classifying Black American speech, while using grammar as their basis for classifying
English, Euro-centric scholars are exposed for the academic pimps, charlatans and whores out of
both draw legs they are.
The imperative is however, to recognize that all pupils are equal and hence, all pupils should to
be treated equally. That is, just as limited-English-proficient (LEP) Asian-American, HispanicAmerican, Native-American and all other pupils who come from backgrounds where a language
other than English is dominant are provided bilingual education and English as a second
language programs to address their LEP needs, African-American LEP pupils should not,
because of their race, be subtly dehumanized, stigmatized, discriminated against or denied. LEP
African American pupils are equally entitled to be provided bilingual Education and ESL
programs to address their LEP needs.
Ebonics is not, as Geneva Smitherman contends "the Africanization of American English"
(Smitherman, 1997, p. 8). Ebonics is an African based language with European words. Although
we question Asante's (1991) use of the white supremacists pidgin/creole model to describe the
hybridization process that occurred between Niger-Congo African and European languages
(especially his positing a "Transfer to English as primary, language but with African
morphology" (p. 238). However, we believe his "Anglicization of Ebonics" is at least an Africancentered expression of what has occurred. For, based on the very fact that the African
"morphology" has been retained, it means there has been no genetic shift from the African
language family to which Ebonics belongs". We hope that professor Asante corrects this
contradiction in his next edition.
Finally, we hope that we have made it clear that, Ebonics is not "Black English" and that the
appellation "Black English" is not a synonym for the word Ebonics. Now, we fully recognize the
African menticide and physical genocide agenda of Euro-centric scholars when they, in
collaboration with white supremacists journalists, use the term "Ebonics" as a synonym for
"Black English". What we do not understand is the cultural and linguistic abortion agenda of the
hog maws and hot sauce eating Negroes who do so.
Notes
(1.) Euro-American Acrolectal English: a term coined by Smith (1976) to encompass two
connotation inherent in the notion `standard' which are obscured by the mere use of the term
Standard American English; 1) firstly, the term Standard American English obscures the fact that
written varieties of English or any language are distinguished from spoken varieties. Inasmuch as
there are no native speakers of the edited variety of American English or the edited variety of
any language, the term Edited is here employed to designate the written Standard English as
opposed to the spoken Standard American English.
(2.) The second connotation obscured by the term Standard American English is the fact that
there are prestige and non-prestige regional varieties of the spoken or oral American English.
Hence, to designate the nationally prestigious spoken American English, the term acrolect is
used in contrast to the term basilect and mesolect which refer to the less prestigious varieties.
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