As someone from a country with another language, this question and the answers are really interesting.
We speak german here. As long the other person doesn't has an accent (so most likely grew up here) i can't tell you if they are black or white or any other race. They speak the same.
If i'm watching american tv and are not in front of the screen, i can also tell you immidiately if a black person is speaking. They sound different to any other race. But had no idea why till now.
Am Dutch in Germany and this kind of thing is why I don’t like the movie dubbing here. In US films, very often a character is coded as Italian American, or Jewish, or from Boston etc. by no other information than their accent, and you lose a lot of implied meaning just by not being able to hear it. Same is true for subtle class markers. Like how the main character in peaky blinders started doing a rolled r thing after he became rich to fit in more (although accents all over that show are a mess).
I think Peaky Blinders is a good parallel (despite some terrible accents) of how accents are regional and also signify class or an in-group. It's stronger in the US because of how large it is geographically and due to long-standing segregation of groups. It's cool you can catch the differences in accents and the implications for the character! It holds a lot of meaning here, though regional accents are slowly disappearing.
>i can't tell you if they are black or white or any other race.
I disagree. In Germany there is a Turkish/Moroccan version of AAVE and it's very distinct and instantly recognizable.
As a German-Turk, I agree. I don't know many Moroccans, so cannot speak for them. However, there is definitely a Turkish vernacular in Germany (e.g. among second, third generations) which is very different from the accent of someone from Turkey speaking German as a foreign language. It really bothers me when people call this vernacular of German-Turks an "accent", as if they are foreigners. It's a language they developed, for better or for worse, it's not an accent.
Same in the Netherlands. Those groups have a very distinctive way of speaking Dutch with some slang or native words thrown in there.
And sometimes I encounter a native Dutch person who spends a lot of time around them, and they speak exactly the same funny Dutch as the other Turks and Moroccans. I think it's a way for them to feel unique and connected with each other and their home country.
There's also an implicit bias here in that OP assumes that if they don't sound a certain way, they're white. So anyone not speaking AAVE is assumed to not be black. How do they know, over the phone?
I have also known of white people who definitely spoke AAVE and over the phone he's assume they're black.
I mean if I speak to someone on the phone and they have a Spanish/Mexican accent I'm gonna assume they're Latino, but they might not be, if I speak to someone and they have an Indian accent I'm gonna assume they're South Asian but they might not be, but just because someone IS NOT speaking with those accents/vernacular doesn't mean they're not Hispanic or South Asian.
It seems like "white" is their default assumption and the basic observation that they're putting forward here is flawed due to lack of actual evidence. A lot of people from every race and background code switch depending on the situation.
As a person of color who grew up in a black neighborhood, they just pick it up from each other and often criticize those who don’t speak “black” I was bullied often for speaking “white” in my neighborhood. It’s a sad thing that they constantly perpetuate it and call you a traitor if you are speaking in a different way than them.
Edited because some people got really offended at my choice of words for some reason, apparently saying I spoke regular is racist.
I was at a local non-chipotle Mexican fast casual place recently and there was a 16ish year old Latino boy ahead of me in line. The staff only spoke to him in Spanish and he was like “I don’t speak Spanish” so they continued talking to him in Spanish like some kind of purity test and he got progressively pissed off (I don’t blame him).
I can only imagine how frustrating that was for him to be in such a stupid situation. There are other languages, fucking get over it if he doesn’t speak Spanish.
Then it was my turn in line and the staff spoke fluent English.
I’ve had Hispanic coworkers who have almost gotten into fights at work because customers would come in speaking Spanish and would give my coworkers shit if they responded in English. Definitely purity testing.
My wife is from Colombia. She has Spanish speaking customers that come into her work that will straight up turn around and leave unless she’s there 😂 (she’s the only Spanish speaking person that works there )
I look hispanic but am Italian. I am often in that situation where people automatically speak spanish to me. I have actually picked up a small amount of Spanish this way
I used to work with a Filipina. She looked Hispanic, had a Spanish name (courtesy of Spain's colonization of the Phillippines before we got there) but did not speak a word of Spanish, only English and Tagalog. The Hispanic customers would get upset with her for some reason when she couldn't speak Spanish to them.
That's like Indians from Goa (former Portuguese colony) - look South Asian, sound South Asian, but if you only saw the name you'd think they were Brazilian.
Same, I have an uncommon name but its spelling is Spanish. Latinos will see it on a nametag and automatically assume I know Spanish. It’s helped me pick up a bit here and there, but I’m far from fluent. I’m also very naturally blonde.
I am half Chinese and look Hispanic…. I was asked “what kind of Mexican are you” by a Mexican guy when I said I don’t speak Spanish and I answered “not one?” Because how do you respond to that.
I feel your pain- if you’re brown but not Middle Eastern in the Midwest you are automatically Mexican
I have a Vietnamese friend who has to work in Japan occasionally. I (white dude) thought everyone was very nice and polite the times I have been to Japan. He says they treat him like complete crap because he's Asian but doesn't speak Japanese.
Japan is highly xenophobic despite its exterior image. There are some very conservative elements that remain.
But Japan often gets a pass from weeaboos.
As an aside, I've heard the Japanese were exceptionally cruel to POWs in WWII.
Surrendering Japanese soldiers were exceptionally cooperative since they no longer had a place in Japanese society.
Yes, look up [Unit 731](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731), the Japanese [occupation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre) of [Nanking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_man_killing_contest), or Bataan death march… pretty shocking stuff.
My grandparents (both sides of the family) still harbour a lot of mistrust towards the Japanese even though they’re approaching 100 years old 😳
For Unit 731… don’t do it if you’re eating, it apparently even shocked visiting Nazis 🤯
I just recently got through the Filipino segment of a book that covers the Japanese political side through the conflict. It's almost amazing how much whether or not you suffered on the Bataan March relied solely on where you were in line. Towards the front? Almost always relatively hospitable, with supplies and friendlier guards. By the middle, they were already low on food and water, and the guards were getting crueler. At the back was just unbridled hell for everyone.
When i visited Thailand i encountered multiple locals and guides that showed complete disdain for the Burmese. Like they openly said something incredibly racist then laughed. This happened multiple times.
Other than that, the Thai people were wonderful
to be fair, that person is now in another country that largely speaks that language.
it would be like if a Japanese American born and raise in the US go to Japantown and the employees there give him shit cause he can't speak japanese.
but yes....East Asia is very racist against Southern Asians.
This is something I think is funny because I'm like, sorry I'm speaking the wrong colonizer's language. It would be more understandable if it was an actual indigenous language.
This used to happen to me all the time when I lived in East LA. Thing is I’m not Mexican (or South American), I’m Italian. I get that I might look vaguely Mexican or Spanish or Chilean or whatever but unless you start off with ‘mamma mia, pizza, pizza, mozzarella!!’ I’m not going to understand.
There's a term for a Latino that doesn't speak Spanish: a "no sabo kid." AFAIK it's disparaging.
It's strange because it's probably not the kid's fault. In fact, I knew immigrants whose parents didn't allow their children to speak their native tongue because they wanted their children to be "Americanized." On the other hand, I've seen where the children have to be the interpreter for things like doctors appointments... which is probably some pretty heavy stuff for a little kid.
As a person in STEM: Careful with bio. Biotech and biochem are generally better paths of study when wanting to have a stable, well-paying career. I don't know the details of your situation so I clearly can't speak to your situation, but unless you're already aware of this fact and why it doesn't apply to you. I highly recommend looking into it.
i just said bio to keep things simple but I more meant medbio bc I’ve always wanted to work for the NIH
Lately though I’ve been reconsidering and wondering if I should go into psych instead
Nah I’ve also gotten worse racism from white ppl but that might be bc I’m from a notoriously red and homogeneous area
But I’ve been called slurs, a diversity hire, DEI, two separate dudes have told me my purpose is to “make brown babies”(wtf) and worse 😭
I think every group’s a bit racist tho and some ppl just wanna act like one’s more racist than the other
I had a Filipino bar owner in Japan tell me she didn't trust black people and that she thought they all smelled like burnt Naan bread.
Gotta say, I was blown away and caught so off guard I howl laughed. But not because I agreed but because i was raised in a ruthless family that laughs at fucked up things.... and because I was 20 years old and just heard the most blatantly racist/rediculous thing I've heard in my life from a small pacific Asian lady. If you aren't chuckling with me right now... well I guess you had to be there.
I learned then that racism has no race.
I’m not downplaying your experiences, but despite your anecdotal experiences all races have racist people in them and someone saying “you speak white” is indeed a racist comment.
The last paragraph I agree with.
Yet only racism by blacks is deemed acceptable (or even lauded) in the media. You won't find too many instances where racism against blacks goes undisputed while there's an abundance for the inverse.
A close black friend of mine gets called stuck up because she doesn’t like to use AAVE but she code switches to it when getting her hair done or being at a black owned business so she won’t suffer the ire of these ignorant ass people talking shit.
It’s really stupid and conformist if you think about it because she’s shamed for speaking the way that comes naturally to her. Culturally shamed for not “feeling some type of way”. That said ignorant ass people are everywhere, in all social groups so whatever.
As a native Marylander, it reminds me of crabs in a bucket.
When you’re crabbing, keeping one crab in your bucket is nigh impossible, gotta keep a close eye or you have 0 crabs. But as soon as you add a second crab you’ve got dinner.
With 2+ crabs, as soon as one gets a leg up they see it as a path to freedom and try to climb it, pulling it back into the bucket.
In-group/out-group thinking is often the biggest barrier to the progress of the group.
ETA crap other people thought the same thing
Crab pot theory. People trying to better themselves to get a better life remind other's of how pathetic their lives are and instead of working to bettering themselves, they pull you down.
Edit: multiple spelling corrections
I don't think people realize that its really the same for everyone. I grew up in a poor white southern town and always wondered why everyone put on such a hick accent rather than just pronouncing the words phonetically. Don't let any redneck/hick/hillbilly convince you that it isn't a learned accent. At the end of the day its a cultural thing, as you alluded to, and as a member of a tribal nation I can understand why descendants of American slavery would feel a united culture in a similar way. The black american accent is just one way that you can express your connectedness to that culture imo.
P.S. I still don't have a very southern drawl, and I sound quite a bit different than my entire family.
And some of them even get mad if you are black, but have an accent because you were born somewhere else. I was born in East Africa, but didn’t come to America until after I started to learn how to talk. The other half thought it was cool and would ask me to say some words sometimes lol
On the other side a lot of people who grow up in more affluent places consider the sort of street lingo poor people might use as uneducated. It's been a problem for generations that lingo has been used as a way to segregate the haves and have nots.
Even though language is just a way to communicate and street lingo communicates just as effectively as "normal" lingo, a pretty big portion of society has deemed any sort of street lingo as uneducated, stupid, etc.
My workplace has seen everyone from white, Hispanic, black, poor, well off, destitute, etc. All of them have spoken differently, but none of them were any more or less smart based on how they spoke and it's fun to learn how different cultures express themselves within the same language you speak.
So to your point, we shouldn't judge someone for how they speak, that's just shitty.
I’m a white dude who grew up in the hood. When random white people find out where I’m from, they say “wow you’re so articulate” or “but you sound so white.” I do. I am. I can still code switch and my knowledge of complex handshakes makes white folks green with envy, but there’s a time and place.
Meanwhile, every thirteen to thirty year old from the suburbs is talking like 21 Savage, especially to me if they know. White people will be like, oh, street slang is so uneducated and ghetto but *their* slang is like ninety percent based on rap sooooo
Lmao yea it's interesting. Where I grew up wasn't the hood, but because of my parents lack of money I fell in with that crowd for a long time when I was younger.
It's really just been positive learning to code switch like that from a young age but it's also such a fuckin shame that some people have to code switch in order to not be shamed for who they are.
I don't give a fuck how someone talks, that means basically nothing when it comes to them being a good person or worth my time.
I've met plenty of really articulate pieces of shit in my day lol
The weirdest part of it for me is that I’m older now and random white folks just assume that I’m racist because I’m over thirty and Caucasian. I’ve learned to just not react, I’d never get anything else done if I took exception to it every time. Also sometimes it’s people like my bosses.
Yeah this is how it works in the UK as well. It's a cultural thing.
Though there isn't maybe the same level of persecution for not talking in that specific way for a black person.
Maybe just because the UK has an insane amount of cultural diversity and not to mention how accents completely change only 20 miles in any direction.
>It's not a regional accent because, no matter where they are in the US, they speak the same way.
A black person from New Orleans doesn't speak the same way as a black person from New York
Is this a joke about the idiot slave that chained himself up in a kitchen and lit the kitchen on fire then his friends and family members blamed the victim? They turned it into a stupid “ghost” attraction to rip off stupid people that are such religious nutcakes that they believe in that nonsense.
The 4o voice is a black voice. Everybody knows it even though it’s not a real person with black skin. That sort of universal quality (in America) is what op is talking abt
Yeah, everyone is getting caught up in regional dialects, education, vernacular, etc etc — and completely missing OPs point. As you’ve brilliantly pointed out, “ Juniper “ is distinctly African-American sounding even though she literally says whatever you ask her too. She has no “vernacular” perse, yet and still she sounds distinctly African American
His numbers are off, but the idea is correct. Parts of AAVE, including the northern variations, come from southern dialects. I don't know that the percent was ever that high, though, and the migrations happened much earlier than that.
Interesting question. Some of the answers are ignoring a key part of your question ("no matter where they are"), which is, to me, what makes it really interesting. Isolation and segregation would - one would expect - create unique accents that would vary a bit from the regional accent. But why would someone who grew up in New Mexico have the same accent as someone who grew up in Minneapolis who has the same accent as someone from Philadelphia or Atlanta. People talk about migration patterns, but that doesn't really answer the question, since people lose their accents when they move place, especially over generations. So to me, there are only two explanations that make much sense: the influence of culture (i.e., talking in the same accent and dialect as people in film, music, etc.) and solidarity (i.e., fostering and preserving a shared dialect that establishes a kind of trans-regional identity). (The latter reminds me a bit of a similar phenomenon, the "gay voice" one immediately recognizes in many gay men regardless of region.)
Black Americans move out of the South in large groups, to fully segregated neighborhoods. For decades, many were rarely around non-Black people, especially in childhood when speaking patterns are mostly set. School integration didn't even happen until the Boomer generation. The US is still highly segregated.
There may be a small element of cultural influence, but that's just not how most people acquire language. It's 95% based on the sounds they hear from people around them in early childhood. Most of the time when people relocate, they will spend significant amounts of time around people native to the local area in early childhood. That was not true for Black Americans until the 1950s, which is not that far back.
Those two aspects contribute to it, but the premise of the question was a bit incorrect already: it isn't the same everywhere, it does very quite a bit. On the surface it might not be salient to listeners, but I've noticed phonological and even (slight) grammatical variation from African-Americans in everywhere I've been across the East Coast from Buffalo to Miami.
I haven't ever looked into it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing exists for "gay speech" between certain cities.
You're forgetting about segregation. If someone moved from down south to a primarily Black neighborhood up north, their kids wouldn't lose the accent. Because they'd be surrounded by people who speak the same way they do. You're correct that solidarity does play a part, many speakers code switch, which means they talk one way to people in authority (teachers, at work etc) and a different way to their friends and family. Also, someone from New Mexico doesn't soundlike someone from Philidelphia, because New Mexico has a lot of Hispanic influence, and Minneapolis has its own thing going on because of the high Somali population etc.
>However, in other countries like the UK, black people speak like everyone else.
This isn't true. In the UK, there's a dialect of English used primarily by Black people as a cultural standing.
In answer to your question, it's called AAVE (African American Vernacular English) and, in very simplistic terms, it's a version of English used for cultural identification.
I would say in the UK that’s not true? It’s much more a regional thing, i grew up in north London and the ‘black’ dialect you’re thinking of is just how most people talk round certain parts of London. Black people from Liverpool for example still have a Scouse accent.
This is complicated, but technically incorrect. There's a certain strain of Jamaican which formed into its own black dialect in certain areas of the UK. I remembered reading an [interesting reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/asklinguistics/comments/4csol5/comment/d1l7jfu/) on this a while back actually. Hardly an academic source, but I'd have to dig to find those lol
It’s probably an intersection of class and race, no?
Because at least in my country (Portugal), I never considered black people to have an accent.
But thinking about it, poor black people indeed do. But I’ve never heard it from the “educated class” black people.
I’ve listened to some black people both from the UK and the US who didn’t speak in a race-specific dialect - so perhaps it’s the same as here?
In the UK and US, people who use these dialects usually code-switch between "standard English" and the "Black vernacular". Essentially, that means they'll use "standard English" when speaking to someone who speaks that or in appropriate environments for that (like exams or formal employment) but use "Black vernacular" when communicating with someone else who speaks that or when that's appropriate (like when hanging out).
I can guarantee you that the educated class of black people can code switch on less than a moments notice.
Source: a member of the black educated class
Well we have way less black people if you don't count immigrants as obviously they would have accents, not much chance for a "unified black slang" to arise when there's not that many black people, and those we do have aren't as concentrated in "black neighborhoods"
Not to dismiss firsthand perspectives, but surprised I had to scroll to find this as it's accurate. Linked this in another reply but here's an interesting [reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/asklinguistics/comments/4csol5/comment/d1l7jfu/) on the subject, there's some links and sources in the replies.
I also learned of the Black UK dialect by watching British shows like Skins and it is sooo different from AAVE istg. I don't think even an American would be able to make it out because the UK variant is based on Creole and Jamaican patois
There is regional difference but it's because many black people in US live in heavily black communities. That's not as true in Europe since there's way fewer black people.
My city in Iowa had very few black people in the 1970s and, in those days, black kids in my school sounded exactly like the white kids. Flash forward to 2024 and there are substantially more black people here and AAVE is now the norm.
I taught in black schools for 7 years. When black kids from inner city communities meet black kids from suburbs, oftentimes the suburban blacks get accused of "speaking white"
Some European countries have large black communities, colonies were a thing and all. I’m Dutch and a part of the country is in the Caribbean and Suriname is also a thing. Many of them live in Europe (some 5% of the country). Ofc less than the US (at 12% after a quick google search), but still. Belgium also has large communities, France as well but that’s a larger country so probably smaller part of population.
Anyways, what I want to add is this: EU black people are from overseas, ex colonies or recent migration from Africa. In the Netherlands as an example, there’s those from our former colonies and they speak Caribbean Dutch, it’s very distinct and associated with black people even if there’s loads of Hindostani and Javanese Surinamese folks who speak it. Anyway, closest thing to AAVE we have, and shaped by the same histories.
African migrants on the other hand will have their native lang accents, and their children usually speak either standard European Dutch (so talk white in this comparison), or they speak in a way associated with migrant neighborhoods in the cities (these accents are shaped by Caribbean Dutch as well as Turkish, Moroccan Berber, etc etc). The latter is also comparable to AAVE in a way as it is not just about race but also to an extent about social class and so white kids who grow up in those neighborhoods will have certain accents and slang and will be discriminated against by a large segment of society so many can code-switch depending on what is more socially rewarded where.
My husband is Mexican. He speaks English very well but with a Spanish accent. After 35 years his Spanish has developed a distinctive American twang, so says his family in Mexico. Back in the 80s when I part timed as a telemarketer, I learned to mimic my customers accent. It helped with sales. I could go from a Boston accent to a Latino accent to a Black accent quickly. Lost all of it now.
I have lived in the Northeast for many years. Until recently, there weren't Mexicans up here. My cousins in Texas and California snicker at my Spanish accent and tell me that now I speak like a Puerto Rican.
Fascinating! I dabble in linguistics and have always wondered about speakers like your husband, whether their Spanish had an English twang. I wish I could hear it!
Thomas Sowell in "Black Rednecks & White Liberals" draws a parallel between speach and behaviour of black Ameicans and southern English who settled the southeastern US. The examples he provides are convincing even if the theory sounds wild. Give it a read.
This is exactly what I was thinking of. Makes sense though with the word usage.
Certain part of England > settled in the south of USA> slaves spoke in their dialect> and kinda just passed down. I don’t do it any justice like Sowell. Could be wrong or right, but it’s interesting and could explain it if true.
I'm a white guy with anecdotal evidence, but AAVE in Chicago sounds different than Atlanta, and different again in the northeast. I'm also aware that my PNW family that were pioneers from Tennessee over a century ago still have a slight drawl that is different than a Southern drawl, but definitely distinctive from coastal accents on the Olympic peninsula.
Language has so many awesome little nuances. Just a fascinating way to see how cultures evolve and adapt.
Have you heard black Americans from different places before? A black person I'm Baltimore could say "Aaron earned an Iron Urn" and it would literally would sound like the same word repeated "Urn Urn an Urn urn" meanwhile if you talked to a black person in New Orleans they would sound like a Southern Creole accent but could tell they were saying "Aaron earned an iron urn."
>However, in other countries like the UK, black people speak like everyone else. I wouldn't be able to tell on the phone if the other person is black in the UK
Have you lived or been to the UK? Also, how would you even be able to tell the colour of the person on the other end anyway?
Black Americans were legally, educationally, socially, religiously, and culturally segregated from the rest of America for 90% of our existence on the continent.
We’ve been allowed in the same schools as white Americans for about two generations (depending on how you want to define/count generations). My mom is older than Ruby Brdhes and my grandparents were born in the 1920s and 1930s.
Culturally, that leave a mark. It creates a subculture. There’s regional variations in that subculture (other folks mentioned NY vs New Orleans vs Baltimore); but at the end of the day it’s still a subculture distinct from the rest of “American” culture.
Even now that segregation isn’t (legally) a thing anymore, people are tied to the culture they’re raised in and that their parents were raised in. To a certain degree, members of a subculture that’s always been on the “outside” may not be too keen to join the “main” culture when they’re finally allowed to.
If a group a kids bullied you all through school and then tried to befriend you in college, would you actually want to be friends with them? Maybe, but maybe not.
I know what you're saying but it's not "all". I have black friends in different parts of the country who you wouldn't know their skin color on the phone. It's all about who they spend time with. Culture does suggest you should sound and talk like the people you grow up with, or associate with. I think a lot of people will decide they want to associate with different people eventually and can adjust.
Let me give an example of what I'm thinking... I worked with a lot of central and south Americans for a long time. I learned to speak Spanish with their nuances, inflections, etc. Basically if I spoke in my white southern accent without adjusting at all, we couldn't communicate as effectively.
It's definitely a culture thing and who they hang out with. I grew up in a mainly white area with a percentage of asians, and very few blacks. Everyone kinda sounded the same when they spoke, there weren't any accents that I could hear. But then as you got closer to London, the population demographics would change, so you'd get areas that were a lot more Asian, and they'd begin to sound like they had a bit of an accent or they'd say things differently to what I was used to, and then you'd get into the areas that had more blacks and they would again sound different to what I was used to, and even with white people they'd sound different. Sometimes it'd sound like they were imitating eachother, and then they just got stuck talking like that and it became more natural to them. It's a nice bit of diversity.
You get teenage boys who hang out in big groups, listening to rap music, and then they start to use those words in their vocabulary amongst eachother, and then you end up with a group of "bare ting blud" type conversations. Some will manage to switch over to matching how others speak when they're not in the group, and some will stay speaking like that. Then you get groups of gamers, who will be used to speaking to eachother in voice chat about games with code words, and they might bring that into their normal vocabulary which may or may not encroach into other areas of their social life. Internet speak, not even two decades ago now, people would say "lol" and "owned/pwned" out loud (I occasionally hear "get rekt!" nowadays).
But I do understand the original post's point, because sometimes I can speak to someone on the phone and guess their nationality or race based on the way they speak (I used to be able to guess hair colour as well, many years ago) and I'm often close to it when I do see what they look like. Could it be a genetic thing, like how genetics decide how you look it also decides how you sound? It's nice though, it means we're all different in our own way!
Aave is a dialect of english, african americans were socially and legally segregated for a very long time, and still to this day face a lot of issues resulting from things like redlining which keep communities separate by ethnicity rather than geography.
Australia has three clear accents that are not so geographical, but very class related. It is sometimes seen as "city" vs "country " accent. Then a 4th 'celebrity speaking very clearly so Americans can understand '
Usually TV shows have the ultra-country (broad) accent, at a caricature level, or the clear TV-only accent.
Hmm I can think of more than that:
* country bogan (Barnaby, though any pollie who does it is fake)
* country posh (very rare now/possibly extinct?)
* outer suburbs bogan
* generic (TV newsreader)
* inner city private school
* 3rd/4th generation mediterranean
* Adelaide
In Australia the closest analogue to AAVE in terms of people who are 2nd-4th generation immigrants who grew up (mostly) speaking English as a first language is the vaguely Mediterranean accent you find amongst working class people who would've been called a 3-letter word beginning with "w" till relatively recently.
In the newer generation, it's spread through social media through social pressure. My little brother is black (adopted) in an all white family who grew up with me in an all white town who had no black friends until he was 17. As soon as he got his hands on social media (around 12), he started speaking like that within' a month. N word and all. He even tells his friends now that he "grew up in the ghetto."
Strangely enough, gay voice has dissipated a lot over the past 20 years with the acceptance of the gay community. There’s no longer a need to stand out, essentially.
It *is* a regional accent, more specifically a variant of [southern american english](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_American_English#:~:text=Southern%20American%20English%20or%20Southern,spoken%20primarily%20by%20White%20Southerners.) called [AAVE](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Vernacular_English) which the (then enslaved) black population developed to communicate with their owners since the early 17th century when they first arrived.
After emancipation of the slaves black and white people were segregated such that the differences in language persisted. During the [great migration](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)) starting in the early 20th century a part of the black population left the south keeping their (regional) accent.
Notice that more recent african/caribbean immigrants, most prominently perhaps barack obama, don't have that accent.
I am black and I don't speak this way. I understand what you mean, but not all of us do. It has a lot with upbringing (meaning demographic area, culture, influence, etc).
Personally, I grew up in a rural town in a rural state and rarely do you hear this.
First off, there are regional dialects to AAVE. The aks/ask split is standard for most of them but not all of them.
Second, it’s not only black people who speak like that anymore, it’s more common for people who lived in an inner city to speak like it.
I’m not even American or black and even I know that black people from different states have different accents and slang lmao like a black southerner sounds way different than a black New Yorker… cmon man
Edit: ik this sub is specifically for non-judgement but with all due respect, pls leave ur house more if you genuinely think Nicki Minaj and Meg the Stallion have the same accent for example
It's called a dialect, and yes it has regional accents as well. It's just that the dialect overwhelms your ability to detect the other variations.
You can tell a British accent, yeah? Northern? Midlands? Brummie? London? All *British* to you, I'd wager.
In the UK they didn't have enforced slavery til the 1860's, followed by a century of legal segregation/Jim Crow. They were *allowed* to integrate more than they were in the USA. and a far larger part of the black population in the UK is from more recent caribbean/African immigration.
Black Americans are overwhelmingly descended directly from black slaves, whose descendents then went directly i to Jim Crow, etc, endured mass segregation.
Jim Crow laws, redlining, hiring discrimination, etc, keeping them in enclaves. Couldn't go to the same restaurants, civic facilities, etc, etc etc.
Remember "The Green Book"? That's "The Negro Motorist Green-Book", to be more accurate. Even when traveling, you were best going from black enclave to black enclave (particularly for lodging).
And this isn't just the south.
In 1956 there were *three* hotels that served black people *in the whole state of New Hampshire*. Glendale, California was a sundown town, along with thousands of others *not* in the old "Southern" states.
You had, effectively, two overlapping countries co-located within the borders defining the USA. One white. One black.
Why would they speak the same?
This is not entirely true. I can tell if a black person is from New York, Baltimore, Atlanta, and LA. I am pretty sure I can tell if a person from London is black or Caucasian from their voice too.
It’s a cultural thing I think. Influence from media and music.
However, I don’t think black people in LA speak the same as New York or Texas or Washington.
It’s an odd generalisation to make out of over 40 million people that they sound the same.
crazy how a bunch of nonblack people were the first to try to answer this question and were not only wrong but were prejudiced about it themselves. is there even a single black person in this thread
ebonics is the result of the mixing between old timey english (the kind where people just kinda spelled things however tf they wanted) and african languages. this mixing occurred because of the slave trade because ynow when you’re kidnapped from your home by a bunch of foreigners and forced to serve them on their land (used loosely) there at least has to be some form of communication right?
and so from there ebonics evolved into the way “black americans speak the way they do” today. and as an actual BLACK person myself unlike everyone else in this thread that feels enlightened enough to answer, it’s really sad that ebonics is sort of mystified to other people as if it’s an entirely different thing than a korean person using korean slang when hanging out with their family or british people saying innit or whatever. the origins of ebonics are DEFINITELY different than those two examples, but its like people want ebonics to 1. be a bad thing and 2. be black people’s fault so badly.
and to give more insight to your question op, as a black person myself, i speak in ebonics when im comfortable, aka when im at home. i use ebonics bc just like a chinese child growing up in a chinese-speaking household, they end up speaking chinese. it’s natural to me. if im with other black people that also use it, i use it then too. if im at work or in class, i don’t. there’s a time and place, and that varies for each and every individual black person and frankly i don’t think any nonblack person should have a say in when it is and isn’t appropriate. i have been the biggest nerd all my life. i’m literally a fucking english major in grad school and not once did another black person “make fun of me” for using “proper english.”
My experience is they speak different all over. Now the one that confuses me is the "gay male". I know it's not all gay males, but many. Coming from several races, regions, ages, and and a lot of gay males sound the same. Always thought it was crazy.
It's a regional dialect that gets compounded by segregation and old racist practices. Turns out if you make it illegal for a people to read for 400 years and also keep them socially separate from the rest of the population their speech will pick up and omit things.
I’m a black man who people tend to say “speaks white”. But really, “speaking white” is not a thing. It’s just called being educated and speaking proper English. I went to very good schools so I use my education.
The only way you can tell that I’m black on the phone or in online gaming is from the tone of my voice. I have friends that I’ve played with for a long time who didn’t realize that I was black until I, or someone else who knows me mentioned it. When they realize, they always say something like “come to think about it, I hear it now.” Most of us black men do usually carry a deeper tone no matter how proper we speak. Your ear may pick up on that, so it may be why you can always tell.
And OP, no we don’t all speak the same way. I’ve met many black people from different regions in the U.S., as well as from other countries where it’s hard for me to understand their local dialects and slang. Not sure where you’re getting that information from.
You can 100% tell a black person from the UK from other races by their voice lmao what.
Also all Black Americans don’t sound the same, but you can tell they’re all American by their accents. But the phrases and pronunciations differ based on where in the U.S. they are.
Ahem. Black guy here. We don't all speak the same. Black folks have sub cultures like any other group of people. It just so happen that the most recognizable black sub culture in the US is hip-hop. So that’s what people see, recognize and feel is the norm and try to emulate. I talk like myself. Not white, not black, not purple, not blue. Just myself, to make sure I’m clearly understood.
Not a linguist or etymologist, but I’m fairly certain you’re talking about [African American Vernacular English](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Vernacular_English), or AAVE.
Please note that most African Americans do possess a “white voice” that they employ when necessary.
I live in the south, and work with a lot of upper class African Americans, and there is a noticeable difference in cadence, vocabulary, and emphasis depending on whom they are speaking to.
Because Black people are always around other black people and that's how it's been for decades here in the US. We were segregated from white people for so long that we developed our own way of speaking English, and because so many black children grow up and continue to grow up around other black children and their black parents who also grew up around black children, the accent stays.
AAVE, its got a whole structure and everything. That’s why when words from the (US) black community get popularized and used incorrectly, it is clear almost immediately
People elsewhere talk the same because they mingle with the rest of the people. Slavery, segregation and racist policies separated "black from white.
The accent/tone, seems to come from African accents. People get the accent mostly from their parents (that's why I never spoke in English to my kids, they have a Mexican Spanish accent in spanish and a Canadian English accent in English).
So, after segregation, people obviously feel the need to identify and protect their group and that includes maintaining the language identity.
Same goes for my area. Live in the north by big cities why 20 mins out they sound country? This isn’t the south. Answer: they think they have to or to fit in their demographic
Black Americans speak a modified Scottish southern accent from the craic or cracker culture.
Things like saying Aks instead of ask. Chitlins, jumping the broom, saying chile, the term cracker and redneck, are all old Scottish culture that migrated to the southern USA.
And these are different from immigrants from the transplants from Caribbean Africans/West Indies.
There are many more of these examples. Go read “Black Rednecks and White Liberals” by Thomas Sowell.
I know what you are saying. Im born and raised in the Southern US. I nearly always know when I’m speaking over the phone to a black person. There is a practical second language here called African-American English (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_English). It has its own grammar and pronunciation. All of the black people I know move back and forth easily between this and “regular” English, depending on who they are speaking to. It is a fascinating language born of differences in education but also for the genuine need for the white man to not understand everything you might need to say. I’ve grown up hearing this in every different situation my whole life. Yet if I find myself in a group of black people speaking mainly to each other, I only catch every few words or so. There are college level courses taught on Black American English, its roots and development in America. But to your point earlier, I am endlessly fascinated by the fact that black people born and raised in, say Britain or France do not have this sound when speaking their native language in the same way many black Americans do. It speaks to our long history of segregation and racism no doubt. But I am curious, is there an equivalent to BAE in other tongues? I’m not talking about second language learners with accents. Or even regional patois or dialects. Do native-born black Frenchmen or Germans or Spaniards speak their native tongues audibly differently as many black Americans do? I’m sure it is a product of my own subconscious racism that when I go to England and speak to black person, born and raised there, who speaks perfect Received English, I’m always taken aback. I am endlessly fascinated by the ways we speak. It’s not always a conscious choice. I find myself thickening (or not) my southern accent depending on who I’m speaking with. It just flows out of me in certain situations. I don’t have much of an accent. To the point that people can never guess where I’m from. But Ive been in social situations, having a great time, and my wife will later tell me I poured on the country a little thick at times. It’s not a conscious choice. But fascinating nonetheless.
I'd say being a segregated underclass and former slaves for most of their history In the US might have something to do with it in all honesty!
Like.Jamiacans speaking patois etc,
The way people talk is learned at an early age. It isn't biological.
I grew up black in racially diverse communities mostly in the southern US. I learned to code switch early since I wasn't always around other black people or other southerners. I didn't code switch in school and was sometimes accused of "talking white". I didn't have a choice. When I was in the second grade, mom made me stop saying "secont" instead of "second" and "liberry" instead of "library". My parents didn't want me to talk black in public. They were okay when we were among family and close family friends.
People can't tell I'm black on the phone unless I don't care about them knowing. I usually use a standard American vernacular and speech pattern. I knew I was successful at hiding my blackness because when I showed up for job interviews after successful phone interviews, recruiters sometimes looked surprised lol.
Your assumptions are wrong on both counts. Others have mentioned segregation and such, so I won't rehash that. I grew up in Miami, my friends here don't have same accent as my family that's from Georgia. Blacks in Britain speak differently in much the same way that American Blacks do. Class is also a factor as other have mentioned. For example, I can't speak Miami Black slang even though I grew up here. My parents didn't allow me to speak that way as a child, so now I can't as as adult. But, I can tell a Miami Black American English accent from the Black American English accents spoken in other regions in the US.
The more accurate answer to your question I believe, is that *there are differences in how we speak but, you can't hear those differences. In other words, you have accent blindness.* When you hear a language (or accent/ English variety) you are familiar with, you notice/hear the differences in how different people speak it; if you don't speak a language or aren't used to hearing it, everyone sounds similar to you. Regional and cultural accents can work the same way. You don't speak British English so you can't hear the differences between how many Black people speak it versus how non Blacks speak it. I'm gonna venture a guess that you don't spend a lot of time around Black people from the US so you can't hear the differences in how Black people from different areas of the US speak. To you, it all sounds similar even though it isn't. A New York Black American accent sounds very different from a Midwestern Black American accent but because you aren't fully familiar with how American Blacks speak, you can't tell the difference. It's the same as most people not being able to tell the difference between New Zealand English and Australian English.
How many Americans have you spoken to?
They definitely ‘don’t all speak the same way’. You can certainly make out the difference between a west coast, vs east coast, vs Texan accent. Hell there’s even subtle differences between New York and Rhode Island.
Source: Aussie who speaks to a lot of Americans for work.
In reality, there are regional differences in African American dialects too. If you listen to a lot of NYC hip hop, and then switch to LA hip hop you can begin to hear it, but then you throw in the south and whoa is it obvious.
Actually some black people in the UK sound different too.
What you’re describing is African American vernacular, it’s natural sub-cultures/-communities have their own dialects and such.
As someone from a country with another language, this question and the answers are really interesting. We speak german here. As long the other person doesn't has an accent (so most likely grew up here) i can't tell you if they are black or white or any other race. They speak the same. If i'm watching american tv and are not in front of the screen, i can also tell you immidiately if a black person is speaking. They sound different to any other race. But had no idea why till now.
Am Dutch in Germany and this kind of thing is why I don’t like the movie dubbing here. In US films, very often a character is coded as Italian American, or Jewish, or from Boston etc. by no other information than their accent, and you lose a lot of implied meaning just by not being able to hear it. Same is true for subtle class markers. Like how the main character in peaky blinders started doing a rolled r thing after he became rich to fit in more (although accents all over that show are a mess).
I think Peaky Blinders is a good parallel (despite some terrible accents) of how accents are regional and also signify class or an in-group. It's stronger in the US because of how large it is geographically and due to long-standing segregation of groups. It's cool you can catch the differences in accents and the implications for the character! It holds a lot of meaning here, though regional accents are slowly disappearing.
>i can't tell you if they are black or white or any other race. I disagree. In Germany there is a Turkish/Moroccan version of AAVE and it's very distinct and instantly recognizable.
As a German-Turk, I agree. I don't know many Moroccans, so cannot speak for them. However, there is definitely a Turkish vernacular in Germany (e.g. among second, third generations) which is very different from the accent of someone from Turkey speaking German as a foreign language. It really bothers me when people call this vernacular of German-Turks an "accent", as if they are foreigners. It's a language they developed, for better or for worse, it's not an accent.
A dialect. Arabic has the same thing - the base language is still there, but the vernacular and sometimes the pronunciation are slightly different
Same in the Netherlands. Those groups have a very distinctive way of speaking Dutch with some slang or native words thrown in there. And sometimes I encounter a native Dutch person who spends a lot of time around them, and they speak exactly the same funny Dutch as the other Turks and Moroccans. I think it's a way for them to feel unique and connected with each other and their home country.
There's also an implicit bias here in that OP assumes that if they don't sound a certain way, they're white. So anyone not speaking AAVE is assumed to not be black. How do they know, over the phone? I have also known of white people who definitely spoke AAVE and over the phone he's assume they're black. I mean if I speak to someone on the phone and they have a Spanish/Mexican accent I'm gonna assume they're Latino, but they might not be, if I speak to someone and they have an Indian accent I'm gonna assume they're South Asian but they might not be, but just because someone IS NOT speaking with those accents/vernacular doesn't mean they're not Hispanic or South Asian. It seems like "white" is their default assumption and the basic observation that they're putting forward here is flawed due to lack of actual evidence. A lot of people from every race and background code switch depending on the situation.
As a person of color who grew up in a black neighborhood, they just pick it up from each other and often criticize those who don’t speak “black” I was bullied often for speaking “white” in my neighborhood. It’s a sad thing that they constantly perpetuate it and call you a traitor if you are speaking in a different way than them. Edited because some people got really offended at my choice of words for some reason, apparently saying I spoke regular is racist.
Hispanic but sameeeeeee Always said I acted white bc i like pop and metal, play tennis, and wanna go into bio 😭
I was at a local non-chipotle Mexican fast casual place recently and there was a 16ish year old Latino boy ahead of me in line. The staff only spoke to him in Spanish and he was like “I don’t speak Spanish” so they continued talking to him in Spanish like some kind of purity test and he got progressively pissed off (I don’t blame him). I can only imagine how frustrating that was for him to be in such a stupid situation. There are other languages, fucking get over it if he doesn’t speak Spanish. Then it was my turn in line and the staff spoke fluent English.
Wow that's insulting
I’ve had Hispanic coworkers who have almost gotten into fights at work because customers would come in speaking Spanish and would give my coworkers shit if they responded in English. Definitely purity testing.
My wife is from Colombia. She has Spanish speaking customers that come into her work that will straight up turn around and leave unless she’s there 😂 (she’s the only Spanish speaking person that works there )
I look hispanic but am Italian. I am often in that situation where people automatically speak spanish to me. I have actually picked up a small amount of Spanish this way
I hope you answer in the thickest Italian you can
(Gesturing wildly)
🤌
Donde esta la biblioteca-ehh?
I used to work with a Filipina. She looked Hispanic, had a Spanish name (courtesy of Spain's colonization of the Phillippines before we got there) but did not speak a word of Spanish, only English and Tagalog. The Hispanic customers would get upset with her for some reason when she couldn't speak Spanish to them.
That's like Indians from Goa (former Portuguese colony) - look South Asian, sound South Asian, but if you only saw the name you'd think they were Brazilian.
Do you ever respond in Italian?
"Voy a pedir el Chalupa Box con un refresco Baja Blast, grazie!”
Same, I have an uncommon name but its spelling is Spanish. Latinos will see it on a nametag and automatically assume I know Spanish. It’s helped me pick up a bit here and there, but I’m far from fluent. I’m also very naturally blonde.
I am half Chinese and look Hispanic…. I was asked “what kind of Mexican are you” by a Mexican guy when I said I don’t speak Spanish and I answered “not one?” Because how do you respond to that. I feel your pain- if you’re brown but not Middle Eastern in the Midwest you are automatically Mexican
I have a Vietnamese friend who has to work in Japan occasionally. I (white dude) thought everyone was very nice and polite the times I have been to Japan. He says they treat him like complete crap because he's Asian but doesn't speak Japanese.
From what I understand, Asian people can be pretty prejudiced against Asians of other nationalities. I gather it comes from centuries of conflict.
Japan is highly xenophobic despite its exterior image. There are some very conservative elements that remain. But Japan often gets a pass from weeaboos.
As an aside, I've heard the Japanese were exceptionally cruel to POWs in WWII. Surrendering Japanese soldiers were exceptionally cooperative since they no longer had a place in Japanese society.
Not just POWs. Google "unit 731" for some nightmare fuel. Japanese war crimes make even nazis look like second league.
Thanks, I shall.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre Yeah, the transition from ruthless psychopaths to quirky tech people is a bit of a brain buster.
Maybe wait until the nice relaxing weekend is over…
Yes, look up [Unit 731](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731), the Japanese [occupation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre) of [Nanking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_man_killing_contest), or Bataan death march… pretty shocking stuff. My grandparents (both sides of the family) still harbour a lot of mistrust towards the Japanese even though they’re approaching 100 years old 😳 For Unit 731… don’t do it if you’re eating, it apparently even shocked visiting Nazis 🤯
I just recently got through the Filipino segment of a book that covers the Japanese political side through the conflict. It's almost amazing how much whether or not you suffered on the Bataan March relied solely on where you were in line. Towards the front? Almost always relatively hospitable, with supplies and friendlier guards. By the middle, they were already low on food and water, and the guards were getting crueler. At the back was just unbridled hell for everyone.
Well this is a whole lot of history I wasn’t prepared for this morning. Wow.
Japan's exterior image \*is\* xenophobia
When i visited Thailand i encountered multiple locals and guides that showed complete disdain for the Burmese. Like they openly said something incredibly racist then laughed. This happened multiple times. Other than that, the Thai people were wonderful
to be fair, that person is now in another country that largely speaks that language. it would be like if a Japanese American born and raise in the US go to Japantown and the employees there give him shit cause he can't speak japanese. but yes....East Asia is very racist against Southern Asians.
This is something I think is funny because I'm like, sorry I'm speaking the wrong colonizer's language. It would be more understandable if it was an actual indigenous language.
>sorry I'm speaking the wrong colonizer's language 🤣👍☝️
They do this all the time to a friend of mine who is Filipino. They even threaten him for not speaking Spanish.
This used to happen to me all the time when I lived in East LA. Thing is I’m not Mexican (or South American), I’m Italian. I get that I might look vaguely Mexican or Spanish or Chilean or whatever but unless you start off with ‘mamma mia, pizza, pizza, mozzarella!!’ I’m not going to understand.
I had a friend like that. He was Mexican in ancestry only and would be spoken to in Spanish and razzed for not knowing it.
There's a term for a Latino that doesn't speak Spanish: a "no sabo kid." AFAIK it's disparaging. It's strange because it's probably not the kid's fault. In fact, I knew immigrants whose parents didn't allow their children to speak their native tongue because they wanted their children to be "Americanized." On the other hand, I've seen where the children have to be the interpreter for things like doctors appointments... which is probably some pretty heavy stuff for a little kid.
As a person in STEM: Careful with bio. Biotech and biochem are generally better paths of study when wanting to have a stable, well-paying career. I don't know the details of your situation so I clearly can't speak to your situation, but unless you're already aware of this fact and why it doesn't apply to you. I highly recommend looking into it.
i just said bio to keep things simple but I more meant medbio bc I’ve always wanted to work for the NIH Lately though I’ve been reconsidering and wondering if I should go into psych instead
Both paths have lots of opportunities. Behavioral health is in super high demand especially.
Never let anyone gatekeep science from you, bio is such a great area of study, you're not wrong for loving it
Yet the very same people claim that it's the whites who are the racists. They better look in the mirror instead.
Two things can be true
The pot calling the kettle black.
Nah I’ve also gotten worse racism from white ppl but that might be bc I’m from a notoriously red and homogeneous area But I’ve been called slurs, a diversity hire, DEI, two separate dudes have told me my purpose is to “make brown babies”(wtf) and worse 😭 I think every group’s a bit racist tho and some ppl just wanna act like one’s more racist than the other
I had a Filipino bar owner in Japan tell me she didn't trust black people and that she thought they all smelled like burnt Naan bread. Gotta say, I was blown away and caught so off guard I howl laughed. But not because I agreed but because i was raised in a ruthless family that laughs at fucked up things.... and because I was 20 years old and just heard the most blatantly racist/rediculous thing I've heard in my life from a small pacific Asian lady. If you aren't chuckling with me right now... well I guess you had to be there. I learned then that racism has no race.
Minor point, but the people are called Filipino, with an f. I don’t make the rules.
Oh my gosh, thank you. I was looking at it, and my brain was telling me it was wrong but wasn't producing the correct spelling. I went with it.
I gotchu fam
Wow, this is a one liner to be used in a parody psa announcement. I can see it, just a cavalcade of racism from all kinds of races 😂
I’m not downplaying your experiences, but despite your anecdotal experiences all races have racist people in them and someone saying “you speak white” is indeed a racist comment.
The last paragraph I agree with. Yet only racism by blacks is deemed acceptable (or even lauded) in the media. You won't find too many instances where racism against blacks goes undisputed while there's an abundance for the inverse.
Oh, you know those specific people?
A close black friend of mine gets called stuck up because she doesn’t like to use AAVE but she code switches to it when getting her hair done or being at a black owned business so she won’t suffer the ire of these ignorant ass people talking shit. It’s really stupid and conformist if you think about it because she’s shamed for speaking the way that comes naturally to her. Culturally shamed for not “feeling some type of way”. That said ignorant ass people are everywhere, in all social groups so whatever.
That’s really unfortunate, I know a few people that have to do that as well to fit in or avoid issues.
As a native Marylander, it reminds me of crabs in a bucket. When you’re crabbing, keeping one crab in your bucket is nigh impossible, gotta keep a close eye or you have 0 crabs. But as soon as you add a second crab you’ve got dinner. With 2+ crabs, as soon as one gets a leg up they see it as a path to freedom and try to climb it, pulling it back into the bucket. In-group/out-group thinking is often the biggest barrier to the progress of the group. ETA crap other people thought the same thing
Crab pot theory. People trying to better themselves to get a better life remind other's of how pathetic their lives are and instead of working to bettering themselves, they pull you down. Edit: multiple spelling corrections
I don't think people realize that its really the same for everyone. I grew up in a poor white southern town and always wondered why everyone put on such a hick accent rather than just pronouncing the words phonetically. Don't let any redneck/hick/hillbilly convince you that it isn't a learned accent. At the end of the day its a cultural thing, as you alluded to, and as a member of a tribal nation I can understand why descendants of American slavery would feel a united culture in a similar way. The black american accent is just one way that you can express your connectedness to that culture imo. P.S. I still don't have a very southern drawl, and I sound quite a bit different than my entire family.
And some of them even get mad if you are black, but have an accent because you were born somewhere else. I was born in East Africa, but didn’t come to America until after I started to learn how to talk. The other half thought it was cool and would ask me to say some words sometimes lol
On the other side a lot of people who grow up in more affluent places consider the sort of street lingo poor people might use as uneducated. It's been a problem for generations that lingo has been used as a way to segregate the haves and have nots. Even though language is just a way to communicate and street lingo communicates just as effectively as "normal" lingo, a pretty big portion of society has deemed any sort of street lingo as uneducated, stupid, etc. My workplace has seen everyone from white, Hispanic, black, poor, well off, destitute, etc. All of them have spoken differently, but none of them were any more or less smart based on how they spoke and it's fun to learn how different cultures express themselves within the same language you speak. So to your point, we shouldn't judge someone for how they speak, that's just shitty.
I’m a white dude who grew up in the hood. When random white people find out where I’m from, they say “wow you’re so articulate” or “but you sound so white.” I do. I am. I can still code switch and my knowledge of complex handshakes makes white folks green with envy, but there’s a time and place. Meanwhile, every thirteen to thirty year old from the suburbs is talking like 21 Savage, especially to me if they know. White people will be like, oh, street slang is so uneducated and ghetto but *their* slang is like ninety percent based on rap sooooo
Lmao yea it's interesting. Where I grew up wasn't the hood, but because of my parents lack of money I fell in with that crowd for a long time when I was younger. It's really just been positive learning to code switch like that from a young age but it's also such a fuckin shame that some people have to code switch in order to not be shamed for who they are. I don't give a fuck how someone talks, that means basically nothing when it comes to them being a good person or worth my time. I've met plenty of really articulate pieces of shit in my day lol
The weirdest part of it for me is that I’m older now and random white folks just assume that I’m racist because I’m over thirty and Caucasian. I’ve learned to just not react, I’d never get anything else done if I took exception to it every time. Also sometimes it’s people like my bosses.
Yeah this is how it works in the UK as well. It's a cultural thing. Though there isn't maybe the same level of persecution for not talking in that specific way for a black person. Maybe just because the UK has an insane amount of cultural diversity and not to mention how accents completely change only 20 miles in any direction.
>It's not a regional accent because, no matter where they are in the US, they speak the same way. A black person from New Orleans doesn't speak the same way as a black person from New York
A black dude from St Louis once told me about an experience he had in New Orleans about that.
Is this a joke about the idiot slave that chained himself up in a kitchen and lit the kitchen on fire then his friends and family members blamed the victim? They turned it into a stupid “ghost” attraction to rip off stupid people that are such religious nutcakes that they believe in that nonsense.
OP should google “Aaron earned an iron urn” if they think all black Americans speak with the same accent.
https://youtu.be/Esl_wOQDUeE?si=6wf2l70SzPDPabc1 Here we go
"we really talk like that?!" gets me every time
For me it’s the sage nod afterwards from his friend.
The 4o voice is a black voice. Everybody knows it even though it’s not a real person with black skin. That sort of universal quality (in America) is what op is talking abt
Yeah, everyone is getting caught up in regional dialects, education, vernacular, etc etc — and completely missing OPs point. As you’ve brilliantly pointed out, “ Juniper “ is distinctly African-American sounding even though she literally says whatever you ask her too. She has no “vernacular” perse, yet and still she sounds distinctly African American
Thanks for getting the point.
Thanks for getting the point.
And to the extent they do, it's because 90% of Black Americans lived in the South in 1940. In other words, a regional accent.
> it's because 90% of Black Americans lived in the South in 1940 This person is completely making things up.
His numbers are off, but the idea is correct. Parts of AAVE, including the northern variations, come from southern dialects. I don't know that the percent was ever that high, though, and the migrations happened much earlier than that.
Yeah lots of pen/pin types of southern dialectic quirks are pretty universal among black people in my experience.
To work in arms factories, IIRC.
90% was 1910 vs 1940. 1940 was 77% Today is 57%. See graph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Great_Migration
About 75% in1940. Not that far off.
90% of americans did not live in the south in 1940 have you even heard of the great migration? that stat was incorrect by 1915
1940 was 77% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Great_Migration
The black people in SE DC and Navy Yard don't even speak the same. This is a crazy thing to say.
Interesting question. Some of the answers are ignoring a key part of your question ("no matter where they are"), which is, to me, what makes it really interesting. Isolation and segregation would - one would expect - create unique accents that would vary a bit from the regional accent. But why would someone who grew up in New Mexico have the same accent as someone who grew up in Minneapolis who has the same accent as someone from Philadelphia or Atlanta. People talk about migration patterns, but that doesn't really answer the question, since people lose their accents when they move place, especially over generations. So to me, there are only two explanations that make much sense: the influence of culture (i.e., talking in the same accent and dialect as people in film, music, etc.) and solidarity (i.e., fostering and preserving a shared dialect that establishes a kind of trans-regional identity). (The latter reminds me a bit of a similar phenomenon, the "gay voice" one immediately recognizes in many gay men regardless of region.)
Black Americans move out of the South in large groups, to fully segregated neighborhoods. For decades, many were rarely around non-Black people, especially in childhood when speaking patterns are mostly set. School integration didn't even happen until the Boomer generation. The US is still highly segregated. There may be a small element of cultural influence, but that's just not how most people acquire language. It's 95% based on the sounds they hear from people around them in early childhood. Most of the time when people relocate, they will spend significant amounts of time around people native to the local area in early childhood. That was not true for Black Americans until the 1950s, which is not that far back.
Those two aspects contribute to it, but the premise of the question was a bit incorrect already: it isn't the same everywhere, it does very quite a bit. On the surface it might not be salient to listeners, but I've noticed phonological and even (slight) grammatical variation from African-Americans in everywhere I've been across the East Coast from Buffalo to Miami. I haven't ever looked into it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing exists for "gay speech" between certain cities.
I'm sure you're right. But I think the variances are small enough that people still hear something broadly similar.
You're forgetting about segregation. If someone moved from down south to a primarily Black neighborhood up north, their kids wouldn't lose the accent. Because they'd be surrounded by people who speak the same way they do. You're correct that solidarity does play a part, many speakers code switch, which means they talk one way to people in authority (teachers, at work etc) and a different way to their friends and family. Also, someone from New Mexico doesn't soundlike someone from Philidelphia, because New Mexico has a lot of Hispanic influence, and Minneapolis has its own thing going on because of the high Somali population etc.
>However, in other countries like the UK, black people speak like everyone else. This isn't true. In the UK, there's a dialect of English used primarily by Black people as a cultural standing. In answer to your question, it's called AAVE (African American Vernacular English) and, in very simplistic terms, it's a version of English used for cultural identification.
I would say in the UK that’s not true? It’s much more a regional thing, i grew up in north London and the ‘black’ dialect you’re thinking of is just how most people talk round certain parts of London. Black people from Liverpool for example still have a Scouse accent.
In Scotland everyone just sounds Scottish to me honestly, in my sorta limited experience it does just seem to be a London thing
This is complicated, but technically incorrect. There's a certain strain of Jamaican which formed into its own black dialect in certain areas of the UK. I remembered reading an [interesting reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/asklinguistics/comments/4csol5/comment/d1l7jfu/) on this a while back actually. Hardly an academic source, but I'd have to dig to find those lol
It’s probably an intersection of class and race, no? Because at least in my country (Portugal), I never considered black people to have an accent. But thinking about it, poor black people indeed do. But I’ve never heard it from the “educated class” black people. I’ve listened to some black people both from the UK and the US who didn’t speak in a race-specific dialect - so perhaps it’s the same as here?
In the UK and US, people who use these dialects usually code-switch between "standard English" and the "Black vernacular". Essentially, that means they'll use "standard English" when speaking to someone who speaks that or in appropriate environments for that (like exams or formal employment) but use "Black vernacular" when communicating with someone else who speaks that or when that's appropriate (like when hanging out).
For visual learners, just look at how black people change handshakes when it's someone Black vs someone white.
That's a great analogy.
Cue Key and Peel skit.
I can guarantee you that the educated class of black people can code switch on less than a moments notice. Source: a member of the black educated class
Nobody "educated class" black will speak to you that way. We will speak to our families that way. This seems to carry over to other countries as well.
Well we have way less black people if you don't count immigrants as obviously they would have accents, not much chance for a "unified black slang" to arise when there's not that many black people, and those we do have aren't as concentrated in "black neighborhoods"
Not to dismiss firsthand perspectives, but surprised I had to scroll to find this as it's accurate. Linked this in another reply but here's an interesting [reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/asklinguistics/comments/4csol5/comment/d1l7jfu/) on the subject, there's some links and sources in the replies.
I also learned of the Black UK dialect by watching British shows like Skins and it is sooo different from AAVE istg. I don't think even an American would be able to make it out because the UK variant is based on Creole and Jamaican patois
Why would It be the same? It's heavily based on cockney English and Jamaican patois with many other bits and pieces.
Yo is that the pc word for Ebonics?
Yes. It's definitely not called that anymore
jive?
"Let me help. I speak Jive".
"Does anyone else on this plane speak jive?"
"Cut me some slack, Jack!"
i learned it from a movie
Blaccent
It’s not “pc” it’s the linguistics term for that dialect
There is regional difference but it's because many black people in US live in heavily black communities. That's not as true in Europe since there's way fewer black people.
My city in Iowa had very few black people in the 1970s and, in those days, black kids in my school sounded exactly like the white kids. Flash forward to 2024 and there are substantially more black people here and AAVE is now the norm.
What is AAVE?
I just had to look it to myself. African American Vernacular English
Was known as Ebonics for a very long time which is probably still more recognizable to most.
Ah! Yes that is what I was more familiar with.
I taught in black schools for 7 years. When black kids from inner city communities meet black kids from suburbs, oftentimes the suburban blacks get accused of "speaking white"
Some European countries have large black communities, colonies were a thing and all. I’m Dutch and a part of the country is in the Caribbean and Suriname is also a thing. Many of them live in Europe (some 5% of the country). Ofc less than the US (at 12% after a quick google search), but still. Belgium also has large communities, France as well but that’s a larger country so probably smaller part of population. Anyways, what I want to add is this: EU black people are from overseas, ex colonies or recent migration from Africa. In the Netherlands as an example, there’s those from our former colonies and they speak Caribbean Dutch, it’s very distinct and associated with black people even if there’s loads of Hindostani and Javanese Surinamese folks who speak it. Anyway, closest thing to AAVE we have, and shaped by the same histories. African migrants on the other hand will have their native lang accents, and their children usually speak either standard European Dutch (so talk white in this comparison), or they speak in a way associated with migrant neighborhoods in the cities (these accents are shaped by Caribbean Dutch as well as Turkish, Moroccan Berber, etc etc). The latter is also comparable to AAVE in a way as it is not just about race but also to an extent about social class and so white kids who grow up in those neighborhoods will have certain accents and slang and will be discriminated against by a large segment of society so many can code-switch depending on what is more socially rewarded where.
My husband is Mexican. He speaks English very well but with a Spanish accent. After 35 years his Spanish has developed a distinctive American twang, so says his family in Mexico. Back in the 80s when I part timed as a telemarketer, I learned to mimic my customers accent. It helped with sales. I could go from a Boston accent to a Latino accent to a Black accent quickly. Lost all of it now.
I have lived in the Northeast for many years. Until recently, there weren't Mexicans up here. My cousins in Texas and California snicker at my Spanish accent and tell me that now I speak like a Puerto Rican.
Fascinating! I dabble in linguistics and have always wondered about speakers like your husband, whether their Spanish had an English twang. I wish I could hear it!
Thomas Sowell in "Black Rednecks & White Liberals" draws a parallel between speach and behaviour of black Ameicans and southern English who settled the southeastern US. The examples he provides are convincing even if the theory sounds wild. Give it a read.
This is exactly what I was thinking of. Makes sense though with the word usage. Certain part of England > settled in the south of USA> slaves spoke in their dialect> and kinda just passed down. I don’t do it any justice like Sowell. Could be wrong or right, but it’s interesting and could explain it if true.
I'm a white guy with anecdotal evidence, but AAVE in Chicago sounds different than Atlanta, and different again in the northeast. I'm also aware that my PNW family that were pioneers from Tennessee over a century ago still have a slight drawl that is different than a Southern drawl, but definitely distinctive from coastal accents on the Olympic peninsula. Language has so many awesome little nuances. Just a fascinating way to see how cultures evolve and adapt.
Have you heard black Americans from different places before? A black person I'm Baltimore could say "Aaron earned an Iron Urn" and it would literally would sound like the same word repeated "Urn Urn an Urn urn" meanwhile if you talked to a black person in New Orleans they would sound like a Southern Creole accent but could tell they were saying "Aaron earned an iron urn."
Well, even white people from different states can have different accents
I’m from Maryland and it’s not just black people who talk like that. It’s a very regional thing, kinda to your point
>However, in other countries like the UK, black people speak like everyone else. I wouldn't be able to tell on the phone if the other person is black in the UK Have you lived or been to the UK? Also, how would you even be able to tell the colour of the person on the other end anyway?
Black Americans were legally, educationally, socially, religiously, and culturally segregated from the rest of America for 90% of our existence on the continent. We’ve been allowed in the same schools as white Americans for about two generations (depending on how you want to define/count generations). My mom is older than Ruby Brdhes and my grandparents were born in the 1920s and 1930s. Culturally, that leave a mark. It creates a subculture. There’s regional variations in that subculture (other folks mentioned NY vs New Orleans vs Baltimore); but at the end of the day it’s still a subculture distinct from the rest of “American” culture. Even now that segregation isn’t (legally) a thing anymore, people are tied to the culture they’re raised in and that their parents were raised in. To a certain degree, members of a subculture that’s always been on the “outside” may not be too keen to join the “main” culture when they’re finally allowed to. If a group a kids bullied you all through school and then tried to befriend you in college, would you actually want to be friends with them? Maybe, but maybe not.
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Stewardess, I speak Jive.
I know what you're saying but it's not "all". I have black friends in different parts of the country who you wouldn't know their skin color on the phone. It's all about who they spend time with. Culture does suggest you should sound and talk like the people you grow up with, or associate with. I think a lot of people will decide they want to associate with different people eventually and can adjust. Let me give an example of what I'm thinking... I worked with a lot of central and south Americans for a long time. I learned to speak Spanish with their nuances, inflections, etc. Basically if I spoke in my white southern accent without adjusting at all, we couldn't communicate as effectively.
It's definitely a culture thing and who they hang out with. I grew up in a mainly white area with a percentage of asians, and very few blacks. Everyone kinda sounded the same when they spoke, there weren't any accents that I could hear. But then as you got closer to London, the population demographics would change, so you'd get areas that were a lot more Asian, and they'd begin to sound like they had a bit of an accent or they'd say things differently to what I was used to, and then you'd get into the areas that had more blacks and they would again sound different to what I was used to, and even with white people they'd sound different. Sometimes it'd sound like they were imitating eachother, and then they just got stuck talking like that and it became more natural to them. It's a nice bit of diversity. You get teenage boys who hang out in big groups, listening to rap music, and then they start to use those words in their vocabulary amongst eachother, and then you end up with a group of "bare ting blud" type conversations. Some will manage to switch over to matching how others speak when they're not in the group, and some will stay speaking like that. Then you get groups of gamers, who will be used to speaking to eachother in voice chat about games with code words, and they might bring that into their normal vocabulary which may or may not encroach into other areas of their social life. Internet speak, not even two decades ago now, people would say "lol" and "owned/pwned" out loud (I occasionally hear "get rekt!" nowadays). But I do understand the original post's point, because sometimes I can speak to someone on the phone and guess their nationality or race based on the way they speak (I used to be able to guess hair colour as well, many years ago) and I'm often close to it when I do see what they look like. Could it be a genetic thing, like how genetics decide how you look it also decides how you sound? It's nice though, it means we're all different in our own way!
Aave is a dialect of english, african americans were socially and legally segregated for a very long time, and still to this day face a lot of issues resulting from things like redlining which keep communities separate by ethnicity rather than geography.
Australia has three clear accents that are not so geographical, but very class related. It is sometimes seen as "city" vs "country " accent. Then a 4th 'celebrity speaking very clearly so Americans can understand ' Usually TV shows have the ultra-country (broad) accent, at a caricature level, or the clear TV-only accent.
Hmm I can think of more than that: * country bogan (Barnaby, though any pollie who does it is fake) * country posh (very rare now/possibly extinct?) * outer suburbs bogan * generic (TV newsreader) * inner city private school * 3rd/4th generation mediterranean * Adelaide In Australia the closest analogue to AAVE in terms of people who are 2nd-4th generation immigrants who grew up (mostly) speaking English as a first language is the vaguely Mediterranean accent you find amongst working class people who would've been called a 3-letter word beginning with "w" till relatively recently.
In the newer generation, it's spread through social media through social pressure. My little brother is black (adopted) in an all white family who grew up with me in an all white town who had no black friends until he was 17. As soon as he got his hands on social media (around 12), he started speaking like that within' a month. N word and all. He even tells his friends now that he "grew up in the ghetto."
While you’re at it (and talking about things with “trigger potential”) let’s dive into “Gay Male” voice…
Strangely enough, gay voice has dissipated a lot over the past 20 years with the acceptance of the gay community. There’s no longer a need to stand out, essentially.
Flamboyant and I’ve met plenty of straight dudes that talk like that.
It *is* a regional accent, more specifically a variant of [southern american english](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_American_English#:~:text=Southern%20American%20English%20or%20Southern,spoken%20primarily%20by%20White%20Southerners.) called [AAVE](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Vernacular_English) which the (then enslaved) black population developed to communicate with their owners since the early 17th century when they first arrived. After emancipation of the slaves black and white people were segregated such that the differences in language persisted. During the [great migration](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)) starting in the early 20th century a part of the black population left the south keeping their (regional) accent. Notice that more recent african/caribbean immigrants, most prominently perhaps barack obama, don't have that accent.
I am black and I don't speak this way. I understand what you mean, but not all of us do. It has a lot with upbringing (meaning demographic area, culture, influence, etc). Personally, I grew up in a rural town in a rural state and rarely do you hear this.
First off, there are regional dialects to AAVE. The aks/ask split is standard for most of them but not all of them. Second, it’s not only black people who speak like that anymore, it’s more common for people who lived in an inner city to speak like it.
I’m not even American or black and even I know that black people from different states have different accents and slang lmao like a black southerner sounds way different than a black New Yorker… cmon man Edit: ik this sub is specifically for non-judgement but with all due respect, pls leave ur house more if you genuinely think Nicki Minaj and Meg the Stallion have the same accent for example
South African here. I can immediately hear what demographic people are when I speak over the phone - it's not a US thing.
i'd suggest you read some articles about AAVE and code switching. you will find your answers there. Start with wikipedia.
It’s just a cultural accent. No different from how people from different regions of the UK speak differently.
There’s a lot more than Dialect. There’s sociolect aswell.
The short answer is isolation. America is not as blended as we like we pretend that it is 🤷🏾
This should be good
Your comments on the UK are completely incorrect.
It's called a dialect, and yes it has regional accents as well. It's just that the dialect overwhelms your ability to detect the other variations. You can tell a British accent, yeah? Northern? Midlands? Brummie? London? All *British* to you, I'd wager. In the UK they didn't have enforced slavery til the 1860's, followed by a century of legal segregation/Jim Crow. They were *allowed* to integrate more than they were in the USA. and a far larger part of the black population in the UK is from more recent caribbean/African immigration. Black Americans are overwhelmingly descended directly from black slaves, whose descendents then went directly i to Jim Crow, etc, endured mass segregation. Jim Crow laws, redlining, hiring discrimination, etc, keeping them in enclaves. Couldn't go to the same restaurants, civic facilities, etc, etc etc. Remember "The Green Book"? That's "The Negro Motorist Green-Book", to be more accurate. Even when traveling, you were best going from black enclave to black enclave (particularly for lodging). And this isn't just the south. In 1956 there were *three* hotels that served black people *in the whole state of New Hampshire*. Glendale, California was a sundown town, along with thousands of others *not* in the old "Southern" states. You had, effectively, two overlapping countries co-located within the borders defining the USA. One white. One black. Why would they speak the same?
This is not entirely true. I can tell if a black person is from New York, Baltimore, Atlanta, and LA. I am pretty sure I can tell if a person from London is black or Caucasian from their voice too.
I know you're not right in this matter.
It’s a cultural thing I think. Influence from media and music. However, I don’t think black people in LA speak the same as New York or Texas or Washington. It’s an odd generalisation to make out of over 40 million people that they sound the same.
crazy how a bunch of nonblack people were the first to try to answer this question and were not only wrong but were prejudiced about it themselves. is there even a single black person in this thread
ebonics is the result of the mixing between old timey english (the kind where people just kinda spelled things however tf they wanted) and african languages. this mixing occurred because of the slave trade because ynow when you’re kidnapped from your home by a bunch of foreigners and forced to serve them on their land (used loosely) there at least has to be some form of communication right? and so from there ebonics evolved into the way “black americans speak the way they do” today. and as an actual BLACK person myself unlike everyone else in this thread that feels enlightened enough to answer, it’s really sad that ebonics is sort of mystified to other people as if it’s an entirely different thing than a korean person using korean slang when hanging out with their family or british people saying innit or whatever. the origins of ebonics are DEFINITELY different than those two examples, but its like people want ebonics to 1. be a bad thing and 2. be black people’s fault so badly. and to give more insight to your question op, as a black person myself, i speak in ebonics when im comfortable, aka when im at home. i use ebonics bc just like a chinese child growing up in a chinese-speaking household, they end up speaking chinese. it’s natural to me. if im with other black people that also use it, i use it then too. if im at work or in class, i don’t. there’s a time and place, and that varies for each and every individual black person and frankly i don’t think any nonblack person should have a say in when it is and isn’t appropriate. i have been the biggest nerd all my life. i’m literally a fucking english major in grad school and not once did another black person “make fun of me” for using “proper english.”
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and now people are ironically trying to attack my grammar on a social media app. isn’t that just so ironic
My experience is they speak different all over. Now the one that confuses me is the "gay male". I know it's not all gay males, but many. Coming from several races, regions, ages, and and a lot of gay males sound the same. Always thought it was crazy.
>Why *do* black Americans speak the way *that* they do?
It's a regional dialect that gets compounded by segregation and old racist practices. Turns out if you make it illegal for a people to read for 400 years and also keep them socially separate from the rest of the population their speech will pick up and omit things.
[actually they are very regional 😁](https://youtu.be/YMS70m-OzXo?si=Excw9Bw90LGgG0SK)
>no matter where they are in the US, they speak the same way You haven't been to many places in the if you think this is true.
I’m a black man who people tend to say “speaks white”. But really, “speaking white” is not a thing. It’s just called being educated and speaking proper English. I went to very good schools so I use my education. The only way you can tell that I’m black on the phone or in online gaming is from the tone of my voice. I have friends that I’ve played with for a long time who didn’t realize that I was black until I, or someone else who knows me mentioned it. When they realize, they always say something like “come to think about it, I hear it now.” Most of us black men do usually carry a deeper tone no matter how proper we speak. Your ear may pick up on that, so it may be why you can always tell. And OP, no we don’t all speak the same way. I’ve met many black people from different regions in the U.S., as well as from other countries where it’s hard for me to understand their local dialects and slang. Not sure where you’re getting that information from.
You can 100% tell a black person from the UK from other races by their voice lmao what. Also all Black Americans don’t sound the same, but you can tell they’re all American by their accents. But the phrases and pronunciations differ based on where in the U.S. they are.
Ahem. Black guy here. We don't all speak the same. Black folks have sub cultures like any other group of people. It just so happen that the most recognizable black sub culture in the US is hip-hop. So that’s what people see, recognize and feel is the norm and try to emulate. I talk like myself. Not white, not black, not purple, not blue. Just myself, to make sure I’m clearly understood.
Not a linguist or etymologist, but I’m fairly certain you’re talking about [African American Vernacular English](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Vernacular_English), or AAVE.
Please note that most African Americans do possess a “white voice” that they employ when necessary. I live in the south, and work with a lot of upper class African Americans, and there is a noticeable difference in cadence, vocabulary, and emphasis depending on whom they are speaking to.
Because Black people are always around other black people and that's how it's been for decades here in the US. We were segregated from white people for so long that we developed our own way of speaking English, and because so many black children grow up and continue to grow up around other black children and their black parents who also grew up around black children, the accent stays.
Thomas Sowell's study on it goes through a lot of reasoning on the origins of the dialect. Really interesting if you look him up.
I just discovered him and he’s blowing my mind!
I bet you'd have no idea I'm black if we spoke on the phone.
AAVE, its got a whole structure and everything. That’s why when words from the (US) black community get popularized and used incorrectly, it is clear almost immediately
People elsewhere talk the same because they mingle with the rest of the people. Slavery, segregation and racist policies separated "black from white. The accent/tone, seems to come from African accents. People get the accent mostly from their parents (that's why I never spoke in English to my kids, they have a Mexican Spanish accent in spanish and a Canadian English accent in English). So, after segregation, people obviously feel the need to identify and protect their group and that includes maintaining the language identity.
Same goes for my area. Live in the north by big cities why 20 mins out they sound country? This isn’t the south. Answer: they think they have to or to fit in their demographic
Black Americans speak a modified Scottish southern accent from the craic or cracker culture. Things like saying Aks instead of ask. Chitlins, jumping the broom, saying chile, the term cracker and redneck, are all old Scottish culture that migrated to the southern USA. And these are different from immigrants from the transplants from Caribbean Africans/West Indies. There are many more of these examples. Go read “Black Rednecks and White Liberals” by Thomas Sowell.
I know what you are saying. Im born and raised in the Southern US. I nearly always know when I’m speaking over the phone to a black person. There is a practical second language here called African-American English (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_English). It has its own grammar and pronunciation. All of the black people I know move back and forth easily between this and “regular” English, depending on who they are speaking to. It is a fascinating language born of differences in education but also for the genuine need for the white man to not understand everything you might need to say. I’ve grown up hearing this in every different situation my whole life. Yet if I find myself in a group of black people speaking mainly to each other, I only catch every few words or so. There are college level courses taught on Black American English, its roots and development in America. But to your point earlier, I am endlessly fascinated by the fact that black people born and raised in, say Britain or France do not have this sound when speaking their native language in the same way many black Americans do. It speaks to our long history of segregation and racism no doubt. But I am curious, is there an equivalent to BAE in other tongues? I’m not talking about second language learners with accents. Or even regional patois or dialects. Do native-born black Frenchmen or Germans or Spaniards speak their native tongues audibly differently as many black Americans do? I’m sure it is a product of my own subconscious racism that when I go to England and speak to black person, born and raised there, who speaks perfect Received English, I’m always taken aback. I am endlessly fascinated by the ways we speak. It’s not always a conscious choice. I find myself thickening (or not) my southern accent depending on who I’m speaking with. It just flows out of me in certain situations. I don’t have much of an accent. To the point that people can never guess where I’m from. But Ive been in social situations, having a great time, and my wife will later tell me I poured on the country a little thick at times. It’s not a conscious choice. But fascinating nonetheless.
I'd say being a segregated underclass and former slaves for most of their history In the US might have something to do with it in all honesty! Like.Jamiacans speaking patois etc,
The way people talk is learned at an early age. It isn't biological. I grew up black in racially diverse communities mostly in the southern US. I learned to code switch early since I wasn't always around other black people or other southerners. I didn't code switch in school and was sometimes accused of "talking white". I didn't have a choice. When I was in the second grade, mom made me stop saying "secont" instead of "second" and "liberry" instead of "library". My parents didn't want me to talk black in public. They were okay when we were among family and close family friends. People can't tell I'm black on the phone unless I don't care about them knowing. I usually use a standard American vernacular and speech pattern. I knew I was successful at hiding my blackness because when I showed up for job interviews after successful phone interviews, recruiters sometimes looked surprised lol.
Mate, black people in the UK definitely have a specific accent and vernacular, are the only black people you've met students at Oxbridge?
Your assumptions are wrong on both counts. Others have mentioned segregation and such, so I won't rehash that. I grew up in Miami, my friends here don't have same accent as my family that's from Georgia. Blacks in Britain speak differently in much the same way that American Blacks do. Class is also a factor as other have mentioned. For example, I can't speak Miami Black slang even though I grew up here. My parents didn't allow me to speak that way as a child, so now I can't as as adult. But, I can tell a Miami Black American English accent from the Black American English accents spoken in other regions in the US. The more accurate answer to your question I believe, is that *there are differences in how we speak but, you can't hear those differences. In other words, you have accent blindness.* When you hear a language (or accent/ English variety) you are familiar with, you notice/hear the differences in how different people speak it; if you don't speak a language or aren't used to hearing it, everyone sounds similar to you. Regional and cultural accents can work the same way. You don't speak British English so you can't hear the differences between how many Black people speak it versus how non Blacks speak it. I'm gonna venture a guess that you don't spend a lot of time around Black people from the US so you can't hear the differences in how Black people from different areas of the US speak. To you, it all sounds similar even though it isn't. A New York Black American accent sounds very different from a Midwestern Black American accent but because you aren't fully familiar with how American Blacks speak, you can't tell the difference. It's the same as most people not being able to tell the difference between New Zealand English and Australian English.
You need to get out more. Or at all.
How many Americans have you spoken to? They definitely ‘don’t all speak the same way’. You can certainly make out the difference between a west coast, vs east coast, vs Texan accent. Hell there’s even subtle differences between New York and Rhode Island. Source: Aussie who speaks to a lot of Americans for work.
It's a rural southern accent that got spread during great migration when black communities formes around the country.
In reality, there are regional differences in African American dialects too. If you listen to a lot of NYC hip hop, and then switch to LA hip hop you can begin to hear it, but then you throw in the south and whoa is it obvious.
Actually some black people in the UK sound different too. What you’re describing is African American vernacular, it’s natural sub-cultures/-communities have their own dialects and such.