African American Vernacular English (AAVE), which is more commonly known as ebonics and sometimes referred to as Black English, is a dialect that stems from American English. African American Vernacular English is known in the black community as a language that should be spoken amongst peers and families, as it is often looked down upon to speak AAVE in professional, educational, or even places where it can be assumed that there won't be many likeminded Black Americans around to understand the usage of AAVE. Young black children in school often become socialized to think that a speaking AAVE, a dialect that is commonly used in at home and around familiar faces, is inappropriate and to speak that is to present yourself and your family as uneducated. …show more content…
By acknowledging that AAVE has distinctive differences in the phrasing of sentences and specific grammar rules that were not formed simply out of ignorance. In the essay, African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English With Mistakes, author Geoffrey K. Pullam argues that AAVE should not be viewed as a language, but as a dialect that has formal rules and different phrasings from Standard English that should not be viewed as incorrect. Pullman uses the example of other languages that are categorized as official, such as French or Spanish, that have different phrasings from English, but would not be simply seen as incorrect and ignorant. In French, the word for "London" is "Londres." The word "Londres" does not exist in English, whereas if a French person were to refer to London as "Londres", it would not be viewed as them speaking incorrectly, but simply as them using the correct word within the rules of their language. If a speaker of AAVE were to use the word “ain’t” in a sentence, it should not be viewed as “bad English”, but should be viewed in the same way a person would view a French speaker using “Londres” instead of “London. (Pullam 41)” “Ain’t” is simply a word that is specific to AAVE as “Londres” is to French. Although Pullam agrees that AAVE is not a language, it is a largely used dialect that has rules as if it were a language. AAVE has specific rules and structures to help reiterate ethnic boundaries as other aspects of Black American culture also do. To refer to AAVE as “bad english” would be parallel to referring to “Minnesota English as bad Virginia speech or vice versa. (Pullam 45)” Educators must first begin to