Language

African American English, also commonly known as Black English or Ebonics, is a dialect of standard English language that was derived from Pidgin. In theory, Pidgin was a mixture of African languages that melded together on slave ships. Pidgin was used by slaves as well as slave traders and slave owners as a form of communication. As the slave trade traveled out of Africa, through the Caribbean and finally into the southern United States, Pidgin morphed into Creole. Creole was the first language spoken by Africans born on American soil and is still widely spoken in certain parts of the southeast. Through time and location changes, Creole and standard English were mixed by African American speakers to form Ebonics.

Most people assume that Ebonics is just a lazy or broken form of English. In actuality, it is a valid form of language with it's own rules and structure. The biggest "rule" of Ebonics is that where contractions are used in standard English, Ebonics instead uses deletion. Also past tense usage in Ebonics is still considered present tense in standard English. 











 http://www2.nau.edu/~eng121-c/africanamerican_engl.htm

http://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/what-ebonics-african-american-english