Date: Fri, 14 Jul 1995 10:09:51 CST

From: salikoko mufwene mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU

Subject: Re: oj trial



In Message Fri, 14 Jul 1995 09:51:33 +0100, debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU writes:



My African American students for the past 2 semesters have been using the

term Ebonics to refer to what we most recently seem to be calling AAVE.



To my knowledge, the term "Ebonics" was used first by some African

American linguists in 1975, in a volume edited by Robert R. Williams titled

EBONICS: THE TRUE LANGUAGE OF BLACK FOLKS. The only other place I have seen

it used in print, in the linguistic context, is a special issue of JOURNAL OF

BLACK STUDIES titled EBONICS (BLACK ENGLISH): IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATION

(1979). I have never seen the term used by African American linguists who

would be more familiar to members of this list and I have never heard it

used by laypersons in the African American community, at least not in

Chicago, Athens, Georgia, or Charleston, SC. On the other hand, it is the

term being used in the Afrocentricity school led by Molefi Asante, Temple

University. Last time I spoke there in April this year, I was chastized by

students for not using the term. On the other hand, Molefi told me he could

tolerate my terminological mistake.

Hope you find this information useful.

Sali.

***********************************************************************

Salikoko S. Mufwene

University of Chicago

Dept. of Linguistics

1010 East 59th Street

Chicago, IL 60637

s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861