Date:  Thu, 9 Oct 1997 17:10:09 -0400
From:  "Jeutonne P. Brewer" <jpbrewer[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]HAMLET.UNCG.EDU>
Subject: Re: The Lords Prayer/Ebonics

On Wed, 8 Oct 1997, Salikoko S. Mufwene wrote:

> may ask. Do you know of any African-American family in which the variety
> putatively adopted in the Bible translation, per your example, is the
> default vernacular? Or are we back to the days when we discussed how people
> cook chittlins... just to satisfy some emotions but with little
> contribution to our intellectual curiosities?

If you really want to be concerned, you can look at the texts
published as examples of Ebonics (John Milton, Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, etc.). (http://novusordo.com/indexn.htm) I don't mention
this as an attempt to promote distribution of these ecamples, but to
point out what many people on the Web are reading as examples. One of my
students found this site when doing a class exercise to find information
and discussion about Ebonics. So now I plan to do a class exercise
in which students analyze one of the examples using summaries of
legitimate research. My point is that these examples are there.
People will read them, and teachers may consider using them as
examples. I want my students to be informed on the subject and
able to make judgments about such examples.

Jeutonne


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Jeutonne P. Brewer, Associate Professor
Department of English
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, NC 27412
email: jpbrewer[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]hamlet.uncg.edu
URL:  http://www.uncg.edu/~jpbrewer
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