From: Andrew A. Scholtz (andrew.scholtz@yale.edu)
Date: Tue Jan 21 1997 - 23:10:00 EST
On Tue, 21 Jan 1997, David Meadows wrote:
> Interesting defenses of Ebonics today; obviously the NPR program to which
> many have referred did not mention anything about certain members of the
> Oakland board declaring the basis for Ebonics to be "genetic" and a language
> unto itself
It might be well to point out the sense in which "genetically African" was
originally meant vis-a-vis Ebonics. As explained in the NPR report (at
least, the one I heard), a certain linguist had described Ebonics as
"genetically African" in the sense that its linguistic patterns are
African in origin -- by itself a controversial enough claim, I suppose,
but one having nothing to do with mitochondrial DNA vel sim. This
all-too-easily misinterpreted choice of terms did, however, make for a
quotable tidbit.
--Randy
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:38:03 EDT