"EBONICS": TRUTH OR SHAM ?
     The decision of the Oakland, California public schools to use
Ebonics, previously called "black English", as a language (not a
dialect) for bilingual education in order to improve the poor
performance of Oakland's black students on English tests raises
more questions than it answers:
     1) Is Ebonics really a "language"?
          Some linguists consider Ebonics a separate language, but
          is Ebonics any more of a language than a southern accent
          is?  Like Ebonics, a southern accent has distinct
          phonics, distinct vocabulary (y'all, "carry" used in
          place of "drive" [someone somewhere], "might could"), and
          its use is mostly confined to a unique culture.
               (Just as a southern accent is largely defined by
                not pronouncing the final "g" of a word ending in
                "ing", Ebonics proponents claim that Ebonics is
                largely defined by truncating the pronunciation of
                words.)
     2) The term "Ebonics" itself.
          All of us have heard "black English" as the name of this
          "dialect" for 20 years, but how many (including how many
          blacks other than university-level linguists) had heard
          the word "Ebonics" before this week?
               (Many Oakland teachers said they never before heard
                the word "Ebonics".)
     3) The alleged cultural origin of Ebonics.
          Ebonics proponents claim the language/dialect has its
          origins in West Africa, but was Ebonics _ever_ spoken
          there by the residents of the region?
               (English, which furnishes all the vocabulary and
                most of the grammar of Ebonics, was _never_ the
                native language of West Africa prior to the
                departure of slaves for America.)
     4) Is Ebonics actually the "primary language" of black kids?
          The Oakland school board has declared Ebonics to be the
          primary language of Oakland's black children, but is
          Ebonics the "primary language" of the middle-class black
          kid?
     5) Can instruction in Ebonics boost English test scores?
          Oakland school superintendent Carolyn Getridge says the
          decision to have bilingual instruction in Ebonics was
          based on black students' poor test scores in English, but
          will acceptance of a parallel English-based dialect only
          worsen the performance of Oakland students on such tests?
               (At least bilingual instruction in Spanish and
                English does not confuse students with the question
                of which English grammar is the correct one.)
     6) Will school acceptance of Ebonics ghettoize poor blacks?
          Will kids who graduate speaking mostly Ebonics be not
          only locked out of much of the job market, but doomed to
          linguistic separation from middle-class blacks who they
          will be no more able to be understood by than by whites?
     7) Will Oakland's acceptance of Ebonics as a separate language
        lead to a federal "right" to bilingual instruction in other
        culturally-defined varieties of nonstandard English?
--- Simplex BBS (v1.07.00Beta [DOS])
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