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AAVE has been overused by suburban white kids for like 20+ years. There’s a lot of overlap between the evolution of slang and AAVE. Within reason it is OK for a few words/terms to cross over. Where it is problematic is people changing the way they speak or trying to portray themselves as of a different culture (like using a “blaccent” in most manners of speaking)
I also find it problematic that frequently you see examples of white people using slang in professional settings, most recently I'm thinking of the Millenial Boss trend on tik tok where in one-on-ones or similar settings they use AAVE/Slang. However, if a POC were to use it in the same setting it is frequently made out to be "unprofessional" or inappropriate.
Having studied linguistics, this is the most reasonable answer.
Terms bleeding between English dialects is not something that can be stopped en masse. English has become a language that consumes other languages.
However, affecting the accent of a marginalized group is just... such bad taste. No group owns pronunciation, but... come on. They know it's wrong.
This was my thought too. It's hard to just put a strict line between dialects, and it's shown that slang is often picked up from AAVE, but it's not as though speakers are commonly aware of using words from another dialect and stealing it. Because even if some speakers are doing this (and I'm sure they exist, I don't see why people like that wouldn't), those speakers will use slang with or around others who may be oblivious to the source and use it without any idea that it originates with AAVE.
And as you said, the transfer of terms between dialects is expected and would be difficult to stop, and with the Internet may be impossible. Though this could contribute to speakers using AAVE to a higher degree since the Internet often has language farther removed from a source, specifically if you're reading text without any idea of the identity of the author.
But also affectation of a marginalized group: no. If it's your native dialect and you happen to be white and grew up around that dialect then that's a different story. But putting on the affect of a marginalized group, especially when that group is often penalized for using their own dialect, isn't just bad taste but also highly tone deaf. I won't say it couldn't ever be done in good taste but I'd first ask someone why they would feel the need to do it in the first place.
Black people and black culture has become THE culture. Music, fashion, language, literature, food,movies etc. it’s replicated on a global level. However not enough respect is given to black people
It's not just kids - almost no one who has english as a second language knows what AAVE is or how to recognise it.
Like, I am from Germany and I do know that it exists, but I genuinely have no chance of separating it from other internet slang or just general english/american lingo. If someone tells me that a certain phrase is AAVE I stop using it, but I'm sure that there are a lot of things I miss still.
And most people who aren't native speakers just simply do not know that AAVE even exists or what it means culturally.
>It's not just kids - almost no one who has english as a second language knows what AAVE is or how to recognise it.
Yeah as someone not from the US... Found out what it is seconds ago thanks to this post
Feels like a lot of American slang my entire life has came from AAVE or “Ebonics” as it used to be called.
Except for that short period where all of the modern slang was made up by California surf culture
Because it has. There have been some interesting articles/reports out there talking about this phenomenon. Most slang in US culture has come from the black and LGBTQ+ communities with younger women thrown a bit in there as well.
Thank you! This is exactly what I think happens to most. I've seen the acronym before but I didn't know exactly what it mean until I read these comments
I was just about to ask if someone could provide a full list of AAVE terms because I'm not a native speaker and since I've been on reddit a few years there's a chance I've used it without realizing it
Well...that's not quite right. AAVE is a dialect, so try writing down a full list of all slang terms of white suburban teens with Mid Cities dialects. Or those with Texan dialects. Or Bostonian dialects. Language is ever evolving and even as you finish compiling a list there will be new terms and phrases popping up because that's what language does.
I wouldn’t say there’s necessarily a list, because like commenters have been pointing out, a lot of the general slang phrases come from AAVE. However, as long as you don’t do the “blaccent” or start talking only in this slang when that’s not how you actually speak, I’d say you’re good.
As someone who's not a native English speaker, I feel like AAVE is fairly easy to recognize but maybe that's just from the many years I've spent online and the kind of media I consume.
Classic Americans thinking everybody on the internet is also American... Look guys, most of you don't know what's offensive in my culture either, the best way to solve this is to be patient and talk to each other.
This isn’t a case of us thinking “everyone is American,” we’re telling you a lot of the slang you use when you speak English is African American Vernacular English (AAVE), which comes from a distinct type of American culture, urban and/or southern black American. It’s not Gen Z slang, it is AAVE. Now you know. No one is offended. It’s just a fact.
You didn't say which phrases are AAVE and which are gen z slang. So now they actually don't know anything new.
Saying AAVE exists doesn't teach anyone anything.
No cap
On god
It’s giving ____
Tell me ____ without telling me _____
Bussin
This ain’t it
Dead ass
Low/high key
Be so fr
Bet
Hits different
Drip
“Gyatttt” for god damn
There’s a few.
I have no idea what Gen Z actually came up with. Maybe “rizz” but most of the other ones I’ve been hearing for 10-15 years.
Yeah and this is exactly how language evolves and always has. It moves from niche to universal. And in the US it often moves from the black community to the gay community to universal.
Yeah they’re just copying whatever they’re seeing on social media. I visited India recently and overheard some young boys saying things like “nah blud/fam/dayum” haha
I’m actually pretty forgiving when it comes to shit like this…but I was a rural/suburban (Native) kid who knew what “Ebonics” was when I was in high school 20yrs ago so I feel like these kids who have access to all the information in the world probably have a pretty good idea of what AAVE is.
I also think this generation is much more capable of understanding the implications of using AAVE when you’re not a part of that community.
I'm Mexican and I remember we read an article about Ebonics in English class when I was in my first year of High School 18 years ago. The article was included in the English free school textbook the government handed out. It explained what Ebonics was and included some experiences of Black people using it and how the rest of the American population judged them for it. A few years ago I saw online a discussion about AAVE and immediately got that this was the new, better term for that.
If I, a Mexican woman living in a small town in Mexico attending a public school English class before social media knew about this almost 20 years ago, I can't believe Americans are so oblivious.
I think the issue comes around knowing what words/phrases are and aren’t AAVE, not that AAVE exists. For example, I’m a native English speaker (not from the U.S.) and I only heard about the term “rizz” when it was named word of the year. No idea if it’s AAVE, I just know it’s a term the younguns are using (I’m 30 lol).
I'll say upfront that I am suburban white millennial, but not American.
Every generation has its sheltered suburban or middle class kids affecting a different accent or vernacular that is not their own, but they perceive as cool. Remember the "fo' shizzle" era of the early 2000s?
Yes it's annoying when you're older, and you finally see what your parents were complaining about, but this is nothing new.
I can only imagine how it must feel if you are part of the minority who originated it though!
It’s like Chef says:
“First we had The hizzie, and you copied that, then it became the hizizhouse, and y’all copied that too, so now we say “flippity floppity floop”
I had an English professor in my first semester at college who looked EXACTLY like the human incarnation of Mr. Garrison. He even kind of spoke like him. It took all of the willpower that I will ever have in my life to **not** ask him to say "Mr. Hat" or something lol
Omg I watched American Dragon Jake Long, the Disney show from mid 2000s, and the AAVE is CRAZY! Its definitely been a thing every generation but we see it more bc internet. Also white kids are using it with other white peers and white adults, so it's more obvious.
White people adopting/appropriating aspects of Black culture they consider cool (whether or not they are aware of that origin) in America can be traced back to *at least* the minstrel shows of the 19th century. And teens (especially teenage girls) have been at the forefront of language shift for centuries, either has the creator of new trends or the popularizer of someone else’s.
This is very much not a distinctly Gen Z trend (though I suppose the way the internet expedites this diffusion is more unique than prior generations).
I can take a lot, but sometimes they crossover from using AAVE to acting like they discovered things black people have been doing or invented. I just CANNOT take sticky bang girl.
The worst cases of improper AAVE I’ve seen are international young stans on twitter actually, so this makes more sense to me now 😅 They probably don’t know what they’re saying isn’t quite right
Graduating high school got me the second highest English language certificate but boy I didn't understand half the shit people on the internet were saying. It's SO hard to speak/write like a native speaker. In school you learn how to write an essay about Shakespeare, not what the hell "stan", "wanna" mean or which grammar rules you can break.
Same. I had to google it. I'm not American and the abbreviation meant nothing to me until I read up on it. I wouldn't have known the origin of the 'Karen' thing had I not read it in the post today.
That’s more known as Multicultural London English, which has spread around in recent years. I grew up in an area of London where that was how people spoke and outsiders had a hard time understanding. Now I live in Ireland and I’m hearing kids speak like they’re from south london.
[African American Vernacular English](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Vernacular_English). It’s a dialect of American English with its own unique language structure.
As a 27 year old black woman who grew up in a suburban white town (MY WHOLE LIFE) I’ll say it is annoying BUT at the end of the day it’s just words idk (now don’t get crazy lol).
Also it’s kinda nice to be able to talk “regular” (in AAVE) and the majority gets it. Bc growing up the code switching and explaining I had to do got old QUICK.
I guess I’m just in a it is what it is phase. We’re always the trendsetters even if people don’t know it
Saying ‘it’s just words’ brings up an interesting point. I was reading the Wikipedia link from a reply here, and got to the section on the legal system in social context. One entry gave me pause :
‘in Louisiana v. Demesme, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that the defendant's statement "why don't you give me a lawyer, dog" was too ambiguous to be considered a Miranda request for a lawyer.’
But another point was mentioned:
‘a lack of familiarity with AAVE (and other minority dialects of English) on the part of jurors, stenographers, and others can lead to misunderstandings in court. They especially focus on the Trayvon Martin case and how the testimony of Rachel Jeantel was perceived as incomprehensible and not credible by the jury due to her dialect.
A 2019 experimental study found that court stenographers in Philadelphia regularly fail to transcribe AAVE accurately, with about 40 percent of sentences being inaccurate, and only 83% accuracy at the word level, despite court stenographers being certified at or above 95% accuracy. Their study suggests that there is evidence that court reporters may potentially introduce incorrect transcriptions into the official court record, with ramifications in cross-examination, jury deliberations, and appeals.’
This is something that never even crossed my mind, and it makes it VERY important that AAVE needs to be understood!
Shouldn’t people whose job it is to transcribe spoken words be the MOST aware of trends and cultures in language? Because you would think that would be a big fucking function of their job. AAVE is reality and how most people I know under the age of 40, regardless of ethnicity, talk.
You would think, but I don’t know the requirements or experience needed to be a court transcriber, or even the training given. Could be that the courts haven’t thought of it.
It’s very hard and most people do not complete the program. It’s like learning a second language because you don’t type with a regular keyboard, you only use like 10 keys so you’re as fast as possible.
I’d imagine they don’t require learning things like AAVE because graduating from the program at all is already quite difficult
Here is a video https://youtu.be/QnvFqmtmc6E?si=5I6EkqEsjZlzCDU6
Honestly yes, compared to when I was younger I feel much more free now in my speech.
Even with my mom who speaks rather proper (if you will) she doesn’t correct me how she used to. Certain words I say she’s like “oh my students say that” and sometimes she asks what it means/it’s a funny moment for us
That's great, I suppose it does then have some positive influence! I guess my concern is that if its no longer 'trendy' will it revert back, but who knows!
That’s a take I hadn’t considered before, esp. with the code switching. I’m also black, also grew up in a very racist predominantly white area; I know that there were definitely consequences for letting my language ‘slip’ around my peers; the same folks who would mimic black language were the same ones who would treat you like a caricature for speaking it. I’m a bit older (36) but I think I feel less guarded around younger people for that reason. it wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision, just conditioning, but I don’t self police half as much around black people or other poc. Nobody likes to be the n-bomb police when they’re 10.
I’m not American so technically not AAVE but I live in Toronto and all the “man dem” are trying to sound like Drake. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a legit “inner city” accent and dialect: a mix of Caribbean patois, Arabic, Somali, some Hindi, Punjabi and AAVE/BAME English. But it’s not the natural accent for the white kids from the suburbs, but damn if they don’t try.
I remember the first time my younger brother said "bare" in a sentence... you can imagine my face when I learned it means "plenty/alot/really" rather than "none/empty". We still fight about it.
That’s funny 😆 my family is Jamaican so thankfully it makes understanding most of it pretty easy but then they pull out things like “crodie”and I’m like wtf???? (I work with young adults, they keep me fresh and urban dictionary is in my bookmarks bar).
That's because, imo, a lot of kids and teens are watching content creators from all around the word and communicate with so many different people. If you watch most of the british youtubers then you hear words like innit, man dem etc all the time. It kinda becomes ingrained in your brain. Not joking I had the issue in the past that my thoughts sounded british.
I’m speaking to a specific vernacular that exists where I live. It is not AAVE because we are not US Americans but it draws on different English dialects such as AAVE, it uses non-English words and phrases from the languages/cultures that reflect the ethnic make up of the communities from which it emerged. I’m just saying that the phenomenon isn’t just with AAVE, it’s a shared experience where black and brown people’s cultures are lifted as trends for people entirely unconnected to its history and won’t contribute to its evolution.
Reminds me of how sometimes when certain people turn to talk to me they change how they speak to sound black. It’s fucking jarring to hear Sharon go “oopsie daisy mark, dropped your pe—oh medium-sense! Wazzup bruh, fo shizzle no?”
Lol this reminds me of a scene from Vanderpump Rules. One of the women in the show, Lala (she's white and from Utah), goes to a recording studio and the 2 guys in the recording studio are black. Lala greets them by saying 'what up my brotha'. And they just said 'hi :)'
IMO, there can also be a lot of crossover with Southern speak. Like everyone has decided to say “y’all”, which is a Southern thing that both black and white people in certain areas have been saying for at least 100 years. The same for some cultural things. People might say you’re “ghetto” for having a cup of used grease in your cupboard, but literally everyone in the South has one! Poor rural people have a lot in common, regardless of skin color.
I’m not holding it against them because everyone does this regardless of which generation they fall under. But I do think it’s annoying when people insist that something is gen Z slang when it’s AAVE.
That's the part that bothers me. They don't want to admit the origins. It's like they just want to white wash it to "Gen Z slang" when we've been saying terms. Also, AAVE isn't slang, so it's annoying when it's called that.
I personally don’t think that it’s because they “don’t want to admit the origins”, but more that they don’t *know* the origins.
One is malicious, one is ignorance, and that is important to take into consideration.
The ignorance oftentimes turns into straight up malice when people get corrected about it though, that’s my problem. People are often met with anything from sass to straight up hostility for correcting people that it’s not “Gen Z slang” but rather AAVE.
This is the only comment here that actually says what’s wrong lol. I’m an open minded person so I’m genuinely curious to learn but admitting you don’t know something is apparently bad for Reddit.
a more recent term is the cringiest I've found, seeing "gyat" makes me want to hurl the way it's being misused. I've never used it, but I've seen how it's supposed to be used so seeing these little white boys saying "level 10 gyat" (as a synonym for "butt") is so cringy. For those unaware, "gyat" is written the way catcallers will say "god damn" in a certain way (when seeing a woman with a nice/large butt or nice body) where the "god" part sounds like "gyat." I believe that's the origin but I could definitely be wrong.
Reminds me of that white woman who was complaining about $1k+ Coachella tickets and said out of nowhere “I’m finna be in the pit”. It was so weird because that’s the only time she uses AAVE inflections in the video (she got roasted for it, obviously).
That’s language for you and globalization due to internet. It develops n changes over time and a lot of language will be used casually from all backgrounds. Nothing can be done about it. No cap 🥴😂
It's kinda fascinating how common the expirence is that youth use terms/dialects of minority, repressed groups.
In Germany it's mostly Turkish, because we have a lot of immigrants from Turkey. Growing up in the 2010s grown ups often lost their shit over young people using terms like "yalla", "alman" or "habibi".
Obviously it's not the same thing in the US since African Americans aren't first/second generation immigrants, but besides the obvious problematic aspects, I think it can also have a positive influence. Get people together, and reduce discrimination by nature of people being closer to each other. Not saying that white people using AAVE is exclusively great thing. But since it's kind of an automated process and no one is doing it on purpose, I hope it can do some good things.
> It's kinda fascinating how common the expirence is that youth use terms/dialects of minority, repressed groups.
I was amazed at how far back this went. A young *Julius Caesar* was as criticized for adopting the fashion and slang of the pleibean class despite being from one of the upper echelons of the patrician class.
This really seems to be a reoccurring thing in human society. I wonder why that is.
My incredibly privileged white 1%er friend told me the other day her 11 year old son can teach my 10 month old daughter all his tricks like "GYAT and all the new slang".
YES. VERY. and it seems to be 90% of their vocab too. they sound like they don't know wtf they're saying. i work with white kids (16-23) who talk like this and it's embarrassing as fuck 😭
It's only annoying because AAVE and slang aren't interchangeable, and sometimes people are making fun of words that have contextual usage, grammatical rules, and cultural meaning.
I'll never forget what they did to "Bae"! Every older Black woman I know uses that word-- my mom called me Bae my whole life-- and it absolutely sucked hearing people on and off the internet disparage that word.
The problem went from discrimination to usage. For example: white people used to be racist towards our slang but now they take it and change the meaning. The perfect example is woke. Woke is a VERY old word and used to (still does 😒) being conscious of what's going on but now it basically means 'anti anything thats not white christian male'.
To be transparent though- its being weaponized not just by "white people" but specifically a class of people in power knowingly using it to distract and piss off groups POLITICALLY as propaganda. Most of this anti rhetoric i see pissing off races at one another is full-on CLASS manipulation, full stop. And we fall for it every time.
Yes. And its for sure not just Gen z. For the most part its not using but when told the history behind shit they get offended OR people ignore the history behind things. Of course how global the internet is you’re gonna get people adopting each others lingo but some shit is annoying.
One of my friends keep saying “bute” “bool” etc and i was like are you a Blood?? And she had 0 idea that that was the reason people switch out c’s for b’s🤦🏾♀️
One of my other friends (i live in nyc) and tried to use “dumb” in a sentence and it was wrong 😂 like just stick to what yall know PLEASE
Interesting, I didn’t know that came from black culture, I’ve been saying things like “it’s stupid cold outside” for decades. I always said stupid though, not dumb. Same thing I guess lol
Eh, i don't mind it too much, i just hate when they are called out on it and they dismiss the fact that it is indeed AAVE. It's not internet slang. It's how WE talk, the internet has simply popularized it. That part is frustrating. Also, when they use terms wrongly. That shit is infuriating 😂 if you're going to talk like us please do it right. You can't just throw "deadass" around all willy nilly, it doesn't work like that.
Ah. Flashbacks to having learned to speak English from watching The Wire as a teenager, and then promptly getting chewed out online for a) using AAVE while white from Eastern Europe and b) debasing myself by using AAVE. Both black and white people finally finding common ground in telling me to get fucked for having learned 'the wrong English, and not even speaking the wrong English correctly'.
These days the few that still try are easily shut down with a glib little "wanna continue this conversation in *my* native Estonian?"
Online especially, since online you cannot hear a person's accent, so you can't tell that they might not be a native speaker. And most anglophones, but especially Americans, tend to assume that everybody else is American or at the very least anglophone too, and not really understanding just how much of a cultural hegemon America is outside its own borders. It utterly dominates Western popular media. Of course non-Americans are going to regurgitate what's fed to them, correctly, incorrectly, partially correctly.
The part that bothers me is when non-Black people insist that AAVE is "just slang". They do not want to acknowledge the Black people and communities where those words emerged from.
For eg., manyyyyy non-Black people will insist that 'Karen' is not rooted/coming from Black people.
I think that 99% of the people who use the term Karen don't know its origin, and its meaning has become SO watered down.
The same can be applied to mental health, such as impulsive vs intrusive thoughts.
Words have a meaning, people. And the origin of words and its correct application is important.
I have to agree. Karen has become "b*tch" for those who don't want to outright call a woman a b*tch...regardless of whether or not she's being racist or calling the cops on someone.
I was called a Karen for ignoring a cat caller recently.
And "trauma", too, ngl... "trauma" is not a synonym for "unpleasant experience." (I think this is due, in part, to how "trauma" carries more perceived weight/credibility than other terms, so it's a way to get people to take one's distress/hurt more seriously).
It also brings up an interesting question; yes, languages/terms/sayings are always evolving and their meanings change, but I wonder how often these changes are influenced by people misusing them and applying them wrong.
I don't think origin is really that important. I don't stop to acknowledge the French when I say 40% of the borrowed words in English. Language is a unique organism that's ever-changing and ever-growing. It's totally great if people want to know the origins of words or phrases, but it's not necessary to use the phrase.
Even correct application changes with time since meanings are descriptive not prescriptive.
The origin matters when we black people still get in trouble for using AAVE or when we try to politely correct people they act like it didn’t originate from AAVE
Origin is incredibly important with AAVE. While I'm not American I'm black and our own form of dialect exist where I'm from and for years it was considered talking bad when used. I think black Americans would encounter the same negative label when speaking AAVE. However when white people do it it's cool and acceptable. There is a reason code switching exists where black people speak completely differently when talking to white people and when talking to other black people.
French has an esteemed reputation because of its origins and is consistently praised, AAVE has not experienced the same. The two languages are not comparable and have not experienced the same treatment. Anyone else who is more knowledgeable can verify what I've said.
Ok you can still steal and distort words from established languages without it being offensive. That's why there are false friends in language: a word was borrowed and the meaning changed.
Like yesterday I learned the word récipient. I thought it would be someone who receives something because that's what it is in English, but it's actually a receptacle or a container. It's slightly different, but it's okay because that's how language works.
That's what I'm not getting. It's a dialect with its own grammar and pronunciation. I don't see how copying some phrases from that dialect is anything like "speaking AAVE",
right? idk why we need to get up in arms about who uses what slang. at the end of the day, most people that are upset about hearing white kids use black slang isn't because they're concerned about cultural appropriation
Not just Gen Z but white twitter and then the larger mainstream population, yes.
Woke, deadass, hits different, all terms I've seen used on twitter for years by black people before the past year or two when suddenly white people use it and it looks terrible. Woke in particular has entered the mainstream in the biggest way and also been bastardised to mean "politically correct" and used as an insult.
I guess this has always happened, the black to white gays to white women to white men pipeline of slang isn't new, it's just sped up because of the internet.
Gen Z adopting popular slang is more acceptable to me than older generations doing it because that's what young people have always done. It's hearing 60 year old white dudes say "woke" that irritates me.
Adopting slang or language in general is a fluid thing. Language is always being picked up so holding certain people to a different standard than others is weird. If you like words, you tend to use them.
For example if you are learning a second language and you hear words or phrases you like, you're more likely to reuse them and make them a significant part of your vocabulary.
This happens in other cultural contexts too. Here in the UK you had "Mockney", a faux-Cockney accent adopted by people who very much did not grow up with that sort of accent. Now you have a similar thing with rich kids from the Home Counties using terms from MLE ever since Grime got big (this one in particular irks me when I see the same middle class kids from my school who'd take the piss out of the working class kids and myself at school for being 'chavs' are now calling everyone bruv and fam)
Seems to be quite common for richer people to take the cultural mannerisms of a multicultural working class and recuperate them
As a 90s white girl who grew up in the hood, AAVE wasn’t known to us back then. We were just growing up being kids. There were only 3 white families on my block, everyone else was black or Mexican. I grew up listening to hip hop and dancing with my friends after school but I knew what words I could and could not say. I guess it all depends on the circumstances.
It’s most obvious and jarring to me when I hear it on TikTok from non-black content creators from abroad!! The disconnect is real. People just parrot whatever they hear online
African American Vernacular English, formerly known as “Ebonics”. Basically the formal term for the dialect that has emerged in many black communities across America, initially due to slavery and segregation.
AAVE has a lot of vocabulary that has been popularized as “internet slang” and a lot of people are (rightfully) frustrated that their unique cultural language is being dismissed as internet-speak.
Yes, because then everyone calls it “gen Z speak” when it’s really just white suburban kids misusing AAVE, because they don’t understand any of the grammar rules
it’s honestly just bc the internet is so prevalent now, so when black people speak in AAVE and go viral everyone else is like “WRITE THAT DOWN WRITE THAT DOWN”
I’m a white person who went to majority black public schools until I was a sophomore in high school, then I transferred to a rich, majority white private school. At the majority white school I was teased (even by the few POC that went there) because I “sounded ghetto”, so I ended up changing the way I spoke so I could fit in. It wasn’t until I was halfway through college that I learned what AAVE was and realized that I “sounded ghetto” to the private school kids because I was using AAVE without even knowing it. And I mean, why wouldn’t I have used AAVE? I spent my first 10 years of school surrounded by it, so of course that’s how I would have learned to speak.
I don’t think it’s annoying that Gen Z and Gen Alpha use AAVE so frequently, what’s annoying is that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are being credited with creating these AAVE words / phrases when they didn’t.
I don’t find it annoying anymore. Millennials did the same thing with AAVE and black people slang is so prevalent in online spaces it is bound to pick up usage by being who aren’t black.
As of now slang is not as segregated anymore. There used to be pretty strong regional slang when it comes to AAVE and that has become more mixed as well. So yeah it’s going to cross racial barriers as well. That doesn’t mean it will be adapted properly though and you will notice the grammar mistakes from time to time.
I think you’re just old enough to realize it’s happening so it’s more pronounced. When you are in the younger generation very few realize where trends are coming from. Once you’re older and your life becomes more insular (compared to life of a middle schooler) it’s much more obvious to notice the difference.
You’re just getting closer to the feeling of wanting the kids off your lawn, so to speak—which is also normal. Generations will not have all the same exact viewpoints, references, and fundamental beliefs.
People are free to complain about it and point out how problematic it might be, but I don't see how it will actually *change* anything.
It's best to consider it the inevitable result of cultural acceptance/integration; that is, you cannot have one without the other.
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AAVE has been overused by suburban white kids for like 20+ years. There’s a lot of overlap between the evolution of slang and AAVE. Within reason it is OK for a few words/terms to cross over. Where it is problematic is people changing the way they speak or trying to portray themselves as of a different culture (like using a “blaccent” in most manners of speaking)
Got it, so don't act like Ariana Grande and I'm fine.
This is generally good advice regardless of topic at this point.
Grocery shopping, working, dating, changing races and personas… what else am I missing
https://i.redd.it/u63zfpndk0gc1.gif
I also find it problematic that frequently you see examples of white people using slang in professional settings, most recently I'm thinking of the Millenial Boss trend on tik tok where in one-on-ones or similar settings they use AAVE/Slang. However, if a POC were to use it in the same setting it is frequently made out to be "unprofessional" or inappropriate.
But isn’t that OPs point? The millennials are making fun of/associating the words with GenZs, probably don’t even realize that it’s AAVE.
Having studied linguistics, this is the most reasonable answer. Terms bleeding between English dialects is not something that can be stopped en masse. English has become a language that consumes other languages. However, affecting the accent of a marginalized group is just... such bad taste. No group owns pronunciation, but... come on. They know it's wrong.
This was my thought too. It's hard to just put a strict line between dialects, and it's shown that slang is often picked up from AAVE, but it's not as though speakers are commonly aware of using words from another dialect and stealing it. Because even if some speakers are doing this (and I'm sure they exist, I don't see why people like that wouldn't), those speakers will use slang with or around others who may be oblivious to the source and use it without any idea that it originates with AAVE. And as you said, the transfer of terms between dialects is expected and would be difficult to stop, and with the Internet may be impossible. Though this could contribute to speakers using AAVE to a higher degree since the Internet often has language farther removed from a source, specifically if you're reading text without any idea of the identity of the author. But also affectation of a marginalized group: no. If it's your native dialect and you happen to be white and grew up around that dialect then that's a different story. But putting on the affect of a marginalized group, especially when that group is often penalized for using their own dialect, isn't just bad taste but also highly tone deaf. I won't say it couldn't ever be done in good taste but I'd first ask someone why they would feel the need to do it in the first place.
White people were calling themselves cool cats in the 40s. The Beat Generation self-consciously venerated Charlie Parker and the BeBop avant-garde.
I'd say more like 35 or nearly 40 years. It's been a long time 🙂
Black people and black culture has become THE culture. Music, fashion, language, literature, food,movies etc. it’s replicated on a global level. However not enough respect is given to black people
Look, these kids are repeating what they hear on the Internet. They don't know what AAVE is.
It's not just kids - almost no one who has english as a second language knows what AAVE is or how to recognise it. Like, I am from Germany and I do know that it exists, but I genuinely have no chance of separating it from other internet slang or just general english/american lingo. If someone tells me that a certain phrase is AAVE I stop using it, but I'm sure that there are a lot of things I miss still. And most people who aren't native speakers just simply do not know that AAVE even exists or what it means culturally.
>It's not just kids - almost no one who has english as a second language knows what AAVE is or how to recognise it. Yeah as someone not from the US... Found out what it is seconds ago thanks to this post
I remember the first time seeing it being mentioned and was confused as 'aave' means ghost in my native language
haha ikr i was like ghost slang in capital letters 👻
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Feels like a lot of American slang my entire life has came from AAVE or “Ebonics” as it used to be called. Except for that short period where all of the modern slang was made up by California surf culture
Wow Ebonics takes me back, I remember my grandfather ranting about it without really understanding what he was talking about lol
Same here haha except dad instead of grandpa
Because it has. There have been some interesting articles/reports out there talking about this phenomenon. Most slang in US culture has come from the black and LGBTQ+ communities with younger women thrown a bit in there as well.
What about when tubular and radical and all that shit was popular haha
Well that’s why I said *most* slang. Obviously surfer slang is a thing as well.
Gag me with a spoon!
Exactly, I have no idea. Americans use a lot of acronyms
African American vernacular English
Thank you! This is exactly what I think happens to most. I've seen the acronym before but I didn't know exactly what it mean until I read these comments I was just about to ask if someone could provide a full list of AAVE terms because I'm not a native speaker and since I've been on reddit a few years there's a chance I've used it without realizing it
there's no list because of what OP is talking about. it keeps evolving because as the terms get adopted they fall out of use
Well...that's not quite right. AAVE is a dialect, so try writing down a full list of all slang terms of white suburban teens with Mid Cities dialects. Or those with Texan dialects. Or Bostonian dialects. Language is ever evolving and even as you finish compiling a list there will be new terms and phrases popping up because that's what language does.
I wouldn’t say there’s necessarily a list, because like commenters have been pointing out, a lot of the general slang phrases come from AAVE. However, as long as you don’t do the “blaccent” or start talking only in this slang when that’s not how you actually speak, I’d say you’re good.
Off to prison you go, you probably used AAVE. Unforgivable
> If someone tells me that a certain phrase is AAVE I stop using it but why?
As someone who's not a native English speaker, I feel like AAVE is fairly easy to recognize but maybe that's just from the many years I've spent online and the kind of media I consume.
Classic Americans thinking everybody on the internet is also American... Look guys, most of you don't know what's offensive in my culture either, the best way to solve this is to be patient and talk to each other.
This isn’t a case of us thinking “everyone is American,” we’re telling you a lot of the slang you use when you speak English is African American Vernacular English (AAVE), which comes from a distinct type of American culture, urban and/or southern black American. It’s not Gen Z slang, it is AAVE. Now you know. No one is offended. It’s just a fact.
You didn't say which phrases are AAVE and which are gen z slang. So now they actually don't know anything new. Saying AAVE exists doesn't teach anyone anything.
No cap On god It’s giving ____ Tell me ____ without telling me _____ Bussin This ain’t it Dead ass Low/high key Be so fr Bet Hits different Drip “Gyatttt” for god damn There’s a few. I have no idea what Gen Z actually came up with. Maybe “rizz” but most of the other ones I’ve been hearing for 10-15 years.
A lot of it is from Black drag culture, too.
You don't have to stop using it. Language is fluid and intersectional, you don't have to sensor yourself for the most part.
Choosing to be mindful of my language is not censoring myself.
That's also a good point!
Yeah and this is exactly how language evolves and always has. It moves from niche to universal. And in the US it often moves from the black community to the gay community to universal.
Yeah they’re just copying whatever they’re seeing on social media. I visited India recently and overheard some young boys saying things like “nah blud/fam/dayum” haha
As someone from Europe who reads this shit on the Internet I have no idea what AAVE is beyond what people criticise Gen Z on the Internet for.
That's what I'm saying, when you grow up on internet culture combined with hip hop being the dominant music form, that's just how it's going to be lol
I’m actually pretty forgiving when it comes to shit like this…but I was a rural/suburban (Native) kid who knew what “Ebonics” was when I was in high school 20yrs ago so I feel like these kids who have access to all the information in the world probably have a pretty good idea of what AAVE is. I also think this generation is much more capable of understanding the implications of using AAVE when you’re not a part of that community.
I'm Mexican and I remember we read an article about Ebonics in English class when I was in my first year of High School 18 years ago. The article was included in the English free school textbook the government handed out. It explained what Ebonics was and included some experiences of Black people using it and how the rest of the American population judged them for it. A few years ago I saw online a discussion about AAVE and immediately got that this was the new, better term for that. If I, a Mexican woman living in a small town in Mexico attending a public school English class before social media knew about this almost 20 years ago, I can't believe Americans are so oblivious.
I think the issue comes around knowing what words/phrases are and aren’t AAVE, not that AAVE exists. For example, I’m a native English speaker (not from the U.S.) and I only heard about the term “rizz” when it was named word of the year. No idea if it’s AAVE, I just know it’s a term the younguns are using (I’m 30 lol).
I'll say upfront that I am suburban white millennial, but not American. Every generation has its sheltered suburban or middle class kids affecting a different accent or vernacular that is not their own, but they perceive as cool. Remember the "fo' shizzle" era of the early 2000s? Yes it's annoying when you're older, and you finally see what your parents were complaining about, but this is nothing new. I can only imagine how it must feel if you are part of the minority who originated it though!
It’s like Chef says: “First we had The hizzie, and you copied that, then it became the hizizhouse, and y’all copied that too, so now we say “flippity floppity floop”
"Come on, Mr. Slave: let's go back to our flippity floppity floop!"
I fucking crack up when garrison says that
I had an English professor in my first semester at college who looked EXACTLY like the human incarnation of Mr. Garrison. He even kind of spoke like him. It took all of the willpower that I will ever have in my life to **not** ask him to say "Mr. Hat" or something lol
Omg I watched American Dragon Jake Long, the Disney show from mid 2000s, and the AAVE is CRAZY! Its definitely been a thing every generation but we see it more bc internet. Also white kids are using it with other white peers and white adults, so it's more obvious.
White people adopting/appropriating aspects of Black culture they consider cool (whether or not they are aware of that origin) in America can be traced back to *at least* the minstrel shows of the 19th century. And teens (especially teenage girls) have been at the forefront of language shift for centuries, either has the creator of new trends or the popularizer of someone else’s. This is very much not a distinctly Gen Z trend (though I suppose the way the internet expedites this diffusion is more unique than prior generations).
*Minstrel shows started in the 18th century, dominated American pop culture until it evolved into Tin Pan Alley and Vaudeville.
I can take a lot, but sometimes they crossover from using AAVE to acting like they discovered things black people have been doing or invented. I just CANNOT take sticky bang girl.
Who is she? I don't think I want to google "sticky bang girl." Lmao
I took the plunge for you and found out that some white girls on Tik Tok are calling laid edges "sticky bangs"
Sticky….bangs? 
what?! 🥴 damn, i’m gen z but even i get confused with our trends bc wtf 😳
I’m white as fuck and even I know that’s not what those are called 💀 Kids!
Recently discovered “sleepy girl mocktails” which is just lean, like girl…WAT Haven’t heard of sticky bangs until right now, that’s hilarious.
Lmaooo why is that so funny, giving it a cutesy name and it’s just *lean* 😂
As a black millenual this isn't a gen z problem. It's just how language and culture works
Right? The Offspring sang Pretty Fly for a White Guy a quarter of a century ago.
Okay so my problematic trait is I learned English from the Internet and I had no idea what AAVE was
The worst cases of improper AAVE I’ve seen are international young stans on twitter actually, so this makes more sense to me now 😅 They probably don’t know what they’re saying isn’t quite right
Graduating high school got me the second highest English language certificate but boy I didn't understand half the shit people on the internet were saying. It's SO hard to speak/write like a native speaker. In school you learn how to write an essay about Shakespeare, not what the hell "stan", "wanna" mean or which grammar rules you can break.
spending so much money, time and effort to learn all the grammar rules only to witness native speakers breaking ALL OF THEM
That's why we do it
Yeah same for me. I thought it’s just slang because everyone I interacted with on the internet talked like that. I only recently learned what AAVE is.
Until a few years ago I genuinely thought those were just stan twitter slang words
same 😭😭😭
My first and only language is English yet I didn’t know what AAVE is (still don’t really lol)
Same. I had to google it. I'm not American and the abbreviation meant nothing to me until I read up on it. I wouldn't have known the origin of the 'Karen' thing had I not read it in the post today.
Exactly I’m not American either and wouldn’t have known any of this
So, could someone actually explain what the abbreviation *AAVE* means? Like, what do the letters stand for?
African-American Vernacular English
You’ll find a lot of British people are also completely unaware that we have BBVE here. Black British Vernacular English.
That’s more known as Multicultural London English, which has spread around in recent years. I grew up in an area of London where that was how people spoke and outsiders had a hard time understanding. Now I live in Ireland and I’m hearing kids speak like they’re from south london.
[African American Vernacular English](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Vernacular_English). It’s a dialect of American English with its own unique language structure.
African American Vernacular English
As a 27 year old black woman who grew up in a suburban white town (MY WHOLE LIFE) I’ll say it is annoying BUT at the end of the day it’s just words idk (now don’t get crazy lol). Also it’s kinda nice to be able to talk “regular” (in AAVE) and the majority gets it. Bc growing up the code switching and explaining I had to do got old QUICK. I guess I’m just in a it is what it is phase. We’re always the trendsetters even if people don’t know it
Saying ‘it’s just words’ brings up an interesting point. I was reading the Wikipedia link from a reply here, and got to the section on the legal system in social context. One entry gave me pause : ‘in Louisiana v. Demesme, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that the defendant's statement "why don't you give me a lawyer, dog" was too ambiguous to be considered a Miranda request for a lawyer.’ But another point was mentioned: ‘a lack of familiarity with AAVE (and other minority dialects of English) on the part of jurors, stenographers, and others can lead to misunderstandings in court. They especially focus on the Trayvon Martin case and how the testimony of Rachel Jeantel was perceived as incomprehensible and not credible by the jury due to her dialect. A 2019 experimental study found that court stenographers in Philadelphia regularly fail to transcribe AAVE accurately, with about 40 percent of sentences being inaccurate, and only 83% accuracy at the word level, despite court stenographers being certified at or above 95% accuracy. Their study suggests that there is evidence that court reporters may potentially introduce incorrect transcriptions into the official court record, with ramifications in cross-examination, jury deliberations, and appeals.’ This is something that never even crossed my mind, and it makes it VERY important that AAVE needs to be understood!
That was a difficult interview to watch with the juror who deemed her unintelligent. She spoke 3 languages and was maligned for her accent. 🙄
Shouldn’t people whose job it is to transcribe spoken words be the MOST aware of trends and cultures in language? Because you would think that would be a big fucking function of their job. AAVE is reality and how most people I know under the age of 40, regardless of ethnicity, talk.
You would think, but I don’t know the requirements or experience needed to be a court transcriber, or even the training given. Could be that the courts haven’t thought of it.
It’s very hard and most people do not complete the program. It’s like learning a second language because you don’t type with a regular keyboard, you only use like 10 keys so you’re as fast as possible. I’d imagine they don’t require learning things like AAVE because graduating from the program at all is already quite difficult Here is a video https://youtu.be/QnvFqmtmc6E?si=5I6EkqEsjZlzCDU6
I hadn't thought of it that way, but that's a great point! Have you found that in recent years if you speak in AAVE you face less judgement?
Honestly yes, compared to when I was younger I feel much more free now in my speech. Even with my mom who speaks rather proper (if you will) she doesn’t correct me how she used to. Certain words I say she’s like “oh my students say that” and sometimes she asks what it means/it’s a funny moment for us
This story is wholesome af. That’s interesting too, about feeling less judgement and pressure to code switch, etc.
That's great, I suppose it does then have some positive influence! I guess my concern is that if its no longer 'trendy' will it revert back, but who knows!
That’s a take I hadn’t considered before, esp. with the code switching. I’m also black, also grew up in a very racist predominantly white area; I know that there were definitely consequences for letting my language ‘slip’ around my peers; the same folks who would mimic black language were the same ones who would treat you like a caricature for speaking it. I’m a bit older (36) but I think I feel less guarded around younger people for that reason. it wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision, just conditioning, but I don’t self police half as much around black people or other poc. Nobody likes to be the n-bomb police when they’re 10.
Black guy here, I don’t particularly get annoyed by it I just cringe so hard I couldn’t explain it in court
It’s cringe but I’m not about to call it out or respond EVERY time I see it online.
I’m not American so technically not AAVE but I live in Toronto and all the “man dem” are trying to sound like Drake. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a legit “inner city” accent and dialect: a mix of Caribbean patois, Arabic, Somali, some Hindi, Punjabi and AAVE/BAME English. But it’s not the natural accent for the white kids from the suburbs, but damn if they don’t try.
Lmfao I can spot that GTA/Toronto "accent" anywhere 😭😂 it's so bad
Wallahi fam. Gets me bare cheesed.
I remember the first time my younger brother said "bare" in a sentence... you can imagine my face when I learned it means "plenty/alot/really" rather than "none/empty". We still fight about it.
That’s funny 😆 my family is Jamaican so thankfully it makes understanding most of it pretty easy but then they pull out things like “crodie”and I’m like wtf???? (I work with young adults, they keep me fresh and urban dictionary is in my bookmarks bar).
Yeah I'm a redheaded white kid from the boonies. My little brother keeps me young and hip thank god 😂😭 Wtf is a crodie 😭😭😭😭
Apparently a “bro”/ synonym fore bredgen but using Crip rules (ie swap Bs for Cs) 🙄🙄🙄
BRUH WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME 😭😭😭😭😭
Ha, now you can one up your bother!
I'm 100% using it at dinner tomorrow bless you "fam" 💀😂😭
That's because, imo, a lot of kids and teens are watching content creators from all around the word and communicate with so many different people. If you watch most of the british youtubers then you hear words like innit, man dem etc all the time. It kinda becomes ingrained in your brain. Not joking I had the issue in the past that my thoughts sounded british.
I’m speaking to a specific vernacular that exists where I live. It is not AAVE because we are not US Americans but it draws on different English dialects such as AAVE, it uses non-English words and phrases from the languages/cultures that reflect the ethnic make up of the communities from which it emerged. I’m just saying that the phenomenon isn’t just with AAVE, it’s a shared experience where black and brown people’s cultures are lifted as trends for people entirely unconnected to its history and won’t contribute to its evolution.
I wasn't disagreeing with you just adding to it.
Reminds me of how sometimes when certain people turn to talk to me they change how they speak to sound black. It’s fucking jarring to hear Sharon go “oopsie daisy mark, dropped your pe—oh medium-sense! Wazzup bruh, fo shizzle no?”
Lol this reminds me of a scene from Vanderpump Rules. One of the women in the show, Lala (she's white and from Utah), goes to a recording studio and the 2 guys in the recording studio are black. Lala greets them by saying 'what up my brotha'. And they just said 'hi :)'
Yeah people always look embarrassed after i start speaking bc they’re the only ones talking like that
Haha, I suppose that's a good method to show people how silly they sound.
Oh you mean Tupac reincarnated?
IMO, there can also be a lot of crossover with Southern speak. Like everyone has decided to say “y’all”, which is a Southern thing that both black and white people in certain areas have been saying for at least 100 years. The same for some cultural things. People might say you’re “ghetto” for having a cup of used grease in your cupboard, but literally everyone in the South has one! Poor rural people have a lot in common, regardless of skin color.
I’m not holding it against them because everyone does this regardless of which generation they fall under. But I do think it’s annoying when people insist that something is gen Z slang when it’s AAVE.
That's the part that bothers me. They don't want to admit the origins. It's like they just want to white wash it to "Gen Z slang" when we've been saying terms. Also, AAVE isn't slang, so it's annoying when it's called that.
I personally don’t think that it’s because they “don’t want to admit the origins”, but more that they don’t *know* the origins. One is malicious, one is ignorance, and that is important to take into consideration.
The ignorance oftentimes turns into straight up malice when people get corrected about it though, that’s my problem. People are often met with anything from sass to straight up hostility for correcting people that it’s not “Gen Z slang” but rather AAVE.
This is the only comment here that actually says what’s wrong lol. I’m an open minded person so I’m genuinely curious to learn but admitting you don’t know something is apparently bad for Reddit.
a more recent term is the cringiest I've found, seeing "gyat" makes me want to hurl the way it's being misused. I've never used it, but I've seen how it's supposed to be used so seeing these little white boys saying "level 10 gyat" (as a synonym for "butt") is so cringy. For those unaware, "gyat" is written the way catcallers will say "god damn" in a certain way (when seeing a woman with a nice/large butt or nice body) where the "god" part sounds like "gyat." I believe that's the origin but I could definitely be wrong.
>gyat they think it means "girl you are thick" 😭
I also noticed this misuse, but have accepted that it is a misuse that is now the main use, however fucking stupid it is.
Reminds me of that white woman who was complaining about $1k+ Coachella tickets and said out of nowhere “I’m finna be in the pit”. It was so weird because that’s the only time she uses AAVE inflections in the video (she got roasted for it, obviously).
That’s language for you and globalization due to internet. It develops n changes over time and a lot of language will be used casually from all backgrounds. Nothing can be done about it. No cap 🥴😂
Exactly. Language will always evolve.
It's kinda fascinating how common the expirence is that youth use terms/dialects of minority, repressed groups. In Germany it's mostly Turkish, because we have a lot of immigrants from Turkey. Growing up in the 2010s grown ups often lost their shit over young people using terms like "yalla", "alman" or "habibi". Obviously it's not the same thing in the US since African Americans aren't first/second generation immigrants, but besides the obvious problematic aspects, I think it can also have a positive influence. Get people together, and reduce discrimination by nature of people being closer to each other. Not saying that white people using AAVE is exclusively great thing. But since it's kind of an automated process and no one is doing it on purpose, I hope it can do some good things.
> It's kinda fascinating how common the expirence is that youth use terms/dialects of minority, repressed groups. I was amazed at how far back this went. A young *Julius Caesar* was as criticized for adopting the fashion and slang of the pleibean class despite being from one of the upper echelons of the patrician class. This really seems to be a reoccurring thing in human society. I wonder why that is.
Yes, because the amount of times I’ve read and heard someone under the age of 28 use “GYAT” incorrectly is going to make me blow a gasket.
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Yes
My incredibly privileged white 1%er friend told me the other day her 11 year old son can teach my 10 month old daughter all his tricks like "GYAT and all the new slang".
YES. VERY. and it seems to be 90% of their vocab too. they sound like they don't know wtf they're saying. i work with white kids (16-23) who talk like this and it's embarrassing as fuck 😭
It's only annoying because AAVE and slang aren't interchangeable, and sometimes people are making fun of words that have contextual usage, grammatical rules, and cultural meaning. I'll never forget what they did to "Bae"! Every older Black woman I know uses that word-- my mom called me Bae my whole life-- and it absolutely sucked hearing people on and off the internet disparage that word.
It is extremely bad in the Dallas area. Every other word out of their mouth is “on God” or the N-word. Embarrassing.
there's worse things in life to get outrage for.
The problem went from discrimination to usage. For example: white people used to be racist towards our slang but now they take it and change the meaning. The perfect example is woke. Woke is a VERY old word and used to (still does 😒) being conscious of what's going on but now it basically means 'anti anything thats not white christian male'.
To be transparent though- its being weaponized not just by "white people" but specifically a class of people in power knowingly using it to distract and piss off groups POLITICALLY as propaganda. Most of this anti rhetoric i see pissing off races at one another is full-on CLASS manipulation, full stop. And we fall for it every time.
Gen Z is not in government. This one not on us lol
Yes. And its for sure not just Gen z. For the most part its not using but when told the history behind shit they get offended OR people ignore the history behind things. Of course how global the internet is you’re gonna get people adopting each others lingo but some shit is annoying. One of my friends keep saying “bute” “bool” etc and i was like are you a Blood?? And she had 0 idea that that was the reason people switch out c’s for b’s🤦🏾♀️ One of my other friends (i live in nyc) and tried to use “dumb” in a sentence and it was wrong 😂 like just stick to what yall know PLEASE
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Can you explain the context of saying “dumb” ?
Dumb can be like very, extremely etc “She is dumb pretty” “its dumb cold outside”
Ah, I see. Thanks for taking time to share.
Interesting, I didn’t know that came from black culture, I’ve been saying things like “it’s stupid cold outside” for decades. I always said stupid though, not dumb. Same thing I guess lol
Eh, i don't mind it too much, i just hate when they are called out on it and they dismiss the fact that it is indeed AAVE. It's not internet slang. It's how WE talk, the internet has simply popularized it. That part is frustrating. Also, when they use terms wrongly. That shit is infuriating 😂 if you're going to talk like us please do it right. You can't just throw "deadass" around all willy nilly, it doesn't work like that.
Ah. Flashbacks to having learned to speak English from watching The Wire as a teenager, and then promptly getting chewed out online for a) using AAVE while white from Eastern Europe and b) debasing myself by using AAVE. Both black and white people finally finding common ground in telling me to get fucked for having learned 'the wrong English, and not even speaking the wrong English correctly'. These days the few that still try are easily shut down with a glib little "wanna continue this conversation in *my* native Estonian?" Online especially, since online you cannot hear a person's accent, so you can't tell that they might not be a native speaker. And most anglophones, but especially Americans, tend to assume that everybody else is American or at the very least anglophone too, and not really understanding just how much of a cultural hegemon America is outside its own borders. It utterly dominates Western popular media. Of course non-Americans are going to regurgitate what's fed to them, correctly, incorrectly, partially correctly.
Why was this asked here? Why have you asked a bunch of non-Black people this question?
A bunch of non americans I had no idea OP was talking about
I’m wondering the same thing.
The amount of people thinking AAVE is ‘just regular slang’ shows exactly why this was not the right place to ask.
The part that bothers me is when non-Black people insist that AAVE is "just slang". They do not want to acknowledge the Black people and communities where those words emerged from. For eg., manyyyyy non-Black people will insist that 'Karen' is not rooted/coming from Black people.
And it's not just the slang terms, but the unique grammar.
I think that 99% of the people who use the term Karen don't know its origin, and its meaning has become SO watered down. The same can be applied to mental health, such as impulsive vs intrusive thoughts. Words have a meaning, people. And the origin of words and its correct application is important.
I have to agree. Karen has become "b*tch" for those who don't want to outright call a woman a b*tch...regardless of whether or not she's being racist or calling the cops on someone. I was called a Karen for ignoring a cat caller recently.
Yeah, it’s now just transformed into a catchall term to be shit towards women. Same thing for not like other girls.
Just like “narcissist” is used now for anyone you don’t like or treated you poorly. It’s basically lost its meaning. Same with gaslighting
And "trauma", too, ngl... "trauma" is not a synonym for "unpleasant experience." (I think this is due, in part, to how "trauma" carries more perceived weight/credibility than other terms, so it's a way to get people to take one's distress/hurt more seriously).
Yes! It sucks that these words are becoming meaningless because there are people with legitimate trauma
It also brings up an interesting question; yes, languages/terms/sayings are always evolving and their meanings change, but I wonder how often these changes are influenced by people misusing them and applying them wrong.
My guess is very often but that's part of how all language evolves.
>The same can be applied to mental health Narcissist, gaslighting...
I don't think origin is really that important. I don't stop to acknowledge the French when I say 40% of the borrowed words in English. Language is a unique organism that's ever-changing and ever-growing. It's totally great if people want to know the origins of words or phrases, but it's not necessary to use the phrase. Even correct application changes with time since meanings are descriptive not prescriptive.
The origin matters when we black people still get in trouble for using AAVE or when we try to politely correct people they act like it didn’t originate from AAVE
Origin is incredibly important with AAVE. While I'm not American I'm black and our own form of dialect exist where I'm from and for years it was considered talking bad when used. I think black Americans would encounter the same negative label when speaking AAVE. However when white people do it it's cool and acceptable. There is a reason code switching exists where black people speak completely differently when talking to white people and when talking to other black people. French has an esteemed reputation because of its origins and is consistently praised, AAVE has not experienced the same. The two languages are not comparable and have not experienced the same treatment. Anyone else who is more knowledgeable can verify what I've said.
I agree and disagree, yes language is evolving, but AAVE as a dialect is established and it’s important to understand it/its origins and uses.
Ok you can still steal and distort words from established languages without it being offensive. That's why there are false friends in language: a word was borrowed and the meaning changed. Like yesterday I learned the word récipient. I thought it would be someone who receives something because that's what it is in English, but it's actually a receptacle or a container. It's slightly different, but it's okay because that's how language works.
literally majority of these comments are lowkey just boiling down AAVE to slang
That's what I'm not getting. It's a dialect with its own grammar and pronunciation. I don't see how copying some phrases from that dialect is anything like "speaking AAVE",
Exactly this.
https://preview.redd.it/ogbq567bhzfc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=052ebff9dbf6fb49f6cd027210dea106003a18ee
right? idk why we need to get up in arms about who uses what slang. at the end of the day, most people that are upset about hearing white kids use black slang isn't because they're concerned about cultural appropriation
It's as if no one in this thread remembers the "[I speak jive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0j2dVuhr6s)" scene from Airplane!
Not just Gen Z but white twitter and then the larger mainstream population, yes. Woke, deadass, hits different, all terms I've seen used on twitter for years by black people before the past year or two when suddenly white people use it and it looks terrible. Woke in particular has entered the mainstream in the biggest way and also been bastardised to mean "politically correct" and used as an insult. I guess this has always happened, the black to white gays to white women to white men pipeline of slang isn't new, it's just sped up because of the internet. Gen Z adopting popular slang is more acceptable to me than older generations doing it because that's what young people have always done. It's hearing 60 year old white dudes say "woke" that irritates me.
Adopting slang or language in general is a fluid thing. Language is always being picked up so holding certain people to a different standard than others is weird. If you like words, you tend to use them. For example if you are learning a second language and you hear words or phrases you like, you're more likely to reuse them and make them a significant part of your vocabulary.
Back in my day it was Ebonics 🤣
Formerly known as Ebonics
This happens in other cultural contexts too. Here in the UK you had "Mockney", a faux-Cockney accent adopted by people who very much did not grow up with that sort of accent. Now you have a similar thing with rich kids from the Home Counties using terms from MLE ever since Grime got big (this one in particular irks me when I see the same middle class kids from my school who'd take the piss out of the working class kids and myself at school for being 'chavs' are now calling everyone bruv and fam) Seems to be quite common for richer people to take the cultural mannerisms of a multicultural working class and recuperate them
As a 90s white girl who grew up in the hood, AAVE wasn’t known to us back then. We were just growing up being kids. There were only 3 white families on my block, everyone else was black or Mexican. I grew up listening to hip hop and dancing with my friends after school but I knew what words I could and could not say. I guess it all depends on the circumstances.
It’s most obvious and jarring to me when I hear it on TikTok from non-black content creators from abroad!! The disconnect is real. People just parrot whatever they hear online
Every generation says it about the next
What's AAVE?
African American Vernacular English, formerly known as “Ebonics”. Basically the formal term for the dialect that has emerged in many black communities across America, initially due to slavery and segregation. AAVE has a lot of vocabulary that has been popularized as “internet slang” and a lot of people are (rightfully) frustrated that their unique cultural language is being dismissed as internet-speak.
Yes, because then everyone calls it “gen Z speak” when it’s really just white suburban kids misusing AAVE, because they don’t understand any of the grammar rules it’s honestly just bc the internet is so prevalent now, so when black people speak in AAVE and go viral everyone else is like “WRITE THAT DOWN WRITE THAT DOWN”
I find it more annoying that people can’t understand/recognize that it is AAVE.
I’m a white person who went to majority black public schools until I was a sophomore in high school, then I transferred to a rich, majority white private school. At the majority white school I was teased (even by the few POC that went there) because I “sounded ghetto”, so I ended up changing the way I spoke so I could fit in. It wasn’t until I was halfway through college that I learned what AAVE was and realized that I “sounded ghetto” to the private school kids because I was using AAVE without even knowing it. And I mean, why wouldn’t I have used AAVE? I spent my first 10 years of school surrounded by it, so of course that’s how I would have learned to speak. I don’t think it’s annoying that Gen Z and Gen Alpha use AAVE so frequently, what’s annoying is that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are being credited with creating these AAVE words / phrases when they didn’t.
I don’t find it annoying anymore. Millennials did the same thing with AAVE and black people slang is so prevalent in online spaces it is bound to pick up usage by being who aren’t black. As of now slang is not as segregated anymore. There used to be pretty strong regional slang when it comes to AAVE and that has become more mixed as well. So yeah it’s going to cross racial barriers as well. That doesn’t mean it will be adapted properly though and you will notice the grammar mistakes from time to time.
You can't segregate culture and keep it in a box.
I think you’re just old enough to realize it’s happening so it’s more pronounced. When you are in the younger generation very few realize where trends are coming from. Once you’re older and your life becomes more insular (compared to life of a middle schooler) it’s much more obvious to notice the difference. You’re just getting closer to the feeling of wanting the kids off your lawn, so to speak—which is also normal. Generations will not have all the same exact viewpoints, references, and fundamental beliefs.
People are free to complain about it and point out how problematic it might be, but I don't see how it will actually *change* anything. It's best to consider it the inevitable result of cultural acceptance/integration; that is, you cannot have one without the other.
Yes and no. I'm so used to it at this point that the only energy I give it is an eye roll.
You know the word “cool” is from AAVE right. Almost every slang term in America can be traced to AAVE
Tale as old as time! Slang usually goes from black people (often black women) —> gay people —> everybody else
This sound like a very american problem to have.
OMG Americans talking about other groups adopting African AMERICAN Vernacular English 😱😱😱
Absolutely. Yes.