Pronunciation

      The strongest argument in favor of the African Origins of Ebonics is that of pronunciation. Different languages contain different sets of phonetics. When a foreign speaker first attempts to use a phonetic sound that is non in his native tongue, he will often use a native sound that closely approximates the new sound.

      For instance, the "ch" consonant cluster is pronounced differently in German that it is in English. In German, the pronunciation is similar to the English "sh" sound, except that it is a little more guttural. When an American student of German encounters this consonant cluster, he will probably pronounce it as "ch" or "sh", until he is properly trained. The word Ich will come out as "Itch" or "Ish", instead of the proper pronunciation which sounds something like "I(k)sh".

     Every language in the world has its own unique set of phonics - Even animal languages. Here is a breakdown of a few.

English: 45 Sounds
Foxes: 36 Sounds
Dolphins: 28 Sounds
Italian: 27 Sounds
Chickens: 25 Sounds
Chimpanzees: 20 Sounds
Hawaiian: 13 Sounds
Prairie dogs: 10 Sounds

      Even though our Alphabet only contains 26 characters, we use 45 different phonetic sounds when we speak. By contrast, Italian only uses 27. This means that if an Italian was to try to speak English, he would need to learn several new Phonetic sounds in order to speak the language correctly. If they are not properly trained, they will try to speak another language using the phonetics of their native tongue. This phonetic substitution is the most apparent feature of a foreign speaker. It's the primary reason foreign speakers have an "accent".
      The exact nuances of a foreign sound are difficult to mimic by people learning a new language. For another example, take a look at the Spanish J,as in the word jalapeņo. This is a word that most Americans know and use regularly, but we usually pronounce this word as hollow-pain-yo. We are simply are using the sounds that are familiar to us, but that is not exactly how a true Mexican speaker would pronounce it. The "J" in Spanish is similar to the English H, but not exactly the same.

These slight differences in phonetics can actually be used to differentiate one group from another, which can sometimes be fatal! An example of this is given in Judges 12:

  1. Jephthah then called together the men of Gilead and fought against Ephraim. The Gileadites struck them down because the Ephraimites had said, "You Gileadites are renegades from Ephraim and Manasseh."
  2. The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, "Let me cross over," the men of Gilead asked him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he replied, "No,"
  3. they said, "All right, say `Shibboleth.'" If he said, "Sibboleth," because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.

      As a result of this story, we use the word "shibboleth" to mean an arbitrary linguistic marker that distinguishes one group from another. A 20th-century parallel to the Biblical shibboleth story took place in the Dominican Republic in 1937, when tens of thousands of Haitians were massacred on the basis of whether or not they could roll the /r/ in the Spanish word for "parsley."

      There are several of these phonetic distinctions present in Ebonic speech, and the root of these errors can be traced back to African languages. Most West African languages do not contain consonant clusters. So, it shouldn't be a surprise that modern Ebonic speech leaves them out as well.

The most obvious mispronunciation is that of the "th" sound. West African languages do not have a "th" sound. So, when African slaves were trying to speak English, they would often replace the "th" sound with a "d" or a "f". This substitution is still in use in words such as that, which is often pronounced as "dat".

Here are several more examples.
When a word starts with TH,
it is replace by d 		This That Those
dis dat doz
When a word ends with TH,
it is replace by f 		Both Mouth Breath
bof mowf bref
In the cluster ct, the t is
dropped and simply becomes k. 		reject respect collect
rejek respek kollek
In the cluster pt, the t is
dropped dropped as well, making it simply p. 		except crept slept
eksep krep slep
ft is shortened to f. lift left shift
lif lef shif
st becomes s. best nest listen
bes nes lissen
ld becomes l. build hold child
bil hole chile
nd becomes n. band send wind
ban sen win
sk becomes s. mask desk task
mas des tas
rk becomes k. fork pork chop
foke poke chop
ing is shortened to in. looking walking talking
lookin' walkin' talkin'
Although it is not a consonant cluster, the
"retroflex velar spirant" r is absent
from African languages, and is often dropped. 		floor more whore
flo mo ho




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Bibliography:

"shibboleth" Story - http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fall_1998/ling001/prescription.html