I see in American movies black people use a very pronounced accent. Although they are born into American families and spend long years in a white-populated atmosphere and assimilated into the culture where they live in, it is easy for one to figure out a black man is talking in the movie, without even seeing the picture. It goes even for the most famous black actors such as Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Morgan Freeman etc. Why is that their accent easily reveals their ethnic identity? Aren't they supposed to have lost their sound features?

I hope this one isn't an offensive question. Sorry if you feel you've been discriminated

Accent of a person depends on varios factors. The most important of these is the accent of the parents. A boy usually speaks like his father and a girl like her mother. I think the real cause is this. :)

I think because of genetic.For example why black are good at playing basketball.They show us incredible movements.

I think because of genetic.For example why black are good at playing basketball.They show us incredible movements.

Be careful. This is quite offensive. And genetics has nothing to do with what sort of language or accent a person speaks.

Good question Kili.

I assume this topic in that way... You know all of us have shadows. They are very close to us, at the same time very far. They are alike us, but they are not. It is difficult for me to explain my deep-inner thoughts but as far as I'm experienced in the States, African-Americans keep themselves seperate from the others intentionaly.

African-Americans keep themselves seperate from the others intentionaly.

I would say, from my experience, that they are kept separate from others intentionally. Racism is institutionalized in American society.

it is easy for one to figure out a black man is talking in the movie, without even seeing the picture. It goes even for the most famous black actors such as Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Morgan Freeman etc.

Be careful with the example of actors, though: actors often change their speech and accent according to the role they are playing.

I don't agree with the idea that they are intentionally or not kept separate from others. If it were true, the same thing would have to be applied to other colonies (small comunities) in America, such as japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Turkish. I don't remember I saw a Turkish who was born in the USA and spent his 20 years uninterruptedly but still gives away his Turkish accent.

I don't agree with the idea that they are intentionally or not kept separate from others. If it were true, the same thing would have to be applied to other colonies (small comunities) in America, such as japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Turkish.

I have to disagree strongly with this. There are, of course, exceptions, and the situation is nowhere near as bad as it was just 50 years ago ... but, from what I have seen while living there for three decades, I would say that African-Americans are still, to a great extent, shoved aside and kept separate.

This fact, incidentally, probably has played a large role in the preservation of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). We can also note that, since AAVE is—for a number of reasons, including racist ones—frowned upon as “wrong”, many African-Americans whose speech is naturally AAVE also engage in what is called code-switching; that is, changing their speech into standard American English in some situations while reverting to AAVE in others.

Be careful. This is quite offensive. And genetics has nothing to do with what sort of language or accent a person speaks.

I think I can't tell what I want to express.By saying genetic I intend the general shape of people which belong to the same race,nation,region...
So I think the shape of mouth play a part on accent,but I don't have any information about medicine

So I think the shape of mouth play a part on accent,but I don't have any information about medicine

I don’t know much about the medicine or physiology of it, either ... but I seriously doubt that—except perhaps in the case of some physical disabilities—any humans’ mouth shape is different enough from any other humans’ mouth shape to affect the accent with which a person speaks. The human mouth is essentially the same shape regardless of one’s race.

Its not the "accent".
They just show off by talking like that.
(To be noticed...)

Bkz: Eziklik duygusu.

It doesn't matter whether they are actors or actresses now, they were raised in an environment quite different from white people's and they had been there long enough for Black American English :)

Here is some interesting info

http://people.uncw.edu/martinezm/BLACK%20AMERICAN%20ENGLISH.ppt#264,12

Its not the "accent".
They just show off by talking like that.
(To be noticed...)

Bkz: Eziklik duygusu.

And no! don't get me wrong! Im not trying to be racist. But Ive studied with many black people in my old school, thats where I got this thought for them.

Its not the "accent".
They just show off by talking like that.
(To be noticed...)

That, by the way, is very offensive. African-American English is a very well-established dialect of English with its own set of patterns and grammatical rules. It's not, except in certain rare cases, a way of "showing off".

C'mon like didn't you hear any black business man talking?
He sure was talking like "the way african-american english" when at the age of 13-25.
Then probably he could not continue, because he had a career. He can't do hip-hop talk anymore :p

C'mon like didn't you hear any black business man talking?
He sure was talking like "the way african-american english" when at the age of 13-25.
Then probably he could not continue, because he had a career. He can't do hip-hop talk anymore :p

See my above comment about code-switching. And African-American English is a hell of a lot more than so-called "hip-hop talk".

You probs right. Those are not the same things.
I can't comment about the African-English.

I have to disagree strongly with this. There are, of course, exceptions, and the situation is nowhere near as bad as it was just 50 years ago ... but, from what I have seen while living there for three decades, I would say that African-Americans are still, to a great extent, shoved aside and kept separate.

This fact, incidentally, probably has played a large role in the preservation of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). We can also note that, since AAVE is—for a number of reasons, including racist ones—frowned upon as “wrong”, many African-Americans whose speech is naturally AAVE also engage in what is called code-switching; that is, changing their speech into standard American English in some situations while reverting to AAVE in others.

This could be true of other nations and their so-called outcasts. The reality of black people is not like that of other sub-cultural minorities. Imagine Kurdish people, Irish minorities, Spanish Basques. Theirs is a reaction that stems from the concern of preserving sub-cultural identity and I understand it to a certain extend. But I find it incomprehensible why black people would claim to preserve their etnical traditions as they have already been melted in the melting-pot of modern America. So such an argument as to whether black people are shoved aside seems to be a far cry. There is apparently nothing much left behind to do with their roots, customs, inveterate folklore. The issue is quite different compared to other communities, I think.

This could be true of other nations and their so-called outcasts. The reality of black people is not like that of other sub-cultural minorities. Imagine Kurdish people, Irish minorities, Spanish Basques. Theirs is a reaction that stems from the concern of preserving sub-cultural identity and I understand it to a certain extend. But I find it incomprehensible why black people would claim to preserve their etnical traditions as they have already been melted in the melting-pot of modern America. So such an argument as to whether black people are shoved aside seems to be a far cry. There is apparently nothing much left behind to do with their roots, customs, inveterate folklore. The issue is quite different compared to other communities, I think.

Where , why and how black people went (or were transported )to the places where they live now is a matter of question I think, because while the nations you have mentioned above went to the USA or somewhere else at their will , black people went there or were shipped or transported there against their will and their descendants are now found around the globe ,so I do not think they feel they belong to anywhere and I believe they have been sufferring more or less from identity crisis and they are considered and treated as a second class citizen wherever they are UNFORTUNATELY!

Where , why and how black people went (or were transported )to the places where they live now is a matter of question I think, because while the nations you have mentioned above went to the USA or somewhere else at their will , black people went there or were shipped or transported there against their will and their descendants are now found around the globe ,so I do not think they feel they belong to anywhere and I believe have been sufferring more or less from identity crisis .

Yes I believe they belong to a culture but considering the very long pace of time, they have long been assimilated and they have no assertion that they are a culturally different identity.

But I find it incomprehensible why black people would claim to preserve their etnical traditions as they have already been melted in the melting-pot of modern America.

This is partly my point: they have not really been "melted in the melting-pot of modern America" because that "melting-pot" is, in large part (though not entirely), a myth. The extreme case of shoving aside—though nowadays it's more like quietly pushing aside, or rather maintaining the system that keeps so many people on the side, on the margins—is seen in African-Americans ... but it has been true, and in many cases continues to be true, with other groups as well: Hispanics, Chinese, Irish and Italians (in both of which cases it was largely anti-Catholicism), etc.

There is apparently nothing much left behind to do with their roots, customs, inveterate folklore.

Actually, much of African-American English is rooted in West African languages, just as a great deal of African-American folklore is rooted in West African folklore. There is also, of course, music that arose largely from African-American culture—such as blues, jazz, gospel, and rap—all of which can be traced without much difficulty directly back to West African musical forms. In short, there is very much "left behind" that distinctly and clearly has "to do with their roots".

And the maintenance of all of these by African-Americans is, to a great extent, a matter of survival. You say that "[t]he reality of black people is not like that of other sub-cultural minorities", but I think it very clearly is. Just as you say in regards to "Kurdish people, Irish minorities, Spanish Basques", "[t]heirs is a reaction that stems from the concern of preserving sub-cultural identity."

Yes I believe they belong to a culture but considering the very long pace of time, they have long been assimilated and they have no assertion that they are a culturally different identity.

No matter who believes as long as most of them do not believe and yes they have been assimilated but under what conditions ?

No matter who believes as long as most of them do not believe and yes they have been assimilated but under what conditions ?

If African-Americans have been assimilated, which I don’t believe they fully have, then it has been a forced assimilation. So, the conditions are hardly optimal, are they?

No matter who believes as long as most of them do not believe and yes they have been assimilated but under what conditions ?

Yaw it is ok, I agree that black people lived through massive persecution. And I don't disagree with it. My point is to do with their present situation. I am not playing down the historical ordeal they went through.

Here is some interesting info

http://people.uncw.edu/martinezm/BLACK%20AMERICAN%20ENGLISH.ppt#264,12

From the above text, just for the hell of it, here are two examples of forced assimilation, both in terms of correcting standard African-American English pronunciation so as to conform to so-called Standard American English:

ON THE BOARD I HAD WRITTEN THE FOLLOWING EQUATION: 3A + 3B = 33.

AN AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDENT READ: “TREE AEY PLUS TREE BEE EQUAL TOITY-TREE.”

I REALIZED THAT THERE WAS A COMPLETE ABSENCE OF THE USE OF THE “TH” SOUND.

REMEDY: THE NEXT DAY, I WROTE ON THE BOARD: “THE THINKER THREW THREE THOUSAND THINKING THOUGHTS TO THEM, THESE, THEY AND THOSE.”

STUDENTS WERE ASKED, IN A CARING WAY, TO IMAGINE THAT THEY HAD CANDY STUCK ON THE FRONT OF THEIR TEETH AND HAD TO REMOVE IT BY STICKING THE TIP OF THE TONGUE OUT BEYOND THEIR FRONT ROW OF TEETH, AS THEY SAID THE ABOVE EXPRESSION AT LEAST 20 TIMES DURING THE DAY.

THERE WERE NO MORE “TREES” OR “TOITYS” MENTIONED IN MATH. IN ADDITION, STUDENTS WERE TAUGHT THAT IN THIS MATH EQUATION, THE SYMBOL = IS PRONOUNCED “EQUALS” [WITH AN S AT THE END], NOT “EQUAL.”

***

I TAUGHT THE STANDARD ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION OF “ASK” AS FOLLOWS: “FIRST YOU HAVE TO SAY ‘ASS’ AS IN JACKASS. THEN YOU ADD A SOFT ‘KUH’ SOUND.” WE REPEATED IT TOGETHER SEVERAL TIMES: “ASS-KUH.”

Yaw it is ok, I agree that black people lived through massive persecution. And I don't disagree with it. My point is to do with their present situation. I am not playing down the historical ordeal they went through.

I m not either as their conditions have not changed much through the history and they are still surviving on leftovers , who they are taught to read and write by and where , under what conditions and in what parts of a city they live in, how many of their humanly needs are met and how , blah blah and I think all these and many others prevent them from using standart English . If you grow up in an environment full of people with standart English , you will use the same standart of English it is something like any accent in our country, while the ones still living in the area where the accent is used use it others having left the area at an early age do not but still having a bit :)

I think all these and many others prevent them from using standart English . If you grow up in an environment full of people with standart English , you will use the same standart of English

Of course, humanly speaking, there's absolutely no reason they should have to adopt "standard" English. If society were more tolerant and reasonable and less prejudiced and bigoted, African-Americans would not have to code-switch to "standard" American English in the way that so many of them are forced to do now.

I hope I haven t sounded as if I believed it was a must (for Black People to use that standart English) , I m just trying to explain my point of view on why their accent is different from "standart" English :)

I hope I haven t sounded as if I believed it was a must (for Black People to use that standart English) , I m just trying to explain my point of view on why their accent is different from "standart" English :)

No, don't worry, I didn't think that. It's just that I like standing on the soapbox and trying to make my point on certain issues that I'm really interested in. :)

OK What about the American Indians? Are the facts same for them too? Perhaps, they were persecuted more severely than the black people. Is the accent of American Indians worse or better than theirs?

OK What about the American Indians? Are the facts same for them too? Perhaps, they were persecuted more severely than the black people. Is the accent of American Indians worse or better than theirs?

You never give up, do you ;)

You never give up, do you ;)

Am I supposed to? I'm not wrestling. :)

What about the American Indians? Are the facts same for them too?

Yes, I would say that they more or less are. One difference in today’s terms is that Native Americans at least have access, for the most part, to their original non-English languages—which is not really available for African-Americans—and so it tends to be those languages which are adopted as part of cultural survival (by some anyhow), rather than any specific accent or dialect of English (though a number of specifically Native American varieties of English do, of course, exist).

Is the accent of American Indians worse or better than theirs?

It isn’t, for me at least, a question of worse or better. All accents are basically equal, as far as I’m concerned.

As I haven t had any friends of American Indian descendant, I had better not say anything about this but as they are supposed to have been there before American Americans! :rolleyes:, they could speak English better than even American Americans :stretch:

Have I gone too far :((

As I haven t had any friends of American Indian descendant, I had better not say anything about this but as they are supposed to have been there before American Americans! :rolleyes:, they could speak English better than even American Americans :stretch:

Have I gone too far :((

Well, English was brought to America by English and Irısh seamen. I don't think they used to talk English before that.

Well, English was brought to America by English and Irısh seamen. I don't think they used to talk English before that.

Who knows :corkysm44:

Anyway, I really have no idea about this (who is better at English) but I d like to and mine was just a pure (or poor) joke showing that :icon_bored:

Maybe i divert the subject to the different point.sorry in advence.what about the Hispanics that i think they are new blacks in US having language or accent problems similar to the Afro-Americans?.Always i resemble Mexicans in US to the Turkish in Germany with regard to language problems.