[inaudible conversations]

these turvey began last few to turnoff herself los keep in mind that c-span is videotaping so at the end with our question and answer please use of microphone at the front and stand at the front of the microphone to ask your question otherwise we will not be able to keep air or sea. thanks for coming tonight here at the mid manhattan library and i very happy to introduce john recorder he has, more than once this is his third visit in tonight he will speak of his most recent book, a talking black

as an associate professor of english at columbia university teaching linguistics and "the new york times" best selling author and columnist for "time" magazine with the atlantic's and the "wall street journal" and the author of 16 books and tonight he will speak about his most recent book. [applause] >> thanks for coming tonight to what i want to talk about for not too long is the last book that i published is called talking back, talking

black and want to see if i could make the general public have a more positive view of the dialect that most black americans use with casual situations so the general idea that it is a lack or sustain i never heard it that way but that misperception continuous in to we will shake our heads at the idea of the general public including that educated public has there is something wrong with the way black people talk as the public just does not get it. so i started to feel as if a lot of why the reason as a

linguist i include myself so i thought somebody needs to put something out there that addresses this. what do i mean by blackie english? with the academic it would be called african-american vernacular either did as black english in the '80s so i will stick with that. but what is meant by that? doesn't only mean the slang that is more commonly used by black people that is part of it. we're not shaking our heads people don't like those dissertations about slang and would not just right that just of the slain that is maybe 1/8 but what we

really mean is first of all, now with linguistics you call it phrenology but in the real world you call that the accent to be the white people have the accident but any american knows there is a black way to sound. most people have the sense a person is a black american even if you're not looking at them to listen to them over the phone. that has been proven scientifically again and again so black english has a different phrenology so the slang but it gives a system

then how are you put words together we learn that is not a good word to use because grammar is about of bunch of things so to the general fourier --- year that is bad grammar so that is different but equally legitimate and coherent. but it is absolutely central so this lying and then that system and the of grammar from when i say black english is definitely not all black americans some do not speak black english on any but it is impossible to

put the exact figure because that vast majority control two's some degree it could be the grammar and the sound but this corresponds to that that since there is a black way of speaking so that is what i mean by blacking bush. and a great many people that this goes on a decade after decade and there are scholars who have come before me to do a magnificent detailed work paillette whenever that dialect comes up they have

the same misimpression and i wonder if it has to be that way. there are two things that inquest have often said that there is a message we have given the public that if you don't like black english inherently you are not liking black people and you are a racist. that is the point that many people make in class is and have conversations i don't think that is true just to have a reputation to be a contrarian on racism but people lit think black english is bad grammar even

white river because that is very similar nobody is is perfect english grammar but the general sense that we have in this country in the educated world in general that most people walked around breaking the rules of their own language. a sale less books instead if you were they say billy and me instead of billy and i that we have the sense they mess up their grammar so you could listen to black people with those construction's considered bad grammar very similar as bad grammar with the way people. you don't have to be a racist but i would be if i did not accept that but i am understand like through

slavery and jim crow but i tried to teach them out of it don't pretend that it is okay. so racism alone i am not saying it is not a part of it because it does play a part but is it the only part and can the racism be changed? i don't mean 85 percent. another aspect is that a link west will say black english is okay because it is systematic if you look at things different they actually follow rules as your own language so that means it is a legitimate form of speech.

i am sorry to say this to those who came before me and i know you're watching but that argument does not convince the public. the verb to be is nonstandard english a black person would never say i your sister use the verb with some members but not others so only in a certain context so if a marshall was learning black english you would be surprised about the

verb to be in blocking / -- black english but outside the of one of few academics think it is systematic but if if english is supposed to include that that is bad structure it is a bad system . nobody wants a mafia to run the town it is very systematic nobody wants to hear so that doesn't make the argument alone. so this is where i started this is a matter to say if you don't like the dialogue

to say yes it is a broken system so we come across six - - four? points to go around a the typical argument. black english is full of things that it does not do so this verb to be is not there so what is left is black english is more complex in many ways than mainstream standard english because all we can hear is the bad grammar. they're all sorts of things that our more challenging if they had to learn the language of the "wall street journal."

so they all sound like'' we classify as slang. they are not part of their beautiful. picture little black berets -- boys so what had happened to say i want some lemonade and i will go get some tonight drop the pitcher then she said would be doing i said i am having a bad day. and then you were wondering some people listen to that but black english has a big that is spoken of groups of people all over the world that is separate you can

find it in many languages and you wait for it like i spilled the limited on the floor. but then there is a suffix or prefix that you use bin into the narrative so we is a different suffix. so it is set that my cousin doesn't know how to put the ending of the and they would use that now when telling a story he would not think about that. and nobody could explain when you use the word the. human being speak

subconsciously. there is the awareness of it that it is a joke so what is that? but really it is a kind of grammar so what better example is you done eight it? so the person says something black why don't you say you should be done eating? then you move on the game black people talk wrong but done is interesting to be subtle that really there is no system at all. actually it is a very precise usage it to a people

long time to figure out. but the recent past like you done a bit -- eight it to. i'd done had a crush on you. that was a long time ago. it is challenging but not random nobody walks around using that in a language randomly. it turns out it counters expectations whenever you hear a black person using the word done it is something you would not have of expected it. you done a bit? i then had a crush on you.

you would not have combat. -- have done that other why is this is what people study. black english as a lot of those with to focus of time but black english is full of these. to break the mainstream standard english of all of those that our more complex i wish that was made clearer to the public because people expect complexity and black english is very complex.

if we are on our way to a understand black english is not long because it is systematic then we can address this issue to say that they do or do not sound black it could be very tricky to root talk about to sell the black so given the way it is hard not to hear it as something negative. so then we must think it is bad. . .

when the people live like this, it's not always a matter of geography. it's also social identification. you talk like the people you are most intimate with. so sounds are always changing in any language. listen to most americans know it

is to the point under 40 and you'll notice there more likely to say, i caught a fish rather than i caught a fish. very subtle, no value judgment attached to it but the sounds are melting into each other. they make lazy circles in the sky. just listen to it. listen to the way you talk in your kids. ever more common. more regions in america. it's a sound change. that is one example of what's happening in all human speech all the time. so course, black people have a sound. the sound has nothing to do with the sinuses or anything like that. is that the balls are different. this is been studied in sources so obscure that it seems almost willful. nobody wants to touch it. you find it in journals that have nothing to do with linguistics. journals that only print one

issue, but it has been proven again and again a personal study one vowel at a time and basically never tell the world. great, so about three years ago i decided would happen if you just used modern technology and analyze black people's walls and a few white people's, wouldn't you find the vowel sit in a different place in the mouth. so i put two students on this, : sam, thank you. billy was just like this. one morning i was driving and listening to npr. i had an experience i suspect a lot of us have often. somebody was talking about tax policy and in the back of my mind i thought black. how do you know? wasn't thinking there tabulating is this person and african-american know, i just thought this persons african-american and it's interesting.

we're trying to think that i'm a racist for even thinking that. black people often think there's not a black way to talk because it seems like his plane into the idea that there's racism. on a certain level. but all of us know southern whites don't sound exactly like black people. what i was listening to was not a southerner, black person and i checked and it was. and i thought to myself, what were the vowels and there are some. it's hard to talk about in this format, it's kind of boring but there are different balls. there's also a different -- but where you happen to produce your sound. if you're an opera singer you're taught to place your voice in a different way. different languages have different camber. different timbre. there's very subtle factors of timbre that tip you off subconsciously that this person

is viola davis and not melissa mccarthy. you know instantly and it could be analyzed scientifically. it's interesting. an interesting thing, what about your kids your kids last, i asked my mother 1973. i'm sure people ask all over imagine your white and your kid says how come you can know still someone's black even if you can't see them? the impulses to say that's not true, black people so like southerners. we know that's not true for the impulses to say everybody talks in different ways you should not stereotype. your kid has an iq over 40 they're saying i'm not stereotyping i'm hearing the truth. so what you tell the kid? i think we need to get comfortable saying, black people has a different sound because they often spend more time with one another just like why people

spend more time together and so like one another. that's true of all human groups. it's not racist is just true and harmless. there's nothing wrong with the way violative sounds or melissa melissa mccarthy. but she sounds black and i can tell you she does the voice of a queen on the disney cartoon series, sophia the first. yes it's in my house because i have small children. and once i had my back turned and the queen said something and i never seen the character and was that little bill that went off i thought of the queen is black. is she? i turned rent and i forget what the queen looks like but i went on and it was viola davis. i don't have a special powers i was hearing what every american can hear. i have a chapter about that in the book. thursday in the book is the

answer to an objection that is traditionally leveled against arguments that black licorice is okay. >> they can't talk that way in a job interview. some was talking about was some of the complexity might be. how you should not mock the language because you're mocking the speakers. somebody will say yes, that's true but they can't talk that way at a job interview. >> but nobody said they were going to. nobody needs to be told that. and why you get that response is become votes of the sense we often have that the way somebody speaks casually is going to interfere with their ability to speak the formal variety. with black english that's worse because everybody thinks it's mistakes. they seem if you talk that way you won't be able to speak stander. even if you understand it's not

mistakes that is an american kind of misimpression. perfectly understandable. >> english hasn't been here for 2000 years as it has where different ways of speaking have been doing this for much longer. so the english there barely sounds like english to us. america's 15 minutes old. so we don't have that depth of this. i'm not going to college i like diversification. there has not been as much of this going on. some, louisiana creole french. these errors out of the geographical margins and then visit extinct and not many people speak those.

for the most part dialect differences but black english is the most average and form of english the most people living in the united states have reason to hear. so what we miss is living in two different dialects is a very ordinary human experience. in the legions of places where this is normal nobody present speaking the whole thing is going to interfere with speaking the formal think. nobody in sicily is worried that someone who speaks sicilian will use it in a job interview instead of standard italian. the sicily standard italian is what they would take in college and then sicilian is different than a enough from the that if you roll the dice it would be a separate romance language.

if you see something like the godfather you'll see characters translated using sicilian rather than standard. it's different enough to show the characters speaking textbook college would be ridiculous. when you see one of the sicilians in the godfather speaking that language they're speaking something almost as different as i italian. that person speak standard italian in school similar, as in most arab speaking country you know somebody speaking arabic. when they speak arabic they really mean i speak latin and french. they speak to things. a standard language than what they learned on their mother's day is something so different

that it is, although often the speakers feel funny being put this way because of cultural unity. it's a different language. the moroccan the language they heard at home is like french. then they went to school and is something like moroccan. a moroccan will say i learned moroccan and then arabic. any arabic speaker you know is like that. the idea that egypt should arabic is a threat know, as i mention this last week it addresses it at beautiful length. this article is going to run five minutes but it actually dwells in standard arabic if it's anything it's the other way around. black english is the same thing. black english speakers are going

to be to tongue. this is not just made of for black people in the united states, this is people speaking all over the world. the idea that you learn something on your mother's knee or father's day go to school for pretty much the same way of speaking is what your teachers use. the same way speaking is on the printed page and everybody around you speak that way. you have learned the stander formally of spng that sounds so normal to us it's very strange. i would venture that at least every second person in the world would never dream of that being the situation. that was even more the case about 200 years ago where literacy became widespread in many parts of the world. killer languages were used on the page. a very typical experience is

that the way you speak most spontaneously is with your family and friends. you go to school i was on the pages something rather different. not a different language, but different. it's as if you say house but was on the pages domicile. nobody imposes it that's just the way it's been. you make your way and learn that school way. that is humanity. that's how it works. only about 100 of the world 700 languages is written in a real way. most people make a jump back in english is that situation. black people have all larger english the most people. i wanted to call one of my very first -- made it like that. what i meant is black people have more english. nobody's going to try to use black english as a job interview. we understand it's really an

okay form of speech but different. something else that any black person is there's a way speak he here in another way speak there. black english is not a problem in that way. the job interview just falls away. then there is the fourth and final thing. minstrel. an unsavory sense that many people have that there's something about minstrel speech, that is shows in which white people white made fun of black people and came up with a cartoon iced version of black speech. there's something about it that such that to embrace black english and speak black english has something to do with this cartoon version of black speech based upon a starting in the 1840s by whites.

whatever that relationship is supposed to be at lingers. a sense that to celebrate the language to say someone has a black sent that all has something to do -- a lot of that comes down to one word, and. if one is inclined to looking through old scripts are watching horrible movies or books that one reads, you get used to seeing black people using a.m. much more than anyone would use it in standard english. anything, they were making fun of black speech and that's the thing that worries me when people talk about black english and black people talking differently because there's that history. that's completely understandable. but appears mentally that because black english is normal

human speech coherent human speech used by the sophisticated human brain it changes over time. all language does i'm black with english has changed over time and not just in the slang. anybody knows that an episode of good times has slang that sounds quaint which sounds fierce and urgent, forget the slang. it's the sound system in the grammar that change too. like people 100 years ago did not sound like white people. it's hard to know because they're not with us to show it. but things were quite different. it was different in the sound system. if you listen to an ancient gospel recording from the 30s and you listen to the brat black preacher talking. she doesn't sound like a black preacher with today.

often he sounds vaguely irish or caribbean. listen to black singers in the 1890s which i tell you now because it's all online. you will listen to dark skinned black people who sound more west indian or irish then anything that we think is the black found today. you think that person must be strange. they also that way. listen to recordings of ex- slaves and there are many made ridiculous and someone was talking in the 1840s. they sound like something that no longer exists. the vowels were in different places back then. fascinating. same thing with the grammar and that includes this a.m. business. something i never thought was

real until i decided to check it out a couple years was that black people did use to use am in that way. you would never know it. a sound so for now. actually it was done just as today b is used like people be going there all the time. the way you notice from like home to harlem. he rates a loving portrait of black migrants from the south. there always popping off with these. he wasn't making fun of anybody. he was trying to give a loving portrait of these people in their lives in harlem in the 20s. nobody use be in the way were used to which is compounding. you're waiting for it because it's a core black english today. then he go through transcripts

of the ex- slaves and they use it all the time. somebody says charcoal and honey am good for the baby. i don't know what that month meant but if somebody stock about child childcare and that's a transcript of someone actually speaking. so, that you end up realizing that is the way people talk because those are the things that change over the years in any human speech. minstrel speech is distorted. not completely, there is the extent which the way black people were depicted speaking was reflective of the way the dialect sounded then as opposed to now. so they were absolutely repulsive even more so than we think.

in many places they were just entertainment. wasn't you went to this or that or a minstrel show, the show was all there was. there is also going to be blacked up and doing dances there were supposed to be blacked. but the language wasn't a complete distortion. gives you a window into something we would consider a non- topic. it's not just -- is another system of speaking black english. so that's what the book is about. twined up to give you two things it sheds a new light on. harry reid in 2010 was discovered to have said that barack obama can speak negro dialect when he wants to. and everybody thought, what does he mean?

the negro was unfortunate, but harry reid is some monies had the benefit of a long life. the truth is, negro dialect is what it was called. he didn't know what to call it. when you call it? but many people said it and he said barack obama uses bad grammar no. barack obama can speak to things. he can switch into black english. calling it negro dialect is not graceful but he was referring to something that makes a barack obama larger speaker than say george w. bush word david letterman. he is a larger repertoire. he speaks it when he wants to. what he could've said was black english.

and yes, to be honest i've known both white and black people have thought there something wrong with the former president unfortunately switching between mainstream and black english. people think he's being phony. by people think he's only pretending then that it's condescending to audiences. i've talked with a black correspondent who said he should not talk that way in public at all. that's very interesting. no, he has a larger english and he uses black english with black people. he is by dialects. one more, acts. ask acts. let's face it, the question means black people need to stop that. it's wrong. no.

black people use acts because acts as part of the other dialects. why do they say it's not because it's hard if your descendent to say. asked is used because it was the form of ask most often used by the sorts of people from great britain and ireland who black people worked alongside us slaves. so just like legions a very white people across the pond, black people said asked. it was natural. so most people switch between ask and asked. black english is the home variety. so that is what it is. it is not a lapse. it's because black people have more english than other people.

there are those who may think that my say that is partisan in some way. but making some sort of ivy league defense of the disadvantage person that i'm saying because this way my family talks where this has something to do with the crazy leftism in the economy. i beg anyone to consider that is not my reputation in many circles. i do not make arguments based on what used to be called knee-jerk liberalism. i'm arguing on the basis of what anybody who has gotten a degree on linguistics would agree with. i'm arguing on the basis of facts. one of those facts is that asked and asked competed as far back as old england.

you're reading beowulf and things like that in the language that midas will be german. chaucer of all people preferred asked there's nothing wrong with him. so that is where comes from. it is the symptoms of a larger english. so, talking black is about exactly what i just explained. i was trying to talk back about talking black. thank you. [applause] [inaudible] >> i don't have a question i just want to make a comment.

[inaudible] [inaudible] >> [inaudible] >> one aspect is something that they call shimmer for example. it is difficult to demonstrate because nobody has conscious control over it. to the extent that an intuition might be and is usually associated with black woman but there's a husky in us. that is shimmer. there is a slight quality and

you cannot teach anybody this if they wanted to be taught and it's just what you subconsciously grow up imitating from the people around you. there is a shimmer that leads to the fact that many black people don't have the vowels i'm talking about. sometimes are talking about mainstream standard or black english. the shimmer is subtler but it means if someone doesn't have the vowels you can still often tell. so the mpr person i'm talking about who i will not name them not sure how they would feel about it. that person is someone where they barely have the vowels but you know it in a heartbeat and it's because of this different timbre. it is very subtle. >> it's not in a word.

it's not the kind of thing, i cannot demonstrate this any more than you could walk like your mother. something like something subconscious. what i mean by the timbre is, if you're going home on the subway read your kindle a notice that you know the color of everybody around you. would one person saying something stander and the guilty lycos on anything black, think to yourself, how did i know. part of it will be there is a husky mess. you will of hurt precisely the timbre that i mean. i wish i could do it for you like i could play notes on the clarinet but i can't do that. [inaudible]

>> i was born and grew up on the i-lowercase-letter. a lot of people spoke pig latin. have you ever heard that? >> yes. >> i don't know why but they did not speak ordinary english. and they put it to music and even made movies about pig latin. >> yes. >> could you comment on that? >> yes. that is a form one has a technical term called gibberish. this is a term people use in the popular kind of gibberish in that era and into my own. i learned pig latin as a kid nowadays, the young ones are using something called operation. so dog is -- you put up after

everything. that's another candidate gibberish. >> i remember it well. thank you i enjoyed your lecture. i would just like to ask was mentioned that barack obama used code switching to start off in one dialects and switch off into another. would you agree that one people who are hispanic will say's few phrases in spanish and in switch code and going to english, would that be a good example? >> same thing. black people can do that too but it's not a different language. >> hello. my question is, to what extent

to think the traditional system that we all learned in grade school has become arbitrary or if at all? >> you mean what you are taught or the proper grammar rules? >> all of that is all the things you taught it the right way to say it are in the empirical sense, fiction. all those rules or something someone made up usually in the late 18th century based on no coherent principle at all. that includes the ones we feel deeply. but, the fact of the matter is, we are human beings. and there always be such a thing as fashion.

we cannot get away from that. all of us will subscribe to. the truth is billy and me went to the store is perceived as wrong, that's not going to change. you have to pick your battle. some people do need to talk that there's a certain collection of things that you have to observe informal situations are going to be taken seriously. i think it's unfortunate because those rules just if you know the history of him you realize why are we still paying any attention to that. it's always just one person who set up but were stuck with it. so the former rules have to be taught. it would be unfortunate if not. we need to realize that the person who said it and that's what most people say most of the time in the english-speaking world, they're not making a

mistake, there using casual speak. but yes if i could mean wave a magic wand that would have to go. people learn how to express themselves in graceful prose. this about just of them saying that i could predict that since c-span is here i can predict that in my box as soon as this is put on the air i will get angry e-mails that i should not be a professor and that i need to learn this now and you know what, i'm going to keeping professor. if you want to send me one of those i'm not leaving. [applause] >> hello. i want to say thank you.

i wanted to ask about african grammatical retention. i know more like a my grandmother's generation those from the west indies in the south and africans i've met now sounded very much the same. so if you could talk about that. also i'm really proud of our great oral tradition as african people. >> it's one of those things. there are a lot of people who said that plaque english as african, but african with english words. i wish that were true. there are languages like that and so jamaican or even some of the once less snow, those languages and it's generally speaking, they are african languages with english words in them. plaque english has so much more english influence that you

cannot say that. but plaque english sound system is definitely influenced by african. so for not having the are at the end of a syllable so stole instead of -- that's a most certainly in african inheritance. part of it is the song. no english sounds like that that wasn't created by africans. there's a continuum. the real african english is spoken in crib being colonies. then black it english is in between the part of the general system. huge controversy over what the historical relationship was between 11 plaque english. there are signs where they say there's no relationship. some are canadian. i love them to places than some

people say that used to be spoken all over the united states at that time that they spoke slowly claim black english in those places. that's where you wanted to be that. the evidence is not there for that. the fight has gone on for about 35 years. the truth is in the middle. there was some relationship between gola and west indian in what became black english. an equal part is actually british those things said by white people in small-town's. the field side to us because we do not know those people. but it has an interesting hybrid. some africa you will get more of the african west indian english.

>> good evening. your talk tonight is brought a lot of questions to me. comments as well which this is not appropriate to go into right now, but one of the questions i have is a bot is ebonics the same as black english? >> same thing. >> so then i will take the liberty to ask another question, if when you talk about tender, is it when there was an opera that was sung by black people named -- it escapes me now.

but it was an obscure opera but i will know it when i hear. it is think richard stein has it. and she use that she's black voices and that. is that because of the tender or said something else? >> nobody has ever asked me about that. wow. and i happen to know the answer because i just happen to have read a book about the composition of that opera. what i know is that she did not say that, however i'll bet she said it. but during rehearsal somebody said something like that but that's a tough peace and it hasn't done much.

so it is hard to say. that was not why, the black people were used for -- reasons rather than the timbre. today if somebody wanted to use black people for the timbre they would be afraid to say it because they be afraid it's racist to say there is one. she would not of thought that way. i don't think she's on record. >> any other questions? >> i can do tomorrow. this is my favorite part. >> i wonder if the name itself is from another language. because i think it gola means derelict which is french for mouth of an animal. so wondering if there's some racism involved.

i think the word gola -- and the black people who have known the is said well if i am in the animal i will speak and therefore i am better because i'm an animal which speaks. >> so i'm wondering what you thought us? >> nobody knows for sure where the term goal is from. for it to be from goal is interesting and i don't know what the source of your reasoning is. >> it means more, but what a french person says you have a -- you are called an animal. otherwise you have a bush.

so i think that obviously having grown up in french-speaking countries i hear a lot of -- being thrown around and that's a way of saying i am now asking what is your thought because i really believe they have a french route and i'm wondering if that ties it to the linguistics? >> you have to think all around a subject in trying to come up with answers. that is a neat idea, but i am not sure there's a strong enough current of french or french creole in the history in particular that i would be inclined to savor that over the one that is usually ventured which is usually that gola comes

from gola as in angola. because a lot of the slaves came from angola. the problem with that to your point that the african language that survives that are songs that people don't remember what they mean anymore is the mende, if you look at the basket making patterns there mostly from up there as opposed to down south so then the question is why would angola become the name of the language i nobody knows. so maybe. >> thank you for the talk. the thing with linguistics, i have a finding because english is not my first language.

i find the accent forms you talk and listen all day long for two years and you deposit into your system, it is very hard to change. it can be changed by very few people. like chinese, most people don't even notice chinese. it's the same thing. so i came to america and i noticed black people talking different from white people but then i was thinking is that because they carry their own language from africa when they are brought here from slavery like 200 years ago? so they sound different for any?

is that true? >> i'm sorry, but no. not in this case. but i can see how it would seem that way from your perspective. that is definitely the way slaves who had grown up in africa would have sounded. so when the first roots i forget how they had levar burton talking but he would've had a thick accent. then the generation who are born in this country and they surrounded not only by their many whites were native but black people who had been born on the plantation too. so what you got was something

brand-new it wasn't african. this is how we know. something very clear in a city like new york city. we know how african sound when the speaking english but an african who learned english later. it's an accent that sounds very different than most of us because it's only been commonly heard in the united states for 40 years. if you think about it this person from nigeria doesn't sound anything like the black person from chicago. >> black america in my eyes they have been here songs the way people. so so different. i heard somebody from africa 20 years ago i can tell the difference immediately. he's african-american they were

born here but then i have another thing to ask you. i can get rid of my accent quickly but if i talk on my phone with my chinese friends for a couple months -- [inaudible] that's always in your system. you can get rid of most but not all the time. >> no, you can't. as black americans for generations to have a slight

different when they talk just slightly. >> the analogy is correct and that when the community is separate in that way some implants from the faraway place of the original home can process. in black english the vast majority of the difference is due to the segregation that happened here. but definitely i was saying, there is a dusting of african influence. >> hello. of the in atlanta in the 1990s and a lot of people use to tell me that i found tg. she is go on. >> i wasn't hearing it just now. >> i wanted to make warmer comments about think a lot of

black english is about being consciously musical. like people really know there's almost a beat to it. you're angry there's a certain be. when you joyce there's a certain b. there is a lot of connection to music. also romantically black men are great musically. >> no matter what i send the setting about that i am wrong. but, that is definitely a part of the dialect. that's what you could call the aspect of it. in that the commonality with caribbean's and actual africans. it's another way that the dialect gives a largeness. it's a broader, richest richer repertoire than many americans had had.

to end on a positive note i assure you that with about two years there'll be some new story in which black english is involved in you'll hear things about trap the bees and bad grammar degradation. who that just my little book will change. i hope you will join me in pushing that effort home. [applause] >> thank you.