Is it dialect?

Has anyone ever heard of the way some black people talk (at least here in america) called ebonics? Well I have.

My question is this: Is ebonics considered a dialect, an accent, or anything else?

I once got into a heated argument with somebody trying to convince them that it was a dialect, much like a southern accent, but he woudln't believe me.

Nowadays, ebonics doesn't only pertain to black people, I hear white people trying to talk like that too.

CarbonSystem wrote:

Nowadays, ebonics doesn't only pertain to black people, I hear white people trying to talk like that too.

As far as linguistics goes the number of whites that have ebonics as their primary language is fairly insignificant. A "primary language" is the language the person first learned to speak (prior to any formal eductaion).

The overwhelming majority of whites you see using ebonics are teenagers who have turned to it to be "in". They didn't learn it at home or prior to socializing with other teens. They also out-grow using it as they mature. The use is forced as opposed to the natural use of ebonics amongst many blacks.

The chance of any adult becoming fluent in a second language is poor indeed. But there's no reason that children can't become fluent in the structure of AAVE with the right degree of exposure, but like all other languages, the ability to acquire language drops dramatically as kids approach middle teens.

Asian kids, Russian kids, any kid plunked down in England, the USA, Australia, etc. becomes fluent in a very short period of time.

But I have to ask why anyone attempting to learn AAVE is any different than anyone attempting to learn Thai, Russian, Spanish, French, or Swahili. Are these then forced attempts?

AAVE is definitely a dialect. It clearly has its own grammatical forms.