Walking The Walk...Mangling The Talk
By Ron Marr (07/20/05)
It's easy to understand the vernacular of a Montanan. While there is an accent of sorts, a bit of a flinty, semi-drawl with colloquial phraseology, you never wander off scratching your head over the location of the next branding party. Big Sky residents prefer an economy of words, and a simple "yup," or "uh huh" or "reckon so" can speak volumes.
Folks in South Florida also possess understandable diction. The homogenizing population boom of the lower Gulf has basically eliminated twangs, guttural noises, clicks and whistles. The only time you can't comprehend the words of a south Floridian is if they're twisted on rum, which now that I think about it, is a fairly frequent occurrence.
The Ozarks can be a confusing place for conversation, as there are about seven different intonations and infinite inflections, tempos, lilts and modulations. Some folks talk slow with a Tennessee slur, others spit out words at a machine gun pace and drop either prefix of suffix with reckless abandon. Some have a nasal Southern tenor with a touch of Nashville. Down in the Missouri Boot Heel, which is more like Mississippi than Mississippi, pronunciation is vaguely reminiscent of singing Dixie with a mouthful of mashed spuds.
There's the Brooklyn accent (not to be confused with the Bronx cheer) and the clenched-jaw patois common to native Bostonians and Thurston Howell III. In Wisconsin and Chicago the story of Ali Baba would include "farty" thieves, and Connecticut residents are unusual because (A) their dialectal has no regional oddities and (B) they voluntarily live in Connecticut.
The point of this linguistic litany is that, somehow, Americans manage to communicate despite the fact that our Mother Tongue is a tossed salad of regionalism and provincialism. We might not agree with what we hear, we might be struck dumb by unusual statements, opinions or beliefs, but we can generally grab the gist of a speaker's point. The only place where this rule does not hold true is in California. Out in the land of fruit and nuts, the indigenous population actually supports legislation that fosters incomprehensibility.
That's right, boys and girls. Ebonics is back. Welcome to state sanctified jive talk...the sequel.
It was in 1996 that the Oakland CA., school board recognized black street slang as a separate and distinct language, rather than an amalgamation of slurring, coughing, spitting and thinly veiled curses. In the face of national derision, and the fact that many voters didn't like their tax dollars being spent on a lingo that serves only to hinder the futures of those who speak it, the school board blushed heartily and dropped the program.
Unfortunately, the history of man has shown us that you just can't keep a stupid idea down. Thus it should come as no surprise that the San Bernadino City Unified School District has fawned over the thoughts of a California sociologist and determined that a thorough understanding of Ebonics is necessary to the education of black students.
This could be true, if one's college final consists of correctly interpreting the lyrics of rap music. However it is doubtful that Ebonics will prove beneficial when it comes to landing a job in banking, engineering, physics, medicine or even manning the wheel of a taxi cab. It should be a simple and logical premise. If you can't be understood, you will not be hired.
But an admiration of the simple and logical premise is something that was long ago jettisoned in the Golden State.
"Ebonics is a different language, it's not slang as many believe,' said Cal State San Bernadino sociologist Mary Texeira in an Associated Press article "For many of these students Ebonics is their language, and it should be considered a foreign language. These students should be taught like other students who speak a foreign language."
However, even Texeira admits that many in the African American community see the program as foolish and self-defeating.
"There are African Americans who do not agree with me. They say that (black students) are lazy and that they need to learn to talk," she said.
Gee...I wonder why. Perhaps it is because many African American parents would prefer that their children receive the sort of education that would allow them to thrive and prosper? Perhaps it is because they realize a mandated proficiency in street slang will destine their kids for chronic unemployment? Perhaps it is because they know this is simply a feel-good policy promoted by the all encompassing, politically correct mindset of liberal Californian academics and legislators? Perhaps it is because they would like to see results, and good report cards, and scholarships, rather than a firm understanding of an incomprehensibly cryptic gibberish which permanently renders their offspring to the category of goof-offs and social lepers? Perhaps it is because they feel that studying the works of Einstein or Dickens is more important than lip-synching to P Diddy and Eminem.
The program, approved by San Bernadino to begin in the 2005-2006 school year, has the clear and concise name of "The Students Accumulating New Knowledge Optimizing Future Accomplishment Initiative." That's Ebonics for "we know this is dumb as a stump but it makes us look sensitive and caring." If the promoters of this curriculum had their way, every sub-dialect and parlance in America would be considered a language, taught in the schools as a sign of tolerance and diversity. No ethnic category would be forgotten, no pseudo-language would be spared. Give it a few decades and all peoples will gain the self esteem inherent to realizing that the language of their neighborhood, barrio, county, village or town was just as good as the next guy's. The enlightenment would be complete when none of us understood a damn thing anybody said.
Well...not everything. Those who are taught via Ebonics will still retain a shadow of bilingual capacity. Sadly though, their discourse will be confined to the repetition of a single universal phrase.
"Want fries wit dat?"
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