Black to Gray

I googled "black accent" and this car came out. I guess I'm going with it.


This time, The Story of English will be talking about the influences and roots of Black English. I'm not quite sure if the title "Black on White" is a good title, but whatever. Anyways, back then, black people spoke quite differently from what white people did. The dialects rose, and surprisingly enough, it can still be glimpsed at through some of the remaining traditions and stuff.

Someone in the comments states that "This is all being wiped off the face of the land. Instead of hearing and experiencing unique culture you can party with the wealthy who have built their resorts and golf courses." I'm going to say that this is mostly true, since I'm assuming these "odd" versions of English was discouraged in an age of increasing globalization and standardized English tests. Seeing that this documentary was made at least twenty years ago, I'm almost sure that a lot of this older-root-diversity stuff has disappeared and gone away. This is even more so since most of these people with odd accents were some of the older people, and the younger would have probably grown up in an environment with more of the "real" English.

Now, there was one specific comment that really got me thinking. A dude said, "Even though I'm Nigerian, I can understand the pidgin. It sounds so much like Nigerian pidgin." Not only was this interesting due to the use of the word "pidgin", which I have only discovered recently through the discussions about earlier episodes of the same series, but this shows that stuff have come from Nigeria and actually impacted the form of language in the United States. If this is how languages are formed, by having many different influences coming together and merging together, then it may be hard to trace the one and only root and "story" of English.

According to the narrator, black people have taken there rightful place in society now. This has contributed to the disappearance of the "black English" since the way you speak can affect the way you live. However, we must ask: should the "black English" be preserved? You decide.

"Black on White." The Story of English. Writ. Robert McCrum and Robert MacNeil. Dir. Vivian Ducat, Howard Reid. BBC MCML XXXVI. YouTube.