African Americans1
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ALTERNATIVE NAMES “Black” Americans, “Blacks”, Afro-Americans and Afro-Caribbeans.
LOCATION
AND
LINGUISTIC AFFILIATION
In 1996, 53% of African Americans lived in the South, making up 19% of that region’s population. Nationwide, 55% resided in the central cities of metropolitan areas. The 10 counties with the most African American residents on July 1, 1996, were Cook, Illinois (1.4 million); Los Angeles (1.0 million); Kings, New York (900,000); Wayne, Michigan (900,000); Philadelphia (600,000); Harris, Texas (600,000); Bronx, New York (500,000); Queens, New York (500,000); Dade, Florida (400,000); and Baltimore City, Maryland (400,000) (U.S. Census Bureau, 1998). With regard to linguistic affiliation, African Americans’ primary language pattern is English. English is in the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Yet similar to all American populations, African Americans adapted their language patterns and dialects according to their sociocultural environment. African Americans’ language patterns reflect influences from Africa, Britain, Creole populations, the Caribbean islands, rural, urban, southern regions of the United States, and Canada. Often identified with such terms as African American English, “Black” English, “Black” English Vernacular, Ebonics, and, most recently, “Spoken Soul,” African American language patterns are a reflection of their dynamic culture. The languages and dialects regularly spoken in the African American community are: Spoken Soul (considered by some a dialect of American English, and by others a language distinct and separate from American English); the U.S. Language of Wider Communication (LWC), a.k.a. “Standard American English”; Non-standard American English; and Arabic, Spanish, Swahili, Creole (and other foreign languages, but these are the main ones) (Rickford & Rickford, 2000; Smitherman, 2000, p. 20).
Depending on time, place, setting, and audience, all or some of the various languages and dialects may be used in the African American community. Most middleclass and professional African Americans speak the LWC, as well as some aspect of Spoken Soul at least some of the time. Most working-class African Americans speak varying degrees of the LWC, Non-standard English, and Spoken Soul (Smitherman, 2000, p. 20).
OVERVIEW
OF THE
CULTURE
The African American family as a unit has a historical continuity that began not with the American experience but in Africa, long before the intrusion of Europe into the continent. In the process of adapting to their new environments, West Africans merged their cultural traditions with European and Native American traditions. Although some of the cultural traditions have changed or been Americanized, the family unit remains constant. The characteristics of the African American family today include a bilateral orientation—an equal recognition of the male and female lines of descent but favoring the mother’s kin; extended kin groups; respect for elders; and a high value placed on children and motherhood (Aschenbrenner, 1973; Stack
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