A Negro Love Song: The African American Dialect in English

"A Negro Love Song" by Paul Laurence Dunbar is an example of the African-American English dialect, also known as African-American Vernacular English. Dunbar, a writer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was known for using the African-American English dialect in his poems and songs. These were called "negro ballads," a term also associated with minstrel songs, which used mispronunciations and misspellings to imitate African-American speech. These forms were performed with racist blackface and were meant to make fun of AAE. While minstrel songs were a form of degradation, negro songs such as Dunbar's were meant to be authentic songs that accurately portrayed African-American speech in a non-mortifying way.

Dunbar was born and raised in the North after the end of the American Civil War, but he wrote Southern poetry that centered on things like lingering racial tension. His dialect poetry was meant to imitate negro spirituals and songs during the antebellum period, or the period before and during the Civil War. At the time, the African-American dialect was associated with the minstrels and coon songs, which played on the stereotypes of African-American people rather than provide an authentic view of the dialect and the people who spoke it. Although Dunbar's poetry was meant as a tribute to AAE, many saw it, too, as degrading. Even with Dunbar's good intentions, many upper and middle class African-Americans felt that the dialect was associated with slavery before the Civil War.

Dunbar's "A Negro Love Song" several elements common to the African-American English dialect. Line 3 shows the dropping of the final consonant with, "Hel' huh han' an' sque'z it tight,". Here, we see almost every word differs from Standard English. The 'd' is dropped in "held," "hand," and "and," and the "e" and last "e" is missing in "squeeze." Another interesting thing to note is how "her" is spelled. Dunbar uses "huh" to demonstrate how AAE speakers turn the "r" sound into an "h" sound, as in "rider" turns to "ridah," for example. It is also interesting to note line 9, "Hyeahd de win' blow thoo de pine," where in "the," the "th" is replaced by "d," and the "r" sound is left out in "through." The word, "heard" is pronounced like "hyeahd," again with the "r" being left out.

There is an argument that it is important to present AAE in schools and that children should be educated in its history. As with other North American non-standard dialects, such as Southern or New England English, it is not something that is a "lower" form of English. Rather, it is an important part of American history, as well as a dialect that many people speak daily. People need to stop seeing African-American English speakers as "less intelligent" or "less likely to be successful." There is nothing wrong with speaking in a way that is different than the "standard" way of speaking. When really reflected upon, there is no such thing as a spoken standard. Standard English is only standard when writing, but there are many varieties of spoken English, and one way of speaking is not better than another.

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