What is Ebonics and Its Origin?

Many individuals have often wondered where Ebonics derived from and what is responsible for its existence. According to Geneva Smitherman's "Black Language and the Education of Black Children: One Mo Once," Ebonics is the common dialect of West Africans, Afro-Caribbeans, and African-Americans that consists of linguistic and paralinguistic elements that are dissimilar from European dialect (Perez). The term "Ebonics" is ebony and phonics blended together (Todd) in that ebony signifies "black" and phonics signifies the study of sound of words (Smitherman).
The root of Ebonics can be found under the tree of slavery. During that period, African slaves who spoke the same language were separated by plantation owners in order to prevent slaves from communicating among themselves ("African Americans"), for if they were allowed, it would possibly lead to a rebellion against their masters. Once more, slave-owners did not want their slaves to acquire the English language ("African Americans"). Thus, they were never taught how to read and write in English. As the slave-trade in Africa entered into its initial stages, the British slave traders who desired to speak to the Africans created a language called pidgin (Graham) which is "simplified mixtures of two or more languages that speakers of different languages could use to communicate with each other" ("African Americans"). According to Mary Berger, a Standard English word "ask" is "ax" in pidgin (qtd. in Graham). As time progressed, pidgin became today's well-known language, Creole ("African Americans). When African slaves arrived to America, the existing black Americans embraced pidgin. This was the time Ebonics was born.

After the termination of slavery, Ebonics, the train of communication among African-Americans at that time, picked up speed in America. For three centuries, numerous African-Americans used Ebonics in the rural South as a new form of verbal communication (Perez). As time progressed, many African-Americans then began to move to the urban North (Perez). In conversing with relatives and friends, Ebonics used between the two areas (Perez). In certain parts of the urban North, the de facto separation of many African-American and white neighborhoods transpired. Due to the fact that there was an evident social distinction between the two groups, the dialect of the African-Americans and whites hardly had any impact on each other.