123 School Work

Ebonics in Rap

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  Ebonics in Rap
       "Fo shizzle my wizzle!" That is one of the most famous phrases of Ebonics from the master of Ebonics himself, Snoop Dogg also known as Snoop Dizzle. Anyone that knows anything about pop culture knows that Ebonics is a huge part of the music community especially rap, what people do not know is that Ebonics was not made up by the rappers themselves but actually from the people that did not know correct English that were living on the streets. Ebonics has gone from being a rare communication tool used for those on the streets to now becoming so popular that Ebonics can be heard on the radio, on the television, on the Internet, and even at schools.
       The origins of Ebonics can be found as far back as 1973 when professor E. Smith suggested the study of Ebonics at a conference in which he viewed speech patterns of black Americans as they relate to Caribbean and African blacks rather to white Americans. The word Ebonics was formed when Ebony and phonics were put together. The lexical definition of Ebonics is "African-American English, especially when considered as a distinct language or dialect with linguistic features related to or derived from those certain West African languages, rather that as a non-standard variety of English" (OED.com). However the definition of Ebonics is up for debate since the status of Ebonics as a language is disputed and even the 'language' itself cannot be resolved as being a language or not...