Black English for Lawyers: A Primer

Volume 113February 2025L. Alexander Walker IIIArticle

Mar 15

Lawyers do not know as much about Black English as they should, and people’s freedom hangs in the balance. Differences between language varieties in sounds and grammar can change and have changed the outcome of cases: “He at work” and “He be at work” mean two completely different things. To reduce misinterpretation and therefore wrongful outcomes, this Article provides a primer on the sounds, words, grammar, and social context of Black English targeted directly at legal practitioners. It begins by explaining key concepts in linguistics and making the case for why lawyers must foreground accurate description over normative prescription when facing nonstandard language.

The Article then systematically walks through the most important phonological (sounds), lexical (vocabulary), and grammatical features of Black English that are prone to misinterpretation, such as vowel mergers, consonant cluster reduction, habitual “be,” and quotatives like “talkin’ bout.” It explains terminology along the way. Learning requires repetition and exposure, and because the goal here is to teach lawyers rather than to do formal linguistic analysis, the Article provides numerous real-world examples from sources like Twitter, rap lyrics, and linguistics literature to illustrate usage and common points of confusion. The Article has a companion website that also allows learners to listen to authentic speech.

The Article also delves into some controversial social aspects of Black English. The law should recognize that there is a difference between calling someone “a REAL nigga” and “a real NIGGA” and understand which usages of “bitch” are more probative of misogynistic beliefs. The Article also considers the lawyer’s role.

Finally, but most importantly, while this discussion deals with specifics, it also shows a more general point about language: to merely summarily cite a dictionary or other general source (like this Article) for the meaning of an utterance is not to take language seriously. Language is mercurial and diverse, and discovering the plausible range of meanings requires more work than often imagined. But the law must—if it is to be just.

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Introduction

Let’s start with a quiz. Three scenarios. Scenario one: Imagine a man, let’s call him Marcus, is on trial for attempt and is on record having said . Scenario two: Imagine a witness, LaTanya, said <the tall man knew John shot him>. And finally, scenario three: Imagine a defendant, let’s call her Keisha, said <Mary come talkin’ bout I stole the TV>.[1]

Despite how it might initially seem, in all likelihood, Marcus did not attempt to break in but merely wanted or intended to before deciding against it, LaTanya was trying to say the tall man (not John) committed the murder, and, if anyone, Mary (not Keisha) confessed to stealing the TV. The reason you might have (and courts have) misunderstood these sorts of sentences is because there is more than one kind of English going around, and law has an English problem—a Black English problem.

From state court stenographers to opinions in federal court, the U.S. legal system is not equipped to handle Black English. A lack of earnest conversation between lawyers and linguists has left a textbook-shaped hole in the scholarship. This Article hopes to serve as a step toward untangling the knot by making lawyers more familiar with basic linguistics and Black English. Everyone is familiar with the word <be>, but few know its depths.

Many liken learning the law to learning a new language. Sometimes that language is Latin when students try to get their remittiturs and additurs straight, and sometimes that language is the unlearning of whatever you thought the words “negligence” or “reckless” meant before taking torts. But even having mastered legalese, lawyers who do not understand the dialects of English that they will run across in their practice will be less effective than they could be. To practice in the United Kingdom without knowing what lifts, loos, and the chemist’s are would be problematic, and to practice in the United States without knowing the difference between <she running> and <she be running> is similarly so.

The point is, English is not a monolith, and one of the most widespread and misunderstood dialects of English in the United States is Black English. But because Black English natives are fluent speakers of “English,” interpreters are not provided in the court system.[2] Still, rampant misunderstanding is neither acceptable nor inevitable. And just as an Australian might learn to practice effectively in rural Scotland with a bit of studying up, speakers of Mainstream American English can learn to properly represent speakers of Black English with similar training. Lawyers do not need to become proficient speakers of Black English, but they do need to be aware of the most important differences and have a sense of where misinterpretation is likely to happen. If lawyers were more aware of Black English and its most prominent features that are likely to be misunderstood, we would be in much less of a mess.

Consider the Black English word <tryna> in the sentence <they was tryna arrest me, but they didn’t>.[3] Reading this as “they were attempting to arrest but failed at it” would lead to very different facts from the likely correct reading of “they wanted to arrest me but didn’t end up doing so.” Similarly, <we was tryna break in, but I left before they did> if read incorrectly sounds like a confession of attempt rather than an indication of a repudiated desire.

In 2021, the Eighth Circuit revealed its own susceptibility to the Black English problem. In a Facebook message, a defendant was recorded as replying “Yea” to the question of if he was “tryna get ah glick.”[4] The court held that these Facebook messages “revealed that [the defendant] attempted to trade” for the gun.[5] It didn’t—not necessarily at least. The <tryna> here is just as if not more naturally read as expressing desire than an attempt. So, the court should not have concluded so hastily that this was conclusive evidence of attempt.

Or, for one more example, consider hearing the sentence <I’m fitna be admitted (to jail)>. In 2015, police had this transcribed not with the correct meaning of “I’m going to be admitted” but instead “I’m fit to be admitted.”[6] Regular sounds and grammar in Black English can cause confusion.

Without significant progress amongst lawyers and those who work in the legal professions like stenographers, judges, and police officers, we will continue to have people denied their constitutional rights,[7] misunderstood as speaking in the past when they are speaking in the future,[8] stereotyped by juries,[9] and misreported on official transcripts[10] on which the appellate process relies—all on account of foreseeable linguistic differences. Previous work has documented these errors and argued for their constitutional significance.[11]

Fortunately, some in legal academia, mostly students it seems, have noticed the problem. Those pieces, however, focus primarily on documenting the problems rather than teaching enough Black English and linguistics to start to solve them. There is also a tendency toward the categorical in much of the existing legal-linguistic scholarship on Black English that should be cautioned against.[12] So, this paper offers a Black English reference aimed specifically at lawyers.

Accordingly, the goals here are limited and different from previous scholarship. Documenting the errors courts have previously made and drafting policy solutions are for another day.[13] While the linguistics literature is hugely important, the aims of that literature are not usually to teach legal practitioners (or really practitioners of any kind) but instead to document and analyze. This paper is a crash course and a reference guide. To that end, I have tried to keep the relevant Sections as short as possible while retaining linguistic accuracy. And, more importantly, I have gathered numerous, real-world examples. The Sections are also structured to be as independent of one another as possible, so you need not read this straight through to gain something.

Part I clarifies some terms (linguistics, language, and dialect in particular), defends the need for linguistic descriptivism when dealing with language in a faithful interpretive capacity, and gives some basic background on Black English.

Part II is the meat and gets into the sounds, grammar, and social context of Black English lawyers might need to know. One quirk of teaching language through an essay is that the Black English I am talking about is primarily spoken,[14] but the ability to hear the sounds is somewhat fundamental to any spoken language. Linguists have a special alphabet for this—the International Phonetic Alphabet or “IPA.” They use it because using the orthography of any particular language can often be ambiguous—English is a terrible offender (consider: tough, cough, through, though, bough, etc.). Part II also provides a list of “easily misunderstood” constructions, such as homophones and near homophones, so lawyers going over transcripts will have a reference for possible mistakes in transcription or spelling variations speakers of Black English use that might otherwise baffle.

Because the aim is to reduce barriers to entry, this Article has a companion website: https://www.californialawreview.org/print/black-english-for-lawyers-an-audio-repository. There, one can hear curated examples of sounds and sentences. The readings come mostly from movies, shows, the internet, and songs.

To be clear, regional and individual differences exist in Black English just as they do in any language with more than one speaker.[15] Capturing the full diversity in a short introduction like this is impossible.

What follows will hopefully reduce needless misinterpretation and help us come closer to living up to the promises of a profession that claims to think carefully about language and words. But, if you learn anything from this Article, let it be that language is not static. Honest methodology for determining what someone has said cannot be limited to glancing at dictionaries, lurking on online forums, or just reading a relatively abstract article like this one. All of these are quickly obsolete. This Article provides context, not dogma. Lawyers must constantly refamiliarize themselves with language. Language will evolve while this Article will not. We must change the way we approach language, not just the sources we trust.

I. Linguistics: A Descriptivist Endeavor

If one wants to understand Black English, one must recognize first that it is as legitimate a language as anything else. But what does it mean to call Black English a “language” or a “dialect”? The difference is at best a convention and at worst a mirage. There is an old adage that says, a language is a dialect with an army and navy.[16] And that’s basically right. “Arabic” in Algeria is much more different from “Arabic” in Syria than Norwegian is from Swedish, Hindi from Urdu, or Serbian from Croatian. But for sometimes arbitrary and sometimes political reasons, these are the names we have.

To get into the right mindset, and for general background knowledge, we will start at ten thousand feet. Black English is a thing linguists study. And linguistics is relatively easily defined. It is the study of “Language” with a capital “L” and the human language faculty. What’s harder to define is what I, or anyone else for that matter, means by capital-L Language.

Such a question is maybe more philosophical than linguistic,[17] but apophatically, linguistics is not the study of any particular language nor the learning of many languages.[18] Though many linguists are interested in writing, it is not about punctuation or many of the “grammar” rules (mostly injunctions) you learned in grade school like “thou shalt not end a sentence in a preposition, split an infinitive, nor use they instead of he or she!” When linguists study Language or any particular language, they are engaged in a descriptive, rather than a prescriptive, endeavor. They explain and document, rather than constrain and estop—such is the nature of descriptive science. When a biologist happens upon the platypus, they do not say the platypus is “wrong” for laying eggs—they say it is different.[19] Similarly, when linguists study any language by observing how people use the language, they do not say things that defy expectation or change from one community to the next are “wrong”—they say it is different.

This is not to say there are not right answers. There is a descriptively correct way to say things in English or Nahuatl or Darija, but “correct” is determined by how the relevant linguistic community uses the language, not by how anyone says one should. Usage determines both definitions of words and the content of grammar.[20] In other words, the regular practice of native speakers cannot be said to be a mistake.

This quasi-infallibility of regular, native speech has a consequence. It means that when studying Black English or any other dialect, the mindset of descriptivism must be doggedly maintained. There is no normative ordering of languages or dialects. Some features in Black English are not correct in Mainstream American English, but the same is true for Spanish and English or Mandarin Chinese and Norwegian. One is not better than or superior to the other—they are simply different. The human language faculty is extremely diverse. People get their points across through writing, speech, braille, sign, touch, and whistles.[21] And the words in any one language are basically arbitrary.[22] The French pomme makes no more or less sense than the English “apple” or the Spanish manzana. And the British “boot” makes just as much sense as the American “trunk.” What’s more, the grammatical structures are mind-bogglingly various—Japanese gets by without a difference between the present- and future-tense forms, and Spanish has two different words for “to be.”

And just like any language variety, Black English has rules. One does not say “the red Canadian big ball” in Mainstream American English. One says, “the big red Canadian ball.” Native speakers are not routinely taught this, but the order of adjectives in native speech is structured. Black English has similar untaught and systematic rules. <She tall> is ok; is not.

When speakers use Black English, they follow these rules. And if one does not know what the rules are, one might innocently misinterpret. In the law, one often interprets the speech of laypeople in their, might we say, “natural” environments. For many, the language of that environment is Black English.

To help create order from the chaos and categorize, linguists will often measure the degree of “mutual intelligibility”—how much speakers of the two varieties understand each other—as a benchmark for dialecthood. But linguists recognize that this is an imperfect metric as well. Mutual intelligibility is by its very nature a spectrum. An Australian English speaker understands almost everything a Scot says but also some tiny bit of what a Dutch speaker says.[23] And even more frustratingly, mutual intelligibility can be asymmetric. Portuguese speakers often understand much more Spanish than Spanish speakers do Portuguese.[24]

In short, because a linguist uses the terms “dialect” or “language” does not mean they endorse reifying the notion,[25] not least because which dialect becomes the standard is usually historical happenstance. Standard German, for example, is heavily influenced by Martin Luther’s sixteenth-century translation of the Bible. And had the Anglo-Scottish war gone a different way, “Standard Southern British English” might sound a lot different.

There are several theories for where modern Black English comes from, but I will just describe two. One is that it likely descends from earlier English dialects[26] in the southern United States to which enslaved Africans would have been exposed working alongside indentured servants.[27] Then, just like American English diverged over time from British English by virtue of physical separation, Black English diverged over time from other American English dialects by virtue of cultural separation. It therefore retains some minor influences from West African languages, but most of its features are its own. Other scholars hold to a creole theory, where Black English would have formed from intermixing of African languages and English.[28] Creole or not, it would not change the fact that Black English, like all other forms of English, is a full language with subtlety, complexity, and nuance in ways that speakers of that dialect can have a hard time expressing to outsiders because it is so intuitive.[29]

II. Black English Practicum

Most lawyers do not need to become fluent in Black English, but many do need to know some of the basics. It is important to remember that just as English is not a monolith, neither are Black English and its speakers. Black English has a spectrum of features. Some of these are almost universal and subtle. This is why it is possible to tell when news anchors, who tend to be the most mainstream of mainstream speakers, are Black without seeing them.[30] Those subtlest of features might be almost ineffable without more technical linguistic machinery. Some of these features are rare to the point of sounding quaint even to those that speak Black English daily—sentences like, <he the man what bought the eggs> come to mind. Furthermore, while some speakers only speak Black English, many speakers are bidialectal and will switch back and forth between full-on Black English and a more subtle blaccent.[31] That is, speakers will mix the sounds and grammar of both varieties, sometimes in the same sentence. This is similar to the mixing of Spanish and English sometimes called Spanglish. In some cases, what people are speaking is a sort of “Blenglish.” To be clear, just like you may sometimes say, “It’s not” and others say, “It isn’t” and yet others say, “It is not,” many features in Black English are optional. Just because a speaker does not use it at one point does not mean they are not at another.

This Section will not explain every feature of Black English, nor the many regional differences.[32] What it will do instead is identify and explain those features that are both common and liable to be misunderstood in a way that is obviously legally relevant. In theory, anything could be legally relevant, so this is a judgment call. Sometimes I will give the historical reasons that the feature is different or give an example of that feature in another language for context.

I use examples from many sources like the internet (mostly Twitter, now X), linguistics books and papers, songs, and my own experiences as one speaker of the dialect. All of these but the last are sources lawyers should be able to deal with when interpreting Black English. The internet and song lyrics are showing up more and more frequently in litigation,[33] and when language inevitably changes and shifts, lawyers will need to be equipped to look at the latest linguistics literature for guidance.

A note on notation. I will use something that approximates, but is not exactly, general linguistic practice. For words in Black English, I will use brackets: <>. So, for example, <she be at work>. For sounds, I will use slashes: //.[34] For example, the /r/ sound. For Standard English glosses and words, I will use quotation marks: for example, “she at work all the time.” Words or sentences in languages other than English will be in italics. Finally, ~ will indicate equivalency or alteration, either in sound or meaning. For example, “it isn’t” ~ “it’s not” and “not” ~ “knot.”

A. Sounds

“Clever, but schoolteacher beat him anyway to show him that definitions belonged to the definers—not the defined.”

Toni Morrison, Beloved

Three main types of phonological misunderstanding might impede a legal actor’s interpretation of Black English. First, and possibly most dangerous, is homophony—words that sound the same but have different meanings. Some words in Black English are homophones, although they are not homophones in Mainstream American English. Importantly, this can cause issues when listening and when reading. A speaker of Black English when writing might interchange words that are homophonous in Black English but not homophonous in Mainstream American English.

Second, some words in Black English just do not sound like any word in Mainstream American English. Without knowing how certain sounds work in Black English, you might just be confused when listening or reading.

Third, some features of the Black English sound system convey specific meaning that speakers of Mainstream American English will miss out on if they are not hip to it.

Finally, each Section will include demonstrative, but not comprehensive, lists of homophones that might be useful to someone looking for errors in transcription or trying to understand spelling choices of Black English speakers.[35] For the homophones, I will indicate those that can occur through any and all sound differences, not just the one of that Section.

1. The /r/ and /l/ Sounds

We will start with something familiar to anyone who has heard British English, German, or a strong New York accent. Many speakers of Black English share something with the many dialects in the United Kingdom and some American dialects of English: R-lessness (“non-rhoticity”). The name means exactly what it sounds like. Some places where the /r/ sound exists in Mainstream American English, Black English will lack it. In particular, Black English can be nonrhotic, lacking /r/’s, in at least three situations.[36] First, when the /r/ sound is not followed by a vowel sound. Second, when the /r/ sound falls between two vowel sounds in a single word. And third, before the vowels in “bow” and “boon.”

The Reverend, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. exhibited the first two versions in his “I Have a Dream” speech. In the linked excerpt, the following words are nonrhotic: <our>, <world>, <wherever>,[37] <Georgia>, and <New York>. And the third version is most common in the words <through>, <throw>, and <throat>.

What is not so often shared with other varieties of English is that the /l/ sound can also disappear in many of the same circumstances. For example, the words <tool> and <soul>.

These features can lead to homophones and near homophones in Black English that might be more easily distinguished in Mainstream American English. Note that other differences might occur at the same time (like a different or longer vowel sound), so even more confusion might result:

● <tool> ~ <too> ~ <two> ~ <to>

● <cold> ~ <code> ~ <coal>

● <toe> ~ <tore> ~ <tour> ~ <toll> ~ <tolled> ~ <told> ~ <tow> ~ <towed> ~ <toad>

● <fault> ~ <fought>

● <fool> ~ <food> ~ <foo>

● <so> ~ <sew> ~ <soul> ~ <sole> ~ <sold> ~ <sewed>

● <foe> ~ <fort> ~ <fold>

● <Paris> ~ <pass>

● <court> ~ <coat> ~ <caught>

● <fair> ~ <fear>

● <whore> ~ <hoe> ~ <ho>

● <moat> ~ <molt> ~ <Moe> ~ <mole> ~ <more> ~ <mow> ~ <mowed>

● <whole> ~ <oat> ~ <hole>

● <your> ~ <yo>

● <Yosef> ~ <yourself>

● <he a> ~ <he’a> ~ <here>

● <they a> ~ <they’a> ~ <there>

● <she a> ~ <she’a> ~ <sheer> ~ <shear>

● <old> ~ <owed>

● <under> ~ <on the>

● <gold> ~ <go>

● <dial> ~ <die>

● <door> ~ <dough> ~ <doe>

● <father> ~ <farther>

● <gonna> ~ <gunner> ~ <gun her>

● <fye> ~ <fire>

● <all> ~ <awe>

● <Saul> ~ <saw>

● <y’all> ~ <yaw>

2. The /th/ Sounds: /θ/ & /ð/

That Black English speakers can—but do not always, even for the same speaker—pronounce <this>, <that>, and <the> with an initial /d/ sound is all but clichéd, but this is part of a broader pattern in how Black English treats /th/ sounds. But first we need to go over some features of Mainstream American pronunciation that are not represented in writing.

Mainstream American English has two /th/ sounds. Compare “breath,” “think,” “thought,” and “threw” with “breathe,” “this,” “that,” and “those.” Linguists represent the former with /θ/ and the latter /ð/. Black English has different reflexes for these sounds. The /θ/ sound can be realized as an /f/ or /t/ sound, and the /ð/ sound can be realized as /d/ or /v/ sounds.[38] So, for example, <mother> and <brother> are often pronounced with /v/ sounds, <mouth> ends in an /f/ sound, and <death> and <deaf> might be homophones. For an example, in the song No Comparison, A Boogie Wit da Hoodie utilizes a shared /v/ sound in <never>, <ever>, <mother>, <another>, <lover>, <each other>, <whatever>, and <other>.[39]

Which change occurs is a function of the placement of the sound in the phrase, but for our purposes, knowing the reflexes is sufficient. Consider the possible homophones and near-homophones that might result:

● <they> ~ <day>

● <though> ~ <dough> ~ <doe> ~ <door>

● <roof> ~ <Ruth>

● <some fin> ~ <something>

● <Dan> ~ <than>

● <den> ~ <then>

● <with> ~ <wit>

● <with> ~ <whiff>

● <lithe> ~ <live>

● <death> ~ <deaf>

● <this> ~ <diss>

● <golf> ~ <goth>

● <never> ~ <nether>

● <wreath> ~ <reef>

● <clothe> ~ <clove>

● <loaves> ~ <loathes>

● <knife her> ~ <neither>

3. Multiple Consonants Together: “Kilt”

Mainstream American English allows many consonant clusters[40] that Black English (and also often Mainstream English) speakers reduce. And in some circumstances, consonants will change their sound because of where they appear in the word or phrase. I could easily get lost in the minutiae here and explain the intricacies of the rules, but instead we will focus on those changes I think most likely (or have been demonstrated) to cause misunderstanding.

First, /b/, /d/, and /g/ can sound like /p/, /t/, and /k/ respectively when they come at the end of the word.[41] A common example is <killed> being pronounced the same as <kilt>. Furthermore, /d/ and /t/ often become glottal stops[42] or nothing at all at the end of words.

● <cub> ~ <cup>

● <cab> ~ <cap>

● <cud> ~ <cut>

● <oat> ~ <old> ~ <whole> ~ <hole>

● <pig> ~ <pick>

● ~ <’sup>

● <feed> ~ <feet>

● <killed> ~ <kilt>

● <sigh> ~ <sight> ~ <side>

● <debt> ~ <dead>

● <write> ~ <ride> ~ <right>

● <writ> ~ <rid>

● <tight> ~ <tide>

Luckily for the purposes of distinguishing words, with this particular feature, /b/, /d/, and /g/ tend to cause the preceding vowel to be longer, so in speech, these are only near homophones.[43]

And second, series of consonants and the sound /v/ can be reduced or changed, especially at the end of words.[44] So, for some examples, /st/ and /sk/ can become simply /s/. /ft/ can become just /f/. /kt/ can become just /k/. /nz/ can become just /z/. /v/ can become nothing. And there are many, many other possibilities, but below I choose a few and include some that have been demonstrated[45] to cause confusion.

● <miss> ~ <mist> ~ <missed>

● <ask> ~ <axe>

● <ask> ~ <asks> ~ <ass>

● <guest> ~ <guess>

● <test> ~ <Tess> ~ <tests> ~ <terrace>

● <best> ~ <Bess>

● <don’t> ~ <gon’>[46] ~ <dough> ~ <doe> ~ <own>

● <white friend> ~ <wife friend>

● <been don’t> ~ <better know>

● <true> ~ <chew>[47]

● <of> ~ <a>

● <rift> ~ <riff>

● <men> ~ <meant>

● <man> ~ <ma’am>

● <wind>[48] ~ <wine>

● <hold> ~ <hole>

● <relax> ~ <relaxed>

● <clothes> ~ <close>

● <delivery man> ~ <a leery man>[49]

● <something> ~ <some>[50]

● <can> ~ <can’t>[51]

● <don’t> ~ <own>

● <iron> ~ <urn>

● <nothing> ~ <none>

4. Vowel Mergers: Pin-Pen, Feel-Fill, & Think-Thank

Vowel mergers are, luckily, exactly what they sound like. In certain circumstances, vowels that are different in Mainstream American English exist as a single sound in Black English. Vowel mergers happen often in English. Most Americans have no difference in pronunciation between “Mary,” “marry,” and “merry,” but some dialects retain the distinction.[52] This collapse is aptly called the “Mary-marry-merry merger.” Black English participates in some of the same mergers that Mainstream American English has but not all.[53] To avoid inadvertent misinterpretation, lawyers should make note of mergers in Black English that are not often used in Mainstream American English. Where Black English participates in a merger uncommon for speakers of Mainstream American English, [54] lawyers should be especially on edge. The pin-pen, feel-fill, and think-thank mergers are probably the most important.

Let’s start with pin-pen. The rule is relatively simple: before the nasal sounds /n/ and /m/, the vowel in <pen>[55] becomes the same as the vowel in <pin>.[56] Consider the following near or complete homophones:

● <pen> ~ <pin>

● <penning> ~ <pinning>

● <any> ~ <innie> ~ <indie>

● <many> ~ <mini>

● <Ben> ~ <bin> ~ <been>

● <bend> ~ <binned> ~ <bent>

● <cents> ~ <since>

● <chem> ~ <Kim>

● <eminent> ~ <imminent>

● <gem> ~ <Jim>

● <hem> ~ <him>

● <Gen> ~ <gin>

● <Ken> ~ <kin>

● <lent> ~ <lint>

● <Lenin> ~ <linen>

● <meant> ~ <mint>

● <send> ~ <sinned>

● <sender> ~ <cinder>

● <spending> ~ <spinning>

● <spend> ~ <spent> ~ <spin>

● <Shen> ~ <shin>

● <ten> ~ <tin>

● <tender> ~ <tinder>

● <tremor> ~ <trimmer>

● <when> ~ <win>

● <wend> ~ <wind>

● <wren> ~ <Rin>

● <Wendy> ~ <windy>

Next, feel-fill. In this merger, the vowel in “feel”[57] becomes the same as the vowel in “fill” before /l/ sounds. Consider the following near or complete homophones:

● <feel> ~ <fill> ~ <Phil>

● <appeal> ~ <a pill>

● <deal> ~ <dill>

● <field> ~ <filled>

● <heal> ~ <hill> ~ <he’ll> ~ <heel>

● <eel> ~ <ill>

● <keel> ~ <kill>

● <meal> ~ <mill>

● <kneel> ~ <nil> ~ <Neil>

● <peel> ~ <pill>

● <she’ll> ~ <shill>

● <seal> ~ <sill>

● <steal> ~ <still> ~ <steel>

● <till> ~ <teal> ~ <‘til>

● <we’ll> ~ <will> ~ <wheel>

● <wield> ~ <willed>

Finally, think-thank. Here, the “think” vowel (/ɪ/) becomes like the vowel in “thank” (/æ/) before the /ŋ/[58] sound.[59]

● <think> ~ <thank>

● <rink> ~ <rank>

● <sink> ~ <sank>

● <sing> ~ <sang>

● <singer> ~ <sang her>

● <cling> ~ <clang>

● <thing> ~ <thang>

● <Bing> ~ <bang>

● <sting> ~ <stang>

● <wring> ~ <rang>

● <ding> ~ <dang>

● <bring> ~ <brang>

● <ping> ~ <pang>

● <ring> ~ <rang>

5. Vowel-Consonant Combinations: “Ma”

Black English (and Southern English) will sometimes have different qualities in vowel pronunciation—monophthongs[60] can change to diphthongs and diphthongs to monophthongs.[61] So, for example, “my” in Mainstream American English ends in a /y/[62] sound, but in Black English <my> might have a pure vowel, removing the /y/ sound so it sounds like <ma>. In the other direction, some pure vowels in Mainstream American English might be pronounced as diphthongs. For example, the /ɪ/ vowel in <pin> might be pronounced as /iə/ (“ee-uh”). This creates yet another set of possible near homophones.

From Monophthongization:

● <my> ~ <ma> ~ <mire>

● <guy> ~ <ga>

● <high> ~ <ha> ~ <hi>

● <spy> ~ <spa>

● <jibe> ~ <job>

● <bide> ~ <bod>

● <chide> ~ <chard>

● <died> ~ <dot> ~ <dyed>

● <ride> ~ <rot>

● <tried> ~ <trot>

● <wide> ~ <watt>

● <spied> ~ <spot>

● <fried> ~ <fraught>

● <hide> ~ <hot>

● <side> ~ <sought> ~ <sighed> ~ <sot>

● <guide> ~ <got> ~ <god>

● <tied> ~ <taught> ~ <tot>

● <shied> ~ <shot>

● <wife> ~ <waft>

● <bike> ~ <Bach>

● <dike> ~ <dock> ~ <dyke>

● <hike> ~ <hawk>

● <Mike> ~ <mock>

● <Reich> ~ <rock>

● <sike> ~ <sock>

● <like> ~ <lock>

● <bike> ~ <balk>

● <hype> ~ <hop>

● <pipe> ~ <pop>

● <lie> ~ <locked>

● <high school> ~ <hospital>

From Diphthongization:

● <pin> ~ <peeing>

● <bin> ~ <being> ~ <been> ~ <bean>

● <sin> ~ <seeing>

● <kin> ~ <keen> ~ <keying>

● <Lyn> ~ <lean>

● <tin> ~ <teen>

● <win> ~ <wean>

● <grin> ~ <green>

● <shin> ~ <sheen>

● <skin> ~ <skiing>

● <din> ~ <dean>

6. Children’s Forms: “Skreet”

Like Mainstream American English, Black English also has some pronunciations much more common amongst children than adults. Their rarity does not override the importance of mentioning them, especially because kids do appear in court. To be clear, this is not to say that Black English is simple or childish—it isn’t. Child speakers of Black English have some of their own features going on, as is the case in many, if not all, languages.

The first feature is the reduction of the consonant cluster of the sounds /ks/ or /gz/ to just /k/ and /g/ respectively.[63] So, for example, <six> and <sick> would be homophonous. But notably, many, many singular forms ending in a /k/ or /g/ sound will sound the same as their plural, for example, <loc> ~ <locs>.

● <six> ~ <sick>

● <Max> ~ <Mack>

● <mix> ~ <Mick>

● <pics> ~ <pick>

● <pigs> ~ <pig>

● <ticks> ~ <tick>

● <socks> ~ <sock>

The second is the change of the /str/ sound to the /skr/ sound.[64] This is unlikely to cause confusion to another word but is worth mentioning as a possible feature of children’s speech in Black English.

● <stream> ~ “scream”

● <strawberry> ~ ‘skrawberry’

● <extreme> ~ ‘exkreme’

● ~ ‘skrong’

● <street> ~ ‘skreet’

● <destroy> ~ ‘deskroy’

● <stressed> ~ ‘skressed’

Finally is the understudied feature of the changing of one sound, such as the vowel in “road” (/o/), to the /oy/ sound.[65] So, for example, <road> and <roid> become homophonous.

● <road> ~ <roid>

● <porch> ~ ‘poych’

● <goal> ~ <girl> ~ ‘goyl’

● <roach> ~ ‘roych’

● <approach> ~ ‘approych’

7. Pitch: Fluctuations, Falsetto, & Questions

Most readers are likely aware that pitch is used to indicate meaning in English. For example, “Yes.” “Yes!” and “Yes?” are not distinguishable by the sounds in the word /y/, /ɛ/, and /s/, but instead by the contour of the pitch the speaker uses.

Black English speakers might use a wider range of meanings associated with pitch and more internal pitch variation within phrases than Mainstream American English speakers.[66] These pitch differences are not so well studied, but several things seem relatively clear.

● Stressed and unstressed syllables will normally have larger differences in pitch.[67]

● Falsetto, especially in men, can indicate indignation[68] or general excitation.[69]

● Yes-No and Wh-Questions are less likely to use the rising tone exhibited by European Americans.[70]

Here I cannot so much give “homophones” as a caveat auditor on each of these three points. First, monodialectal speakers of Mainstream American English might take pitch fluctuations as aggression when they do not mean anything of the kind. This difference might mean that a speaker of Black English might be perceived as yelling or raising their voice in their natural speech pattern.

Second, lawyers when speaking with clients, witnesses, victims, or anyone else who speaks Black English should be aware that if they begin to use falsetto, especially if they are male, they are probably excited (positively or negatively).[71]

Third, something that sounds like a statement because it has neutral tone might actually be a yes-no question with a pitch contour that is not entirely obvious to a non-Black English speaker.

B. Words and Grammar

“All struggles are essentially power struggles. Who will rule, who will lead, who will define, refine, consign, design. Who will dominate.”

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

Divergences in words and grammar are maybe the most easily articulated differences between Black English and Mainstream American English. They are also, maybe, most easily borrowed into Mainstream American English from Black English. Words readily familiar to almost any speaker of Mainstream American English like “cool,” “hip,” and “old school” as well as those which are only now becoming more in vogue among the general population like “no cap,” “bussin,” “boo,” and “on God” all have their origins in Black English.

Individual words change extremely quickly. “Epic” and “pwn” were extremely important slang words about fifteen years ago, but today “rizz,” “aura,” and “poggers”[72] would be much more important to a newly minted netizen. “Righteous” and “far out” have faded, but “cool” never seems out of fashion. Here, I am not going to give a crash course in the entire lexicon of Black English for several reasons. First, others with more resources are working on just that.[73] Second, to be comprehensive would require delving into the realm of regionalisms and would end up being jeremiad in length. Third, the result of that effort would quickly be obsolete. Lawyers working in Black English will necessarily be confronted with words that are new and undocumented, even by those that study Black English. Instead, what follows is hopefully useful to any lawyer working with Black English speakers from anywhere.

So, by “words and grammar,” I mean those words that have shown themselves to be like “cool” rather than “righteous” and the structures that forms the guts of the language. There is an internally consistent set of rules, and those that work with speakers of Black English should be at least vaguely aware of them and put procedures in place to avoid miscommunication.

In this Section, I will often cite usage from the internet and reproduce them exactly as they appear.[74] I, of course, cannot verify whether the writers are in fact speakers of Black English, but I can verify that the examples used are consistent with Black English structure. I will also (sometimes) assume gender and race based on linguistic structures, pictures, and context. You will note that many of the spellings used are nonstandard and represent some of the sound changes presented in the previous part. When necessary and appropriate, I provide approximate glosses in Mainstream American English.

1. The Verb <Be>: <They don’t think it be like it is, but it do.>

Similar to Russian, Irish, and Arabic, Black English need not use the “to be” verb in the present tense. This means “he is a teacher” could be rendered <he’s a teacher> or just <he a teacher> and “they are running to the store” could be just <they running to the store>. Unlike Arabic, where this feature is universal and mandatory, in Black English, it is selective and optional. First, it doesn’t happen if the verb form is “am.” So, one does not say to mean “I’m ready.” It would need to be <I’m ready>. And second, it doesn’t happen if the verb could not be contracted in Mainstream American English.[75] So, one does not say to mean “I don’t know who she is.”

There is, however, a marking in the present tense that Black English uses that Mainstream American English does not: the so-called “habitual” <be>. If <be> is used in a Black English sentence where one would expect a conjugated present-tense verb, like “is” or “are,” it can indicate a habit or a regular action. I personally witnessed a misunderstanding between a lawyer and client with the sentence <she be drunk>. The lawyer thought it referred to a singular instance of drunkenness, but that would be rendered <she drunk>, while <she be drunk> is closer to “she is a drunk” or “she is habitually drunk.”

It should also be noted that both the present progressive form (<she getting drunk>) and the habitual forms (<she be getting drunk>) have emphatic forms. The present progressive <steady> is used to emphasize a situation that is occurring right now, and the habitual <stay> is used to emphasize a habitual situation that is not necessarily happening at the moment. <Aksel steady winning> would mean he “continues to win and is doing so right now.” And <Aksel stay winning> would mean he “wins a lot” (the same as <Aksel be winning> but emphasized). The <stay> is often pronounced emphatically.

There are numerous places in the law where this distinction between present progressive and habitual is legally relevant. Take present-sense impression exceptions to the hearsay rules for one example. <He shooting people!> is plausibly a present-sense impression. However, <he be shooting people!> is not plausibly a present-sense impression any more than “he shoots people sometimes” is. A second context is emergency-police entrances into homes. If someone were to say to the police <my son overdosing>, the police could be justified in entering the home to provide emergency aid. However, if someone were to say <my son be overdosing>, that would not mean the son was overdosing at that moment.

The habitual <be> is one of the most ubiquitous and misunderstood features of Black English grammar. It has crept into mainstream English in two notable ways. One is the stock phrase “It be like that (sometimes),” which many speakers will use as an alternative to c’est la vie despite not understanding the origins of the “be” in there. The other is the Oscar Gamble quote: <They don’t think it be like it is but it do>, which has become an internet meme because of its “indecipherable quality.”[76] The meaning is “they don’t think it is often how it is, but it is often.” Some confusion might arise from the <do>, but this is because <be> in Black English functions as a lexical (not helping) verb, so it can take what linguists call “do support.” The habitual <be> must be on the radar of any lawyer working with Black English speakers.

Finally, speakers might level the conjugation of verbs, meaning one might see normally exclusive third-person forms used for any person. For example, <we was up at Michael house> and <is you is or is you ain’t my baby>. Additional examples include:

i. <Niggas like “man, that’s what everybody said”>[77]

“People are like (say) ‘man, that’s what everybody said’”

In this example, note that this might cause confusion with the meaning “people like” as in “people are fond of.”

ii. <Idk what I wanna eat I be going to 2 diff places can’t never get one thing from one place 🥴>[78]

“I don’t know what I want to eat. I often go to two different places and can’t ever get one thing from one place.”

iii. <As a history major i hate when people try to talk to me about history thinking they putting me on game, and it be some hotep misinformation they read on Facebook. I’d rather us talk about the weather than fake news cause now you just made me mad😭>[79]

“As a history major, I hate when people try to talk to me about history thinking they are teaching me something new. And it is always some hotep[80] misinformation they read off Facebook. I would rather us talk about the weather than fake news because now you just made me mad.”

iv. [81]

“I love when somebody does everything they said they were going to do”

v. <“ A nigga gone be a nigga “ not with me he NOT . I’m strict af 😂😂😂 Y’all stay dangerous tho !!>[82]

“‘A nigga will be a nigga’—not with me he won’t. I’m strict as fuck. You stay dangerous though!!”

vi. <Gotta go w the neckbones It be a lotta fat on them ox tails>[83]

“(You have) got to go with the neckbones. There is usually a lot of fat on those oxtails.”

vii. <Sam’s wholesale stores be on the outskirts of town.>[84]

“Sam’s wholesale stores are usually on the outskirts of town.”

viii. <Too many niggas in cycle of jail, spending they birthdays inside of a cell>[85]

“Too many black men are in (a) cycle of jail, spending their birthdays inside of a cell.”

ix. <You said something right there. It’s life tho we steady learning lessons errday be upset if you not>[86]

“You said something right there. It’s life though. We are learning lessons every day. Be upset if you are not.”

x. [87]

“I read my Bible (very) often”

For other examples, see Part II.B.10 on <them> and <up>, example i and Part II.B.11 on phrases about existence, example iv.

2. Desire: <You tryna eat?>

<Tryna> in Black English is a false friend. In Mainstream American English, “trying to” indicates an attempt, but in Black English, <tryna> can also indicate mere desire or intent, a subtle but importance difference. So, is closer to “I was planning/wanting/desiring to go home” than “I was attempting to go home.” If someone asked <you tryna eat?>, they would be asking if you wanted to eat not if you were having trouble doing so. This is most obvious in negative sentences. <I’m not tryna pay no more than $20 for this> means “I don’t want to pay more than $20 for this” not “I’m not attempting to pay more than $20 for this.” Consider these examples:

i. <You gotta show me, I ain’t tryna hear shit.>[88]

“You have to show me. I don’t want to hear anything.”

ii. [89]

“I usually don’t want to talk. Stop calling me.”

iii. <If you not tryna grind and make your life better I don’t want be round you.>[90]

“If you don’t want to grind[91] and make your life better, I don’t want to be around you.”

iv. <And Nicki if you ever tryna fuck, just give me the heads up so I can plan for it.>[92]

“And Nicki, if you are ever wanting to have sex (with me), just let me know, so I can plan for it.”

For another example, see Part II.B.14 on <talkin’ bout>, example i.

3. Contact Relatives

Black English can introduce relative clauses without the use of “that,” “which,” or “who.”[93] So, the question “where is the dog that bit you?” might be answered <the dog bit me at the vet> instead of <the dog that bit me at the vet>. This can quite often create an ambiguity as to the subject of the sentence. In the absence of the leading question, <the dog bit me at the vet> could be read either as “the dog that bit me is at the vet” or “the dog bit me at the vet.” One answers where the biting took place, and the other answers where the dog that bit currently is. To give another example, <my bike got stole> might answer the question “what are you looking for?” (“my bike that got stolen”) rather than “what happened to your bike?” (“my bike was stolen”).

In speech, there are subtle intonation differences that can help disambiguate, but even when perfectly understood, these subtle pronunciation differences are not entirely reliable and should not be considered conclusive in a legal setting, especially given that the potential for mistranscription or mishearing is far too great. Lawyers should be aware of the possibility of an unmarked relative clause. And ambiguities like these make it clear that stenographers should not attempt to “clean up” potentially ambiguous speech[94] and risk inadvertently closing off potentially correct interpretations.

i. <The man saw John went to the store.>[95]

“The man who saw John went to the store.”

This does not mean “the man saw John go to the store.” The man (who isn’t John) went to the store. It could mean that, but if a contact relative is being used, it doesn’t.

ii. <We got one girl be here every night.>[96]

“We have one girl who is usually here every night.”

iii. <Is he the one be making the tiktoks?>[97]

“Is he the one that is making the TikToks all the time?”

4. The Present Tense

Black English and Mainstream American English make extensive use of something called “zero marking.” Zero marking is essentially when a word’s grammatical role is changed, but nothing about the form of the word changes. So, “Google” is a noun, but if someone says, “Can you Google it?” using the noun as a verb, they have derived a verb from the noun using zero marking. In other languages, if one wanted to make a noun a verb, the form of the word must be changed. In Japanese, for example, the suffix する (suru) is often added. And in German, every verb[98] must end in an -en or -n (e.g., googeln).

While both Black English and Mainstream American English use zero marking, they use it in different places. One place where Black English uses zero marking, while Mainstream American English does not, is in the present tense. Mainstream American English will add an -s on many verbs to indicate that it is a third-person singular subject, but Black English does not necessarily use multiple forms for the present tense. So, instead of “I drink” and “she drinks,” it’s and <she drink>.[99]

Additionally, the present perfect as in “I have been” or “he has eaten” might be rendered without the “have” or “has,” just or <he eaten>. Other examples include:

i. [100]

“I used to think I wanted perfection until I saw it doesn’t exist and isn’t worth it anyway”

ii. <Exactly & where he go ain’t no where near cheap.. smh>[101]

“Exactly. And where he goes isn’t anywhere near cheap, shaking my head”

iii. <She gon be mad as hell when she see me again tonight>[102]

“She’s going to be mad as hell when she sees me again tonight.”

iv. <Sparrow came, he doing OK he eaten all the food, left little one coming back then going aww>[103]

“Sparrow came. He’s doing okay. He has eaten all the food, left a little one coming back then going aww.”

v. < He been on 4 teams in 3 years safe to say potential ain’t high at all lol>[104]

“He has been on four teams in three years. It’s safe to say his potential isn’t high at all lol”

For another example, see Part II.B.18 on <nigga> and <bitch>, example xiii.

5. The Past Tense

Black English also sometimes zero marks the past tense in certain contexts. This means the past tense might not have the normal -ed suffix or other irregular form. This is seen most often in children under the age of six.[105] The intended meaning might be obvious if there is an adverb of time in the sentence as in <yesterday she never brush her teeth>, but without the adverb, <she never brush her teeth> is ambiguous, either a statement about the past or the present. This is more likely to happen when the past-tense form of the verb ends in a consonant cluster: <pressed>, <brushed>, and <messed> might be homophonous with <press>, <brush>, and <mess>. In other contexts, where the past-tense and present-tense forms are more clearly distinguishable, like <eat>-<ate> and <creep>-<crept>, it will be less common. Furthermore, the past tense of “to be” verbs is not zero marked.

Furthermore, Black English makes heavy use of nonstandard past-tense forms. <Seen> instead of “saw” and <brung> for “brought” are two common examples.

The timing of events is obviously crucial to the law, and so the ways in which misinterpreting the tense of a verb might be fatal need not be laid out. Lawyers should be aware, especially when interpreting children’s speech where the verb ends in a consonant cluster, what sounds like a present-tense verb might in fact be a past-tense verb. And certain verbs, notably <seen> might be ambiguous as to whether they are a present perfect () or a nonstandard simple past (). Examples include:

i. [106]

“I saw it and thought that’s a cultural thing, but apparently, she isn’t/wasn’t okay with it”

ii. [107]

“I have seen a lot of birds but never a pigeon mixed with a chicken.”

This example could be interpreted either way: “I saw a lot of birds” or “I have seen a lot of birds.” Context counsels the latter interpretation, but it is indeed ambiguous.

iii. <We were coming home to eat something so we brung him wiff us>[108]

“We were coming home to eat, so we brought him with us.”

iv. <“y’all make southern look bad” like we brung the horse on campus 😭😭>[109]

“‘You all make southern look bad.’ Like we brought/have brought the horse on campus.”

This sentence is truly ambiguous, and the context is not much help.

6. Narration with <Had>: <What had happened was . . . >

In Mainstream American English, using “had” as a helping verb indicates the pluperfect, or the “past before the past.” So, “I had graduated college when I met you” indicates that the speaker graduated college before meeting their interlocuter. In Black English, <had> can simply indicate the past tense when someone is giving a narrative, so it would be unusual for it to be used in the simple reporting of a fact. <Yesterday, I had talked to Aisha>[110] would mean the discussion happened yesterday, not before. This means a sentence like <after dinner I had went to the pharmacy> is not ambiguous as to when going to the pharmacy happened—it emphatically happened after dinner. This feature is the origin of the now mainstream-recognized phrase “what had happened was,” which, like in Black English, introduces a narrative. The happening is not somehow past before past, it is simply past.

Of further note is that whenever Black English verbs encounter a helping verb, the simple past form may be used instead of the Mainstream American English past participle, so <had went> or <had ate> would occur where one might expect “had gone” or “had eaten.”

The misinterpretation likely from this feature is somehow believing the <had> means pluperfect. For example, consider <we had went to the store when I got a text>.[111] If one reads this sentence as “we had gone to the store when I got that text,” the speaker has probably returned home when the text is received. But the proper gloss in Mainstream American English would be “We went to the store when I got that text,” meaning the text was received at the store. Consider these examples:

i. <Girl I was drunk asf I kept falling and tierra had said I slapped the nigga who was trying to help me up 😭😭😭😭😭 and I had fell in the street like face first on that mf>[112]

“Girl, I was drunk as fuck. I kept falling and Tierra said I slapped the man who was trying to help me up. And I fell in the street, like face first on that motherfucker.”[113]

The <had> here is a simple past and is emphasizing the fact that this is a narrative. The <tierra had said> might look like it happened before the falling, but it almost certainly happened after given the context of the story.

ii. [114]

“I was playing basketball, and I went up for a layup and then I came down and sprung my ankle.”

Again, in this example, the going up for a layup is not somehow prior to the playing of basketball.

7. The Remote Past:

Black English has some tense[115] markings that do not exist in Mainstream American English. One of those tense markings is <BIN>—the remote-past marker. It is distinct from “been,” which also exists in Black English, by always being emphasized, and, of course, in its meaning.

For continuous actions, <BIN> emphasizes that the action has been occurring for a long time, and for discrete actions, <BIN> indicates that the action happened a long time ago. There is no perfect equivalent in Mainstream American English. Speakers convey the meaning if they want with an adverbial phrase like “for a long time.” A few examples illustrate the point. means “I did my homework a long time ago.” <He BIN had that shirt on> means “He has had that shirt on for a long time.”

This feature should not be confused with regular “been,” which sounds the same but would not be emphasized. <We been working> means “we have been working” (where the <have> is dropped in the present just like <is> might be), but <we BIN working> means “we have been working for a long time.” The second, with the emphasized <BIN>, is unambiguously emphasizing the length of time that the working has been happening for.

<BIN> is not likely to be misunderstood for anything in particular except “been,” but care must be taken to not write it off as meaningless in sentences like <he BIN had that shirt on>. To parse this as “he had that shirt on,” would miss possibly crucial information. Consider the following examples:

i. [116]

“I’ve known about this for a long time.”

ii. <When I grad please don’t tell me how you thought I been graduated just say congratulations>[117]

“When I graduate, please don’t tell me how you thought I graduated a while ago. Just say congratulations.”

iii. <im glad i been graduated cause class of 2024 woulda HAD ME🤣😩 i am a crocs and slides kinda gir>[118]

“I’m glad I graduated a while ago because the class of 2024 would’ve HAD ME. I am a crocs and slides kind of girl.”

iv. <I’m not surprised I been said them Kai Cenat fans weird af, on & off the internet>[119]

“I’m not surprised. I said a long time ago those Kai Cenat fans are weird as fuck, on and off the internet.”

v. [120]

“I figured out[121] a long time ago that you like me.”

8. Recent and Counterexpectational <Done>:

In Black English and Southern English, <done> can be used similarly to the perfective (helping verb) “have” in Mainstream American English, with the main difference being <done> usually emphasizes recent completion of an action. So, means something like “I just told you recently,” and <he done left> can mean “he has just left recently.”[122]

A second, sometimes overlapping meaning of <done> is as a marker of “counterexpectationality,” meaning it imparts something the listener or speaker might not have expected or is surprised by: it gives new information. It might come up in a sentence like .[123] It can also appear in a sentence that emphasizes correcting a listener’s misunderstanding. For instance, in response to <give me your number>, someone says .[124] This means <done> can be used for something not in the recent past. So, if someone says <you should go to France> and someone responds , the <done> here is not indicating recency necessarily, but counterexpectational affect.

A possible point of confusion is that <done> can occur with specific times in the past in ways that the Mainstream American English “have” cannot. For example, one cannot say in Mainstream American English “last night, my brothers have eaten up all the food, so I didn’t get any.” But <last night, my brothers done ate up all the food, so I ain’t get none> is perfectly correct in Black English.

Another source of confusion is the possibility of mixing various tense markings in Black English. Without exposure, these sentences can sound like word salad when they in fact mean something quite specific: <By five o’clock, they had BIN done watched the movie> means “By five o’clock, they had already finished watching the movie a while beforehand.” Or, <at noon, they be done stopped for lunch> would mean, “at noon, they usually have already stopped for lunch.” When <BIN> and <done> are used together, some speakers put <BIN> first, as in , but some also allow for <done> to come first as in .[125] While <done> might not be a confusing word on its own, lawyers should be familiar with it to avoid confusion because of its ubiquity.

i. <This the wildest TikTok I done seen in a minute lmao they had a time that night 😂😂>[126]

“This is the wildest TikTok I’ve seen in a minute lmao. They had a time that night.”

ii. [127]

“I’ve seen it all baby boy. This isn’t anything but a re-run.”

iii. <My man done learned how to cook oxtails and they’re good af. 🤤>[128]

“My man has recently learned to cook oxtails, and they’re good as fuck.”

iv. [129]

“I have done it all (and maybe you didn’t think I would).”

In this final example, the nature of <done> as a helping verb is on full display because it appears with the verb <to do>.

For another example, see Part II.B.18 on <nigga> and <bitch>, example i.

9. The Future Tense and Plans: <We gon’ be alright>

Continuing with the theme of tense markings, <gon’>, <’a>, and <finna> are all common grammatical words that change when or how an action is performed. Each word has direct analogues in Mainstream American English. <Gon’> is “going to” or “gonna,” as in <we gon’ find him>. Note this does not mean “going to a location,” just an indication of the future. <Finna> works almost identically: <he finna come up tomorrow>[130] means “he’s going to come tomorrow.” <’a> has two possible meanings. The first use is like the future tense “will” as in <we’a see about that>. The second use is as a reduced form of “have” after a helping verb like in colloquial Mainstream American English: <they should’a came with us>. Furthermore, for all three markers, the first-person singular pronoun precedes it directly, and both and <I’m> are possible. So, <I(’m) finna bounce>, <I(’m) gon’ bounce>, or <I’(m)a bounce> all work. The distinction between the three, if any, as far as I can tell is inconsistent across speakers and the country. So, for our purposes, <gon’> ~ <’a> (first meaning) ~ <finna>.

All three have various written forms. <Gon’> is often rendered <gone>, probably due to its pronunciation rhyming with “cone.” <’a> can be written as <uh> or similar because it is such a weak sound. And <finna> might be <fitna>, <fixna>, <finta>, or <fina>. These features should not be overlooked as they give crucial time information. For example, hearing <she’a be at Tracy house> as <she be at Tracy house> might lead to two misunderstandings. First, missing the <’a> would lead one to think the sentence is in the present. Second, misinterpreting the habitual <be> would lead one to think that the action is occurring at the time of speaking.

In the case of <finna>, there is a documented Sixth Circuit dissent misinterpreting it. The judge claimed that in the sentence <he finna shoot me>, “[t]he lack of an auxiliary verb renders the determination of whether Gordon intended to imply the past or present tense an exercise in sheer guesswork.”[131] As is hopefully clear from zero marking and the earlier discussion, this is manifestly false.

i. <We gon’ be alright>[132]

“We’re going to be alright.”

ii. <Wasn’t the person or answer I expected but hey we a see 🤣>[133]

“Wasn’t the person or answer I expected, but hey, we’ll see.”

iii. <i’m just ready to see my friends on campus, we finna have a blast 🥳>[134]

“I’m just ready to see my friends on campus. We are going to have a blast.”

iv. <my friend had told me if i go to college she a be so proud of me🥹🥹🥹🥹>[135]

“My friend told me if I go to college she will be so proud of me.”

v. <It’s a 90 acceleration but I’m playing on hotspot when I get home from ATL on the internet imma see if it’s a difference n my delay is crazy I do a simple move it takes literally a whole 2 seconds which throws my combos off>[136]

“It’s 90 acceleration, but I’m playing on hotspot. When I get home from Atlanta on the internet I’m going to see if there’s a difference. And my delay is crazy. I do a simple move, and it literally takes a whole two seconds which throws my combos off.”

vi. <Don’t care how tired I am , I gon work 🥲>[137]

“Don’t care how tired I am, I will work.”

Note that in this example, likely does not mean she is going to her place of work, just that she will work. This is just like how “I’m gonna work” does not mean “I’m going to (my place of) work” but only “I will work.”

For another example, see Part II.B.18 on <nigga> and <bitch>, example v.

10. Determiner <Them> & Intimate <Up>: <Them kids up at Mike’s place>

I group <them> and <up> together because they are relatively simple and straightforward but still worth mentioning. In Black English, <them> can often have the meaning <those>.

For example:

i. <im so glad im not one of them people that act like they life is so “perfect”, ill never portray that image. My life aint perfect but its not the worst . . . >[138]

“I’m so glad I’m not one of those people that acts like their life is so ‘perfect.’ I’ll never portray that image. My life isn’t perfect, but it’s not the worst.”

ii. <That school ain’t teaching them kids shit! 😂😂😂😂>[139]

“That school isn’t teaching those kids anything!”

Using <up> in reference to a place does not necessarily indicate direction, like in “up a tree,” but can indicate intimacy.[140] <We was sitting up at Marcus house>[141] might indicate that Marcus is a friend rather than that he lives in a treehouse. And <we was waiting up at the dentist’s> sounds a bit stilted unless the dentist’s is somehow a familiar and intimate place.[142] In the law, interpreters should not always assume <up> means direction but on the contrary should take the existence of <up> as possible indication of intimacy.

For example:

iii. <Y’all gon’ make me lose my mind, up in here, up in here>[143]

“You’re going to make me lose my mind, in this place, in this place.”

To be clear, the speaker could be located in a basement somewhere when he makes this statement.

For other examples, see Part II.B.18 on <nigga> and <bitch>, examples xix and xx.

11. Existence: <It’s always more fish in the sea>

To indicate that something exists, Black English speakers can use <it>, <they>, and <go> in place of the Mainstream American English “there is” expressions. For example, <it be like three cars in the driveway> means “there are usually around three cars in the driveway.” <There go my mail> means “there’s my mail.” And <they some coffee in the kitchen> means “there’s coffee in the kitchen.”[144] <It> and <they> might be followed by <some>, <have>, or <got> with little to no change in meaning.

Awareness of these features is important to aid in comprehension when they are used in more complicated contexts. For example, <yesterday, they some niggas always be stealing from Naomi store come talkin’ ’bout they ain’t do nothing> should be read as “yesterday, there were some men/people who are always stealing from Naomi’s store who said they didn’t do anything (and I’m indignant about it).” Going with the initially plausible reading of “they are some men/people” would lead to a mess in interpretation. Here are more examples to illustrate the phenomenon.

i. <It’s always a better nigga . . . . nvr settle>[145]

“There’s always a better man, never settle.”

ii. <i’m seeing a different shift in this election. it seems like it’s a lot of people rallying behind kamala>[146]

“I’m seeing a different shift in this election. It seems like there are a lot of people rallying behind Kamala.”

iii. <god put his strongest soldiers through the most it be so many obstacles many are called and few are chosen.>[147]

“God puts his strongest soldiers through the most. There are often so many obstacles. Many are called, and few are chosen.”

iv. <It be some folks who think we be makin up terms, phrases, and words and calling it internet/tiktok slang whole time it’s things we’ve heard/grew up on.>[148]

“There are some people who are in the habit of thinking we are in the habit of making up terms, phrases, and words and calling it internet/tiktok slang whereas the whole time it’s things we’ve heard/grew up using.”

v. <Here go a couple of my highlights !!>[149]

“Here are a couple of my highlights!” (posted with a video of some sports footage)

vi. <My phone was bout to die and while I was at the light I said oh there go a boost mobile maybe I can get a charger outta there😩>[150]

“My phone was about to die, and while I was at the light, I said, ‘oh, there’s a boost mobile—maybe I can get a charger out of there.”

vii. [151]

“I remember I went to Miami in 2019. I came back so hungry—there’s no (good) food (there).”

12. Possessives and Plurals: <Where y’all cars?>

There are two basic differences between possessives in Black English and Mainstream American English. First, the apostrophe-s ending is optional.[152] So, <my friend house> is perfectly grammatical and means “my friend’s house.” And second, some pronouns—namely, <they>—can be used in their nominative rather than their genitive form. The lack of the possessive ’s has been demonstrated to reduce the accuracy of stenographers attempting to transcribe Black English speech,[153] and it likely poses problems for anyone else trying to understand speech as well. If transcribers and listeners are not ready to hear these structures, they might miss words entirely.

For instance, when Rachel Jeantel testified in the Trayvon Martin trial, she repeatedly referred to <his daddy fiancée house>.[154] This, in combination with the normal lack of is and are in the present tense, can lead to relatively long sentences without verbs that might be daunting to interpret: <His uncle baby momma friend house front porch oak>[155] would mean “His uncle’s baby’s mother’s friend’s house’s front porch is (made of) oak.”

While it is a rarer phenomenon,[156] Black English speakers might also zero mark the plural. This means a word might still be plural even though it lacks the suffixed /s/ or /z/ sound—<a couple second later.>[157] In the very same trial, the court reporter noted confusion about the phrase <second later>.[158]

The possessives will be made clearer with examples.

i. <Was I the only one who use to put song lyrics in they school binder? Right along with pictures and maybe even a flower 😂>[159]

“Was I the only one who used to put song lyrics in their (own) school binder? Right along with pictures and maybe even a flower.”

In this example, <they> is used instead of “their” for the genitive pronoun. Also note the spelling of <use to> as this reflects a sound change presented in the previous part.

ii. <Man what the hell going on in San Francisco ?? They car break ins 100xs worse than Atlanta.>[160]

“Man, what the hell is going on in San Francisco? Their car break ins are 100 times worse than Atlanta’s.”

iii. [161]

“I miss my dog, but he is eating well at my momma’s house.”

iv. <Start taking mental health days when y’all on yall period. Tell y’all jobs you need human accommodations>[162]

“Start taking mental health days when you’re on your period. Tell your jobs you need human accommodations.”

v. <Why y’all always taking pics in front of y’all homeboys cars. Where are y’all cars?????>[163]

“Why are you always taking pictures in front of your homeboys’ (friends’) cars. Where are your cars?”

In these final two examples, the pronoun <y’all>, which most people are likely familiar with as meaning “you plural,” is also used in the possessive in place of “y’all’s.”

13. Negation: <Ain’t nobody see nothing>

There are three features of Black English negation to discuss. The first is negative concord or, as it is commonly known, “double negatives.” In Black English, negatives don’t necessarily “cancel out.” Instead of the negation being located on the verb, it is located throughout the sentence. This feature is shared with many languages: Spanish, Greek, Old English, and Hebrew to name a few. So, in Black English means “I didn’t see anybody.”

Second, there are two general negation words that are used extensively: <don’t> and <ain’t>. My suspicion is that the precise difference has to do with a technical linguistic concept called “aspect,” but for our purposes here, one can think of the difference as being roughly that <don’t> works for any person and indicates the present or future. For example, would mean “I sure hope there won’t be a leak after they finish.” Note that <don’t> might sound a lot like <gon’> which would change the meaning from the negative to the future.

In contrast, <ain’t> is a general negation but might indicate either the past tense, as in <didn’t> or <haven’t>, or a present-tense negation of <to be>, like “isn’t.” So, <he ain’t that tall> would mean “he isn’t that tall.” often means “I didn’t know that.” And <we ain’t never seen that movie> means “we haven’t ever seen that movie.”

The most nuanced difference is that when <ain’t> and <don’t> are used in the present tense, <don’t> is strongly preferred for more “ongoing” situations while <ain’t> is preferred for more discrete ones. So, while <don’t nobody supposed to be sending her no kind of letter> and <ain’t nobody supposed to be sending her no kind of letter> are both possible, they mean something slightly different.

Because of the versatility of <ain’t> and the semantic differences between <don’t> and <ain’t>, lawyers and judges should take care to not immediately “translate” <ain’t> or <don’t> to a particular tense or meaning, either in transcription or interpretation. This could lead to, amongst other things, mistakes in tense.

Finally, word order in Black English negatives might differ from Mainstream American English. The negative words might bunch up at the front. For example, <ain’t nobody see nothing> means “nobody saw anything.”

Lawyers must take care to not make inferences about double negatives without first investigating the context. Statements like those of the Illinois Supreme Court in 2008 that “phrases such as ‘do not have no money’ or ‘do not hear nothing’” exemplify “forbidden, self-cancelling usage” could do real harm in cases involving Black English.[164]

With that, here are some collected examples:

i. <don’t nobody kno wassup wit me.. i don’t even kno wassup wit me.😭>[165]

“Nobody knows what’s going on with me. I don’t even know what’s going on with me.”

ii. <“I can’t see nobody stopping us! We unstoppable.. Went thru a whole lot of obstacles. I swear we did the impossible!”>[166]

“I can’t see anybody stopping us! We are unstoppable. Went through a whole lot of obstacles. I swear we did the impossible!”

iii. [167]

“I can’t ever find this app. Never had that problem when it was Twitter.”

iv. <Ain’t nobody never gotta fake no vibe w me>[168]

“Nobody ever has to fake a vibe with me.”

v. [169]

“I swear I’m not hitting anybody up anymore.[170] Either they aren’t available, or they only want one thing. This shit sucks.”

vi. <… don’t no niggas care about that no more.>[171]

“No men care about that anymore.”

vii. <Well I ain’t know all that. But now that I do I’m getting weird vibes.>[172]

“Well, I didn’t know all that. But now that I do, I’m getting weird vibes.”

viii. <Ion be knowing how to feel nomo. I just go with the flow>[173]

“I often don’t know how to feel anymore. I just go with the flow.”

Note the spelling reflective of the sound change of <Ion> for “I don’t.” This has great potential for confusion, especially when listening, with <I’m gon’>.

ix. <Someone responded to one of my emails with “Ms” and I ain’t know how to feel 😂>[174]

“Someone responded to one of my emails with ‘Ms.,’ and I didn’t know how to feel.”

14. Quotation: <Ain’t nobody talkin’ bout them clothes cheap>

In Black English, <talkin’ bout> or <talmbout> is a quotative marker, meaning it can set off a quotation or a report of someone’s speech rather than literally meaning talking about a topic. Other examples of these markers in Mainstream American English are “said,” “asked,” “to be like,” and “exclaimed”—as in “Mary said she was leaving” or “and Mary was like, ‘I know her!’”

For instance, <he talmbout, “who that?”> can mean “he asked, ‘who is that?’” It probably does not mean “he is talking about who that is.” And <Mary talmbout she ain’t seen him> might mean “Mary is saying, ‘she hasn’t seen him,’” not “Mary was talking about the fact that she didn’t see him” or something of the kind. In other words, Mary might have seen her, but whoever “she” is has not. This is ambiguous and either interpretation is possible.

The possible misunderstandings here seem most prevalent in negative statements. For example, <ain’t nobody talkin’ bout them clothes cheap>[175] would mean “nobody is saying, ‘those clothes are cheap,’” not “nobody is talking about that the clothes are cheap.” The incorrect interpretation makes it sound as if the speaker might think the clothes are in fact cheap while the correct interpretation gives no such impression whatsoever.

More directly to the point, if <talkin’ bout> is acting as a quotative marker, the speaker should not be thought of as necessarily believing what comes after to be true. So, if the speaker says <they was talkin’ bout they ain’t never seen her before>, that does not mean the speaker actually believes they have never seen her in the way the Mainstream American English “They were talking about how they have never seen her” might insinuate.

Finally, <talkin’ bout> might indeed just mean “talking about.” So, great care has to be taken to ensure the correct interpretation, or a note should be made of the ambiguity. If the marker is followed by <some>, it strongly indicates that it is functioning in a quotative capacity, but the <some> is in no way necessary for the quotative marker.

i. <Why do I always end up dating morning people??? This nigga woke up at like 7:30 talking bout some “so what you tryna eat for breakfast?” Nigga SLEEP>[176]

“Why do I always end up dating morning people? This man woke up at like 7:30 and said, ‘So, what do you want to eat for breakfast?’ Nigga, SLEEP.”

ii. <Y everyone talkin bout they summer so shit bro my Summer was gas>[177]

“Why is everyone saying their summer was so terrible, bro? My summer was amazing.”

iii. <i matched on Hinge w/ someone (33 btw) we made plans for SATURDAY. NOT TODAY, TUESDAY. he talkin bout i’m off today, lemme stop by tonight. i have never met this man before PLUS i have plans tonight, so i said i cant tonight. he gone say i’m wasting his time& doing too much😭>[178]

“I matched on Hinge with someone (33 by the way). We made plans for SATURDAY. NOT TODAY, TUESDAY. He says, ‘I’m off today. Let me stop by tonight.’ I have never met this man before PLUS I have plans tonight, so I said I can’t tonight. He is going to say I’m wasting his time and doing too much.”

Note in this example it is probably the man she matched with, not her, who is off work.

iv. <LinkedIn people are so pretentious. Talmbout “I await your kindest response”. 😭>[179]

“LinkedIn people are so pretentious, saying ‘I await your kindest response.’”

15. Indignant <Come>

The Black English <come>, alongside being the verb equivalent to “come” in Mainstream American English, can be used to introduce information about which the speaker is indignant—close to morally offended.[180] So, <yesterday, he come talmbout he rich now> means “yesterday, he said he’s rich now (and I’m not happy about it).” No motion is necessarily implied.

In properly formed Black English, sometimes the verb and the indignant marker come can be distinguished and inferred from context, but not always. The indignant <come> usually directly precedes an -ing form of the verb, has no intervening pause between it and the -ing form, and is never rendered <came> in the past tense.[181] On the other hand, the verb of motion <come> cannot be followed by the verb of motion <go> and can be rendered <came> in the past tense.[182] Both can be used with other verbs of motion, which can cause ambiguity.

So, <they came to tell me what had happened> is certainly the verb of motion because of the form <came> and the lack of an -ing form, but <he come walking in here like he own the place>[183] is ambiguous.

Since indignant <come> is often used with <talkin’ bout>, eliding those misunderstood phrases in transcription can lead to fatal results. For example, in a 2015 jail call, the sentence <he come tell me bout I’m gonna take the TV> was rendered “I’m gonna take the TV.”[184] This is much, much worse than false.

i. <tysean is always going off on me. i could say hi and here he come yelling bout some shit 😂😂>[185]

“Tysean is always going off on me. I could say ‘hi,’ and here he come yelling bout some shit.”

The sentence above is technically ambiguous but favors a jovial indignant <come> interpretation. It could also indicate motion—Tysean might literally walk in the room—but given that the speaker is already saying ‘hi’ they are probably in the same place, so it indicates some indignation. But, to complicate things further, the laughing emojis at the end of the phrase indicate that the <come> is being used in a more jovial manner rather than out of a true sense of indignation.

ii. <` and I absolutely HATE HATE HATE that they ended the series with them together. He disrespected and degraded the whole show. Then when she found genuine love he come sayin “i loved her the whole time!” Shit was lame asf. Ms. Parker deserved better😭>[186]

“And I absolutely HATE HATE HATE that they ended the series with them together. He disrespected and degraded (her) the whole show. Then when she found genuine love, he said, ‘I loved her the whole time!’ That was lame as fuck. Ms. Parker deserved better.”

iii. [187]

“I finished all my Christmas shopping, then this motherfucker says, ‘I need you to do mine.’”

These two examples are indignant <come>. The speakers are clearly not happy about what is being quoted.

iv. <Had her in the middle, she ended up, up under me. I slept side ways, here she come sleeping side ways, I came to the foot of the bed, I wake up she right here beside me 🤦🏽‍♀️>[188]

“Had her in the middle, she ended up under me. I slept sideways, then she slept sideways (and I’m not happy about it). I came to the foot of the bed, I wake up, and she’s right here beside me.”

This example exhibits both types of <come>. First, it uses <came>, the past tense verb of motion type. Second, it uses the indignant <come> in that speaker is annoyed she started sleeping sideways. The evidence is the exasperated tone, the emoji, and the fact that <come> is rendered as <come> rather than <came> when speaker uses <came> for the past in the next sentence. The sentence also exhibits intimate <up> coming directly after the verb <to end up> leading to a double <up>.

16. Negative Inferential Necessity: <You must don’t know me>

In Black English, <must don’t> is a relatively simple piece of grammar that means “must not” in an inferential sense. That is, it is not a command to not do something but an indication that the speaker believes it cannot, logically, be the case. For example, <you must don’t know him> means “you can’t know him.” Similarly, <must ain’t> can mean “must not have.” Some examples:

i. <You must don’t know how to cook brown sugar makes everything taste great>[189]

“You must not know how to cook. Brown sugar makes everything taste great.”

ii. <Lol you must don’t be outside>[190]

“Lol, you must not be outside often,” said after the following chain: <When’s the last time y’all seen a daddy long leg? (Spider)> 🡪 <A few weeks ago> 🡪 <Ain’t seen one since the 90s 😂>

iii. <She thought I would kiss her ass. She must ain’t took her meds.>[191]

“She thought I would kiss her ass. She must have not taken her medications.”

17. Dismissive, Adjectival & Reflexive <-ass>: <I’ll see they ass Monday>

The suffix <-ass> in Black English has at least three possible meanings that lawyers should be aware of. First, when attached to a name or possessive pronoun, dismissive <-ass> implies being dismissive. So, <he fell down with his stupid ass> and <I’m only gon’ tell y’all ass one more time> have nothing to do with buttocks or donkeys but instead indicate a sort of condescension or dismissal.[192]

Second, adjectival <-ass> (also humorously called the “ass intensifier” by linguists) goes between an adjective and a noun and can emphasize the adjective or be dismissive. So, <that’s a tall-ass man> probably does not carry any dismissive meaning and just emphasizes the man’s height. And <he a creepy-ass cracker>, close to a phrase Rachel Jeantel testified that Trayvon Martin said, probably indicates dismissiveness.[193]

Finally, <-ass> can indicate the reflexive pronoun, like the suffix “-self.” So, for example, might mean “I burned myself on the stove,” not “I burned my butt on the stove.”

All usages of the suffix are widespread, so lawyers should be aware of their usage in ways that have nothing to do with the meaning of “ass” in Mainstream American English.

It is also important to note that while <deadass> can be a word that roughly means “indeed,” the word <dead> can also use the <-ass> suffix for emphasis or dismissiveness. These should not be confused. Consider the following examples:

i. [194]

“I swear, I’m tired of these emotional, ungrateful women. Unstable, confrontational, dumb women.”

In the context of the song, a conversation between romantic partners gone awry, the dismissive meaning is almost certainly intended here.

ii. <Got rear ended last night by some idiot who “didn’t see” my red ass car right in front of him :)>[195]

“Got rear ended last night by some idiot who ‘didn’t see’ my red car right in front of him.”

This is probably an emphasizing <-ass>. That is, the car is very red such that it is implausible the other driver failed to see it.

iii. [196]

“I got myself up, voted, and still am on time for work. I’m proud of myself.”

iv. [197]

“I love you to death, but you can’t play with my intelligence.”

This is likely a relatively neutral adjectival <-ass>.

v. [198]

“I already made my mind up. I’m not going to my hair appointment tomorrow. I’ll see them Monday!”

vi. <HAPPY SATURDAY!!! HURRY & GET YO ASS IN HERE NOW!! 💕>[199]

“Happy Saturday! Hurry and get yourself in here now!”

vii. <Like hurry up and get yo ass out the way>[200]

“Like, hurry up and get yourself out of the way.”

viii. <You was deadass my baby, loved the shit out of you, crazy>[201]

“You were seriously/indeed my baby (romantic partner), loved the shit out of you, crazy.”

ix. <If a skeleton in my closet, it’s probably one of these dead-ass rappers, probably one of these pussy-ass niggas>[202]

“If a skeleton is in my closet, it’s probably one of these (quite) dead rappers, probably one of these weak/cowardly men.”

Examples viii and ix show the difference between <deadass> as a word in itself and <dead-ass> as the suffixed form. Of course, most speakers will not necessarily distinguish these forms by hyphen in their writings the way I have in this paper.

18. <Nigga> and <Bitch>

Even a casual observer in the United States will realize that <nigga> and <bitch> are common words in Black English. Though the sociolinguistic implications of these words will be discussed in Part II.B.19 and Part II.B.20, our subject in this Section is the meaning of these words.

Let’s start with <nigga>. Its most salient meaning is “a black man.” From this primary meaning, it is often used to distinguish men from women and can also refer to “a black male romantic partner.” But, especially in the plural, <niggas>[203], it need not refer exclusively to black people nor exclusively to men. <Niggas> could just be “people.” Here are some examples from the wild:

i. <This nigga done spilled the beans 🪦☠️😂😂😂😂>[204]

“This guy has spilled the beans” (said in response to an image of what appears to be white male cook who, quite literally, spilled beans on the ground).

ii. <Please ignore this post if these words offend you but Eminem is the corniest nigga in Hip-Hop. Eminem I have all your data. You think we forgot how Trump used to keep you speechless? It’s about to happen again.>[205]

For this example, some relevant background information is that Eminem is a famously white rapper.

iii. <if you not my nigga why are you talking to me??? think ab it>[206]

“If you are not my male romantic partner, why are you talking to me? Think about it.”

iv. [207]

“I love my (black male romantic) partner. I think about him all day.”

<Nigga> can also be a term of address, ranging from endearment to chastising to invidiously racist. Some try to distinguish between <nigga> and <nigger>, the latter being referred to as “nigger with a hard r.” And while it is true that it would be strange for <nigger> to be used as a term of endearment, <nigga> can also be used for any purpose <nigger> could be. One variant of the chastising meaning is that <nigga> or <nigger> can be used as a sort of stock character—one who is ignorant, up to no good, or not a respectable person. This is not just the stuff of etic derision, like minstrel shows, but also a feature of Black-internal, emic analysis. Chris Rock famously distinguished between <niggas> and <black people> for comedic effect in his “Niggas vs. Black People” routine.[208] Here is an example from Twitter:

v. <A nigga gone be a nigga but he ain’t gone be my nigga doing that nigga shit>[209]

“A (black) man is going to act like a (black) man, but he isn’t going to be (my black male romantic) partner doing those things that are characteristic of ignorant people.”

This example uses <nigga> in three different ways. The first two uses, in <A nigga gone be a nigga>, are ambiguous but likely refer to black men or men generally, similar to the idiom “boys will be boys.” The next use of the term, in <he ain’t gone be my nigga>, is likely referring to a black male’s candidacy to be the speaker’s romantic partner. And the final use, in <that nigga shit>, is invoking the stock character of <niggas> who are up to no good to modify the <shit> (“stuff” or “things”). Only the final usage is necessarily derisive. The first two usages are neutral and positive, respectively.

Furthermore, the phrase <a nigga>, especially when said by a black man, can be a pronoun straightforwardly equivalent to “I” or “me.” Here are some examples from the wild:

vi. <Damn a nigga done got sick>[210]

“Damn, I got sick.”

vii. <A nigga done got accepted into school🥳>[211]

“I’ve been accepted into school.”

viii. <You wanna bring a nigga down, even when I’m tryna do right>[212]

“You want to bring me down even when I’m trying to do right.”

ix. [213]

“I really wish a little extra cash came in them because I really needed it.”

The final usage of <nigga> we will deal with here is the concept of a <real nigga>. Think of it as the positive cousin of the derisive <nigga> from example v. Who a <real nigga> is and what he does is complex and socially contentious. Sometimes, and maybe more traditionally in rap, the term is associated with masculinity, straightforwardness, strength, rags to riches (often through crime and proven through jailtime), and hustle culture. But this view is not uniform, and some attempt to redefine the term. Verses three and four from J. Cole’s song 4 Your Eyez Only investigate the meaning of <real nigga> in depth. The following excerpts convey the point.

Verse 3:

<See, baby girl, I realized my definition of a real nigga was skewed. My views misshaped by new mixtapes that confirmed the shit I learned in the streets was true. That real niggas don’t speak when they beef with you. They just pull up on your street, let the heat hachoo. And if a real nigga hungry he gon’ eat your food.>

Verse 4:

<Girl, your daddy was a real nigga. Not because he was cold. Not because he was the first to get some pussy, twelve years old. Not because he used to come through in the Caddy on some vogues. Not because he went from bagging up them grams to serving O’s. Nah, your daddy was a real nigga, not because he was hard. Not because he sat behind some bars. Not because he screamed “Fuck the law.” Although that was true, your daddy was a real nigga because he loved you.>

If someone is referencing the archetype of a <real nigga>, regardless of whether they think a <real nigga> sells drugs, murders, or loves their children, it has a positive connotation. But this must be carefully distinguished from calling someone a real <nigga> in the derogatory sense à la Chris Rock.

The distinction lies in where the speaker places stress. <You a real NIGGA> is derogatory. <You a REAL nigga> is a compliment. This follows the more general tendency of English to move stress earlier in series of words that convey a single concept. Consider the following two sentences, in standard English: “I love FIVE guys” versus “I love five GUYS.” The former refers to “Five Guys,” the burger chain, and the latter means the speaker is in love with five men.[214] The brand is a single concept, so the stress has moved to the front. Similarly, <real nigga> when used as a single concept moves the stress to the word <real>.

Onto <bitch>.[215] In many ways, it is a female-forward equivalent of <nigga>. It refers, usually, to women generally and is not necessarily (but often is) derogatory. It can also be used in <a bitch> to mean “I” or “me” or in <real bitch> as an archetype of ideal femininity. Some examples:

x. <Bitches hate me all because that nigga love ME😭>[216]

“Women hate me all because that (black) man loves ME.”

xi. [217]

“I respect a woman whom I don’t see eye to eye with that minds her business when it comes to me. You women are often so caught up with a woman’s life that you don’t even like.”

xii. <a bitch done graduated early and shit 🙏>[218]

“I graduated early” (posted with a picture of what appears to be the speaker’s high school diploma).

xiii. <this bitch think i want her nigga .. baby i like girls 😂😂>[219]

“This woman thinks I want her (black male romantic) partner. Baby, I like girls.”

xiv. [220]

“I love women who know their worth.”

xv.<Even tho I hate bitches, I love women>[221]

This example makes use of the stock character of <bitches> and is similar to how Chris Rock uses the stock character of <niggas>.

xvi.<Too many woman laughing at another woman’s pain, that’s why I hate bitches. No couth at all.>[222]

“Too many women are laughing at another woman’s pain. That’s why I hate women. No couth at all.”

xvii. <She make sure she keep her nails did and her wig fixed. Went to jail and that one held me down—she a real bitch>[223]

“She makes sure to keep her nails done and her wig kempt. (I) went to jail and that (woman) supported me. She’s an ideal/true woman.”

xviii. <Some of y’all ain’t never had no real bitch and it shows. I keep it one hundred from my head down to my toes.>[224]

“Some of you have never dated/been romantically involved with a straightforward/ideal/proper woman, and it shows. I act right/honestly in every way possible.”

These last five examples show the spectrum between neutral or positive and derogatory or misogynistic uses of the term. Examples xvii and xviii, for example, use the term to refer to “good” women.

A final usage of <bitch> is when it means “place” or “location.” It is often used in a preposition phrase like <in this bitch>. This meaning is often humorous.

xix. <call judge judy up in this bitch fr>[225]

“Call Judge Judy in here for real.”

xx. [226]

“I’m habitually triple checking the oven before preheating it lol, shoving my head in there, making sure there isn’t something I’m about to incinerate lol.”

Again, some of the important social contours of <nigga> and <bitch> in the legal setting will be mentioned later in the Section on advice for lawyers, but these examples and explanations should help when trying to interpret what is actually meant by the words when they are used.

I hope this Section, if nothing else, has convinced non-Black English speakers that misinterpretation might fly well under the radar and that humility with regards to language is warranted. Language is messy. And what this morass means for lawyers is that they must be diligent in the sources they use and humble about language. When possible, lawyers should seek out dictionaries that separate out dialectal usages and academic linguistic sources for their information about Black English. Urban Dictionary, despite a tradition of being used by courts,[227] should not be one’s first source for anything linguistic. Wiktionary.com is better but not perfect, and a Black English dictionary is currently in the works, but in the meantime, academic sources should be the go-to and experts in language should be called at trial or otherwise to interpret certain features where terms are confusing or disputed. To do otherwise is to fail to use the standards of accuracy and precision necessary to justifiably call the law fair.

C. Talking to Each Other: Black English in Society & Some Advice for Lawyers

“I’d rather be called ‘nigger’ than ‘giantess’ any day of the week.”

Paul Beaty, The Sellout

“I don’t know what white Americans would sound like if there had never been any black people in the United States, but they would not sound the way they sound.”

James Baldwin

Language is bound up in social structures. It would be malpractice on my part merely to explain the form Black English takes without also investigating at least somewhat the social situation surrounding the language. In this Section, I will explain some of those social facts and give advice as to how one should navigate them as a lawyer.

If you have read and listened to the numerous examples from previous Sections and are from the United States, of any race, you might’ve felt uncomfortable. <Nigga> and <bitch> can be (and some would argue, always are) strong words. In some circles, such as Twitter and rap music, both of which I use for examples extensively by design, these words are in widespread use.

1. <Bitch>’s Social Context

Let’s start with <bitch>. The word exists and is common in Black English as it is common in basically all varieties of English. The complexity comes not just from its somewhat different usages in Black English[228] but also from the fact that, for some people, the word is so common to the point that it ceases to be a particularly strong or derogatory word, either descriptively or cognitively. To be clear, I am not saying Black English speakers do not find the word offensive, derogatory, or misogynistic. Plenty do, and some view it that way in all its forms. My point is that to some, it is not (or is not always). Even in Mainstream American English there has long been a desire in some circles to “reclaim” the word from its pejorative past.[229] Arguably, many Black English speakers, women or otherwise, have had moderate success in this department. The word is sometimes neutral, sometimes very positive, and sometimes extremely negative and playing into stereotypes.[230]

My job here is not to pass judgment as to the misogyny vel non immanent in the word <bitch>, nor would I claim to be able to do such a thing. That said, what legal practitioners probably already know is that in many, maybe all, formal legal settings, anyone using <bitch> regardless of subjective intent is liable to offend.[231] And most adults, speakers of Black English or otherwise, likely know that calling the judge <bitch> even if you mean it positively is probably not the greatest idea. It is by no means a formal word in Black English either. This means the normal role of lawyer as counsel is appropriate. Guiding and coaching language use is routine.[232] Knowledge of the social context helps lawyers understand that they should not necessarily chastise clients for using <bitch> at all, especially in their own communities, but should make a clear distinction as to what is perceived as appropriate in legal contexts.

It might seem to get more complicated when the speaker saying <bitch> is not your client or someone you are counseling (like a prosecutor might speak with a victim for their testimony). But my sense is that <bitch> especially is not a word where one would act towards a user of the word differently in a legal setting based upon their native dialect. If made with the understanding that usage might vary in the speaker’s cultural context, requests to refrain from using the word are entirely proper regardless of the identity of anyone involved.[233]

Finally, the sociology of Black English also makes some legal arguments more plausible than others. If misogyny is at issue in a dispute (say, sexual harassment), then the linguistic and social context should be taken into account. Using <bitch> as a stock character is likely much more probative of a misogynistic attitude than using <a bitch> as a first-person singular pronoun. Of course, each context is different. But I hope I have shown that it is almost certainly descriptively inaccurate to claim that usage of <bitch> as such says something about the conscious mental state of the speaker with respect to gender relations.[234]

2. <Nigga>’s Social Context and Black English’s Covert Prestige

<Nigga> is even more contentious than <bitch>. Emic views on the matter are as diverse as you could imagine. Experience dictates that Black people disagree vehemently.[235] Some think <nigga> is bad in all incarnations and should never be said by anyone. Some think it should only be said by black people. Some think it can be quoted but not used to refer to an individual. Some view its use as a triumphant reclamation of a word once used to oppress. And some think basically any position you can think of. In our capacity as lawyers, whether we are black or otherwise, it is not our job to come to conclusions as to when to use the word. But our job does entail understanding what people mean when they say <nigga>. Something to know, for example, is that many speakers using <nigga> online, in order to evade the detection of content-moderation algorithms or just for effect, will replace <nigga> with an emoji of the dark-skinned ninja:

i. <NEED A 🥷🏿 BEFORE FALL STARTS SO WE WATCH SCARY MOVIES AND GO TO HAUNTED HOUSES. !>[236]

“I need a nigga (black male romantic partner) before fall starts so we can watch scary movies and go to haunted houses!”

ii. [237]

“I refuse to let niggas (could be anything from black male romantic partners to people in general) tell lies in peace. Like take that elsewhere for real.”

As far as saying the word is concerned, when communicating with someone who does and might even be in that very conversation, as lawyers, we almost certainly should not—regardless of our race or whether we use the term in other capacities. There might be reasons to say it as a quotation, but in our official capacity, the social consequences of saying <nigga> especially are likely too high—especially for white lawyers. Consider that Chris Rock abandoned his “Niggas vs. Black People” routine at least in part because it seemed to give license for people to say <nigga> who he didn’t think should.[238]

What follows is an extended example to demonstrate two things: (1) Despite being maligned in most situations, in some contexts, Black English is the prestige dialect; and (2) Black English dominated spaces often accept non-black people into the community and their usage of Black English but often draw the line at the word <nigga> exactly.

Consider the song “Professional Rapper” by Lil Dicky and Snoop Dogg. Lil Dicky is white, and Snoop Dogg is black. The song consists of a conversation between Lil Dicky, an up-and-coming rapper, and Snoop Dogg, an oldhead.[239] Even more on the nose, Snoop is acting as a job interviewer for Lil Dicky and determining whether he should be accepted as a “professional rapper” or—as is clearly implied by the timing of the song, the age dynamics, and the racial dynamics—into the rap game generally.

To make his determinations, Snoop asks Lil Dicky to rap, show off his skills, and explain why he wants to be a rapper. Throughout the conversation, however, one thing is clear but never stated. Although both are using Black English to communicate, Snoop can say <nigga> and Lil Dicky cannot.[240] Snoop even calls Lil Dicky <nigga> several times in the song.

iii. <that’s a lot of talk from a wily vet, let alone from a rook nigga>[241]

iv. Lil Dicky: <You misread me>

Snoop Dogg: <Nah, this ain’t a book, nigga>

v. <Nigga, that shit is garbage man>

vi. Snoop Dogg: <Nigga, why does everything you say sound so soft?>

Lil Dicky:

Snoop Dogg: <Whatever>

The power dynamics of the word are extraordinarily abundant and compound with the other power dynamics in the song. But the verboten nature of <nigga> does not necessarily extend to other features of Black English.

Lil Dicky says <bitch> and even, despite being white and having grown up as he says <in the suburbs, upper middle wealth around>, uses plenty of grammatical Black English phrases in the song:

vii. Snoop Dogg: <What makes you wanna do rap?>

Lil Dicky: <Oh my god, it’s the best. Bitches let me draw up on they breasts.>

viii. <Well, I ain’t never had a tool>[242]

ix.

x.

xi.

To be clear, Lil Dicky does not normally talk like this. In the song, he switches back and forth, “code switching” between Black English when he raps and Mainstream American English when he speaks. And if you watch extended videos of Lil Dicky talking,[243] he does not normally speak in Black English unless he is either rapping or in a rap- or black-dominated space.

So, why go through that extended example? Because it shows the other side of the maligned status of Black English. As I mentioned in the introduction, plenty believe Black English is not a real language—that it is incorrect, lazy, sloppy, illogical, or what have you. I have hopefully demonstrated its internal consistency in the previous parts, but despite that, there is a very real bias against the language. Maybe most pertinent to a lawyer, bias that has been demonstrated to affect juror appraisals.[244] You, the reader, might have a linguistic “pet peeve”—I have met many lawyers that do—something you think is “wrong” or “annoys” you when people say it. And it would not be unsurprising if before reading a paper like this you thought some perfectly grammatical features of Black English were mistakes, an unfortunate product of a lack of education, or sloppy speech. That reality exists. Black English, in many, many contexts is a low prestige language. When trying to sound “fancy,” Americans might drop their r’s. But they are not imitating Black English, they are imitating British English, and even then, usually a particular variety of British English, Received Pronunciation, or maybe Standard Southern British English.

Even speakers of Black English might not be conscious of the fact that what they are doing is more than mere slang or has just as much linguistic merit as Mainstream American English. Plenty of Black people who speak Black English will swear up and down that it is “incorrect.” Lawyers should be aware of that and navigate it carefully. On the one hand, especially where policy and law creation are concerned, we should not perpetuate such a falsehood, but on the other, when interacting with such speakers, it is not always the time or place to argue with them about the finer points of theoretical linguistics. Understanding what people mean is the first step—culture change is important but secondary and contextual.

That said and being true, why is Lil Dicky using Black English? The reason is that there are some contexts, rap- and black-dominated spaces to name two, where speaking Black English is prestigious in some sense. There is a “covert prestige” about Black English that causes people, black, white, or otherwise, to effect Black English sounds and grammar in their own speech despite not using the dialect in other contexts. And for people who are not actually proficient in Black English, they will very well make mistakes. They will hypocorrect[245] their speech, introducing errors that they think represent Black English but are actually not grammatical.

Some decry this as appropriation of Black culture.[246] Good or bad though, it happens and is not limited to rap music or people who are not Black. Many Black people who do not speak Black English also participate in this phenomenon. To be clear, this is not to say the Black person “articulate” in Mainstream American English is not a speaker of Black English as well. Nor is it to say anyone is inauthentic when they switch styles between audiences. It is just to say that until someone creates a battery of tests for proficiency in Black English, one cannot assume a Black person necessarily is proficient in Black English just because they are using some of the features. And because there is inherent variation in any living language, one cannot say someone is not proficient in Black English because they do not use one or another feature. Lawyers should familiarize themselves with the context and be cautious before labelling someone as a speaker or not.

Conclusion: Black English and the Future

If I took a poll of lawyers today and tried to get them to explain the difference between <she at work> and <she be at work> or <they was tryna arrest me> and <they tried to arrest me>, I fear the results would be disheartening. Alleviating that fear is this Article’s genesis and raison d’être.

My proposal is modest. I am not here to argue that the legions of lawyers in this country need to become fluent in Black English[247] but rather that they should at least become familiar with the main features of language varieties they often run across in practice—including Black English. At the very least, we should know where to go when we do not know something, be humble, and avoid as many assumptions as possible.

Technology is developing fast, and some believe that AI will come down as a god from the machine. In a world where near-perfect, instantaneous dialectal translation is possible, many problems go away. That is not our world—at least not yet, and I would be a fool to predict in writing when if ever such a technology might come to be.[248] Machine learning’s role in the Black English problem is a topic for an entirely different paper, but one thing is clear: anyone claiming proficient-machine transcription or translation of “English” might often need to be more specific. Whatever they are, the governing AI rules should be extraordinarily clear to guard against systematic bias, but we should also be sober in considering how (in)accurate humans might be at such tasks.[249]

Another way the problems might dissipate is a thoroughgoing homogenization of language. This seems to be entirely plausible—provided that the world population shrinks to about a thousand and we begin to raise our children in common as Plato might have liked.[250] Linguistic diversity, as far as we can see back, ain’t never not been the case. “Spanish” and “German” or, even more dramatically, “Chinese” and “Arabic” explode with internal variation. In the case of Chinese and Arabic, calling them single languages is misleading. To be sure, languages die out, but living languages always change—Black English included. In fifty or even twenty years, it would be strange if this Article did not sound quaint. And in the, as I see it unlikely, event that Black English goes extinct in the near future, other varieties would emerge, and linguistic ingenuity would fill any social nooks and crannies the Central Planner forgot to caulk. In considering these questions, then, we must never forget that it is a methodology we are expounding.

Even if one wants it, homogenization is almost certainly not going to happen naturally. And if there were concerted efforts on the part of the government to assimilate, as many governments have tried,[251] they might succeed in killing off some languages. But unless there were social cohesion and equality the likes of which the world has never seen, it is implausible that this would eliminate the need for care being paid to dialect. And that is all before we consider the acute moral implications wrought by killing off languages with cultural significance for judicial economy’s sake. Black English is likely to stick around for a while, whether anyone, you and I included, likes it or not.

The unfortunate truth is that this Article is only the beginning of the work that needs to be done to ensure dialect issues are handled with the care they deserve in this system. And Black English is not the only dialect of English that both deserves and needs attention. This country has Latin Americans, Native Americans, Appalachian Americans, Southern Americans, Hawaiian Americans, and many, many others who have their own distinct, native varieties of English. It would not be possible or reasonable to ask lawyers to master all of these dialects. But they are expected to master and manipulate the language of courts and statutes, treaties and constitutions, to make structure out of the often-messy reality of language. And similarly, they must learn to effectively navigate the most common dialects in their practice and also how to deal with new dialects when they come up. We are a long way off from a legal system that is nimble enough to justly handle the range of people subject to our laws. It’s been a lot of things need to get done.

Copyright © 2025 L. Alexander Walker III, Law Clerk to Hon. Alison J. Nathan, United States Courts, Second Circuit | 2024–2025; Rappaport Fellow, Harvard Law School | 2023–2024; Fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience, Center for Law, Brain & Behavior, Massachusetts General Hospital | 2023–2024. Many thanks to John McWhorter, Henry Smith, Christian Williams, Kenneth Mack, Randall Kennedy, David Wilkins, Jim Greiner, Dehlia Umunna, John Baugh, Nicole Holliday, Susannah Barton Tobin, Monica Haymond, Elizabeth Bewley, Adam Sandel, Yutian An, Brian Highsmith, Jake Gordon, Anita Alem, Rosina Curren, Daniel Nathan, Delaney Herndon, Jaclyn Weinell, Malia Gesuale, Avery Gerdes, Michael Chang-Frieden, and Visala Alagappan for comments and conversations on this and previous versions of this paper. I am especially thankful to Professor Holger Spamann for encouraging me to write this paper in the first place. I am also indebted to the editors of the California Law Review for their invaluable editorial judgment while working on this piece. Errors and opinions are mine.

[1]. For words in Black English, this Article uses brackets: <>. For sounds, it uses slashes: //. For Standard English glosses and words, it uses quotation marks. For words or sentences in languages other than English, it puts them in italics. Finally, it uses ~ to indicate equivalency or alteration, either in sound or meaning. For more on notation, see infra Part II.

[2]. 28 U.S.C. § 1827(d). Interpreters are only provided in a subset of cases to those with low English proficiency. And this is not to say interpreters are perfect or would solve the problem.

[3]. See Taylor Jones, Jessica Rose Kalbfeld, Ryan Hancock & Robin Clark, Testifying While Black: An Experimental Study of Court Reporter Accuracy in Transcription of African American English, 95 Language e216, e222 (2019).

[4]. <Glick> or <glizzy> means “glock.” United States v. Wright, 993 F.3d 1054, 1062 (8th Cir. 2021).

[5]. Id. at 1066.

[6]. John R. Rickford & Sharese King, Language and Linguistics on Trial: Hearing Rachel Jeantel (and Other Vernacular Speakers) in the Courtroom and Beyond, 92 Language 948, 955 (2016) (emphasis omitted). I use the spelling <fitna> here because that is how the source here writes it, but when I transcribe things, I will spell it <finna> (even when it is pronounced <fitna>) because you are more likely to find scholarship spelling it that way. I thank Professor Nicole Holliday for this suggestion.

[7]. See State v. Demesme, 228 So. 3d 1206, 1206–07 (La. 2017) (Crichton, J., concurring) (arguing <if y’all, this is how I feel, if y’all think I did it, I know that I didn’t do it so why don’t you just give me a lawyer dog cause this is not what’s up> is an equivocal request for a lawyer); Note, Dialectal Due Process, 136 Harv. L. Rev. 1958, 1960–62 (2023).

[8]. United States v. Arnold, 486 F.3d 177, 180 (6th Cir. 2007); see infra Part II.B.9.

[9]. Rickford & King, supra note 6, at 980.

[10]. See generally Jones et al., supra note 3.

[11]. This piece will not reproduce all the examples that have been found. See, e.g., Dialectal Due Process, supra note 7, if you want to peruse more errors and possible judicial remedies.

[12]. See, e.g., Mason McMillan, Note, Judges Be Trippin: A Legal Analysis of Black English in the Courtroom, 57 Tulsa L. Rev. 451, 460 (2022) (asserting <what had happen was> cannot exist when it can, especially if the -ed ending reduces to a glottal stop). Despite these technical mistakes, however, the Article is a useful addition to the literature.

[13]. There is a growing scholarship of student pieces that does this. If you are interested in that, see Kaitlyn Alger, Note, More than What Meets the Ear: Speech Transcription as a Barrier to Justice for African American Vernacular English Speakers, 13 Geo. J.L. & Mod. Critical Race Persps. 87, 87–89 (2021); McMillan, supra note 12; Rujuta Nandgaonkar, Reaction, 13 Geo. J.L. & Mod. Critical Race Persps. 105, 105 (2021) (reacting to Alger, supra); Laura Victorelli, Note, The Right to Be Heard (and Understood): Impartiality and the Effect of Sociolinguistic Bias in the Courtroom, 80 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 709, 722 (2019).

[14]. Black English is not exclusively spoken though. With the advent of instant messaging, Twitter, and online forums, it is written increasingly these days.

[15]. See infra Part II, Introduction and cited sources. Also, a note on the term “Black English” itself: There are plenty of other names for what I’m talking about—African American English, Jive, African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), Black American English Ebonics, Black English Vernacular, Black Vernacular English, and other less-than-savory terms. The choice is somewhat arbitrary, but I choose not to use the term “vernacular” because I am talking about the entire range of speech that transcends vernacular situations. When Al Sharpton gives a eulogy, he speaks a different register than what appears in a Kendrick Lamar song. Compare CBS New York, Full video: Rev. Al Sharpton delivers eulogy for Jordan Neely at funeral in Harlem, YouTube (May 19, 2023), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUN5QzffVEg [https://perma.cc/99AT-NNWS] with Kendrick Lamar, DNA, on Damn (2017), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLZRYQMLDW4 [https://perma.cc/3R5Q-T7ZM]. But, these are indeed different registers of something identifiable as one variety of English. In other words, Black English is more than just a vernacular, it also has formal registers.

[16]. See Astrid von Busekist, Idealism or Pragmatism?: Ad Hoc Multilingualism and Open English, in The Politics of Multilingualism 305, 317 (Peter A. Kraus & François Grin eds., 2018).

[17]. If you want to be equally confused, ask two biologists for a definition of “life” or “species.” See Paul Nurse, What Is Life?: Five Great Ideas in Biology (2021).

[18]. Of course, some will call someone who knows many languages a “linguist.” Linguist, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/linguist [https://perma.cc/M96Z-S5RY]. This is just not what is meant by the academic field of study I am referring to here.

[19]. This would be the correct role for the biologist anyways: the discovery of the platypus is a funny story since biologists initially thought it was a hoax! Abby Ohlheiser, The Platypus Is So Weird that Scientists Thought the First Specimen Was a Hoax, Wash. Post (Apr. 1, 2015), https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/04/01/the-platypus-is-so-weird-that-scientists-thought-the-first-specimen-was-a-hoax/ [https://perma.cc/8H5T-PXZY].

[20]. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations I 5 (“language games”).

[21]. Speaking of sign language, just like American English is not by any stretch of the imagination the same as American Sign Language, Black English is not the same as Black ASL. How the law and lawyers deal with linguistic variation in sign language is a topic for another day.

[22]. This principle is called “the arbitrariness of the sign.” Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours de Linguistique Générale 97–103 (Charles Bally, Albert Sechehaye & Albert Riedlinger eds., 2005). The exceptions that prove the rule are onomatopoeia—“buzz” does indeed sound like a bee—and the so-called Bouba-Kiki effect. See Dimitri Usnadze, Ein experimenteller Beitrag zum Problem der psychologischen Grundlagen der Namengebung 5 Psych. Forschung 24 (1924); V.S. Ramachandran & E.M. Hubbard, Synaesthesia – A Window into Perception, Thought and Language, 8 J. Consciousness Studs. 3 (2001).

[23]. If you doubt the ability of an English speaker to understand any Dutch whatsoever, consider the following passage (listening is easier): De koude winter is nabij. Een sneeuwstorm zal komen. Kom in mijn warme huis, mijn vriend. Kom hier, zing en dans, eet en drink. Dat is mijn plan. We hebben water, bier, en melk vers van de koe. Oh, en warme soep! King Ming Lam, Dutch & German Dialogue that Sounds like English, YouTube (Mar. 11, 2023), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryVG5LHRMJ4 [https://perma.cc/EJZ6-BAB7] (“The cold winter is near, a snowstorm shall come. Come in my house, my friend. Come here, sing and dance, eat and drink. That is my plan. We have water, beer, and milk fresh from the cow. Oh, and warm soup!”). To be sure, the example is contrived. But it proves the point nonetheless. Such an exercise could not be so easily or successfully done with Vietnamese or isiXhosa.

[24]. The issue is almost directly analogous to the problem of speciation in biology—at what point should we consider two organisms part of two different species? For language versus dialect, people often think first to use mutual intelligibility. If two people can understand one another, they are speaking the same language. Besides the necessity for picking a cutoff point for how much they need to understand each other, other theoretical issues arise. First, as indicated in the text, languages can be asymmetrically mutually intelligible. For example, Dutch speakers tend to understand Afrikaans, but Afrikaans speakers have trouble understanding Dutch. See Charlotte Gooskens, The Contribution of Linguistic Factors to the Intelligibility of Closely Related Languages, 28 J. Multilingual & Multicultural Development 445 (2007). Second, mutual intelligibility runs into the same gradient problem speciation does, both in time and in space. All native speakers of English can understand their parent’s generation’s speech with ease, but go back enough generations (Shakespeare is probably enough, but Chaucer would certainly suffice) and no one can understand without study. Similarly, “dialect continua” are areas of space where as one travels everyone can basically understand their neighbors, but if you go far enough, the people where you arrive cannot understand the people who lived where you started. Northern Germanic (Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian), historically West Germanic (Dutch, German, and Frisian), the Cree-Montagnais-Naskapi continuum in North America, and the Arabic languages are examples of this phenomenon.

[25]. Some linguists avoid the issue altogether by using terms like “idiolect” for the language system of a single person or “sociolect” for the language of a group. See Idiolect, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idiolect [https://perma.cc/U83W-KWA2]; Sociolect, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sociolect [https://perma.cc/EW6L-BSFJ].

[26]. English itself is a Germanic language in the Indo-European Family.

[27]. See Darin M. Howe & James A. Walker, Negation and the Creole-Origins Hypothesis: Evidence from Early African American English, in The English History of African American English 109 (Shana Poplack ed., 2000). For a collection of theories, see Online Resources for African American Language, How Did AAL Develop?, https://oraal.uoregon.edu/aal/development [https://perma.cc/B5MH-FSHA].

[28]. Id.

[29]. If you are a native English speaker and want a go at explaining some of its nuance, try formulating exactly when you are supposed to use “a” or “an” as opposed to “the” and when you are supposed to use no article at all. Then go read the newspaper headlines for today.

[30]. Or, as a linguistics professor of mine once said, “You can tell they’re black even if they were reading the phonebook.”

[31]. Amanda Godley & Allison Escher, Bidialectal African American Adolescents’ Beliefs About Spoken Language Expectations in English Classrooms, 55 J. Adolescent & Adult Literacy 704, 704–10 (2012).

[32]. For the regional differences, see generally Taylor Jones, Variation in African American English: The Great Migration and Regional Differentiation (2020) (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania), available at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53812953e4b02ca8a934eebf/t/5f2363989bf17938a595b8ef/1596154809392/TaylorWJonesDissertation.pdf [https://perma.cc/H6S8-BPWK].

[33]. See Erik Nielson & Andrea L. Dennis, Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics, and Guilt in America (2019); see also Jaeah Lee, This Rap Song Helped Sentence a 17-Year-Old to Prison for Life, N.Y. Times (Mar. 30, 2022), https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/opinion/rap-music-criminal-trials.html [https://perma.cc/J3HU-34KZ]. As I write this, Young Thug, a rapper from my hometown of Atlanta, is currently on trial in Georgia under the RICO statute and is having his lyrics used against him. Kate Brumback, Lyrics Can Be Used As Evidence During Rapper Young Thug’s Trial on Gang and Racketeering Charges, AP News (Nov. 9, 2023), https://apnews.com/article/young-thug-racketeering-gang-trial-82efd05ce3ef62ebb103601903237698 [https://perma.cc/27UZ-CQBW].

[34]. For those curious (or annoyed at my departure from standard linguistic practice), slashes in linguistics usually represent the broad phonemic representation of something, box brackets represent the narrower phonetic representation, and carat brackets are orthography. I will not make use of box brackets for the sake of simplicity. That is, the distinction between phonology and phonetics is leveled. For example, “the /θ/ sound can be realized as /f/ or /t/” rather than “the /θ/ sound can be realized as [f] or [t].” I make this choice to not cause undue confusion. I will also retain some English digraphs inside of the slashes (/sh/, /ch/) and tolerate the ambiguity to only add new IPA symbols when necessary.

[35]. It has been demonstrated in children that dialect affects spelling. See Rebecca Treiman & Margo Bowen, Spelling in African American Children: The Case of Final Consonant Devoicing, 28 Reading & Writing 1013, 1014–15 (2015). And beyond unintentional misspellings, creative spellings can be form of expression. E.g., the hit song “Fuck tha Police” on the album “Straight Outta Compton” from the group “Niggaz Wit Attitudes.” Examples in this Section come either from me, Lisa J. Green, African American English (2002), Jones et al., supra note 3 (Section 5.1), or William Labov, Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular 3–36 (1972). A mixture of sources is necessary because the goal of providing a large list of possible confusion has not seemed to be the goal before.

[36]. To be more precise, there can be deletion or vocalization (the latter meaning the sound turns into a vowel) depending on the context. But for our purposes here, whether deletion or vocalization occurs is unimportant because either way misunderstanding might happen.

[37]. Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream (Aug. 28, 1963), https://www.freedomarchives.org/audio_samples/Mp3_files/MLK_Something_happening.mp3 [https://perma.cc/FMZ3-EA85]. The first <r> is dropped because it is between two vowel sounds in the same word and the latter is dropped because it is not followed by a vowel.

[38]. Green, supra note 35, at 117.

[39]. A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, No Comparison, on the bigger artist (Atlantic Records 2017).

[40]. A consonant cluster is a series of consonants without an intervening vowel. Consider the word “handspring” where there are five consonant sounds directly after one another.

[41]. Green, supra note 35, at 116.

[42]. A glottal stop is the sound in the middle of “uh-oh.” A catching in the throat.

[43]. See Charlie Farrington, Incomplete Neutralization in African American English: The Case of Final Consonant Voicing, 30 Language Variation & Change 361 (2019); Keith R. Kluender, Randy L. Diehl & Beverly A. Wright, Vowel-length Differences Before Voiced and Voiceless Consonants: An Auditory Explanation, 16 J. Phonetics 153, 153 (1988).

[44]. Green, supra note 35, at 107–08, 115–16. Also note that the language of “reduced” technically presupposes that Black English emerged as a branch from English rather than sui generis as a creole. I use the language for convenience and take no position on the ultimate origins of Black English.

[45]. Jones et al., supra note 3, at e234–38.

[46]. <Gon’> is a grammatical marker in Black English to be explained in a later section. But Jones et al. show misunderstandings between <gon’> and <don’t> especially. And <don’t> often drops its initial /d/ sound and final /t/ or /nt/ sounds. Similarly, <gon’> sometimes drops its initial /g/ sound. Jones et al., supra note 3, at e236–37.

[47]. Here, the /tr/ sound becomes just a /ch/ sound.

[48]. As in “to wind a rope with twine.”

[49]. Here, this is an actual misunderstanding recorded in Jones et al., supra note 3, at e236.

[50]. <Something> is often reduced to a sound that resembles <some> or <sum>.

[51]. It may seem incredibly nefarious for any language to have the positive and negative statements so similar, but amongst native speakers they are easily distinguished. And what’s more, this reflex exists in Mainstream American English too. See Dr Geoff Lindsey, The Genius of Weak Forms, YouTube (May 27, 2023), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlbGtEg68x4 [https://perma.cc/2YL8-9Y4M].

[52]. William Labov, Sharon Ash & Charles Boberg, The Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change 190 (2006).

[53]. For example, Black English speakers tended to retain a distinction between <caught> and <cot> for longer despite “caught” and “cot” merging for many speakers in North America. Today, however, this is more of a regional phenomenon.

[54]. This does not mean that they are exclusive to Black English. Many individual features of Black English are shared with other dialects, especially Southern American English. Few features of any language are truly unique to it to the exclusion of all other language varieties. The combination makes the language.

[55]. Which linguists represent with the Greek letter epsilon: /ɛ/.

[56]. Which linguists represent with a shortened capital I: /ɪ/.

[57]. Which linguists represent as /i/.

[58]. This symbol is a combination of “n” and “g.” It represents the sound in the middle of “singer.”

[59]. This is how we get spellings like <thang>. See Geneva Smitherman, Word From the Hood: The Lexicon of African-American Vernacular English, in African-American English: Structure, History, and Use 208 (Salikoko S. Mufwene, John R. Rickford, Guy Bailey & John Baugh eds., 1998).

[60]. A monophthong is a pure vowel sound while a diphthong is a vowel sound mixed with something else. English has many diphthongs—“by,” “sigh,” “boy,” “go,” et cetera.

[61]. John R. Rickford, Phonological and Grammatical Features of African American Vernacular English (AAVE), in African American Vernacular English: Features, Evolution, Educational Implications 5 (1999), available at http://www.johnrickford.com/portals/45/documents/papers/Rickford-1999e-Phonological-and-Grammatical-Features-of-AAVE.pdf [https://perma.cc/BP28-VZT4].

[62]. Linguists refer to this as a /j/ sound because the symbol /y/ is reserved for the vowel in the French word lune.

[63]. See, e.g., Labov, supra note 35, at 18 (noting that Black English reduces consonant clusters, and it might have effects on learning to spell).

[64]. Green, supra note 35, at 122–23.

[65]. Id. at 123. Professor Green reserves judgement as to whether this feature is actually a feature of children’s speech or an older preserved feature that has been retained in older speakers from the South. I can personally attest that the <goal> ~ <girl> ~ ‘goyl’ feature was present in at least the speech of one young Black boy from the South circa 2008. In other words, this may or may not in fact be a children’s form, but little recommends against putting it here.

[66]. Erik R. Thomas, Phonological and Phonetic Characteristics of African American Vernacular English, 1 Language and Linguistics Compass 450, 468 (2007); Green, supra note 35, at 126.

[67]. Thomas, supra note 66, at 469.

[68]. Rasmus Nielsen, “I ain’t Never Been Charged with Nothing!”: The Use of Falsetto Speech as a Linguistic Strategy of Indignation, 15 U. Pa. Working Papers in Linguistics 111, 117–19 (2010).

[69]. Thomas, supra note 66, at 468.

[70]. Id. at 468–69; see Nicole Holliday, Variation in Question Intonation in the Corpus of Regional African American Language, 94 American Speech 110, 120–26 (2019).

[71]. See Nielsen, supra note 68, at 117–19.

[72]. Or, in the alternative, “pog.”

[73]. See Sandra E. Garcia, The First 10 Words of the African American Dictionary Are In, N.Y. Times (May 23, 2023), https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/23/style/african-american-english-oxford-dictionary.html [https://perma.cc/U4QU-9V5M].

[74]. Except for underlining to highlight important features. If the source is a song or audio, I will use my own transcription.

[75]. Broadly. This rule might not always hold perfectly.

[76]. They Don’t Think It Be Like It Is But It Do, Know Your Meme (May 7, 2020), https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/they-dont-think-it-be-like-it-is-but-it-do [https://perma.cc/L5YS-Q2DQ].

[77]. J. Cole, G.O.M.D., on 2014 Forest Hills Drive (Columbia Records 2014).

[78]. @YungChello_, Twitter (Aug. 9, 2023, 12:41 PM), https://twitter.com/YungChello_/status/1689315960044257280 [https://perma.cc/FV4E-AEX7]. Twitter officially transitioned to X in mid-May 2024. There’s a little back and forth in some of my sources, so the Article consistently uses Twitter for timestamps before then and X for those after, changing titles and URLs to be consistent.

[79]. @jalauriak, Twitter (Aug. 2, 2023, 5:25 PM), https://twitter.com/jalauriak/status/1686850756157054976 [https://perma.cc/29H2-QF42].

[80]. <Hotep> is a term referring generally to Afrocentric conspiracy theories like some of the beliefs of the Nation of Islam or the Black Israelite movement.

[81]. @Jadayshaaa, Twitter (Aug. 6, 2023, 9:44 PM), https://twitter.com/Jadayshaaa/status/1688365498998677504 [https://perma.cc/EC58-BHNF].

[82]. @prettiiimya, Twitter (Aug. 3, 2023, 4:34 PM), https://twitter.com/prettiiimya/status/1687200195594047492 [https://perma.cc/EKK6-PQ98].

[83]. @IeshaaMarieeX, Twitter (Feb. 10, 2023, 12:42 AM), https://twitter.com/IeshaaMarieeX/status/1623920245756014593 [https://perma.cc/46VY-YSD2].

[84]. Green, supra note 35, at 49.

[85]. J. Cole, Middle Child (Dreamville, Inc. 2019).

[86]. @Cool2__, Twitter (Aug. 23, 2018, 12:44 PM), https://twitter.com/Cool2__/status/1032669906024771588 [https://perma.cc/TQU4-2MYE].

[87]. @500wolff, Twitter (Oct. 18, 2022, 3:53 AM), https://twitter.com/500wolff/status/1582278717560467457 [https://perma.cc/SHU8-8JEK].

[88]. @itsmontyj, Twitter (Aug. 1, 2023, 11:05 PM), https://twitter.com/itsmontyj/status/1686573853353320448 [https://perma.cc/H5XS-6QSK].

[89]. @Lil_Zeddy, X (July 20, 2024, 9:57 PM), https://x.com/Lil_Zeddyy/status/1814661002954178816 [https://perma.cc/6UY5-ZBYC].

[90]. @ddoneaaaa_, Twitter (Aug. 7, 2023, 11:15 AM), https://twitter.com/ddoneaaaa_/status/1688569445034135554 [https://perma.cc/7EHM-MZRD].

[91]. <grind> ~ “work hard”

[92]. Nicki Minaj (feat. Drake, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown), Only, on The Pinkprint (Young Money Entertainment, Cash Money Records & Republic Records 2014).

[93]. See Green, supra note 35, at 194; Walter Sistrunk, The Syntax of Zero in African American Relative Clauses 1–2 (2012) (Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan State University) (on file with author).

[94]. Jones et al., supra note 3, at e241.

[95]. Sistrunk, supra note 93, at 5.

[96]. Id. at 34.

[97]. @Afrolith, Twitter (Aug. 2, 2023, 6:18 PM), https://twitter.com/Afrolith/status/1686863947306074112 [https://perma.cc/8S6B-P9ME].

[98]. The infinitive anyways.

[99]. In Mainstream American English, consider the verb “can,” which is the same for all persons. And note that this could also happen in Black English through phonological processes discussed in previous Sections.

[100]. @Kay_DoT14, Twitter (Aug. 2, 2023, 1:23 PM), https://twitter.com/AlohaKay14/status/1686789768187703310 [https://perma.cc/ABK8-J7TH].

[101]. @dha_dutchess, Twitter (Aug. 25, 2023, 1:58 PM), https://twitter.com/dha_dutchess/status/1695133520375513317 [https://perma.cc/G5ME-JPJW].

[102]. @karlosjoga8, Twitter (July 7, 2024, 4:14 AM), https://twitter.com/karlosjoga8/status/1809863599025750282 [https://perma.cc/2VYV-JYUY].

[103]. @janeg032, Twitter (Aug. 23, 2023, 7:34 AM), https://twitter.com/janeg032/status/1694312236804620349 [https://perma.cc/J3CA-CB2U].

[104]. @pipkin_brandon, Twitter (Aug. 22, 2023, 5:46 PM), https://twitter.com/pipkin_brandon/status/1694103663944331708 [https://perma.cc/Z97Y-ACY5].

[105]. See Ryan Lee & Janna B. Oetting, Zero Marking of Past Tense in Child African American English, 21 Persps. on Language Learning & Educ. 173, 174 (2014).

[106]. @jamiljoseph14, Twitter (Aug. 24, 2023, 8:19 AM), https://twitter.com/jamiljoseph14/status/1694685851710529612 [https://perma.cc/TA9K-M3SN].

[107]. @LifesBook_Ceo, Twitter (Aug. 21, 2023, 8:35 PM), https://twitter.com/LifesBook_Ceo/status/1693783940861989321 [https://perma.cc/L9GY-QUS9].

[108]. @redwardprice719, Twitter (Oct. 1, 2022, 2:58 PM), https://twitter.com/redwardprice719/status/1576285326108069888 [https://perma.cc/Q99R-AUNG].

[109]. @joynae414, Twitter (Feb. 6, 2023, 9:55 PM), https://twitter.com/joynae414/status/1622791180529332225 [https://perma.cc/KK5U-PFKE].

[110]. Note that this sentence sounds a bit stilted on its own precisely because <had> appears in narrative contexts.

[111]. Jones et al., supra note 3, at e221.

[112]. @laniii_itss, Twitter (Aug. 2, 2023, 11:19 PM), https://twitter.com/laniii_itss/status/1686939800836993024 [https://perma.cc/CNG6-KZJQ].

[113]. <Motherfucker> can be used as a humorous location like <bitch>.

[114]. Green, supra note 35, at 91.

[115]. For the linguistically inclined, I am collapsing tense and aspect here for the sake of simplicity.

[116]. @prodcorbino, Twitter (Aug. 10, 2023, 9:51 AM), https://twitter.com/prodcorbino/status/1689635609567264773 [https://perma.cc/SVY8-6Y3B].

[117]. @getliahturner, Twitter (July 12, 2023, 12:38 PM), https://twitter.com/geliahturner/status/1679168444296572928 [https://perma.cc/LHB4-CWCF].

[118]. @specialedbedbug, Twitter (Aug. 8, 2023, 6:03 PM), https://twitter.com/specialedbedbug/status/1689034748671209472 [https://perma.cc/NNP3-86MC].

[119]. @jai1aa, Twitter (Aug. 5, 2023, 5:22 AM), https://twitter.com/jai1aa/status/1687755824494415872 [https://perma.cc/5C5A-7F7A].

[120]. Nicki Minaj ft. Drake, Only (2014) (Drake’s verse).

[121]. <to peep> ~ “to see” or “to uncover” or “to figure out.”

[122]. See John McWhorter, Talking Back, Talking Black: Truths About America’s Lingua Franca 28, 29, 34 (2017); Crawford Feagin, Preverbal done in Southern States English, in Dialects of English: Studies in Grammatical Variation 161 (1991).

[123]. Elizabeth Dayton, Grammatical Categories of the Verb in African American Vernacular English 443 (1996) (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania) (on file with author).

[124]. See id. at 445.

[125]. Green, supra note 34, at 46.

[126]. @DeeLaSheeArt, Twitter (Aug. 2, 2023, 11:22 AM), https://twitter.com/DeeLaSheeArt/status/1686759507488026625 [https://perma.cc/2B85-2JLM].

[127]. @Jliive3, Twitter (Aug. 6, 2023, 10:06 PM), https://twitter.com/Jliive3/status/1688370928705740800 [https://perma.cc/ZWM7-JY85].

[128]. @BbyChemist, Twitter (Aug. 7, 2023, 11:04 PM), https://twitter.com/BbyChem/status/1688747871632240640 [https://perma.cc/GF5N-TQEZ].

[129]. Latto (feat. Cardi B), Put It on da Floor, on Sugar Honey Iced Tea (RCA Records 2023).

[130]. Jones et al., supra note 3, at e223 (noting that these also indicate aspect and pragmatic meanings); see generally Candice L. Scott, Tense & Aspect Markers in African American English (2016) (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Michigan), https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/120851/candlatr_1.pdf?sequence=1 [https://perma.cc/GYR6-ECM7].

[131]. United States v. Arnold, 486 F.3d 177, 210 (6th Cir. 2007) (Moore, J., dissenting). Majority and dissent disagreed on the form of what the witness said, not the interpretation if the dissent’s hearing of the tape was correct. See id. at 186–87 (majority opinion) (using the record before them to hold that the witness said “he’s fixing to shoot me”). The thing to realize, which neither the majority nor dissent did, is that <he’s finna shoot me> and <he finna shoot me> have no difference in meaning.

[132]. Kendrick Lamar, Alright, on To Pimp A Butterfly (Top Dawg Entertainment 2015).

[133]. @_earthangel_88, Twitter (Aug. 2, 2023, 7:43 PM), https://twitter.com/_earthangel_88/status/1686885575662452736 [https://perma.cc/2TPK-4BU8].

[134]. @luv_chelssss, Twitter (Aug. 9, 2023, 1:45 PM), https://twitter.com/luv_chelssss/status/1689331966351466496 [https://perma.cc/QUT4-QZ43].

[135]. @Bracefaxee, Twitter (Aug. 9, 2023, 12:53 AM), https://twitter.com/Bracefaxee/status/1689137870253006848 [https://perma.cc/PWV4-ACL7].

[136]. @wiLLz2rEaL, Twitter (Sept. 26, 2022, 8:35 AM), https://twitter.com/wiLLz2rEaL/status/1574377207388114944 [https://perma.cc/5K34-YV4V].

[137]. @aliyahsamarxa, Twitter (Aug. 8, 2023, 6:26 AM), https://twitter.com/aliyahsamarxa/status/1688904608544890880 [https://perma.cc/9YUP-FM8J].

[138]. @hakiimQueen, Twitter (Aug. 6, 2023, 11:47 PM), https://twitter.com/hakiimQueen/status/1688396398817878016 [https://perma.cc/7WYD-8VQS].

[139]. @KarlousM, Twitter (Aug. 10, 2023, 10:44 AM), https://twitter.com/KarlousM/status/1689648911571640321 [https://perma.cc/VJ9E-JT32].

[140]. See McWhorter, supra note 122, at 32.

[141]. Id.

[142]. A barber shop is culturally much more appropriate here. See Justin Phillips, More Than a Haircut: Why the Barbershop Is a Haven for Black Men, S.F. Chronicle (June 14, 2022), https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/hair/black-barbershops [https://perma.cc/88Y2-9QL6].

[143]. DMX, Party Up (Up in Here), on ...And Then There Was X (Def Jam 1999).

[144]. Green, supra note 35, at 80.

[145]. @kaee_1, Twitter (Aug. 8, 2023, 10:56 AM), https://twitter.com/kaee_1/status/1688927175364493314 [https://perma.cc/A5VU-4SR5].

[146]. @clubkobee, Twitter (July 27, 2024, 3:08 PM), https://twitter.com/clubkobee/status/1817275977296117871 [https://perma.cc/WQ93-AZN8].

[147]. @Kittykens_, Twitter (Aug. 8, 2023, 7:39 PM), https://twitter.com/Kittykens_/status/1689058825108697088 [https://perma.cc/UAG5-JZM8].

[148]. @Quen10__, Twitter (Aug. 6, 2023, 4:46 PM), https://twitter.com/Sp1der_Q/status/1688290562854522880 [https://perma.cc/E7NC-Z7LH].

[149]. @AvanniGio, Twitter (July 31, 2023, 10:06 PM), https://twitter.com/AvanniGio/status/1686196630008074241 [https://perma.cc/MB3M-PAMC].

[150]. @IamMaya_M, Twitter (June 10, 2023, 10:20 AM), https://twitter.com/IamMaya_M/status/1667537307295989760 [https://perma.cc/L2H5-LA9G].

[151]. @FeenforKam_, Twitter (Aug. 7, 2023, 4:48 AM), https://twitter.com/feenforKam_/status/1688472202004295680 [https://perma.cc/Z35A-MYHJ].

[152]. Green, supra note 35, at 102–03.

[153]. Jones et al., supra note 3, at e231 (documenting this issue).

[154]. Rickford & King, supra note 6, at 956.

[155]. Adapted from Jones et al., supra note 3, at e221.

[156]. Rickford & King, supra note 6, at 958.

[157]. Id. at 956.

[158]. Id.

[159]. @Skaistomping, Twitter (June 13, 2023, 12:13 AM), https://twitter.com/Skaistomping/status/1668471630933430272 [https://perma.cc/P4HW-7U8B].

[160]. @nicknamedlee, Twitter (Aug. 3, 2023, 1:39 PM), https://twitter.com/nicknamedlee/status/1687156201954426895 [https://perma.cc/W65E-Z582].

[161]. @SmogNPalmTrees, Twitter (Aug. 2, 2023, 9:47 PM), https://twitter.com/SmogNPalmTrees/status/1686916548881981441 [https://perma.cc/5NGE-SJE9].

[162]. @Mike_Lowrey5, Twitter (Aug. 7, 2023, 1:04 PM), https://twitter.com/Mike_Lowrey5/status/1688597069362085889 [https://perma.cc/297R-U3A5].

[163]. @iamraynez, Twitter (Aug. 3, 2023, 10:10 PM), https://twitter.com/iamraynez/status/1687284765106352128 [https://perma.cc/KA8B-ZU8G].

[164]. People v. Bannister, 902 N.E.2d 571, 592 (Ill. 2008).

[165]. @DAJ_______, Twitter (Aug. 1, 2023, 3:49 PM), https://twitter.com/DAJ_______/status/1686464189840175104 [https://perma.cc/CH5E-C6D3].

[166]. @plainMaine15, Twitter (Aug. 3, 2023, 11:31 AM), https://twitter.com/plainMaine15/status/1687123991406739457 [https://perma.cc/8HNV-3Q5F].

[167]. @J_so1k, Twitter (Aug. 8, 2023, 3:18 PM), https://twitter.com/J_so1k/status/1688993056677060608 [https://perma.cc/NBN4-TJKV].

[168]. @04_chop, Twitter (Aug. 1, 2023, 2:19 AM), https://twitter.com/ysl_chop/status/1686260399623000064 [https://perma.cc/R2TE-9G8M].

[169]. @Almost_Never_Hd, Twitter (Aug. 27, 2022, 7:03 PM), https://twitter.com/Almost_Never_Hd/status/1563708779895693312 [https://perma.cc/N5RS-WHZ9].

[170]. <to hit someone up> means, roughly, “to reach out to someone.”

[171]. @CoolTMF, Twitter (Sept. 5, 2023, 12:04 AM), https://twitter.com/CoolTMF/status/1698909978545848496 [https://perma.cc/6953-CYU3].

[172]. @FBombNerdMom, Twitter (Aug. 9, 2023, 6:30 PM), https://twitter.com/PrettyNerdling/status/1689403750014664705 [https://perma.cc/MR6C-LQFH].

[173]. @Flashyasf, Twitter (Aug. 7, 2023, 1:54 AM), https://twitter.com/Flashyasf/status/1688428470907387904 [https://perma.cc/FG5M-68P9].

[174]. @LA_LenellBurton, Twitter (Aug. 3, 2023, 5:26 PM), https://twitter.com/LA_LenellBurton/status/1687213316522037249 [https://perma.cc/Q2CH-ZMF7].

[175]. Adapted from Jones et al., supra note 3, at e222.

[176]. @_DopeLolo, Twitter (Jan. 17, 2022, 9:54 AM), https://twitter.com/_DopeLolo/status/1483090413376397324 [https://perma.cc/AWN4-T7QK].

[177]. @perliousgenie28, Twitter (Aug. 9, 2023, 5:21 PM), https://twitter.com/perliousgenie28/status/1689386502768230400 [https://perma.cc/33DN-G9DC].

[178]. @Anabeeellle_xo, Twitter (Aug. 1, 2023, 5:38 PM), https://twitter.com/Anabeeellle_xo/status/1686491674862608385 [https://perma.cc/A58Z-DNFJ].

[179]. @iam_jerrymoses, Twitter (Aug. 10, 2023, 2:56 PM), https://twitter.com/iam_jerrymoses/status/1689712237060009984 [https://perma.cc/98HP-UE3K].

[180]. Arthur K. Spears, The Black English Semi-Auxiliary Come, 58 Language 850 (1982) (“Black English has, in addition to the motion verb come, a come which expresses only speaker indignation.”).

[181]. Id. at 851 (explaining that <come> as a semiauxiliary verb always stays as <come> and does not change to <came> in the past tense); Rickford & King, supra note 6, at 955.

[182]. But remember, some speakers might use <come> as the past-tense form through zero marking.

[183]. Adapted from Spears, supra note 180, at 852.

[184]. Rickford & King, supra note 6, at 955.

[185]. @AyeNayy_, Twitter (July 7, 2020, 6:34 PM), https://twitter.com/AyeNayy_/status/1280631357509636099 [https://perma.cc/JC3T-7DEJ].

[186]. @slimeassata, Twitter (May 9, 2021, 5:11 PM), https://twitter.com/slimeassata/status/1391501188609282053 [https://perma.cc/6JAE-5E97].

[187]. @terrasacutiex, Twitter (Dec. 23, 2020, 11:00 AM), https://twitter.com/terrasacutiex/status/1341775675489980416 [https://perma.cc/D6M2-74NY].

[188]. @IAM_BEAUTY_ARI, Twitter (July 12, 2022, 8:33 AM), https://twitter.com/IAM_BEAUTY_ARI/status/1546835172271718403 [https://perma.cc/7PG2-PX2S].

[189]. @waizu_4eva, Twitter (Aug. 10, 2023, 3:50 AM), https://twitter.com/waizu_4eva/status/1689544844639662080 [https://perma.cc/D35B-EGT3].

[190]. @ShayMo_MONEY, Twitter (Aug. 9, 2023, 8:14 PM), https://twitter.com/ShayMo_MONEY/status/1689430077371547648 [https://perma.cc/3XLF-E8ZV].

[191]. Latto, supra note 129.

[192]. McWhorter, supra note 122, at 38–39 (describing that the use of <-ass> has an idiomatic meaning rather than a literal one).

[193]. Rickford & King, supra note 6, at 971.

[194]. Kendrick Lamar & Taylour Paige, We Cry Together, on Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers (Aftermath/Interscope Records 2022).

[195]. @dn_fluence, Twitter (Sept. 5, 2020, 10:49 AM), https://twitter.com/dn_fluence/status/1302257631315333124 [https://perma.cc/C8UT-Y7Q6].

[196]. @kelley_kel_, Twitter (Aug. 8, 2023, 8:11 AM), https://twitter.com/kelley_kel_/status/1688885601947254784 [https://perma.cc/2H35-GUPQ].

[197]. @aziahhkouturee_, Twitter (Aug. 5, 2023, 11:13 PM), https://twitter.com/aziahhkouturee_/status/1688025573971394560 [https://perma.cc/UG7S-DZMH].

[198]. @KiairaRuby, Twitter (Aug. 5, 2023, 4:06 AM), https://twitter.com/KiairaRuby/status/1687736915397595137 [https://perma.cc/F55R-9WQ8].

[199]. @HeyThere_Daliah, Twitter (Aug. 5, 2023, 6:48 PM), https://twitter.com/HeyThere_Daliah/status/1687958707068416002 [https://perma.cc/V6R2-BMFN].

[200]. @JadoreJazz, Twitter (Aug. 11, 2023, 4:03 PM), https://twitter.com/JadoreJazz/status/1690091536552165376 [https://perma.cc/UCT3-Q4LX].

[201]. Sydney Renae, How You Gonna, on Thanks for Nothing (2016).

[202]. 2 Chainz (Feat. Drake), No Lie, on Based On a T.R.U. Story (Def Jam 2012).

[203]. Also, often spelled<niggaz>.

[204]. @talktometay, Twitter (Aug. 8, 2023, 12:52 PM), https://twitter.com/talktometay/status/1688956374699454467 [https://perma.cc/BKV3-GH5J].

[205]. @dom_lucre, Twitter (Aug. 8, 2023, 12:23 PM), https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1688948944670232576 [https://perma.cc/U82K-6KSP].

[206]. @luvvnyiah, Twitter (Aug. 5, 2023, 5:19 PM), https://twitter.com/luvvnyiah/status/1687936425205833728 [https://perma.cc/8W6V-VG2F].

[207]. @dollllld, Twitter (Aug. 8, 2023, 6:06 PM), https://twitter.com/DolllllD/status/1689035385425346560 [https://perma.cc/9YP8-UQH4].

[208]. See Chris Rock – Topic, Niggas Vs. Black People (Live), YouTube (July 28, 2018), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBEwQHjdw14 [https://perma.cc/KL3M-YNZE].

[209]. @Shyhendrix_, Twitter (Aug. 3, 2023, 4:02 PM), https://twitter.com/Shyhendrix_/status/1687192160938987521 [https://perma.cc/CXW3-9J36].

[210]. @Dreamphenom, Twitter (Dec. 29, 2022, 2:17 PM), https://twitter.com/Dreamphenom/status/1608542761795596289 [https://perma.cc/TFV7-2B7K].

[211]. @willnumba1_, Twitter (Jan. 18, 2022, 12:44 PM), https://twitter.com/willnumba1_/status/1483495646560755720 [https://perma.cc/E52E-L7D8].

[212]. Lamar & Paige, supra note 194.

[213]. YBN Cordae (feat. Chance the Rapper), Bad Idea, on The Lost Boy (Atlantic Records 2019).

[214]. It is slightly more complicated. If the speaker is trying to contrast that they love five (not four or three) guys, then the word “five” will be stressed in that context as well. But there, the word “five” will likely also be lengthened in a way it would not be when referring to the brand.

[215]. <Ho> or <hoe> is very similar to <bitch> but tends to be a bit more derogatory. For example, <Had my heart broken by this woman named Tammy, but hoes gon’ be hoes, so I couldn’t blame Tammy>. Lil Wayne (feat. Cory Gunz), 6 Foot 7 Foot, on Tha Carter IV (Cash Money Records & Universal Records 2010).

[216]. @thadollnu, Twitter (Aug. 8, 2023, 9:46 AM), https://twitter.com/thadollnu/status/1688909497501421568 [https://perma.cc/6885-GNQD].

[217]. @Foreverrrkt, Twitter (Aug. 6, 2023, 10:00 PM), https://twitter.com/Foreverrrkt/status/1688369547449888771 [https://perma.cc/YW9F-JE5R].

[218]. @eyherral, Twitter (June 7, 2023, 5:58 PM), https://twitter.com/eyherral/status/1666565193965395968 [https://perma.cc/C2X3-WTSD].

[219]. @obviously2rare, Twitter (Aug. 9, 2023, 2:32 AM), https://twitter.com/obviously2rare/status/1689162654743728129 [https://perma.cc/SMP9-WQSH].

[220]. @kardashleann, X (July 25, 2024, 2:19 AM), https://x.com/kardashleann/status/1816720032594043028 [https://perma.cc/FJ8M-KVNS]. <Period>, often spelled <periodt>, provides emphasis of a slightly more general nature than “full stop” or “end of story” in Mainstream American English.

[221]. @idragworse, Twitter (May 3, 2024, 9:45 PM), https://twitter.com/idragworse/status/1786572853753586163 [https://perma.cc/X8DX-9UGA]. Compare that with . @Auria__, Twitter (Sept. 5, 2023, 1:18 PM), https://twitter.com/Auria__/status/1699109687398981710 [https://perma.cc/ZY6B-VLKF]. The replies and counterreply on this thread are illustrative. One user responded <You are a nigga 💀>, and the original poster (whose profile picture shows as being a Black woman) responds (read: “pussy”). She takes it as obvious in context that she is referring to Black men. Next, another commenter responds with: “Hey thats kinda rascist dont you think I personally think that’s incredibly rude I mean like there a ton of people out there that literally do nothing wrong and you are sterotyping all of those people because of your own experiences grow up like everyone. Have a nice day :)”. This commenter also seems to misunderstand the original poster’s point. She was not “stereotyping” people based on race, as the responder seems to think, but instead talking about a particular type of Black man identifiable exactly by their behavior. Her point was likely a race-internal critique about some Black man, not a racial stereotype of Black men. One can imagine her responding by saying “most Black men aren’t niggas. I’m talking about the rotten few.”

[222]. @noGRINDnoGLORYx, Twitter (Aug. 4, 2023, 8:42 AM), https://twitter.com/noGRINDnoGLORYx/status/1687443855979757568 [https://perma.cc/7WHD-CSKZ].

[223]. Lil Baby, On Me, on On Me (Remix) (Universal Music Group 2020).

[224]. Jhené Aiko (Feat. H.E.R), B.S., on Chilombo (ArtClub Int’l 2020).

[225]. @chefboyardeej_, Twitter (Aug. 8, 2023, 11:22 AM), https://twitter.com/chefboyardeej_/status/1688933625918525440 [https://perma.cc/NW4R-TCV9].

[226]. @KeithsLoaded, Twitter (Aug. 5, 2023, 10:37 AM), https://twitter.com/KeithsLoaded/status/1687835110609956865 [https://perma.cc/D87S-U9BB].

[227]. See, e.g., Bickford v. Hensley, 832 F. App’x 549, 554 n.3 (10th Cir. 2020) (using Urban Dictionary to define “dab”); United States v. Guidry, 960 F.3d 676, 680 n.2 (5th Cir. 2020) (using Urban Dictionary to define “bake a cake”); United States v. Chin, 736 F. App’x 785, 787 n.1 (11th Cir. 2018) (per curiam) (using Urban Dictionary to define a “key”); Soto v. City of New York, 132 F. Supp. 3d 424, 436 n.23 (E.D.N.Y. 2015) (declining the plaintiff’s request not to use Urban Dictionary to define “tiguere” because other courts have relied on the website).

[228]. Like using <up in this bitch> to mean “here.”

[229]. See Gary Nunn, Power Grab: Reclaiming Words Can Be Such a Bitch, The Guardian (Oct. 30, 2015), https://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2015/oct/30/power-grab-reclaiming-words-can-be-such-a-bitch [https://perma.cc/S4K6-JFYU].

[230]. When people distinguish <bitches> and <women> is the most blatant use of a stock character and stereotypes.

[231]. I acknowledge that some will likely find my descriptions in this paper offensive.

[232]. For instance, telling the client to call the judge “your honor” is a less charged example.

[233]. I do not mean using the word in reported speech here, like, “he called me a ‘bitch.’” Such usage is necessary for the legal system to function properly.

[234]. Again, to reiterate, some might argue that the usage of the word as such proves internalized misogyny. This is why I say, “conscious mental state.”

[235]. See generally Randall Kennedy, Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002) (exploring disagreement between Black people on the word).

[236]. @NapierAnyiah, Twitter (Aug. 28, 2023, 8:50 PM), https://twitter.com/NapierAnyiah/status/1696324474851787128 [https://perma.cc/TG5U-ZDXK].

[237]. @sher_vinna, Twitter (Aug. 20, 2023, 6:43 PM), https://twitter.com/sher_vinna/status/1693393326035054797 [https://perma.cc/EEU4-BR4U].

[238]. Rebecca Leung, Rock: Bring on Oscar ‘Safety Net,’ CBS News (Feb. 17, 2005), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rock-bring-on-oscar-safety-net/ [https://perma.cc/8NNX-8XA7].

[239]. <oldhead> ~ “leader” or “mentor.” As an aside, it does not seem related to, nor does it necessarily have the negative connotations of, the Chinese 老头/老頭.

[240]. This exact point is salient in another Lil Dicky song where he, in Freaky Friday fashion, wakes up in the body of (the Black) Chris Brown, who sings, “Wonder if I can say the n-word. Wait, can I really say the N-word?” and then precedes to say “nigga” a lot. Lil Dicky (feat. Chris Brown), Freaky Friday (Dirty Burd 2018). A team of white, college lacrosse players posted themselves singing the parts of this song that use “nigga” on social media and was met with backlash. See Rachel Herron, White College Girls Slammed for Singing N-Word in Chris Brown’s ‘Freaky Friday’ Verse (Mar. 27, 2018), https://www.bet.com/article/bpai2r/white-girls-slammed-for-singing-n-word-in-chris-brown-verse [https://perma.cc/K9TE-KXP7].

[241]. “What you just said would sound overconfident coming from a veteran in the rap game, let alone coming from a rookie nigga (like you).” Lil Dicky (feat. Snoop Dogg), Professional Rapper, on Professional Rapper (Commission Records 2015).

[242]. <tool> ~ “gun.”

[243]. See, e.g., Bad Friends, Christmas VS. Hanukkah w/ Lil Dicky | Ep 96 | Bad Friends, YouTube (Dec. 20, 2021), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ki74WEcstk [https://perma.cc/DGU6-9QKA] (exhibiting Lil Dicky talking not in Black English).

[244]. See generally Courtney Kurinec & Charles Weaver, Dialect on Trial: Use of African American Vernacular English Influences Juror Appraisals, 25 Psych., Crime & L. 1 (2019) (suggesting that dialect plays a role in the courtroom and bias against Black English can influence juror decision making).

[245]. This is as opposed to “hypercorrection,” when someone tries to use a grammatical feature that is seen as “more proper” but makes mistakes when doing so. For example, most Americans do not naturally say “whom” anymore; you kind of have to learn it. And so, when people try to use “whom,” they will use it in places where, traditionally, it was not actually used—“the person whom went to the store with me” might be said, while in older varieties of English, “whom” does not appear in the subject position of a relative clause. So, for Black English, a hypocorrecting person might start throwing <be> around everywhere without knowing that it is not just a cool way of saying “is.”

[246]. See generally Ryan Smith, Clip of Ariana Grande’s Changing Accent Confuses Fans, Goes Viral, Newsweek (July 6, 2022), https://www.newsweek.com/clip-ariana-grandes-changing-accent-confuses-fans-goes-viral-tiktok-1722049 [https://perma.cc/Y5ZB-EBBB] (explaining that Grande was accused of cultural appropriation and using a “blaccent”).

[247]. It is a whole different ballgame for stenographers and others that transcribe Black English. As the federal guidelines indicate, anyone in the role of transcriber needs a certain minimum competency.

[248]. There remain technical problems in the science of machine translation that are difficult to overcome even with well-tuned neural networks, in part because of the paucity of written training data and the lack of ability of many of the creators of such networks to verify the fidelity of such networks. And a quick scan of computer-generated subtitles on speakers of Mainstream American English and Black English on YouTube and Netflix reveals that those models often struggle with Black English.

[249]. We should, of course, also be worried about statistical noise that is associated with human judgments. Where the relative merits lie is unclear at the moment.

[250]. Plato, Republic bk. V, at 457 (c. 384 B.C.E.).

[251]. For three examples, the United States had a brutal policy of linguistic assimilation for Native Americans, England did very much the same to the Irish, and Japan, the Ainu. In all those cases, language varieties went extinct, but full linguistic assimilation never resulted. And today, there are many living language varieties despite the programs.

California Law Review https://californialawreview.org

Black English for Lawyers: A Primer

Introduction

I. Linguistics: A Descriptivist Endeavor

II. Black English Practicum

A. Sounds

1. The /r/ and /l/ Sounds

2. The /th/ Sounds: /θ/ & /ð/

3. Multiple Consonants Together: “Kilt”

4. Vowel Mergers: Pin-Pen, Feel-Fill, & Think-Thank

5. Vowel-Consonant Combinations: “Ma”

6. Children’s Forms: “Skreet”

7. Pitch: Fluctuations, Falsetto, & Questions

B. Words and Grammar

1. The Verb <Be>: <They don’t think it be like it is, but it do.>

2. Desire: <You tryna eat?>

3. Contact Relatives

4. The Present Tense

5. The Past Tense

6. Narration with <Had>: <What had happened was . . . >

7. The Remote Past: <I BIN known that>

8. Recent and Counterexpectational <Done>: <I done done it all>

9. The Future Tense and Plans: <We gon’ be alright>

10. Determiner <Them> & Intimate <Up>: <Them kids up at Mike’s place>

11. Existence: <It’s always more fish in the sea>

12. Possessives and Plurals: <Where y’all cars?>

13. Negation: <Ain’t nobody see nothing>

14. Quotation: <Ain’t nobody talkin’ bout them clothes cheap>

15. Indignant <Come>

16. Negative Inferential Necessity: <You must don’t know me>

17. Dismissive, Adjectival & Reflexive <-ass>: <I’ll see they ass Monday>

18. <Nigga> and <Bitch>

C. Talking to Each Other: Black English in Society & Some Advice for Lawyers

1. <Bitch>’s Social Context

2. <Nigga>’s Social Context and Black English’s Covert Prestige

Conclusion: Black English and the Future

Black English for Lawyers: A Primer

Introduction

I. Linguistics: A Descriptivist Endeavor

II. Black English Practicum

A. Sounds

1. The /r/ and /l/ Sounds

2. The /th/ Sounds: /θ/ & /ð/

3. Multiple Consonants Together: “Kilt”

4. Vowel Mergers: Pin-Pen, Feel-Fill, & Think-Thank

5. Vowel-Consonant Combinations: “Ma”

6. Children’s Forms: “Skreet”

7. Pitch: Fluctuations, Falsetto, & Questions

B. Words and Grammar

1. The Verb <Be>: <They don’t think it be like it is, but it do.>

2. Desire: <You tryna eat?>

3. Contact Relatives

4. The Present Tense

5. The Past Tense

6. Narration with <Had>: <What had happened was . . . >

7. The Remote Past: <I BIN known that>

8. Recent and Counterexpectational <Done>: <I done done it all>

9. The Future Tense and Plans: <We gon’ be alright>

10. Determiner <Them> & Intimate <Up>: <Them kids up at Mike’s place>

11. Existence: <It’s always more fish in the sea>

12. Possessives and Plurals: <Where y’all cars?>

13. Negation: <Ain’t nobody see nothing>

14. Quotation: <Ain’t nobody talkin’ bout them clothes cheap>

15. Indignant <Come>

16. Negative Inferential Necessity: <You must don’t know me>

17. Dismissive, Adjectival & Reflexive <-ass>: <I’ll see they ass Monday>

18. <Nigga> and <Bitch>

C. Talking to Each Other: Black English in Society & Some Advice for Lawyers

1. <Bitch>’s Social Context

2. <Nigga>’s Social Context and Black English’s Covert Prestige

Conclusion: Black English and the Future

Black English for Lawyers: An Audio Repository

The Myth of Continuity in American Gun Culture