sábado, 28 de agosto de 2010

Ebonics Translators Needed - Practice now and get the job!






Wot y'all up 2? Damn it! I been lookin' fo' dat jawb fo' a long tahme. Whatcha think we shoo b doin' 'bout dat shit? Wot I can letcha kno' bah now is dat I applied fo' it. I ain't no snitch but I'mma keep on stackin' da dough, ya knowmsayin? I finna jet cuz ya kno' I gotta flip a bird 2nite so I finna git da slab ready, nahImean? Damn peep dis shit out nigga, a car fulla white girls to be taken to dat 'hood where ya smoked dat fuckin' punk. Whattama tell ya is dat ain't nobody gon' put da hands on mah shit, ya heard? I'mma bus da goddamn cap on dey ass if dey fuckin' move aaight. Lemme head out cuz five-oh 'bout to show up!

Oh, befo' I git mah ass up outta hea I just wanted 2 letchy'all kno' dat nuttin' make me happier dan be chillin' 'round wit mah gal. Van, mah baybay, I luv ya fo' real, ya dig. Ain't nobody gon' take ya away from me cuz we belong 2gether, ya feel me?

Holla atcha homies l8er on wen. bah da way, y'all gotta check mah new music out. Damn sho' it gon' be one mo' hit. It be called "U Bettah Be Prepared".

This is basically how Ebonics is used by gangsters. I didn't mean to make any sense above. Check how grammatical features are presented in the chart below.

Example

Name

SE Meaning / Notes

He workin'.

Simple progressive

He is working [right now].

He be workin'.

Habitual/continuative aspect

He works frequently or habitually. Better illustrated with "He be workin' Tuesdays all month."

He be steady workin'.

Intensified continuative

He is working steadily.

He been workin'.

Perfect progressive

He has been working.

He been had that job.

Remote phase

He has had that job for a long time and still has it.

He done worked.

Emphasized perfective

He has worked. Syntactically, "He worked" is valid, but "done" is used to emphasize the completed nature of the action.

He finna or He's fittin' to go to work.

Immediate future

He's about to go to work. Finna is a contraction of "fixin' to"; though is also believed to show residual influence of late 16th century archaism "would fain (to)", that persisted until later in some rural dialects spoken in the Carolinas

I was walkin' home, and I had worked all day.

Preterite narration.

"Had" is used to begin a preterite narration. Usually it occurs in the first clause of the narration, and nowhere else.


Lil' Dawg
ESL Teacher

3 comentários:

  1. Very good!! Congratulations! You killed it up! I've been learning a lot of things in Black English, ya knowmsayin?

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  2. Yo, what it do? Thanks for the comments. Hope y'all come more often. Welcome to The Flabbergasting English.

    Lil' Dawg

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