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Alison Hill, of Australia, Speaks Out on Black English This message was originally sent to the late 'Reconcilers Online' list as a contribution to a debate on 'Black English'.  Alison notes that she would usually refer to it as 'African American English', which, along with 'African American Vernacular English' is more commonly used by linguists today. Hello fellow reconcilers! I am a white Australian who has only just stumbled across the Reconciliation Online site - to my incredible delight. I am involved with issues of reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. The situation for Aboriginal Australians has similarities to both Native Americans and African Americans, and the controversy over English varieties seems to be similar too. I'm very interested in this issue since I am employed on a project aimed at making education more 'user-friendly' for speakers of Aboriginal English. As in the case of Black English, there is very widespread ignorance about the language amongst non-Aboriginal Australians as well as Aboriginal people who have taken on board 'mainstream' attitudes that they speak "rubbish English" or "slang", "slur their speech", etc. As a speaker of Standard Australian English, I was ignorant myself until I started working with our Research Centre. Here are some things I have learnt through our linguistic research and reading so far: 1. Aboriginal English, like Black English, is a language in its own right, with its own rules for sounds, grammar, and usage. Standard English is not more 'correct', any more than British English is more correct than American English or Australian English - it's just different. 2. Aboriginal English, like Black English, expresses a very different worldview from mine. There are things you can say and do in Black English that you just can't say in Standard English. So if we take away that language variety, we're going to be taking away some of the rich culture and insight that comes with it - that's everyone's loss. 3. Black English and Aboriginal English are sometimes seen as simple and inferior, because they have standardised some irregularities in standard English (eg. I talk, you talk, he talk). But they can also be more complex and subtle. eg. in Aboriginal English, you must say 'you' to call one person, but 'youse' to call more than one. We can't make that distinction in Standard English. As for education, Aboriginal people have by far the worst stats of any ethnic group in Australia. Part of this is because Aboriginal kids face an alien language as soon as they hit school, so most have dropped out by 13-15 years old. As our Project rationale says: "It is now well known that school students learn best when the natural way that they speak and think is valued and built upon in their school. When learners' home values and understandings - as expressed in their normal ways of talking - are respected, students feel more comfortable about adding new ways of talking and thinking to what they can already do ...When students who speak Aboriginal English find that their own language variety is respected, they are free to become competent bidialectal speakersof Aboriginal English and Standard Australian English without feeling that they must give up their own identity and heritage to succeed at school." If anyone's interested in our own project, we have a home page at here As to the Christian point of view on all this, I could recommend John Dawson's (Youth With a Mission) ideas about 'redemptive gifts' - the special gifts God has given each culture to contribute to the world. Varieties of language has to come in here. Bless you all, Alison Hill Centre for Applied Language Research