ABSTRACT
Umbrella term used to denote a number of non-standard American English sociolects ( English, sociolect) spoken by North Americans of African descent. The origin of Black English is believed to have possibly developed from a creole spoken by the first African slaves. It differs from standard English predominantly in its lexicon, morphology, and syntax: e.g. lack of verb-subject agreement, as in he walk; presence of an idiosyncratic grammatical form to express the habituative. as in They be walkin’ around here. Originally considered by many linguists to be a deficient form of English ( code theory), Black English has come to be understood since the 1960s, in the wake of seminal studies by Labov, Wolfram, and others, as a full-fledged variety of American English.
