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What is this "Black British English"?

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Here's our article:

Black British English (BBE) is a variety of the English language spoken by the Black British population.[1]

By much of it? By all of it? By a small part of it? The article seems to have one source, half of a single unscholarly web page. This in turn says:

British Black English (BBE) [...] is based on a Jamaican creole spoken by Caribbean communities, mainly in London but also in large cities such as Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds and Nottingham.

That's ambiguous in too many ways to list here. But back to the article:

With a population of close to 2 million, people of Sub-Saharan origin in the United Kingdom make up a significant proportion of the country's overall population. The Black British dialect has influences from various languages of the Caribbean as well as Africa due to the large numbers of immigrants from these regions living in the UK, the dialect is also heavily influenced by social classes and regional dialects such as Cockney, Mancunian and Brummie.

Yeah, maybe. But none of that is sourced in any way, not even to half of somebody's web page.

Is there a single "Black British English" that's shared by large numbers of people of other than Jamaican origin, and if so, just what is it? You can't describe a lect merely by listing half a dozen terms, by extrapolating wildly from trivially short write-ups on ho-hum web pages, or by writing off the top of your head.

Can somebody who is conversant in the academic literature on British dialects please rescue this article? -- Hoary (talk) 00:58, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed the source actually uses "British Black English", which led me to a review of David Sutcliffe's 1982 book British Black English. The reviewer (Dennis Craig, in Language in Society) says that the book is mostly about Jamaican Creole and is rife with problems, but study of the lect seems to appear in chapter three of An Introduction to Language and Society (1986) by Martin Montgomery, as well as other works by Sutcliffe (e.g. a chapter in Languge in the British Isles, 1984) and the term is mentioned in Observing and Analyzing Natural Language: A Critical Account of Sociolinguistic Method (1987) by Lesley Milroy. This tells me that, in addition to higher scrutiny to sources and coverage, this article should be renamed to 'British Black English. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 02:07, 1 April 2009 (UTC).[reply]


But let's not rush into that. I had a hunch that the book the aptly named David Britain edited on language in Britain would have a chapter, and sure enough the book description at a certain evil multinational monopolist tells us Among the many dialects and languages surveyed by the volume are British Black English, Celtic languages, Chinese, Indian, European migrant languages, [...]. However, in the chapter listing within the publisher's own page about it we read that chapter 16 is "Caribbean creoles and Black English" by Mark Sebba. (Of course, this is "Black English" within the very obvious context of Britain.) I should soon be able to get hold of a copy of this book but I'm much less certain that I'll have the time to digest what it says and write it up intelligently, especially as I'm no sociolinguist. Googling for Sebba took me here, something relevant that Sebba wrote for secondary school kids. -- Hoary (talk) 11:00, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ive not read the full article or looked at sources but i find this new article "Black British English" rather odd, and im suprised it hasnt been deleted. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:12, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The article is very short so reading it in full should not take too much of your time. -- Hoary (talk) 13:01, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've now quickly read Sebba's "Caribbean creoles and Black English". This is most interesting. Yes, Sebba talks of "British Black English", or more simply (in a context that makes it clear that it's Britain that's being discussed) "Black English". Sebba points out that by far the largest group of Black Brits are of Jamaican origin, and says that more or less Jamaican English has come to be spoken by Brits of an origin that's Caribbean but not Jamaican. (Thus Brits of Trinidadian origin may well speak it but those of Nigerian origin do not.) He also talks of a Black creole, but says that while this is a creole in that it's modeled on Jamaican creole, it's not spoken at length or by the very young, and instead is learned as a second language and used in fragments for rhetorical/social effect.

I was in a rush, do not have the book on me now, and cannot guarantee that the summary above is entirely accurate.

I'd be happy if somebody with a sociolinguistics background (which I lack) and with some time on their hands (ditto) would read and digest this short and readable book chapter and revise the WP article accordingly. Anyway, let's have this WP article based on sociolinguistically informed materials written in the last decade rather than on older, polemical or underinformed materials, however well intentioned. -- Hoary (talk) 03:07, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. As the author of British Black English (David Sutcliffe 1982) mentioned above- and other work on language used by Caribbean heritage people in Britain - alone or in conjunction with Viv Edwards - I'd really like to join in the discussion, and add my two pennyworth. By the way, Dennis Craig's review of my book was a pure hatchet job. Other reviewers were complimentary. So for example Peter Patrick's very useful bibliography on Afro-Caribbean speech in Britain (useful to our purposes here) calls it: "The first and one of the best linguistic studies..."(David sutcliffe87 (talk) 17:02, 30 June 2010 (UTC) David Sutcliffe)[reply]

Hi, I created this article, as I believe it covers an important subject, I am unable to expand it further due to my lack of knowledge about linguistics. Despite this even I know there is a distinctive accent that the Black British population speak with which is considerably different to how for example some White British people speak. There are even likely to be large differences within the Black British English dialect from region to region as can be heard from notable Black Britons (e.g. Alison Hammond of Birmingham and Thandie Newton of London). Some other sites I cam across that may help include:

Thanks Stevvvv4444 (talk) 21:34, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your claim that "even I know there is a distinctive accent that the Black British population speak with which is considerably different to how for example some White British people speak" falls into the trap that Hoary identified in his first comment here. There is no one single "black accent" that is different to a "white accent". There may be tendencies in the black and white populations towards particular accents, but it is problematic to suggest that people have different accents based on their skin colour. Your regional accents point is an example of this. Lenny Henry (black) sounds a lot more similar to Jasper Carrott (white) than he does to Kwame Kwei-Armah (black). Cordless Larry (talk) 19:07, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think this need a complete rewrite. It seems to be a valid topic for an article, but it is very badly written and referenced as it stands. I also think I've found the origin of the term, in this book by Viv Edwards. Cordless Larry (talk) 01:14, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And I think you've gone too far. Barack Obama and Colin Powell sound a lot more similar to various white US speakers than they do to various black US speakers, and it would indeed be wrong to say that all black US speakers of English speak in one way -- but no knowledgable person either does say such a thing or says that AAVE is unvarying among those who do speak it. BBE does exist. (My initial doubts weren't utterly wrong, but they were greatly underinformed and exaggerated.) Edwards's book was published 29 years ago; it may have been valuable and it may contain material that's valuable even now, but 1980 was an aeon ago in linguistics. Sebba's paper in the recent Cambridge UP book benefits from decades more research and argumentation; it's not forbiddingly difficult to read, it's short, and it's informative. Sorry, but I'll be too busy to do anything with it for some weeks; perhaps somebody else here would like to do so. -- Hoary (talk) 03:44, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Gone too far? How so? I'm not claiming that BBE doesn't exist. I just disagree with the wau that the article suggests that all black British people speak it. Cordless Larry (talk) 03:50, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've renamed the stub and edited it and hope that the result does not misinform. I hope that it will soon be rewritten so that it informs. -- Hoary (talk) 11:56, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think this whole article is borderline ridiculous, it should be changed to 'London Black English' seeing as none of this, especially the little 'translation' bit applies to anywhere else. Could you tell a white scouse from a black scouse down the phone? Or in Manchester or in Birmingham or in Newcastle? No, didn't think so.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elabrownxx (talk • contribs) 17:18, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. If anyone intends to put this article up for deletion, i will happily vote Delete BritishWatcher (talk) 17:13, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Taking up the question of whether all Caribbean descent people in England speak it: when we did research in Dudley in 1082 and 1983 we found that some 60% to 65% of local young Black speakers aged between 16-24 (now aged 43-51) could speak Patwa ("mi gaan sa! mi ga a yard). The figure was similar in Bedford, and in these communities some speakers of that age were actually dominant in creole. At that time you could tell a Black Londoner from a white Londoner, or Mancunian ditto quite easily, because of the various Jamaican or Black markers in their speech. This has obviously changed with the new generation And on the subject of deleting the article - yes, and I would contribute to a new entry with say Peter Patrick's help and input from speakers in the community. —Preceding unsigned comment added by David sutcliffe87 (talk • contribs) 16:58, 1 July 2010 (UTC) ---David Sutcliffe[reply]

Rename the article or delete it

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This article is misleading and even offensive. It shouldn't be "Black English" anything, as there is no such thing as a Black English dialect/accent. For one, non-Caribbean black people have their own accents/dialects which are derived from their native languages, ( French, Yoruba, Swahili etc..), and/or their region in the UK, (Scouse, Brummie, Geordie etc..) If the article wanted to be true it should be re-named London African-Caribbean English, or perhaps British African-Caribbean English, otherwise it should be deleted. InHaze (talk) 14:48, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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