Why do American rappers say “you is” or “what is you saying”

11 comments

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Vernacular_English?wprov=sfla1

2. Some urban black communities have their own dialect of English called AAVE (African-American Vernacular English). I believe it was developed during slavery when English was mixed in with elements of various indigenous African languages.

3. It’s slang/colloquial

   Pretty sure every language has its casual/slang phrases that aren’t grammatically correct, but are common and generally understood by popular usage.

4. It’s part of African-American Vernacular English, which is a separate dialect of English. It’s not just rappers or “slang”.

5. There is a small portion of blacks who regard talking in “proper” English as a white people thing. Not saying it’s all of them but I’ve seen it.

6. There’s an interesting episode of the podcast You’re Wrong About that discusses how AAVE has evolved and its very complicated history in the U.S., if you are interested in a deeper dive on the topic. The title of the episode is “The Ebonics Controversy” (how it was originally/popularly known but not the preferred name now.)

7. AAVE.

8. At some point someone didn’t smack them in the head and tell them to use better grammar.

9. It’s southern thing as far as I observed. We’s goin they goin, All y’all. Not like people write essays this way or work shit. Just speeds up the message in a relaxed way.

10. It’s AAVE (African-American Vernacular English). It shares some characteristics with accents associated with the American south.

11. Just shorthand ways of speaking. I’m black and say things “properly” in most social settings, but as if I’m around friends I’m comfortable with and family I switch to Ebonics. Not to the extent my other family members do, but they laugh because they aren’t used to me saying “Is y’all for real?”