Entry · catalog no. 8211
Ebonics
/ /ˈɛbɒnɪks/ /EB-on-iks
noun · St. Louis, Missouri · 1970s
✓ Verified
1.
A name for African American English, coined by Black scholars to describe the language of Black people in its own terms; blended from ebony and phonics. Linguists today mostly prefer African American English or African American Vernacular English.
“The 1996 Oakland debate made Ebonics a national argument.”
Origin & Attribution
The term was created in 1973 by a group of African-American scholars who disapproved of the negative terms and stereotypes then used for Black speech; the psychologist Robert L. Williams is the scholar most often credited. It was set out in Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks (Institute of Black Studies, St. Louis, 1975), edited by Williams. It reached the national public in December 1996 when the Oakland, California school board passed a resolution recognizing the language of its Black students, and the coverage often treated the word as new and as slang. The record shows a scholar-made name seven years before Oakland and more than two decades before the headlines.
1973
Term created by a group of Black scholars
1975
Williams edits Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks
1996
Oakland school board resolution brings it to national debate
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
St. Louis, Missouri · 1970s
Spoken by
Black scholars, educators, and public commentators
$EBONICThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady23 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
35/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1973
in the culture
Mainstream crossover
1996
search interest spikes
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
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Atlanta, GA
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Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
Robert L. Williams, ed., Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks (Institute of Black Studies, St. Louis, 1975)
1975
■
+ Cite a sourceWikipedia, "Ebonics" (1973 coinage by African-American scholars)
online
See also