Talk:Australian Aboriginal English

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[edit] Australian Aboriginal English vs poor grammer

Currently this article simply lists a few examples of poor grammer, reflecting poor access to formal schooling and a high dropout rate among sectors of the aboriginal community.

This article really needs someone to come along and identify how what sound like / look like bad "standard english" grammer, are in fact a different dialect "australian aboriginal english".

--Garrie 06:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


I don't think the examples given in the article are good ones, They're found in numerous non-standard dialects of English, and I'm not really sure that the first one is truly part of AAE.
Many Aboriginal people with excellent education remain bi-dialectal and can switch between Standard Australian English (SAE) and AAE when appropriate, using AAE forms that you describe as 'poor grammar' when appropriate. You've got to remember that this is not 'poor grammar' though, but different grammar. Different languages and dialects have different rules: something that might seem bad to a speaker of (say) Standard Australian English (SAE) might seem perfectly correct to a speaker of (say) Yorkshire English, or Basque; and vice versa. I strongly sugget you follow the first link, to Diane Eades' pages on AAE and read them. Dougg 09:32, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Different grammar is poor grammar, if you follow the assumption that everyone should be taught and use the standard. It's not something I agree with, but a lot of people think that way.
Some people believe non-standard forms lack grammar, and are just words randomly strung together. That's easily disproved. But some accept that they have rules, and simply think they should be obeying the standard rules instead. To combat that you'd need to show why linguistic assimilation is a bad thing, and I don't think that's within the scope of this article. --Ptcamn 10:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
This is less an article and more a list. Therefore shouldn't it be moved to wiktionery? Song and musical album titles aren't credible references, but they are used here as if they are. Format (talk) 21:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)