The variety of dialect that is spoken by black youth in various parts of the United States is known as Black English Vernacular (BEV). In such parts, the inner-city areas of New York, Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, Cleveland, Chicago, San Fransisco, Los Angeles and other urban centers are included. In his book, Labov (1972) has shown a tape recording of the language spoken by black-youth and he found that they miss certain sounds, i.e., /h/ /t/ mostly. Moreover, they miss suffix -ed at the end of verb forms. This way they mostly do not care about the tenses. But, sometimes they use /t/ sound instead of /d/ For example:
Difference between British and African English
| White | Black |
| Let him go. | Let -em go. |
| He’s just gone. | He’s jus- gone |
| Don’t come to club meeting. | Don’t come to c’ub meeting. |
| I passed the sault a minute ago. | I pass* the sault a minute ago. |
| I missed you. | I mist* ya*. |
| I picked him. | I pickt* him. |
It has further been observed that they sometimes miss /t/ sound even. For instance, they speak /guess/ rather than /guests/, /Bess/ rather than /Best/, /Ress/ rather than /Rest/
For example:
- Did you have ress* man?
- This is the bess* job, guys.
- Guess* coming tomorrow morning.
Labov’s book (1972) has quoted some conversations which show that they have some errors in their spoken language but they do it unconsciously. Moreover, they have a certain frequency level for some words such as the word ‘man’ and ‘guys’ are so common and they use it at the end. For example:
Do they Speak Incorrect English?
| Grammatically Correct | Grammatically Incorrect |
| I have lived here twelve years. | I have live* here twelve years. |
| He doesn’t know anybody, man. Or He knows nobody, man. | He don’t* know nobody*, man. |
| He never plays anymore, man. | He never play* no more*, man. |
| It isn’t always her fault. | It don’t* all be* her fault. |
| I’m gonna shoot you. | I’m a* shoot you. |
| I am going there. | I be* going there. |
| She is sitting in the park. | She sitting* in the park. |
The analysis of the above examples also show that they informally use the verb “Be”. Sometimes, they miss the verb ‘Be’ including its other forms such as is/am/are/was/were etc. and sometimes, they use only ‘be’ instead of all. And, they have other syntactic errors such has incorrect use of determiners ‘a, an, the’.
As the black-people have been living in American regions therefore, their pronunciation deviates towards Standard American Accent. For instance, they pronounce clear ‘r’ sound, such as /bɝːd/, /hɑːrt/. The following examples will elaborate further differences.
Try to Pronounce these Words
| Word | White (Phonetics) | Black (Phonetics) |
| Heart | /hɑːt/ | /hɑːrt/ |
| Firm | /fɜːm/ | /fɝːm/ |
| Water | /ˈwɔː.tər/ | /ˈwɑː.t̬ɚ/ |
| Far | /fɑː/ | /fɑːr/ |
| Better | /ˈbet.ə/ | /ˈbet̬.ɚr/ |
| Hot | /hɒt/ | /hɑːt/ |