238 CHAPTER 7
significantly in this century. As a result, Papiamento continued to develop in its
own way; it did not move closer to Standard Dutch. A different process oc-
curred in the United States. The influence of Standard English on the slave
Creole increased over the years, especially after the abolition of slavery. Thus,
the Creole that was spoken by large numbers of slaves shifted closer and closer
to Standard English, until at some point it stopped being a Creole and became a
dialect. It is closer to English than to any other language, which is why speakers
of Standard English can understand BEV but not a Creole.
Although the process of decreolization was powerful, Black English pre-
served many features of its Creole and pidgin roots, which extend to the West
African tribal languages as well as to Dutch, French, Portuguese, and Span-
ish. The most visible of these features are grammatical, and for generations
these grammatical differences have led large numbers of Americans to as-
sume that BEV was merely a degenerate version of Standard English. Speak-
ers were believed to violate grammatical rules every time they used the
language. Works like Dillard’s (1973) and Labov’s (1970, 1971, 1972), how-
ever, demonstrated that Black English has its own grammar, which is a blend
of Standard English and a variety of West African languages seasoned with
European languages.
Many people observe that there is a strong similarity between Black English
and the English used by white Southerners, but the dialects are not the same,
even though they are quite similar. Blacks and whites have lived in close-knit
communities in the South for generations. Throughout the slave era, white chil-
dren played with black children, who exerted a powerful influence on the
white-minority dialect. (As Slobin [1977] indicated, language change occurs
primarily in the speech of children.) Because whites were the minority, the var-
ious Southern dialects shifted toward Black English as Black English simulta-
neously shifted toward the various Southern dialects until they were closer to
each other than to any other American dialect.
Socioeconomic status is often a more salient factor in dialect variation in the
South than region, although region continues to play a major role owing to the
tendency among Southerners to resist the increase in mobility that has charac-
terized other parts of the nation. Anyone traveling from Virginia to South
Carolina will recognize three distinct dialect variations linked to region; these
variations, in turn, are part of the larger Southern dialect, as shown in Fig. 7.1.
The Research Triangle area in North Carolina—composed of Raleigh, Dur-
ham, and Chapel Hill—has four distinct dialect variations, even though there
are no geographical factors hindering travel or communication. These
variations are linked to SES and education.