Are black Americans unable to learn other languages?

Whenever you see a list of Americans who can speak foreign languages, black people are conspicuous by their absence. Is there a particular reason for this? Black people came to America from another continent yet all traces of their native languages appear to have been obliterated, while Hispanic, Chinese and Italian immigrant communities manage to preserve their linguistic roots.

In Quebec, there are problems with black immigrants from the USA being unable to communicate in French. This post is not meant to be derogatory towards black people. Indeed, in many African countries you will find people proficient in several languages. I salute that ability. Yet the Afro-Americans continue to plough a mono-lingual furrow.

I would have felt threatened if my slaves spoke their own language which I did not understand. I would have forced them to abandon it on the pretext that they needed to receive instruction in Christianity to save their souls in English.

Many white Americans still think like slavemasters and feel threatened if people speak languages they don't understand.

Yes it's the white Americans that forced black African Americans to speak their language....English.

It's not the black Americans fault they can't speak their own languages today, it's the white Americans fault for forcing them to speak only English.

Well, the vast majority of Africans that came to the US were slaves, who were forced to speak English as I can't imagine their masters would have wanted to, or had the resources to learn African languages.

Not to mention all the slaves owned by one household would probably have been brought separately and had different tribal backgrounds so English would have served as the most natural lingua franca between them anyway.

So, considering the climate, the most that would have been preserved of native languages would have been words and particular grammatical features, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullah_language

However, if African-Americans care so much about it, what's to stop them studying their ancestorial languages today?

If North America would have remain spanish, black people would be able to speak other languages, like black people in Venezuela or Columbia.

>> If North America would have remain spanish <<

-- Ridicule.
La destinée manifeste de l'Amérique du Nord n'était pas d'appartenir au Tiers-Monde.
Ce sous-continent a été disputé entre français et anglais (mais le rapport démographique, de l'ordre de 1:25, nous était trop défavorable et ne s'est pas amélioré depuis), mais l'espagnol revêt là-bas une signification similaire à celle du turc ou de l'arabe en Europe (une souillure à nettoyer).

<<If North America would have remain spanish, black people would be able to speak other languages, like black people in Venezuela or Columbia. >>

Bullshit, the Spanish forced their language upon native Americans in the most brutal manner. The only South American country where there are a significant number of native language speakers is Bolivia and that is only because their government has being actively trying to revserse the damaging events of Spanish imperialism on the native culture.

At least the British empire didn't destroy whole language and cultures.

>> Are black Americans unable to learn other languages? <<

-- First of all, English is the Darkies' favourite language. Everywhere. Therefore, when they speak english or some approximation of it, they are not willing to learn any other language.

The Blacks love English because of:
. Simple grammar, though it's still a bit too intricate for African brains (Ebonix underwent lots of further simplifications BTW).
. Easy to pronounce. English "r" sounds aren't challenging to black throats, and there are no front rounded vowels, that black lips cannot handle (thin white lips are a prerequisite for that).

In non-English speaking countries all Blacks tend to favour English. A typical instance is French-Dutch Saint-Martin island in the West-Indies. The locals are supposed to understand some French and Dutch and to speak French and Dutch creoles, but most of them have switched to some basic English in everyday life.

Similarly, African minorities in France have introduced lots of English words and idioms in their French Ebonics.

Probably, the best possible choice for Blacks would be a non-rhotic English with a Neanderthalian five-vowel system à la Spanish.

I'm an American amateur linguist. I stumbled onto this page while on a Google search for something else.

I do not think that African-Americans are any less able to learn foreign languages than any other Americans. It is just that almost all of us are very poor at learning foreign languages because our educational system does not make foreign language learning a priority.

Many bilingual Americans are bilingual because of family or personal history. Some are second generation immigrants. If they are any more than second generation it is rare that they will learn the language, and even many second generation immigrants do not know their parents' first language. Other bilingual Americans had the privilege of living outside the United States for a period of time during their youth.

Many African Americans speak a dialect of American English that has been referred to as "Black English" or "Ebonics." This dialect is most notable for the pronunciation pattern, but it has a few grammatical peculiarities as well. Students who grow up in an environment in which "Black English" is the dialect spoken at home occasionally have different problems with pronunciation of foreign languages than students whose native dialect is standard English. I studied Russian at an American University, and there was an African-American woman who had difficulty with different sounds than the rest of us did.

The same is true of students of European heritage who speak the Southern dialect. I know of a Southern man who had to lose his Southern accent to learn Japanese. There are few pure vowels in the Southern dialect. Many vowels that are pure in standard English become diphthongs, and the distinction between some vowels is lost. Southerners can neither pronounce nor hear the difference between the words "pen" and "pin," for instance.

African-Americans who grow up in communities that are extremely predominantly European-American ordinarily have no African-American characteristics to their speech or dialect at all, although occasionally they will affect African-American dialects for social or cultural reasons. Because of the history of segregation in the United States, there are few African-Americans who have grown up in societies so isolated.

Of course, there is absolutely nothing innate about language ability based on race. All of these considerations are completely cultural. The only question would be what are the social conditions in the United States that would tend to make African-Americans less likely to be bilingual.

I'm not sure that the premise is true. I'm not sure that African-Americans are less likely to be bilingual. I think that bilingual Americans are so rare that it's usually going to be an individual circumstance that explains why any given American is bilingual. One can get the highest academic degree available in the United States with little or no foreign language study. There's no social pressure to learn a foreign language, and indeed it's a bit suspect to learn the wrong one.

Gerry

At least the British empire didn't destroy whole language and cultures.

^^

You got to be joking, right? What about the genocide of Aboriginals in Australia, the genocide of Native Americans in America?

Australia or America are both English countries today but they were not English to start off with.

Go and tell the Aboriginals in Australia that the british never destroyed any culture. And go and tell the last few remaining Native Americans that Britain has not destroyed their culture and ultimately their continent!

I long to see Native Americans setting a McDonalds on fire, wreaking havoc in a mall, shitting in the backyard of Frustrated Housewives, hunting down the pets of National Rifle Association members - in short, Native American revenge terrorism!

Hopefully it will be reported on Oððasat, the Norwegian aboriginal evening news.

If black people were not oppressed by white Americans they would be able to speak their own African languages today... But that did not happen. They were all force to learn and speak English only and now you still ask why they can't speak it??

What a JOKE!

<< At least the British empire didn't destroy whole language and cultures. >>

The main difference between Spanish and British colonization is that while the Spanish mingled with the local population and allowed them to keep most of their own language and culture, the British either shun them or mass-massacred them, as they didn't considered them to be human.

The only prosperous British ex-colonies today are those were the natives were wiped out, such as Australia or Canada. Those were the locals were so many as to make impractical their mass-killing, such as Nigeria or Bangladesh, are today a real mess, and their citizens will give an arm (sometimes they do give a kidney) to live in a place like Mexico, Chile or Colombia.