[haku]

Originally Posted by madeldoe

ebonics IS a language. if you actually did some research, you would know that ebonics HAS grammar elements and rules, just like any language.

Ebonics is not a language, it can be debated that it's a dialect, but certainly not a language. And yes, all slangs have their own internal logic, but their grammar and syntax is extremely rudimentary and lacks the complexity, precision, and finesse of an actual language. That's the point of a slang, it's a very simplified version of a language that uneducated people speak because they were never taught the correct form of the language.

Originally Posted by madeldoe

it is of no doubt that ebonics is deeply rooted in the African language.

Though some features of Ebonics like the absence of copula at the present tense can be traced back to some African languages (but Russian or Japanese don't have a copula either and they are obviously not African at all), the African influence in Ebonics is rather faint except in the area of pronunciation (for obvious reasons), but the general morphology of Ebonics remains very much Anglo-Saxon and 99% of the lexicon is of Anglo-Saxon origin, so the African origin of Ebonics is extremely debatable indeed.
Ebonics actually exhibits more resemblance with the slang of the English working class of the 17th century, i personally agree with the theory that African slaves who spoke many different African dialects and needed a way to communicate with their masters and between themselves picked words from the slang of the white working class and that the influence of their native African languages was minimal (except for pronunciation) in the construction of Ebonics because they didn't share a common African language to begin with and therefore their native lexicon was not kept within Ebonics.

Originally Posted by madeldoe

as far as ebonics being taught in schools, the program is designed to cultivate and embrace the African culture

How do you embrace the African culture by clinging to a slang derived from an Anglo-Saxon language belonging to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages, all of that having no relation at all with Africa.
If people want to embrace the African culture through a language, they should learn an actual *African* language, there are many interesting African languages they can choose from.

Originally Posted by madeldoe

The purpose of the SEP program was NOT to say that American English need not be learned

And that's the mistake, those children should be taught correct English instead of their slang, this problem should have been fixed decades ago.

My grand-parents only spoke the Norman dialect (and yes, that was an actual dialect, directly derived from Latin with some Old Norse influence from the Viking settlers), they grew up in the 1900s at a time when school was rudimentary and they were never really taught French, they only spoke the dialect that had been spoken in the area for centuries.
It was different for my parents, they grew up in the 1940s and school was compulsory everywhere for everyone at the time, they picked the Norman dialect from their parents of course but they were only taught correct French at school.
And now me, i know almost nothing of the Norman dialect and i could barely understand my grand-parents, i was only taught French.
With proper education, it only takes 3 generations to shift a population to the correct language.

Originally Posted by madeldoe

You wouldnt try to "fix" spanish in order to fit into the rules of American English.

The difference is that Spanish is an actual language, not an English slang.

Originally Posted by madeldoe

if you havent noticed yet..ebonics is at the pinacle of mainstream society.

Well, i do not live in the US so i wouldn't know, but if it's true that's really sad, it's never a sign of progress when 'mainstream society' loses the ability to speak the correct form of a language

Originally Posted by madeldoe

so maybe you need to take some ebonics classes

I'd rather not, i haven't spent all those years learning how to speak English as correctly as possible to ruin it with vulgar slang, incoherent grammar, and dubious spelling.