I had Advanced Placement English classes for most of my academic career, and something that was a constant topic to review was the importance of grammar or proper use of the English language. How important it was to make sure you punctuated correctly and even know the terminology for what punctuation you were using and getting whole points deducted if something was forgotten or misplaced. The English language has changed in so many ways through time and there are so many variants of it used to this day that I can't pinpoint what ‘proper’ English is. There are so many rules to follow that many of us use slang in our everyday life.
‘Lit’ and ‘fam’ are two words I use on a daily basis, and no one has a problem with it because it's just slang, right? It's cool and acceptable. On another hand, when I say a sentence like ‘You a mess," I find myself getting criticized for not speaking what society views as proper and acceptable English. Why is using slang appropriate but not using what is deemed improper English. When I begin to speak like that, I am using African American Vernacular English (AAVE). Many people use it and have heard it being used and something I get told is that I sound uneducated. As a black person, I have a problem with the use of slang outside of the black community. People want to use the slang but in the same breath, call me ignorant for not speaking correctly.
When I drop that verb from my sentence, I am actually making perfect sense and using what is proper English, but not Standard American English (SAE). There is a linguistic phenomenon called zero copula. A copula is a word, often a verb, used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate, like ‘The sky is blue’. In elementary terms, it's a linking verb. Zero copula is a linguistic phenomenon where the subject is linked to the predicate without directly referencing this relationship. AAVE makes use of zero copula quite often. While many see me as speaking improperly when I say, ‘you a mess,’ I am not. Zero copula has been used and is currently of use in languages today including Hungarian, Russian, Standard English and even in Ancient Greek.
AAVE follows a set of grammatical rules just like SAE. Where AAVE has copula deletion, SAE has copula contraction. Copula contraction is simply words like ‘are not’ are contracted to ‘aren't.' If you can contract the verb in SAE, then you can delete it in AAVE.
Please consider the following next time you use the word ‘bae,' but chastise someone for using copula deletion instead of the ‘acceptable’ copula contraction. Just because my language is different, doesn't mean it is any less valid than the any other language.
