Mel Hopkins

In the spirit of our lively forum discussions - from Smithsonian's National Museum of  African American Heritage and Culture

Language | The Power of Words

Rapping, Storytelling, Preaching, Signifying, Testifying, Playing the Dozens.

At Its heart, African American culture is an oral culture. Enslaved blacks combined English with African vocabularies and ways of talking. They created a language that built communities and kept them going. Talking and telling connect people.  New terms and expressions are born, picked up, and spread with each generation.  Some master two languages or dialects - one they speak in their community and mainstream American English. How African Americans speak depends on whom they're speaking to.