blackspeak

English

Etymology

From black +‎ -speak.

Noun

blackspeak (uncountable)

1. The dialect of English spoken by people of sub-Saharan African ancestry living stateside.
   • 1995, Robert Dawidoff, “The Kind of Person You Have to Sound Like to Sing 'Alexander's Ragtime Band'”, in Elazar Barkan, Ronald Bush, editors, Prehistories of the Future: The Primitivist Project and the Culture of Modernism, Stanford University Press, →ISBN, page 302:

     It sounds odd to us now, but contemporary sources... suggest how the archaic blackspeak that we associate with blackface performers had some of the aura of the later white appropriations of black speech.

   • 2002, Joe S. Harrington, Sonic Cool: The Life & Death of Rock 'n' Roll, Hal Leonard, →ISBN, page 64:

     Jordan's records were the first time many whites encountered the nuances of hip urban blackspeak.

   • 2006, Robert B. Parker, Hundred-Dollar Baby, Putnam, →ISBN, page 35:

     Like Hawk, he moved easily in and out of blackspeak as it suited him.

     "They is a couple of approaches to the whore business," he said.

Synonyms

• African American Vernacular English, AAVE
• Ebonics