Okay, what is AAVE?
this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
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African American Vernacular English, black people slang.
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You wouldn't steal a car
StEaLiNG iS AgAiNsT tHe LaW.
Thanks!
(Thanks for the informative response! It made my brain go off on a bit of a tangent haha)
I always thought that term was weird, African American.
Like, are they African, or American, they can't be both. If we're trying to say "American but of African genetic descent", that can (maybe) include white Africans who have lived there many generations, not to mention the more truly native people in African nations like Egypt or Morocco, who, to put it crudely, may not always be considered 'black' enough or from the appropriate cultural group to be called African American.
And, if we're using the term, why aren't most white people in the USA called European Americans?
It seems a weird and very specific label applied to people of a very particular skin colour and heritage, to avoid using the word black, even though that's not, on its own, a racist term. It's just a descriptive visual trait, like tall, thin, white, muscly, gaunt, etc.
I think it says more about the person saying it, when they feel like calling a person black is, in a vacuum, being racist, you know?
Like, coming up with a weird special term that doesn't really stay logically consistent just to dance around the fact that you're uncomfortable with someone else's skin colour is weird, you know?
Anyway, I'm not from there, so there are probably big gaps in my knowledge on the subject, it's just always seemed really odd to me as an outsider looking in, haha.
...Especially when some Americans come over here and start calling local black people "African American". Dawg you in Europe! You're calling a French black dude American 😂
I agree it's often used because white people are afraid of using the term Black even when individuals indicate they prefer it, but I believe part of the reason it came to be was to refer specifically to people who descended from enslaved people. They were kidnapped and their descendants don't know exactly from where, so the term is very broad.
I've seen an American, desperately not trying to sound racist, refer to black people living in Africa as "African-Africans".
It seems a weird and very specific label applied to people of a very particular skin colour and heritage, to avoid using the word black, even though that’s not, on its own, a racist term. It’s just a descriptive visual trait, like tall, thin, white, muscly, gaunt, etc.
I would look at how african americans label themselves. How white people label them is irrelevant to the discussion imo.
i agree with you except the conversation is mostly among white folk about how to label Black vernacular, hence why it always feels at least a little racist.
African-American is pretty awkward but it fits the similarly awkward model of Irish-American, Italian-American. The reason those are more specific should be obvious and horrifying - the vast majority of black Americans have little record of their ancestry before cross-Atlantic transportation. It would be nice if Americans just focused on the American part but these labels were often imposed on them from outside before they were adopted as a matter of spiteful pride from inside. Like LGTBQ Pride, St Patrick's Day parades originally had an element of defiance and protest.
It's useful in AAVE though because it is specifically American as opposed to just "black". There are black slang/vernaculars in the Caribbean, Britain and France for example. Some of it bleeds into AAVE/Global English too - e.g. fam, bruv.
There was a big push to make "African American" the politically correct term in the late 00s, but for basically every reason you mentioned, it didn't quite catch.
The term AAVE was coined in 1973 as a replacement for "ebonics" and it spread throughout the 80s and 90s. There's a bunch more info about it on the wiki and I don't think I can succinctly summarize it, but it's an interesting read.
It's funny, you had the same thoughts as the rappers in this hip hop song:
"Aave" is "ghost" in Finnish.
Neat, I love these little coincidences
We’re finished.
I love AFHV
