Ebonics translators needed by DEA to interpret drugs wiretaps

The US is seeking to hire nine people fluent in Ebonics - or African American patois - in order to interpret wiretapped conversations between suspected drug dealers, sparking controversy as many do not consider it a language. The liguists would help America's Drug Enforcement Administration decipher arrangements between criminals, documents leaked in the US claimed. Speakers of 114 "common" and "exotic" languages - including Jamaican patois, Farsi and Spanish - were sought to cover investigations in the American south-east.

Special Agent Michael Sanders said experts were needed to determine precisely what suspects were saying, which could be crucial in gaining convictions.

He said: "You can maybe get a general idea of what they're saying, but you have to understand that this has to hold up in court.

"You need someone to say I know what they mean when they say 'ballin' or 'pinching pennies'.

"It has nothing to do with racial issues. It is a type of language recognised by different linguist services."

Another DEA official said there was nothing "racial" about the hiring effort, identifying the white rapper Eminem as "one of the best speakers of Ebonics there ever was".

Ebonics, also known as African American Vernacular English, is an offshoot of American English. Characterised by pronunciation relating to speakers of Creole or West African languages, and the omission of the final consonant in words (han' instead of hand), it was defined by Robert Lee Williams, who coined the term in 1973, as English vocabulary with African linguistic structure.

Detractors claim it is a dialect - or bastardisation - at best.

The DEA's search, first reported by The Smoking Gun, has revived fierce debate over Ebonics first sparked in 1996, when a California school board suggested that "black English" was a separate language from that spoken by whites, and that African American children should have lessons in it.

The Oakland board called for public money to fund "bilingual" education in English and Ebonics.

The proposal was rejected by the Clinton administration, ridiculed by late night comedians, and sparked a fierce racially-charged national debate over whether learning, and language, could be "genetically based".

Professor H Samy Alim, an expert on black language and hip-hop culture at Stanford University, admitted he initially thought the new DEA recruitment drive was a joke but said it highlighted a serious issue.

He said: "It seems ironic that schools that are serving and educating black children have not recognised the legitimacy of this language, yet the authorities and the police are recognising that this is a language that they don't understand.

"It really tells us a lot about where we are socially in terms of recognising African American speech."

Walt Wolfram, professor of English linguistics at North Carolina State University, who has studied African American English for 40 years, said: "There is something of substance here. There are differences in terms of language and lexicon and so forth that are difficult to understand for most people, so it is an issue.

"What, of course, happens is it gets politicised and trivialised by the very term 'Ebonics.'"

The term derives from a blend of the words "ebony" and "phonics."

He recalled issues in 1970s Black Panther trials in which there was confusion in court over whether the phrase "Off the pigs" was a threat to kill police officers.

He also said Ebonics had now crossed over "geographic, racial and ethnic backgrounds" and was also spoken by Latino and white people.

Others were sceptical, wondering how a potential translator's fluency would be tested.

"I'm not aware of Ebonics training schools or tests. I don't know how they'd establish that someone speaks Ebonics," said Aloysius Hogan, a member of English First, a lobbying group promoting the use of English.

"I support the concept of pursuing drug dealers if they're using code words, but this is definitely going in the wrong direction," he said.

The Linguistic Society of America has not taken a position on whether Ebonics is a language, but has said characterisations of Ebonics as "ungrammatical or broken English" were "incorrect and demeaning".

So for a long time this Ebonics was not considered a language but now that the DEA want to put people in Prison it is.

[OjoRojo420]

Following that...

Better get some ops at the Navajo Rez!

[StealthDragon]

interesting. you should move this over to the news section since our news ppl are on hiatus.

[Phedrosbenny]

Bozop on the beezue...lols

[Kalicokitty]

I want to make up my own retarded version of the English language, and have it taught in public schools.

[memphis man]

lmao this shit is funny as fuck. so now the government will say ebonics is a language and refer to eminem as a the best ebonic speaker ever. so i wonder what they would call snoop doggs fo shizzle my nizzle language. hell i think me and my crew are just gonna learn a new version of pig latin crossed up with a touch of swahila lmao

[Kalicokitty]

Originally Posted by OjoRojo420

Following that...

Better get some ops at the Navajo Rez!

that's right, now that they're onto ebonics, it's time to switch to Navajo code talking

[Phedrosbenny]

Didnt ebonics begin with fat alberts friend that allways had the winter hat on..........

Ebonics is a dialect of the English language, just like all the rest of the variations of English you can find throughout the USA.

Originally Posted by dextr0

a you know there are languages that are going extinct....we should look into that. 2 birds one stone

didn't they use Navajo to win a war??

Yes, against the Japanese.