African American Vernacular English

[af-ri-kuhn uh-mer-i-kuhn ver-nak-yuh-ler ing-glish]

noun

1. a dialect of American English characterized by pronunciations, syntactic structures, and vocabulary associated with and used by some North American Black people and exhibiting a wide variety and range of forms varying in the extent to which they differ from Standard American English. AAVE

African-American Vernacular English

noun

1. AAVE. Also called: ebonics. a dialect of English typically spoken by working-class African-Americans

Word History and Origins

Origin of African American Vernacular English¹

First recorded in 1990–95