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• African American Vernacular English
  African American Vernacular English

  noun

  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
  African-American Vernacular English

  noun

  a dialect of English typically spoken by working-class African-Americans

African American Vernacular English

American  

[af-ri-kuhn uh-mer-i-kuhn ver-nak-yuh-ler ing-glish] / ˈæf rɪ kən əˈmɛr ɪ kən vərˈnæk yə lər ˈɪŋ glɪʃ /

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

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African-American Vernacular English British  

noun

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

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Etymology

Origin of African American Vernacular English

First recorded in 1990–95

Example Sentences

“Drag Race” is the source of quite a bit of modern slang terminology, lifted from decades of African American Vernacular English, posted online, and co-opted to fit just about anything.

From Salon • May 10, 2026

The singer’s misuse of African American Vernacular English has turned into an internet meme, but Bieber’s in on the joke.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 11, 2025

There was a really interesting paper by some UMass Amherst researchers a couple years ago where they took African American Vernacular English and they plugged it into language identification machine learning models.

From Slate • Jun. 4, 2022

Standard American English, the English spoken by newscasters, is one such dialect, as are African American Vernacular English, Creole, Appalachian English, and others.

From Textbooks • Dec. 21, 2021

But some took offense, leading the aquarium to apologize after many on social media pointed out the terms used in the tweet come from African American Vernacular English.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 20, 2018