Few issues stick out extra in black American speech than the pronunciation of “ask” as “axe.” And after I say it “stands out”, I am being well mannered.
Attitudes towards Ebonics have developed considerably as hip-hop has turn out to be America’s favourite music. Even the strictest grammarian would agree that Kanye West’s “Gold Digger” in commonplace English wouldn’t be price listening to. And Individuals from Jesse Pinkman in “Breaking Dangerous” to Key and Peele get that it is OK to say “hood” while you’re amongst pals.
However “axe” is a particular case. It is typically the very first thing even black individuals cite for example of dangerous grammar. Garrard McClendon, a black professor and discuss present host, has given a e-book the title “Aks or Ask: The African American Information to Higher English.”
As a black linguist, I’ve come to count on that in query classes after any public discuss I give about language, somebody will ask, “What’s with the ‘axe’?”
One reply a linguist may give is to quote historical past and level out how the phrase for “ask” in Outdated English oscillated randomly between ascii and acsian, and nobody batted a watch. However that reply by no means satisfies the viewers. That was then, that is now, they counsel, and right this moment “axe” sounds ignorant. So why cannot black individuals change just a few sounds round and cease saying that?
I’ll attempt to reply that.
First, it is vital to grasp, as English says, that “ax” is a superbly regular factor that occurred to a phrase like “ask.” Take the phrase “fish”. It began as “fish”, with the identical -sk ending that “ask” has. Over time, individuals in some locations started to say “fish” as “repair”, whereas somewhere else they started to say “fish” as “fish”. After some time “fish” received out over “repair” and right here we’re right this moment. The identical factor occurred with “mash.” It began as “masks”. Later, some individuals stated “max” and others stated “mash”. “Mash” received.
With “ask”, some individuals began saying “aks” and a few individuals began saying “ashes”. However this time it wasn’t “ash” that received. As a substitute, “aks” did fairly nicely for some time. Even Chaucer used it in “The Canterbury Tales,” in traces like this: “Yow loveres ax I now this query.”
There is a component of randomness in how phrases change over time, and we’ll by no means know why “ax” and “ash” misplaced to “ask.” All we all know is that the individuals whose English was designated because the default occurred to be amongst those that stated “ask” as an alternative of “aks” — and the remaining is historical past.
Henceforth, “aks” was primarily utilized by uneducated individuals, together with indentured servants with whom black slaves in America labored and realized English. So “aks” isn’t any extra a “damaged” type of “ask” than “fish” is a “damaged” model of your previous “fish.” It is simply that “fish” now not exist to remind us of how issues was.
However even figuring out that, we won’t assist however suppose that Normal English, arbitrary although it’s, must be the usual. Should not it’s as simple to select up the fashionable pronunciation of “ask” as it’s to select up a brand new slang phrase?
That is the place the linguist breaks out the phrase “identification”. The best way individuals converse expresses their identification, we linguists say, and have a tendency to suppose that such an announcement ought to finish the dialog. Nevertheless it does not. A wonderfully affordable particular person may ask: Why not determine with correct language? Additionally, utilizing the phrase “identification” makes it sound deliberate, whereas most black individuals’s embrace of “axe” will not be a aware resolution.
We have to give a greater rationalization. Right here is my try.
The very first thing to grasp is that for black individuals “axe” has a distinct that means than “ask”. Phrases are greater than sequences of letters, and “axe” is imbibed from childhood. “Axe” is a phrase indelibly related not simply with asking, however with black individuals asking. This sense alone is robust sufficient to chop throughout aware choices about what’s commonplace or appropriate.
“Axe,” then, is as integral part of being a black American as refined points of transportation, demeanor, humor, and non secular follow. “Axe” is an evangelical chord within the type of a phrase, a aspect of blackness—which is exactly why black individuals can each make enjoyable of and likewise repeatedly use “axe,” whilst school graduates.
Nonetheless, nothing can stop individuals from listening to “axe” as illiterate, making the phrase a small tragedy in its personal means. When a black speaker turns into essentially the most comfy, essentially the most articulate, essentially the most herself – that is precisely when she’s prone to slip in an “axe” to “ask.” Instantly, she sounds ignorant to any non-black one that hears her, to not point out fairly just a few black individuals.
Nonetheless, I hope that my small contribution to the pro-active literature might assist a few of us hear “axe” differently. The easy reality is that as a result of “axe” is black, it has survived and can proceed to take action.
John McWhorter teaches Linguistics, American Research, and Western Civilization at Columbia College. His subsequent e-book, “The Language Hoax: Why the World Appears to be like the Identical in any Language,” will likely be printed in April.