I have tried researching almost all day and I keep on getting different answers. Some people are saying that y’all is AAVE and some people are saying that it is okay to say y’all as long as you don’t use it AAVE and some other people are saying it’s basic southern slang.
EDIT: I made this post to see whether or not I can say y’all or not since everyone is saying that y’all is AAVE (on twitter at least). Is it okay if I say it like “yall wanna come to my place later?”
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A few years ago, I started adopting y'all into my vocabulary. It was suggested to me by several people as a gender neutral plural pronoun (where I would normally say "you guys" instead). So, I started using it more and more with conscious practice, and many of my peers (small liberal arts school) used it too.
Recently, I've been called out for my use of it, as people interpret it as me appropriating AAVE. I've explained my reasoning behind my conscious use of the term, and people tell me that I need to use a different term, and to opt not to is racist.
Honestly, I'm frustrated. To be quite honest, I didn't really understand "you guys" to be misgendering, since I would apply it to groups of ciswomen too. But, I changed as people directed me to. Now, I'm being asked to change again, for a term that I don't think AAVE has a monopoly on. Does anyone have thoughts? Am I just being lazy and insensitive? Should I find a new term again, and work at integrating it into my speech?
I thought y'all was just a southern thing? My family is from the south and all use y'all, and we're white. I know a bunch of other folks from the south who use y'all. Weirdly enough, the only southern person I know who doesn't use it is black and Indian. (Maybe it depends on where in the south you're from? My family is from Tennessee and she was in Kentucky.)
Y’all isn’t exclusive for AAVE. It’s a super common word used by people of all backgrounds.
It’s just a contraction, like can’t, don’t, won’t, and she’s, using you and all. It is used to address a group of any kind.
You aren’t appropriating anything at all if you use the word.
I know the dialect a bit (I could speak it some back in the 80's, but I haven't kept it up very well).
From what I can see, I'd say you are only about 1/3 of the way there. The third you have is that you've constructed sentences that follow the dialect's rules (mostly). What you are missing is that the dialect has some of its own parts of speech that standard AmE doesn't have, and that it has its own vocabulary.
Let's take your first sentence:
What the hell are you all doing here? — What the hell y'all doin' here?
As a dumb translation, it probably works. However, AAVE has a whole mess of its own tenses and aspects that a true AAVE user would apply here, given half a chance. For instance, if you think the activity has been going on for a while, you might say "been doin'". If it is something you want to imply is truly habitual (a concept most other English speakers don't even think about expressing), you'd say "be doin'" (or more likely "be" followed by a more descriptive verb).
Now for vocabulary, this just doesn't look like the words an AAVE speaker would use. For example, I can't ever in my life remember a speaker using the phrase "What the hell". Doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but the F word is far more likely there. Or in the next sentence:
Hey you! What the hell ya doin’ man? Stop that nonsense now. D'ya get it?
"Hey you" is never used. Often "Yo" is used instead (interestingly, the Philly accent also does this). The word "nonsense" really sticks out. AAVE has much more colorful words for that concept. In my day you'd say someone "be buggin'". In fact, you'd be better off replacing all four sentences with "Foo'*(or perhaps the N-word here)! Why you be buggin'?" (which again implies habitual behavior, but in this case as a ploy to shame the listener into calming down). However, the vocabulary of AAVE changes crazy fast, so there's probably another phrase for that now.
Really, my suggestion if there's any money in this would be to get yourself a consultant who knows the language (better than I!). If you want/need to do it yourself and have some time, try to hang out with people who authentically speak it. If you have no way to physically do that, perhaps as a last resort try hanging out on Black Twitter for a few months and/or listen to a lot of Rap and Blues music.
This is wrong on so many levels, it's hard to know where to start. But here goes.
Most people, including speakers of AAVE, don't say "ya" unless it's at the end of a sentence. Also, you can't write out the dialect without making a fiasco out of it unless you have actually studied it. Mark Twain wrote and rewrote the Missouri Mississippi dialect, and he grew up there! (Also, it's an easier dialect.) You can't imitate well the glottal stops, the soft r's, the th/d cross, etc. I would strongly advise you to avoid it altogether.
Also, there's more than one AAVE. It depends strongly on region, who one is with, one's age, and one's education.
If you insist on doing this, I'd recommend that you read authors who have done this well.
You can find some helpful info here, for example:
Final consonant clusters that are homorganic (have the same place of articulation) and share the same voicing are reduced. E.g. test is pronounced [tɛs] since /t/ and /s/ are both voiceless; hand is pronounced [hæn], since /n/ and /d/ are both voiced; but pant is unchanged, as it contains both a voiced and a voiceless consonant in the cluster. Note also that it is the plosive (/t/ and /d/) in these examples that is lost rather than the fricative or nasal. Speakers may carry this declustered pronunciation when pluralizing so that the plural of test is [tɛsəs] rather than [tɛsts]. The clusters /ft/, /md/, are also affected.
Also, listen to this.
Good luck.
I live in one of the southern US states and it’s very common to hear people say y’all but y’all’s as possessive pronoun makes no sense grammatically speaking. Instead of saying “ this is your problem” people say “this is y’all’s problem”