Always thought it was ironic when people bash the way black folks speak when much of it is basically adoption of the way people speak in the deep south. Hmm, I wonder why that is…?
My understanding was that it had flowed the other way. Wealthy white Southerners were being raised by African slaves and they tended to adopt the speech mannerisms of the people actually raising them, rather than their parents. Poor white Southerners then mimiced the wealthy, with the result being a region wide dialect of English with African influences.
