Black English
Black English proper noun: any of several varieties of English spoken by or associated with Black people, especially people of African origin or in Africa.
Proper noun
Black English
- Any of several varieties of English spoken by or associated with Black people, especially people of African origin or in Africa.
- Sranan-Tongo is a New World Black language form produced by the same processes that gave rise to Afro-American and Afro-Caribbean Black English.1977, David Ola Oke, “The genesis of New World Black English”, in Caribbean Quarterly, volume 23, page 65
- There is little doubt that an African variety of English is very much part of the communicative economy of the new South Africa (for which I shall use the conventional label South African Black English, in short SABE).1997, Rajend Mesthrie, “A sociolinguistic study of topicalisation phenomena in South African Black English”, in Manfred Görlach, Edgar W. Schneider, editors, Englishes Around the World, volume 2...
- Synonym of African-American English (“AAE”), sometimes specifically African-American Vernacular English (“AAVE”).
- Perhaps Black English will yield a new neutral term for wokeness.2021 November 16, John McWhorter, “‘Woke’ Went the Way of ‘P.C.’ and ‘Liberal’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- Synonym of Multicultural London English (“MLE”).
- Synonym of Greater Toronto English (“MTE”).
Synonyms of Black English
Questions about Black English
- What does Black English mean?
- Black English means any of several varieties of English spoken by or associated with Black people, especially people of African origin or in Africa.
- What part of speech is Black English?
- Black English is a proper noun.
Words near Black English in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Black English (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “Black English.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/black_english. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
