African American Vernacular English - Lexical Features

Lexical Features

AAVE shares much of its lexicon with other varieties of English, particularly that of informal and Southern dialects. There are some notable differences between the two, however. It has been suggested that some of the vocabulary unique to AAVE has its origin in West African languages, but etymology is often difficult to trace and, without a trail of recorded usage, the suggestions below cannot be considered proven; in many cases, the postulated etymologies are not recognized by linguists or the Oxford English Dictionary.

• dig from Wolof dëgg or dëgga, meaning "to understand/appreciate" (It may instead come from Gaelic dtuig.)
• jazz
• tote
• bad-mouth, a calque from Mandinka

AAVE also has words that either are not part of Standard American English or have strikingly different meanings from their common usage in SAE. For example, there are several words in AAVE referring to white people which are not part of mainstream SAE; these include gray as an adjective for whites (as in gray dude), possibly from the color of Confederate uniforms; and paddy, an extension of the slang use for "Irish". "Ofay," which is pejorative, is another general term for a white person; it might derive from the Ibibio word afia, which means "light-colored," and may have referred to European traders; or from the Yoruba word ofe, spoken in hopes of disappearing from danger such as that posed by European traders; or via Pig Latin from "foe". However, most dictionaries simply refer to this word as having an unknown etymology. Kitchen refers to the particularly curly or kinky hair at the nape of the neck, and siditty or seddity means snobbish or bourgeois.

AAVE has also contributed various words and phrases to other varieties of English; including chill out, main squeeze, soul, funky, and threads.