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"This African American Vernacular English shares most of its grammar and vocabulary with other dialects of English. But it is distinct in many ways, and it is more different from standard English than any other dialect spoken in continental North America."
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"Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues."
"A word is not filling in the gaps, but the fertilization of silence."
"It is very useful, when one is young, to learn the difference between "literally" and "figuratively." If something happens literally, it actually happens; if something happens figuratively, it feels like it is happening. If you are literally jumping for joy, for instance, it means you are leaping in the air because you are very happy. If you are figuratively jumping for joy, it means you are so happy that you could jump for joy, but are saving your energy for other matters."
"No man fully capable of his own language ever masters another."
"Putting it into words will destroy any meaning."
"Language is the friendliest of the things from which we cannot escape."
"Her majesty is one verb short of a sentence."
Explore more quotes by William Labov
"An important aspect of the current situation is the strong social reaction against suggestions that the home language of African American children be used in the first steps of learning to read and write."
"It appears that the present-day form of African American English is not the inheritance of the period of slavery, but the creation of the second half of the 20th century."
"And instead of getting a pepper-and-salt effect, we find very clear and sharp divisions between the dialects of the United States, which are getting more different from each other as time goes on."
"I am now completing research supported by NSF and NEH that is mapping changes in the English language through all of North America, for both mainstream and minority communities."
"However, research in the years that followed found that in many of its important features, African American Vernacular English was becoming not less, but more different from other dialects."
"We focus upon pairs of words very often which are the same in some areas and different in other areas."
"But unlike European countries, America has never finished a map of the United States, only the eastern United States is covered and a few spots here and there."
"This African American Vernacular English shares most of its grammar and vocabulary with other dialects of English. But it is distinct in many ways, and it is more different from standard English than any other dialect spoken in continental North America."
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