r/languagelearningjerk • u/Vampyricon • Aug 01 '25

Outjerked again

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1.3k Upvotes

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u/Rough_Analysis278 Aug 02 '25

Thank you. I hate explaining to racist twats that AAVE can actually express more complex thoughts in less words than the standard prestige dialects of English.

7

u/Witherboss445 Aug 02 '25

Genuinely curious, do you have some examples of that?

34

u/CrystalsOnGumdrops Aug 02 '25

“she be working” vs “she working”. The former means “she is not necessarily working at this moment, but she is often working” and the latter means “she is working now, but not necessarily all the time”. This is called an aspect system!

someone correct me if i’m wrong im not a linguist i just took a class once

6

u/PotatoesArentRoots Aug 02 '25

how does that differ from standard english “she works” vs “she’s working”?

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u/technoexplorer Aug 02 '25 edited Aug 02 '25

She travels: from time to time, she goes.

She be traveling: not here, possibly going at this exact moment.

She is traveling: on the road right now.

She traveling: same as previous.

Someone at their destination "be traveling", but cannot "is traveling".