Topic summary
AAVE
Extracted from the Wikipedia article African-American Vernacular English.
Vocabulary
AAVE shares most of its lexicon with other varieties of English, particularly that of informal and Southern dialects, such as, the relatively recent use of y'all. The main sources for new words are combining, shifting, shortening, blending, borrowing, and creating. It has also been suggested that some of the vocabulary unique to AAVE has its origin in West African languages. However, etymology is often difficult to trace and, without a trail of recorded usage, these proposed origins cannot be considered proven.