Various studies have suggested that educators and clinicians need a wider scope of information on the speech and language of African American pupils. Even after 30 years of studying the language of African Americans, the genetic kinship of their language is still an unresolved issue. With relevant information regarding the various theories on the origin and historical development of African American language, the phenomena "bilingualism" is viewed as having both psychological and sociological dimensions. This work examines bilingualism as being a function of a cortical convergence of two linguistic systems. Linguistic hybridization as well simultaneous and successive, compound and coordinate, active and passive processes of second language acquisition is explored. This paper lays the groundwork for a redefinition of African American language that legitimizes it as an African based language rather than allowing the deficit model to persist.

The study of African American speech has been, like the study of other aspects of African American culture and behavior, influenced by the ideologies of different periods and the ideological perspectives of the different language and culture scholars of these periods. (Alleyne 1971:121)

During the ANTEBELLUM PERIOD the prevailing sentiment was that there were biophysical or organic differences between African and European people. On the one hand there was the EMPIRICIST'S IDEOLOGY. Buttressed by the writings of John Locke and the taxonomy of Carolus Linnaeus, in the minds of those who held this view, Africans were brute animals who did not have the cortical capacity for human language. Viewed as biologically underdeveloped and feral people, capable only of primal grunts, the empiricists inferred that, during the colonial period, Africans had not evolved linguistically beyond a crude distress signaling system or savage gibberish comparable to that of the chimpanzee and the African apes. The ROMANTIC IDEOLOGY, a liberal variant of the empiricist's theory, postulated and depicted Africans as being simple unsophisticated children, as tabula rasas, i.e., blank slates, to whom the benign 'ole massa' taught European languages by speaking to them in much the same way he would speak to a baby. That is, 'ole massa' simplified his speech and it is this simplified form of the European slave-master's speech (baby talk) that the slaves learned and made their own. (Alleyne 1972:121)

The next period in which we find the speech of African Americans the subject of much debate was THE JIM CROW PERIOD. During this period four ideological perspectives emerged as explanations for African American linguistic behavior;

The ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINIST were of the persuasion that plantation systems were unnatural societies. They argued that the harshness of the slave system prevented normal societal communication needs from developing among the slaves. In essence, their view was that the speech and language of enslaved Africans was an aberrant by-product of aberrant environmental conditions.

In contrast to the Environmental Determinist position, that the environment and culture of slavery had an overarching impact on the language development of the African slaves, the EGALITARIAN IDEOLOGIST put fourth a slightly modified variant of this theme. The Egalitarians postulated a generalized value system in American society and a generalized, idealized, norm of American behavior. All Americans who fall short of this norm (not just African Americans) are defined as victims of a social pathology which is expressed in poverty, dysfunctional family configurations and a lack of educational opportunities, etc. Language being one major area in which African Americans fall short of the norm, the African American's language was viewed as being a by-product of social pathology. Having associated the language differences of African Americans with social and cultural deprivation and disadvantages there was still a need to account for the origin of the specific differences that exists in Black and White American speech. The Egalitarian ideologist looked for and actually believed that they had found historical models for Black speech deviations from the norm of modern English in archaic forms of 18th century English. In the case of the African slaves who were influenced by the Romance and Celtic languages, the differences were seen as survivals of archaic forms of French, Spanish, Scottish and Irish dialects.

The CULTURAL RELATIVIST posited the view that there was indeed a distinctiveness and linguistic autonomy in the language and culture of Afro-Americans. Although, all of the Cultural Relativist of this period did stress the African origin and the distinctiveness of African American "culture", except in the case of conspicuous lexical items cited by the Negritude ideologist, the Cultural Relativist never sought to demonstrate the linguistic autonomy of African American speech in term of its structural affinity with African languages on the continent.

Lastly, during the JIM CROW period, there were the MOORISH SCIENTIST IDEOLOGIST. The Moorish Scientist believed that, "Before you can have a God, you must have a nationality". (Fauset, 1971:47) In their view, being of divine origin, Negroes (Asiatics or Moors, i.e., people-of dark hue) emanate from a totally different genealogy than Whites or Europeans. Therefore, the national identity of the Negro (Asiatics or Moors) and Caucasians in America was not the same. Contending America was just an extension of Africa, they viewed the descendants of slaves as Asiatics or Moors in diaspora and non-self -governing people. Thus, the MOORISH SCIENTIST were the first theorist to posit the national-autonomy of Blacks and Whites in America,

This brings us to a third period in which Black American speech is found to be once again the subject of much debate.

THE POST-COLONIAL AFRICA-CIVIL RIGHTS-BLACK POWER ERA. The debate that ensued during this period led to a refinement of the arguments and a realignment of the earlier posited theoretical perspectives. Essentially, what emerged was four perspectives that can be placed into two ideological camps.

(1) The EURO-CENTRIC CAMP and (2) The AFRO-CEN IC CAMP. Each camp is subdivided into two' strands which somewhat follow earlier posited ideological views. In the Euro-centric camp are those who posit the Pidgin/Creole Hypothesis and those who posit the Transformationalist. Theory. In the Afro-centric camp are those who posit the AFRICANIST-ETHNOLINGUISTIC view and those who adhere to the ISLAMIC BLACK NATIONALIST position.

The PIDGIN/CREOLISTS believe that Black American speech is the result of a colonial trade lingua franca and plantation hybrid vernacular that was invented by Europeans for purposes of trade and other interactions with African slaves. This European invented hybrid dialect is called a "Pidgin". According to the Pidgin/Creolists, when this hybrid pidgin dialect is acquired as the mother tongue or native language of the African slaves, these slaves are called CREOLES and the language they speak is by definition a CREOLE dialect of the European language upon which it is based.

The TRANSFOPMATIONALISTS are generative grammarians. They contend that a fundamental element of being human is the ability to create language. These theorists posit a Universal Base Hypothesis which states essentially that, there is a deep unity that underlies what are actually superficial variations in all human languages. In their view this deep unity adheres to universal laws. Thus, the generative Transformationalist contend that the differences in Afro-American and Euro-American linguistic behavior is superficial and mainly in the surface structure. In their view, in the deep structure, the language of Afro-Americans and Euro-Americans is one and the same.

The AFRICANIST/ETENOLINGUISTIC theorist contend that,, owing to their history as U.S. slave descendants of West and Niger-Congo African origin, to the extent that African Americans have been born into, reared in, and continue to live in linguistic environments that are different, from the Euro-American English speaking population, African Americans do not acquire as their primary language or mother tongue a Black dialect of English. Predicated on an analysis of the sound system, word formation and rules of grammar they contend that African Americans have retained a West and Niger-Congo African phonology and morphosyntax in the substratum of their speech. Thus,, based on their comparative linguistic studies and findings, African American speech is the linguistic continuation of Africa in Black America.

Lastly, there in the view of the ISLAMIC BLACK NATIONALISTS which holds that the very nature of "Asiatic Black" people (i.e., United States slave descendants of African origin) in different from the nature of Caucasians or "white" people. Therefore they believe that the underlying thought process of Asiatic Black people and Caucasians is also innately different. They contend that, it is "thought" and not vocalizations that in the very essence of human language. Therefore, it is actually the innate differences that exists in the "thinking" of Asiatic Black and Caucasian people that underlies what are intrinsic structural differences found in the native languages of Asiatic Black and Caucasian people globally. The Islamic Black Nationalists reject the Universal, Base Hypothesis and the Pidgin/Creolists theory. In their view Asiatic Black people are, at best, only capable of mimicking or aping Caucasian speech and behavior. In the deep structure they are not the same - What follows in this work is a discussion of bilingualism and the African American child from an Afro-centric perspective. That is, the view that anything an African does is an African's doing. Therefore, it is proper to posit the linguistic creativeness and linguistic creations of Africans in diaspora as being African in origin.

According to Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary-Tenth Edition (1993) the word bilingualism is of Latin origin. Derived into English from French, etymologically the word bilingual is from the Latin word "bilinguis". It consists of a prefix "bi" which means two and a root or base word "lingua" which means tongue. From a strictly etymological standpoint the word "bilingual" means simply "two tongues". According to Hartmann and Stork, in their Dictionary of Language And Linguistics, (1976:27) Bilingualism is;

While, as defined above, the term bilingualism entails the use of two languages and may refer to an individual or a community's speaking two languages all we have here is a more etymological and elementary meaning of the word. In other words knowing that "bilingualism" involves the use of two languages does not tell us precisely what is meant by or constitutes two tongues. That is, inherent in the notion "bilingual" or "two tongues" is the tacit assumption that "unitary" and "autonomous" languages exist and hence, there are individuals and communities that are "monolingual", i.e., people who speak only "one" tongue.

It is then essential that some clear and firm understanding of the meaning of the term "monolingual" be reached before any real sense can be made of the term bilingualism. For if we have no clear and fixed parameters as to what constitutes or defines a single unitary language system, we most certainly have no basis for a discussion on what is meant by or considered to be two linguistic systems or tongues.

As in the case of the word " bilingualism" we can likewise begin our examination of the term "monolingual (ism) " by exploring the etymological origin of the word. As in the case of term bilingual(ism), the term monolingual appears at once to be a very simple, straightforward and unambiguous concept.

Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition. (1993) states that the word monolingual is also of Latin origin. From the Latin combining form "mono" which means "one" and the suffix "lingua" which here again means "tongue", Webster's Dictionary defines the word monolingual as:- "Knowing or using only one language". According to Hartmann and Stork (1976:245) the terms unilingual and monoglot are alternative terms for monolingual.

To those who have given the term monolingual very careful consideration and have grappled with the underlying linguistic assumptions upon which it is based, notion monolingual is not quite as simplistic as one might suppose. For, indeed the notion monolingual inherently infers that unitary tongues, or distinctly autonomous languages actually, exist.

Thus the question is posed by what method or criteria does one define and then classify a given ideolect corpora or human linguistic behavior as being an autonomous language? It is imperative that, at this juncture, a clear delineation as to what constitutes a language and what distinguishes a language from a dialect is made. For, once we have a clear and precise definition as to what constitutes a language, as a single unitary system, the solution to the problem of what is to be regarded an being a "dialect", as opposed to another language, is very simple.

Depending on the method of classification employed,, the notion of what constitutes a "single unitary language system", linguistic familial "affinity" or "kinship", has very different meanings. In contemporary historical and comparative linguistics, there are three methods of language classification that have been variously and cogently used - the "Areal", the "Typological" and the "Genetic".

Although all three of these methods are quite legitimate and equally valid, within the express limits for which they are qualified and used, it is only the "genetic" method that classifies languages based on "common origins" and then predicates linguistic kinship on empirical evidence of retained and transmitted linguistic forms. As Joseph Greenberg states,, (1967:66)

The "areal" method, being of course a classification of languages according a geographical location or geographically continuous area, is an arbitrary grouping of often disparate linguistic traits. While "related languages are likely to be in the same geographical region" (Greenberg 1967:66) the fact is, as a consequence of diffusional migrations, languages of different types or of different origin may share the same geographical location. "Since the contacts which lead to cultural diffusion must lead to linguistic diffusion" areal descriptions depend on typological and genetic classifications to explain the influence that? different languages in contact have exerted on each other. A term that refers a language area does not constitute a language family and is by no means a language type. As Greenberg states,

It was the nineteenth-century linguist August Schleicher who discovered that, by using sound without meaning, meaning without sound, or a combination of both, most of the world's languages could be divided into three types. The "isolating, agglutinating, and inflecting" languages. (Fromkin and Rodman 1975:337) Albeit a method that is very elucidating for the description of distinctive features of a language, because the very selection of the features deemed to be of fundamental significance (i.e., distinctive) is arbitrary, and any criteria or combination of criteria can be used with consistent results", this in seen an being a vital weakness of the typological method. Genetic classification, on the other hand, is non-arbitrary, i.e., "there is no choice of criteria leading to different and equally legitimate results" (ibid 1967:66). As Greenberg states;

"Genetic classification, an has been seen, is based on criteria of sound-meaning resemblances of linguistic form. Related languages are likely to be in the saw geographical region but usually are not in continuous distribution. In principle, geography is irrelevant, although it is a normal result that related languages are in the same general area ... Were people to be discovered on the moon speaking a language with the vocabulary and grammar of English,. a conclusion of genetic relationship would perforce be drawn, regardless of geographical circumstances".

What Greenberg means by his postulation that, "genetic classification...is based 'on criteria of sound-meaning resemblances of linguistic forms", should here be critically considered. For one can infer, that genetic kinship is based on a criteria of shared vocabulary' and shared meanings. That is, it would be logical to assume that when people use the same words and mean the same thing, they are speaking a language that is genetically the same. The question is, in situations where there are persons from totally different linguistic backgrounds who use the same words and mean the same thing, does this ability to communicate make their native languages one and the same? The answer is no. The ability to communicate via a shared vocabulary and common meanings merely establishes that there is a mutual intelligibility or comprehension between two interlocutors. This does not make the "mother tongues" or "native languages" of persons from different backgrounds genetically related. For, the ability to engage in a mutually intelligible interlocution, could well be a function of an "interactive bilingualism". That is, the two interlocutors are able to communicate because they are both or at least one of them is bi-lingual. Thus, even though when people use the same words and mean the same thing, they are "speaking" the same language, being able to speak the same language is one thing, being speakers of mother tongues or native languages that are "genetically" related is quite another.

The Africanist contend that, it is not shared vocabulary and mutual intelligibility that makes languages genetically related. "Genetic kinship" is based on the identical rule governed use of the same sentence structure, i.e., the same "grammar". In point of fact, contend the Africanist, if genetic kinship were based on "borrowed vocabulary" the English language itself would belong to the Latin or Romance language family. That is, the Saxon and Anglish German contacts with the Romans in the 5th century A.D. and the French invasion of England, in 1066, has had a tremendous influence on English. So much so that English (Anglo-Saxon) has undergone a tremendous amount of word borrowing or relexification, i.e., the replacement of a vocabulary item in a language with a word from another without a change in the grammar. (see Dillard, 1972:303) Despite the extensive word borrowing that has occurred in English (mostly from French) based on a criteria of morphological continuity the English language is classified as belonging to the Germanic language family. Affirming that, continuity of morphology constitutes the relevant evidence for positing genetic kinship and that based on these criteria English is a Germanic language, William Welmers describes the extensive relexification that has occurred in English as follows; (ibid., 1973:7,8)

Thus, the view of the Africanist is really quite simple. The Africanist contend that, the convergence of languages from two totally different linguistic continua, and a consequent emergence of some "mutual intelligibility", via common vocabularies, does not constitute "genetic kinship" or "affiliation". It merely attests to contact. (see Welmers, 1973:3,4) That is, just as the borrowing of Latin and French words does not make English a Romance language, the mere borrowing of the "vocabulary* of English into African American speech does not make the African American's language English.

According to the Africanists, the key term in Greenberg's postulation above is the word "grammar". For, Danes speaking Danish, Norwegians speaking Norwegian and Swedes speaking Swedish can converse with each other, i.e., all three are mutually intelligible. Yet, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are considered to be separate languages. This prompts the question, if mutual intelligibility is the basis for positing linguistic affiliation or kinship, how is it that Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are considered to be three autonomous languages? Put simply, the answer is that the autonomy of these languages is not based on structural linguistic criteria. It is a political designation based on the fact that Denmark, Norway and Sweden are considered to be separate countries. (Fromkin and Rodman 1993:276) By this criteria, as Mark Twain is reputed to have said, "the difference between a language and a dialect is,- a language has an army".

The fact of the matter is, even if Danish, Norwegian and Swedish were not mutually intelligible, as in the case of English and German, on the basis of the historical origins or genesis of the systematic, rule governed and predictable correspondences in their morphosyntactical structure, all three would still belong to and are in fact classified as belonging to the same linguistic family. An Mervyn Alleyne explains, (1971:125,126)

It cannot be overly emphasized that although all of these are often grouped "areally" and by that criteria are classified as "Indo-European" languages, based on the criteria of systematic correspondences in their grammar rules, they are considered to belong to four distinctly different language subfamilies. (see Fromkin and Rodman, 1993:351) That is,, Danish,, Dutch,, English, German, Norwegian and Swedish are classified as being Germanic languages. French, Italian, Portuguese, Rumanian and Spanish are classified as being Latin or Romance languages. Breton, Irish, Scottish, Gaelic and Welsh are classified as being Celtic languages, and Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and Slovenian are classified as being Slavic languages.

According to the Africanists, it is interesting indeed that, in Indo-European linguistics, adherence to the principle that "genetic classification" is based on a criteria of morphological and syntactical continuity does not present a problem as a basis for genetic classification of Indo-European languages. Yet, for some strange and unexplained reason these same scholars seem to have a major problem adhering to this principle as a basis for the genetic classification of African American speech. That is, when classifying African American speech, somehow the criteria becomes shared vocabulary (lexicon) and mutual intelligibility.

According to the Africanists, it is one thing to have a dispute over the specific features believed to be genetic material, it is another to not adhere to the same criteria to classify a given speech community's language "genetically". This? brings us to the issue of what precisely is meant by the word "grammar"? Does grammar refer only to the arrangement of sounds into units called words and words into a meaningful syntactic string? Or does it include other nuances, such asp noun and verb concord for person, number, gender, and case and the modification of nouns and verbs for plural, possessive and tense.

?

The criteria for what grammar entails is important because not all languages combine or isolate sounds into units that can be identified an "words". In Chinese, for example, there is no such thing an a "word". As Benjamin Lee Whorf states', (1978:21)

Just as, in Chinese, sounds are not combined or isolated into units called "words", in the agglutinative languages such as Arabic, Turkish, and the Bantu languages of Africa, sentences are not formed by arranging "words" into syntactic units that create thoughts. That is, agglutinative grammars are not viewed as being as an arrangement of "words" but rather, as an arrangement of "roots" and "affixes" or "bound" and "free" morphemes into units that are meaningful syntactical strings. In short, grammar includes deep phonology, morphology and syntactical patterning.

The Africanists contend that, when people, whose mother tongues are not the same , are capable of communicating, it is either the primary language or mother tongue of one of the two interlocutors that is facilitating their dialogue. Or, they are communicating via an alternative language which they both have in common. As stated earlier, when this type of mutual intelligibility occurs it is a function of bilingualism a That is, it could well be the case that one is or both of the speakers are using a second language.

It should also be made clear here that, just as mutual intelligibility is evidence of a language in common, but not evidence that the mother tongue of two speakers in one and the same, mutual un-intelligibility is not evidence that the "native" language or mother tongue of two speakers is not the same. For, as in the case of Mandarin, Chung King and Cantonese dialects of Chinese, and many dialects of Arabic, it is entirely possible that people can be native speakers of the same language and yet not understand each other. This is because, surface differences being due to influences from other sources, what are classified as being dialects of the same language, - based on a "common origin" of the systematic, rule governed and predictable patterning in their morphosyntax, can in fact be unintelligible.

LINGUISTIC CONVERGENCE AND HYBRIDIZATION

The position of the Africanists is that Afro-American and Euro-American speech emanates from a separate linguistic base. That is, African American people are descendants of West and Niger-Congo African ancestors, antecedents and forbearers who were of pure West and Niger-Congo African blood. As such, the African ancestors, antecedents and forbearers of Afro-American people were speakers of purely autochthonous West and Niger-Congo African languages.

According to the Africanists, structurally, the autochthonous West and Niger-Congo African languages of the ancestors, antecedents and forbearers of Afro-American people, were totally different from the Indo-European languages of Europe. In particular, they argue, the phonological, morphological, syntactical and semanto-lexamic structure of the autochthonous West and Niger-Congo African languages were different from the European Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch and English languages.

The Africanists contend that as a consequence of linguistic convergence and sustained contact, it is quite natural that a considerable amount of similarity would result in two languages from a two way transfer of linguistic phenomena. However, the result of this language blending is not a "substratum" shift. The result is a hybrid dialect related to both languages. The Africanists contend that, no matter how similar and mutually intelligible they are, because of surface structure similarities, the hybrid dialect belongs to only one language genetically,- the system that is morpho-syntactically dominant.

In other words, just as modern English was first a separate, Anglo-Saxon dialect of German but, as a consequence of migration and linguistic convergence, it has become a thoroughly relexified and yet, morpho-syntactically, continuous Germanic language of England and Anglo, America, African American speech has also undergone a similar process. African American speech is the morpho-syntactical continuation of the West and Niger-Congo African linguistic tradition in Black America. In other words, the English language itself is a linguistic precedent of exactly what has occurred in the case of African American speech.

And so, the postulation that contemporary Black American speech is derived from a colonial or antebellum "hybrid" lingua franca is not what is at issue. What is at issue is, whether or not the morpho-syntactical base upon which the hybrid vernacular of the African slaves and their descendants was formed is European. That is, did a genetic shift occur? The empirical evidence is that to the extent that African slave descendants have historically been born into,, reared in, and compelled to live in socially separate linguistic environments (from Eur-American English speaking people) African Americans have, in fact, retained a West and Niger-Congo African deep phonology and morphosyntax in the substratum of their speech. Though it is obscured by extensive lexical borrowing's it is this dominant African substratum that distinguishes Afro-American from Euro-American speech. In other words there has been no genetic shift.

According to the Africanists the native language of African Americans is Ebonics,- the linguistic continuation of Africa in Black America. By definition, the term Ebonics in a compound of two words, "Ebony" which means -Black" and "phonics" which means "sounds". Hence "Black-Sounds". The Africanists posit that, Ebonics in not "genetically- related to English. Therefore, the term Ebonics is not a mere synonym for the more commonly used label "Black English". In their view, inherent in the label Black English there is an inference of genetic or familial affinity with the Germanic language continuum. In this respect the label Black English assumes to be fact that which has not been proved.

Moreover, in positing a non-English morphosyntax to be a dialect of English, the label Black English is in fact an oxymoron. For, how can something be English and not English at the same time? Let us turn now to bilingualism as a phenomena and examine African American bilingualism as a function of the extent to which African Americans have lived in close proximity or social isolation from Euro-American English speaking people.

To "acquire" a language is not the same as to "learn" a language. Language acquisition occurs as children in a constant trial and error process respond to stimuli by imitating what they hear around them. In essence this entails a child's use of what he thinks are the same speech forms in similar circumstances in order to produce similar responses from other persons. Language learning, on the other hand, involves the study of language. It is not spontaneous. It involves formal instruction usually in a school setting. The language that a child acquires as an infant is his mother tongue. There are however some people who are bilingual because they were born into and as an infant reared in a home environment where two autonomous languages are, spoken. Since this person acquired both languages simultaneously (before age three) this is called "simultaneous bilingualism". Research indicates that a child who acquires two languages simultaneously would function like a monolingual in both.

A second way by which a person could become a speaker of two languages could be a child who, before age three, acquires one language at home, but then must learn to understand and speak another language at school. Since the child's primary language is "acquired" in the home environment, before age three, and the second language is "learned" in succession of the primary language, this is called "successive bilingualism".

?In the case of the first two types of bilinguals the crucial factor is the "time" when the two languages are obtained. But then, the "place" where the two languages are obtained also plays a pivotal role. Whenever a person' (child over age three or an adult) has migrated from one country or speech community to another and, while immersed in that culture, learned to speak a second language, this too is a form of successive bilingualism. However, the immersion into the culture of the second language enables a person to understand certain nuances about the second language that can not be obtained without immersion. Since, exposure to the culture of the second language occasions not only a learning of the second language but also the culture of the people as well, the exposure to and learning of two languages in two different cultures in called co-ordinate bilingualism. That is, a person must actually co-ordinate two cultures and two corresponding language systems. While the term coordinate bilingualism is more strictly applied to those situations where there has been a country-to-country migration, the immersion of a monolingual child into a school setting that is culturally and linguistically different is very much the same. For, if the monolingual child's home environment is very different from the culture of the school and his home language is viewed as being a language which corresponds with the culture of the homer then a child who is monolingual in his home language must not only learn the language of the school, he must also learn the culture which corresponds with the language of the school. In doing this, that

child must also coordinate two languages and two cultures.

This is not the same as when a monolingual student learns a "foreign" language in a school setting that is culturally and linguistically the same as his home environment. The difference being, when a monolingual child learns a foreign language in school, not being immersed in the culture of the second language, the child who learns a foreign language in school is merely compounding a second language on a monocultural and monolingual base. This type of bilingualism is called compound bilingualism. The critical factor then is the notion of immersion. For even in country-to-country migration co-ordinate bilingualism does not occur if there is no extensive cultural involvement or immersion.

There are dozens of other kinds of circumstances and situations which can give rise to various types of bilingualism. The condition under which bilingualism most notably results, is where a massive migration of a population has occurred. In most instances the basis for such a massive migration has been for trade, business, commercial and economic opportunities. There are however, many other instances wherein a goodly number of people have migrated and lived for extended periods of time in foreign lands. For example, large numbers of people travel for scholastic, educational and scientific purposes and there are military service people, missionaries, diplomats or ambassadors, etc. Then there are those who permanently migrate as political refugees or having fled draught, pestilence and famine.

When people who are indigenous inhabitants of a country find themselves invaded by massive numbers of immigrants and impelled to learn the language of those who have invaded this results in yet another type of bilingualism,- dominant and subordinate bilingualism. Here the governing factor is a phenomena called linguistic diglossia Linguistic diglossia in a term that refers to those situations in which a society or speech community is culturally or socially stratified and two or more languages or dialects of the same language co-exists in a hierarchy of social use and prestige. Where this occurs the language or dialect that is considered to be the most prestigious is called an acrolect. The language or dialect that is regarded as being somewhere between the most and least prestigious is called a mesolect. The language or dialect that is considered to be the least prestigious is called a basilect.

Since, from a scientific (i.e., structural or descriptive linguistic) perspective, there are no inherently superior or inferior languages or dialects of any language, but rather, only a mental fiction held in the minds of those who in socially stratified societies harbor such beliefs, the terms acrolect, mesolect, and basilect are merely labels that refer to a relative position held by a given language or dialect in a given speech community. The terms have nothing to do with any innate qualities of any two or more languages in relation to each other.

Likewise the terms dominant and subordinate bilingualism should not be construed as having to do with the degree or extent to which a person understands or speaks two languages. When a person who is bilingual does not have the ability to understand and speak both languages with equal facility this difference in fluency or unequal facility, in both languages, has to do with their competence and performance. While the unequal fluency in two languages, is seen as being a function of a substratum dominance of one language, a bilingual person's unequal fluency is not described in terms of dominance vs. subordination.

In the field of linguistics, it is generally agreed that whether a person is monolingual or bilingual, what a person knows about a language is one thing. How a person uses what they know about a language is another. Hence, a distinction is made between what is called linguistic competence and linguistic performance. In theory what a person knows about a language (or two languages) is their linguistic competence. How a person uses what they know is called their linguistic performance. When we consider the distinction here between what one knows about two languages as oppose to how well one performs or is capable of using both languages this difference is said to yield yet another type of kind of bilingualism, - a passive vs. an active bilingual.

In descriptive linguistics, the term competence is associated with a persons receptive knowledge of a given language. In the case of a bilingual it would likewise refer to a person's receptive knowledge of two languages. In contrast, the term performance has to do with a person's generative or productive use of a given language. When a person understands two languages but speaks only one of them they are considered to be a passive bilingual. When a person both understands and speaks two languages they are considered to be an active bilingual.

Whether a person is monolingual or bilingual, when a person can read they are considered to be lettered. When a person cannot read at all they are considered to be unlettered. Some bilinguals can read in their mother tongue but cannot not read the second language. These bilinguals are called mother tongue lettered (passive or active) bilinguals. If a person is bilingual and can read in his/her mother tongue but cannot read the second language this person in called mother tongue lettered (passive or active) bilingual. It is not uncommon that we find some bilinguals who can read and write in their second language but not in their mother tongue. When a bilingual person can read the second language but cannot read or write in their first language (mother tongue) these bilinguals are called target language lettered, (passive or active) bilinquals.

Space does not permit an exhaustive discussion of the many types of bilinguals and degrees of bilingualism that exists among slave descendants of African origin in the American diaspora. The aim of this work has been essentially to refute the white supremacists lie that,, African American speech is a more nonstandard social dialect of American English. I have argued that, genetically related languages are not languages which merely share vocabularies and have meanings in common, i.e., mutually intelligible. Languages are akin or genetically related that have a "common origin" and a systematic, rule governed and predictable patterning in their morphosyntax. My contention is that Ebonics is an African invention formed on the basis of substratum linguistic retentions from the native African languages of captive Niger-Congo African slaves. By this I mean, although there has been extensive word borrowing, there are definite structural aspects, nuances and features inherent in the Niger-Congo languages of Africa that have been retained and it is these features that intrusively occur or exhibit themselves in the speech of descendents of Africans as transferred phenomena and interference modifications when they attempt to speak English.

The clear implication for education is that, in the preparation of teachers, particularly in the area of English language, literacy and reading skills, where the focus in on the African American child, there needs to be a major alteration in the curriculums of teacher education and training programs. There needs to be a major shift from the subtle "pathology" and, deficit" model which is inherent in the failed compensatory education approach. Teacher preparation should be with a view toward full recognition of the humanity of African people. By this is meant, not being viewed as having a separate language but instead as linguistic invalids, unlike Asian American, white Hispanic American, Native American, and other limited and non-English proficient (LEP/NEP) children, who are acknowledged as being LEP/NEP a function of interference from their primary languages or mother tongues, African American children are not extended this dignity. Throughout America under the rubric "Title 1" and "Special Education" programs, the national policy and pattern of practice is a subtle denial of the African American .child's ancestors humanity and a discriminatory denial of English as a Second Language (ESL) and Bilingual Education programs for African American children.

Because African American children are not viewed an having a primary language other than a European invented mutilated dialect of English, the funded approaches,, stratagems, and methods for teaching Standard English language and literacy skills to African-American children has not been ESL but, the excision of a sub-standard dialect approach. The failed teaching methods and approaches, undergirded by this view has rendered scores Black children perpetually limited English proficient and unlettered.

In summation, I submit that in the saw manner in which Native American, Hispanic American, and Asian American children who, although born in the United States,, are LEP/NEP because they are reared in linguistic environments where a language other than English is dominant, African American children acquire their native language or mother's tongue in their home environment and thus, should not be treated differently. African American children are equally entitled, and should be given ESL and their literacy instruction in the vernacular that they natively understand.