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DEA looking for Ebonics translators to interprete wiretaps
by Joseph Ernest August 24, 2010
Newscast Media --The Drug Enforcement Agency has nine openings for people who are fluent in Ebonics - or African American patois, in order to interpret wiretapped conversations between suspected drug dealers. The interpreters would help the DEA decipher arrangements between criminals. Special Agent Michael Sanders said experts were needed to determine exactly what suspects were saying, which could be crucial in gaining convictions.
Sanders said: "You can maybe get a general idea of what they're saying, but you have to understand that this has to hold up in court. You need someone to say I know what they mean when they say 'ballin' or 'pinching pennies'. It has nothing to do with racial issues. It is a type of language recognised by different linguist services."
For those who are unfamiliar with Ebonics, 'ballin' means to succeed or do well at something, while 'penny pinching' means being tight with money or spending it begrudgingly.
Another DEA official said there was nothing "racial" about the hiring effort, identifying the white rapper Eminem as "one of the best speakers of Ebonics there ever was".
Ebonics, also known as African American Vernacular English, is an offshoot of American English. Characterized by pronunciation relating to speakers of Creole or West African languages, and the omission of the final consonant in words (han' instead of hand), it was defined by Robert Lee Williams, who coined the term in 1973, as English vocabulary with African linguistic structure. Detractors claim it is a dialect - or bastardisation - at best.
Professor H Samy Alim, an expert on black language and hip-hop culture at Stanford University, admitted he initially thought the new DEA recruitment drive was a joke but said it highlighted a serious issue.
He said: "It seems ironic that schools that are serving and educating black children have not recognized the legitimacy of this language, yet the authorities and the police are recognizing that this is a language that they don't understand. It really tells us a lot about where we are socially in terms of recognizing African American speech."
Walt Wolfram, professor of English linguistics at North Carolina State University, who has studied African American English for 40 years, said: "There is something of substance here. There are differences in terms of language and lexicon and so forth that are difficult to understand for most people, so it is an issue. What, of course, happens is it gets politicised and trivialised by the very term 'Ebonics.'"
The term derives from a blend of the words "ebony" and "phonics."
Here are a few phrases I have compiled for my readers:
Baller-blocking: To obstruct someone who is trying to accomplish something.
Bounce (verb): To depart, or to leave a venue.
Front (verb): To portray a false identity or put on a facade.
Grill (noun): One's personal space, or one's teeth. (Get in his grill.)
Hater (noun): A jealous person. (Don't be a hater.)
Ice (noun): Jewelry one wears like diamonds in earrings or chains. Someone who is "iced-out" is a person wearing a lot of diamond studded jewelry.
Pimp Juice (noun): Having qualities that appeal to the opposite sex. (I got all the pimp juice ladies be wantin'.) or Whassup pimp juice? Essentially pimp juice is similar to eye-candy.
Smack (verb): To talk smack is to say things that are inaccurate with the intention or angering another person. Basketballers do this a lot while dribbling. An example would be: You throw like your little sista, or in a boxing match you could say to the opponent, "You hit like a beyotch, is that all you got?"
Stun (verb): Similar to ballin' but manifesting itself through physical or material means. To stun is to ball but being able to back it up with some dead presidents.
Stunna (noun) A person who stuns. I'm the number one stunna.
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