The North Star with Shaun King

The North Star with Shaun King

How The New Oxford Dictionary of African American English Will Pay Tribute To & Protect the Legacy of Black Americans

Harvard historian and "Finding Your Roots" host Henry Louis Gates Jr. has been named Editor in Chief of the dictionary that is set to document hundreds of years of AAVE.

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Kendi King
Jul 29, 2022
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Henry Louis Gates Jr. speaks at the 2019 Hutchins Center Honors W.E.B. Du Bois Medal Ceremony at Harvard University (Photo by Paul Marotta/Getty Images)

From Ebonics to the modern term AAVE (African American Vernacular English), there have been many names for African American English. 

Similar to the way hundreds of other English countries have their own…

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