Sharing commonality of punctuation and sounds with South American English, African American Vernacular English (AAVE), also known as Ebonics, has become a major means of speaking for the people are descended from black Africans and have since asserted their independence from standard English through influences such as age, status, subject matter, and setting. Many linguists, those who study the art and diversity of language, find nothing deeply wrong with African American Vernacular English since, like any other language, it is used to convey thoughts and ideas. However, nonspecialist attitudes tend more toward the negative toward African American Vernacular English, especially among African Americans themselves, as its use may be misinterpreted as ignorance and/or laziness. As a result of these negative connotations that come with using African American Vernacular English, many African Americans are now bidialectals, also known as code switches, as they are able to use both Standard American English and African American Vernacular English. .As children we are taught the gift of language through mimicry and training. We are presented with a bevy of words and sounds and their meanings. We learn tone and intonation and what words to use to emphasize a particular point we are trying to make. What we are not taught, however, is that the language we learn and speak at home may not necessarily be the language widely accepted in the outside world (e.g. at school, at work, at interviews, at public functions). Unfortunately, our language skills or lack thereof define us as people and provide inadvertent clues about our level of intelligence and whether or not we are reliable sources of information (depending on…half of the paper…no). the negative aspects of the language outweigh the language itself. Do you lose credibility by speaking this African American vernacular English? In public? the systems for their use that are common to people who belong to the same community or nation, the same geographic area or the same cultural tradition” For the most part Ebonics does this, but if we want to examine the fact that Ebonics is a language to the African-American race, and that many African-Americans do not speak it, that it is not a widely accepted, taught, or intensively studied form of speech, so what, after all, is the real purpose of this so-called "language"? ?Works Cited Brody, K. W. (2005). What does language have to do with it? New York: W. W. Norton & Company.