Them: You so country!
If you’ve been plugging into 'Sipp Talk, (trust us we’ve seen you
lurking us on the gram, we ain’t mad) then you’ve seen the
running glossary called the Sipptionary. It’s easy to scroll past it
and think of it as only slang, or as broken improper English
…but it’s not.
It’s a cultural beacon that highlights the history of Mississippi
and its people. The U.S. census reports that out of the nearly
2.98 Million people that call Mississippi home over 37% are in
fact black.
That means that folks here speak a form of English called
AAVE (pronounced Ah-vey), or African-American Vernacular
English. In their article “AAVE Is For Black People and Black
People Only” Affinity magazine defines AAVE as, “a variety of
American English, most commonly spoken today by urban
working-class and largely bi-dialectal middle-class African-
Americans.” Long story short, it’s the way that black folks talk,
and its not just a way to sound cool. It’s a way to share in
cultural heritage rooted in oral history by linking the past and
present while creating a new future.
For Mississippi that means that when you hear a native speak
with that twang and drawl that its not an indication of ignorance
or stupidity, instead it’s a sign of the history and artistry of story
telling found only in populations like Mississippians. It’s the
way we weave our words together and the regional dialects that
illuminate our heritage of making a little into a lot.
If you want to learn more about how and why we sound so
southern, so flavorful, so smooth, and so…. Mississippi then
follow Sipp Talk to get all things home grown and take a peek at
Sipptionary to get the best examples of Mississippi linguistic
flare!
With gumption,
The Sipp