Ebonics translation

Hi,

can anybody help me?

I found this jive-dialogue in the movie "Airplane". I think, it can be seen as Ebonics, right?

Dialogue:

Jiveman1: Sheeeet, man, that honkey mus' be messin' my old lady got to be runnin' col' upsihd down his head!
Subtitle: GOLLY, THAT WHITE FELLOW SHOULD STAY AWAY FROM MY WIFE OR I WILL PUNCH HIM.

Jiveman2: Hey Holm, I can dig it! You know he ain't gonna lay no mo' big rap upon you man!
Subtitle: YES, HE IS WRONG FOR DOING THAT.

Jiveman1: I say hey sky, s'other say I won say I pray to J I get the same ol' same ol. Subtitle: I KNEW A MAN IN A SIMILAR PREDICAMENT, AND HE ENDED UP BEING SORRY.

Jiveman2: Knock yourself a pro slick. Gray matter back got perform' us' down I take TCBin, man'.
Subtitle: DON'T BE NAIVE ARTHUR. EACH OF US FACES A CLEAR MORAL CHOICE.

Jiveman1: You know wha' they say: See a broad to get that bodiac lay'er down an' smack 'em yack 'em.
Subtitle: EARLY TO BED, EARLY TO RISE, MAKES A MAN HEALTHY, WEALTHY AND WISE.

Together: Col' got to be! Yo!
Subtitle: HOW TRUE!

Together: Sheeeeeeet!
Subtitle: GOLLY.


Can the subtitles be regarded to be a translation? In what way would you translate this jive-style? Is jive Ebonics?

There are two problems here:

1.) Airplane is a extremely silly movie that I strong doubt had an in-house linguist on the production staff

2.) AAVE (Ebonics) is one of the most rapidly evolving dialects of English, and seeing as the movie was from the 1970's, most slang from that era would be extremely outdated

I would agree with both of those points. Although the 'translations' are basically correct, it is mostly for entertainment value only. Also, I laughed when I read this, not because it's particularily funny, but because many of the words and even structures are now practically archaic in AAVE.

Nobody talks like that.

Jiveman1 and Jiveman2 did!..... Good enough for me!

I just saw that movie for the first time 2 days ago...
but like Keon said, nobody actually talks like that,
and thats not an example of Ebonics. Ive never heard the term Jive outside of Airplane.

They were simply improvising on the jive.

I wouldn't say I'm an AAVE expert, but I had a good amount of exposure to it in school (black people typically outnumber white people in public schools... white people typically go to private schools). Much of that dialogue is completely unfamiliar to me and I would need the subtitles to fully understand. It has the general characteristics of AAVE without actually being AAVE. AAVE as it is typically spoken is easily comprehensible. For instance, rap lyrics are seldom difficult to understand, though the meaning of the occasional slang term might not be immediately apparent.

Things are more complicated than that, though... people who are in street gangs and the like might be more likely to speak in incomprehensible slang, because it's sort of their jargon. In The Autobiography of Malcolm X (which was written in 1964-1965), Malcolm describes a conversation he had... he was talking to a "black leader" (to my recollection, he didn't identify who) and another man walked up to him while they were talking. The guy spoke in the street slang in the day, some of which was quoted in the book -- I tried finding it in the book, and looking up the quote online, but I couldn't find it. Anyway, while Malcolm understood perfectly, the black leader had no idea what was said -- Malcolm was from "the streets", while the leader was not -- and Malcolm had to translate for him. It was kind of funny, but also illustrative that this sort of slang can be far from universal.

- Kef

"white people typically go to private schools"

While I think a lot of black people go to public schools, I wonder if it really is as you say now.

I have known a lot of "white people" who teach at home or send their children to private schools and that's seems to be the norm where I live. Whether this is the norm across the United States, I couldn't say.

Hmmm. If I were to dangerously guess, I'd say that the MC or those who would like to appear to be MC are more likely to send their kids to private schools (including Christian) or to school their children part-time at home with classes at another location for selected classes.

That still leaves a lot of white folks who send their kids to public schools.
Is that just your opinion, or are you thinking about something you read recently?

Just curious...

In the place where I live, there are few blacks. Schools are mostly white, along with a sizable number of Mexicans, along with Asians, and a few blacks.

That sounds like Arizona...

<< Is that just your opinion, or are you thinking about something you read recently? >>

It was only my experience in Oklahoma, and also a friend's experience in New Jersey. I didn't mean to imply that it might apply across the entire United States, though. I guess I should have worded it more carefully.

I remember once I was sitting in math class, waiting for class to begin... and then this white substitute teacher comes in, and the first thing (or at least one of the first things) he said was, "Where are all the white people?" I know he was joking, but it was still a bit embarrassing for me to be white at that moment. :P

- Kef

At least around here in the greater Milwaukee area, many white people send their kids to public schools, but the matter is that there is extreme residential segregation, such that a very large amount of white people live in the suburbs or in particular enclaves within Milwaukee such as the East Side, while black people are concentrated in the inner city on the North Side and hispanic people are concentrated in the inner city on the near South Side. Consequently, one generally ends up with public schools that consist almost completely of one of the main social groups within the Milwaukee area (that is, white, black, or hispanic people), with only a smattering of people from other groups being present. Note that while there are private schools present, they are not nearly as prevalent as in some other parts of the US.

I went to public school in Kansas in the 1980s and my children now attend public school in Colorado, and I must say that the public schools in both places are just as good if not better than many of the private schools. Speaking from experience I'd say it's more of a myth that somehow gets exported overseas that public schools in the US are all bad. There are HUGE difference between schools and districts and it's bad to generalize.