"Much scholarly work assumes that the structure of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) derives from an earlier plantation creole. This collection explores an alternative hypothesis: that the characteristic features were acquired from the varieties of English to which early speakers were exposed.".

"Marshaling historical, dialectal, and theoretical linguistic evidence, this work focuses on descendants of former slaves whose ancestors left the U.S. in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to settle in enclave communities where their language developed under conditions of social or geographical isolation.".

"Six variable linguistic features, most previously considered evidence of creole origins, are traced across varieties of English brought to the U.S. by British colonists."--BOOK JACKET.