By Sarah Netter of ABC News
The U.S. Department of Justice is looking for fluent Ebonics speakers to fill nine drug enforcement jobs, giving merit to a dialect that experts say is often mimicked and little understood.The Federal Drug Enforcement Administration translators would work out of the Atlanta field office according to a Justice Department request, posted online today by The Smoking Gun.
The request is again drawing attention to the form of speech that was hotly debated in the ’90s after a California school district passed a resolution recognizing the legitimacy of what is now more commonly referred to as “African-American English.”
Ebonics detractors often characterize the speech as poor grammar or lazy English, but linguists say it has an important place in history.
