Yo C
'You is kind.You is smart. You is important'???

In the movie "The Help", nanny Aibileen often says to a little girl that : 
'You is kind
You is smart
You is important'
I am wondering if "is" is used rightly because YOU never goes with IS.

If you have any explains for that, please share with me. 

Thank you!

8 ago 2017 08:33
Commenti · 4
7

Technically the script was trying to do an approximation of African American Vernacular English (the AmEnglish varieties spoken by urban working class and middle class African Americans in the US); in this context "you is" is supposed to be a marker of the differences between spoken English between different classes, but "You is" isn't even the best representation of AAVE (which generally tends to lose "to be" in the present simple altogether - "You kind, you smart, you important").

Just to clarify, this is a vernacular - it's the way a group of people speak on their day-to-day lives, not Standard English grammar.

You can read more about this particular sentence in the context of The Help (and the politics of using dialects in such a charged way) here: http://dialectblog.com/2012/11/14/you-is-smart-dialect-gripes-about-the-help/ ;

8 agosto 2017
3
If you want to learn "proper English grammar" A lot of southern dialects in U.S.A are not the right place to be listening because they shorten many phrases down to the easiest and not always correct. To be fair, everyone does this we all say "gonna" and not "going to" and stuff like this. But the south is notorious for doing this more. 
8 agosto 2017
1
I have never heard that before 
8 agosto 2017
Thank you so much <a ui-sref="user({id:comment.commenter_obj.id})" href="https://www.italki.com/user/4328225" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(149, 149, 149); outline: 0px; outline-offset: -2px;">Luís Domingos</a> ^^
8 agosto 2017