American vernacular tradition—also known as black talk, folklore, the form of things unknown, or low/popular culture—has been around for centuries and existed as a global phenomenon for most of that time. It permeates nearly every cultural aspect of black lives and history throughout the African diaspora. This entry, however, will focus solely on black vernacular in the US context of African American literary and cultural study. This vernacular comprises linguistic elements from African languages, black English, creole, pidgin English, patois, and various dialects, as well as forms such as oral epics, folktales, the dozens, signifying, call and response, improvisational practices, sermons, line dances, ring shouts, cyphers, and music genres such as spirituals, gospel, blues, jazz, rap, hip-hop, and more. It is a tradition foundationally held together by Africanisms that have shifted and changed through geographical particularities in the Americas and Europe. Early scholarship wrote of the tradition as comprising predominantly oral forms, it can in fact be found in visual, culinary, literary, digital, and architectural mediums. Thus, collections on black vernacular tradition can take up a diverse range of topics and address many forms. The black vernacular tradition, though often perceived to be antiquated, captures the modernity and postmodernity movements of black art, culture, identity, and politics - I really hope this helps !
