Clearly, Lorraine Hansberry understood that the dialects of black communities were distinctly different from the dialects of other communities, for she has her characters speak in the very real language of their community. Although Hansberry's own immediate family were all college educated and spoke Standard English all the time at home, Hansberry herself spent a lot of time in poor Southside households that were similar to that of the Younger family in Raisin. Naturally Mama's speech is different from Beneatha's; however, there are even subtle differences between the speech patterns of Mama and Walter and Ruth and Bobo.
The language of many of the characters of Raisin is unconventionally non-Standard English; the black characters are not merely speaking English that is ungrammatical; rather, they are speaking a dialect common in the black communities that are heavily populated by migrants from the South. Their dialect, although similar to the white southern dialect, is distinctly different in that it is mostly an outgrowth of the period of slavery. At that time, slaves were forbidden a formal education and therefore mimicked whatever English they heard, ending up with a "Pidgin English" not unlike the English spoken by many of the Native-American population.
