Muwwakkil, a professor of anthropology at the University of Washington, is among several linguistics experts who told NBC News that many of Gen Z’s most popular slang words and phrases can be traced back to African American Language, also known as Ebonics or AAVE — African American Vernacular English. Characterized by unique grammar, playful pronunciation patterns and regional vocabulary, African American Language is a fully formed dialect with cultural significance.

“Rizz,” which Oxford University Press declared the “word of the year” in 2023, was created and popularized by Black Twitch streamer Kai Cenat in 2022. “Cap,” most often used as “no cap” to mean “truthfully,” has roots in 2010s Atlanta rap music, according to Merriam-Webster. Similarly, the publisher notes that “lit,” as Gen Zers use the term, also has roots in rap music.

Other words found in Merriam-Webster, like “unc,” which is short for uncle and is used to lightly mock an older man, and “drip,” which usually refers to high fashion or well-done outfit coordination, have distinct origins in rap music dating to the late 1990s and the early 2000s. Other words, like “slay,” meaning to do something well, or “periodt,” signifying as finality, linguistic advocates say, have roots in the Black queer community and drag.

African American Language also tends to have nuance in its tense structure, incorporating modifiers and unique contractions. In standard English, one may say, “I did drink that” or “I will drink that,” whereas in AAVE one may say, “I been drank that” or “I’mma drink that.”

According to Muwwakkil, it’s a language with specific structural rules, not a product of randomness.

In the internet era, these words and creative sentence structures have gone global — traversing cultures and generations through music and “Saturday Night Live” sketches and online. Some people have been praised for their use, while others have been chastised.

Rapper Kendrick Lamar, who is Black, in 2018 won a Pulitzer Prize for his album “Damn” for its “virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life,” the webpage announcing the award reads.

In contrast, rapper Jack Harlow, who is white, was slammed after an interview last month with The New York Times’ “Popcast podcast,” in which he said that after he switched to R&B, his music “got Blacker.” Other public figures, like actor Awkwafina and rapper Bhad Bhabie, in recent years have been accused of using AAVE to curate edgy personas while lacking cultural understanding.

Sonja Lanehart, a linguistics professor at the University of Arizona, defines African American Language as “a language spoken by or among African Americans” that has evolved over centuries, showcasing creativity and serving as a form of resistance to assimilation. Lanehart notes, however, that the language is not exclusive to African Americans.

“No one would create a language in which some aspect of who they are as a person, a people, a community and a culture wouldn’t be part of it,” said Lanehart, author of “The Oxford Handbook of African American Language.” “So I struggle with thinking of it as simply this dialect of a language without any connection to where people came from in the languages that they brought with them.”

It’s a language, like others, that continues to evolve. Yet, linguists say, its impetus harks back to a dark time in American history.

African American Language was “born out of struggle, strife and trauma,” according to Muwwakkil. Men and women from various regions of the African continent, who were enslaved and brought to the U.S. in the 17th century, he said, used language to find common ground among themselves. In time, he noted, the enslaved used words or phrases to be understood by one another, but not by others.

“Part of that depravity looked like bringing people from different places who did not speak the same language, to put them together, to make them to labor in these ways,” Muwwakkil said. “They acquired English in this regard. But there were some points of resistance there — in a sense like a hidden cultural frame to kind of speak in plain sight but still not be understood.”

Following the Ebonics Controversy of 1996, when the Oakland, California, Board of Education passed a resolution recognizing Ebonics as a “primary language” to improve Black youth literacy, a firestorm erupted across the country over the language’s endorsement. After backlash, the district eventually rolled back its plans, but African American Language — once relegated offline in majority Black communities — had already become known nationally.

While not all “Gen Z slang” is rooted in African American Language, according to Minnie Annan, a linguistics lecturer at Georgetown University, the inspiration behind the words often is.

“There are some things that folks are creating today,” Annan said, adding, “but the source of the inspiration is coming from African American Language. … There’s a beautiful Venn diagram that we could draw.”

In Muwwakkil’s opinion, it’s the disparity in the celebration of African American Language and Black culture that is jarring. The same vernacular and actions of some Black people that are deemed uneducated or less than, he believes, are often celebrated when they are used by non-Black people and seen as bold and proactive.

Singer Madonna, for example, widely recognized as the “Queen of Pop” for decades, has been repeatedly criticized for exploiting Black culture for profit — using Black style and language and her proximity to Blackness to reinvent herself. She once altered images of Black icons to promote an album and used the N-word on social media, and she has been chided for not giving just due to the creators of the vogue movement, mostly Black and Latino members of the LGBTQ movement.

Annan said ignoring the language’s origins is what’s unacceptable.

“When you say it’s not that deep, what you’re saying to me is that hundreds of years of history, hundreds of years of ingenuity, hundreds of years of being genius don’t matter,” Annan said. “Because what you see right now, you see a broken linguistic system. What I see is linguistic dexterity.”