mista Go-den, I can use yo phone?

First off, if you know Josef Bartels and haven't checked out his phenomenal blog about the Peace Corps (hm, another corps) in Ukraine, you're missing out. He's had some incredible times and he updates way more often than I do (though this is my third in May).

Was joking with Karl driving back from the library about the way black kids - and some of my Hispanic kids - form questions. Rather than using the verb in the first position, kids in Memphis keep the verb in the second position and just change their intonation. That day one of Karl's high schoolers said, "mista Hoesch, I can see yo phone?" Karl responded, "Yes, I can see it too, it's over there on my desk." For the next 30 minutes or so, I repeated, "mista go-den, I can use yo phone?" and laughed every time I said it.

A couple months ago I encountered another ludicrous question, though it was not exactly the same short-cut method of inflection-oriented questions. As I was passing through the 6th grade hallway to get to my room, a girl stopped, me and blurted/screeched, "mista go-den, ain't I'm quiet?" I stopped for a second, and repeated slightly incredulously, "ain't I'm quiet?" She insistently repeated the phrase. I answered a curt "Nope," and continued down the hallway. This particular student has possibly the most annoying/loudest voice of any girl in the 6th grade and she wanted me to agree with her that she was quiet! Ha.

Two days ago this same girl asked me some question and ended it by saying, "Is you?" I said, "Am I?" She said, "ya, is you?" I said, "No."

Here's a short list of more of the inflection questions:

mista go-den, I can sharpen my pencil?
mista go-den, I can use it?
mista go-den, I can use the restroom?
mista go-den, I can get some tissue?