To the Editor:

The flap over ebonics has educators, politicians and talk-show hosts ing buzzing, as well as your editorial writers and Op-Ed and Week in Review authors. Whether it makes sense for an ethnic group to master the language of inclusion by avoiding the teaching of it is for others to conclude. But allowing one group to cop out on the native tongue opens the door for others to do likewise.

''Ebonics'' comes from ''ebony,'' meaning black, and ''phonics'' meaning speech sounds. So what might we coin for other ethnic speech?

''Ivoronics'' for middle-class talk, could resurrect Anglo-isms like ''golly,'' ''swell,'' ''oh-you-kid'' and ''so's your old man.'' Irish phonics could allow for humorously sardonic patter and be rendered ''Ironics.''

''Hisponics'' offers a colorfully toned Latin inflection. ''Italics'' features Mediterranean romance with a slant. ''Hebronics'' challenges Yiddish and Gaelic Ironics for pre-eminence in ironic humor.

''Canonics'' is spoken by booming musical clerics to the north. Arkansas talk (bubba-onics) or ''Bubonics,'' if spread, threatens a plague on all our houses.


Morristown, N.J., Jan. 2, 1997