omissibility - Omitting "is" in sentences (when occurring after "that", "this", and "it")

I recently added some friends to Facebook that live in a small town in Texas. The reason I point this out is that I believe it might be a regional thing.

Many people in that area omit the word "is" in sentences. Here is an example:

They sent an image and then included this in chat:

"Just ran across this. It a good pic of [whatever was in the picture]."

I expect to see "is" before "a good pic".

And again, another picture and description:

"This my youngest daughter and her husband."

I expect to see "is" after the word "this".

This is very common with this person, as they also sent this message:

"[Person's name] getting old enough to make [their] own decisions. I know what it like to be a child in middle of divorce."

I expect to see "is" after the person's name as well as after "what it" (or at least the contraction "it's").

Also, they linked to a meme image originally posted by a radio station in Phoenix, AZ that had the following text:

"It's not what's under the Christmas tree that matters, it's who around it."

I would expect to see another "is" (the first one being part of the contraction) after the word "who". Or, even another contraction (who's).

I supply all of these examples to demonstrate the omission. It seems very common to the area. I don't think this is the same situation as this question.

I have lived my entire life (over 40 years) without ever seeing this before. I grew up in the US South (GA - Atlanta area) and I have lived in Arkansas, Arizona, and San Francisco. I point that out to communicate my exposure to local language and usage.

Can anyone shed some light on this? Is this very common, or is it specific to a specific region?

Answer

Copula deletion or zero copula is a regular feature of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). (It's also found in various English-based creoles, such as Gullah; but your examples are clearly not in any creole.)

As its name suggests, however, the vast majority of AAVE speakers are African-American; if your new Facebook friends are not black, then that explanation seems less likely. (And while Standard English has borrowed many things from AAVE, I don't think copula deletion is one of them.) I guess I'd be more inclined, in that case, to chalk this up to a persistent editing error, or to a unique form of online brevity (like how your first example has "Just ran across this" instead of "I just ran across this", except that dropping "I" is very common among a wide swath of Internet users, whereas copula deletion is not). But I have to admit that if your friends are not AAVE speakers, then neither of these other explanations seems very compelling.