Cockney
Template:Short description Template:Other uses Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox language Template:Listen Template:Listen
Cockney is a dialect of the English language mainly spoken in London, particularly by Londoners from working-class and lower-middle-class families. The term Cockney is also used as a demonym for a person from the East End,[1][2][3] or, traditionally, born within earshot of Bow Bells.[4][5][6]
Estuary English is an intermediate accent between Cockney and Received Pronunciation, also widely spoken in and around London, as well as in wider South East England.[7][8][9] In multicultural areas of London, the Cockney dialect is, to an extent, being replaced by Multicultural London English—a new form of speech with significant Cockney influence.
Nomenclature
Etymology of Cockney
The earliest recorded use of the term is 1362 in passus VI of William Langland's Piers Plowman, where it is used to mean "a small, misshapen egg", from Middle English coken + ey ("a cock's egg").[10] Concurrently, the mythical land of luxury Cockaigne (attested from 1305) appeared under a variety of spellings, including Cockayne, Cocknay, and Cockney, and became humorously associated with the English capital London.[11]Template:Refn
The meaning of Cockney comes from its use among rural Englishmen (attested in 1520) as a pejorative term for effeminate town-dwellers,Template:Refn[10] from an earlier general sense (encountered in "The Reeve's Tale" of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales Template:Circa) of a "cokenay" as "a child tenderly brought up" and, by extension, "an effeminate fellow" or "a Template:Linktext".[12] This may have developed from those sources or separately, alongside such terms as "Template:Linktext" and "Template:Linktext" which both have the sense of "to make a Template:Linktext ... or the darling of", "to indulge or pamper".Template:Refn[13] By 1600, this meaning of Cockney was being particularly associated with the Bow Bells area.[4][14] In 1617, the travel writer Fynes Moryson stated in his Itinerary that "Londoners, and all within the sound of Bow Bells, are in reproach called Cockneys."[15] The same year, John Minsheu included the term in this newly restricted sense in his dictionary Ductor in Linguas.Template:Refn
Other terms
- Cockney sparrow: Refers to the archetype of a cheerful, talkative Cockney.
- Cockney diaspora: The term Cockney diaspora refers to the migration of Cockney speakers to places outside London, especially new towns.[16] It also refers to the descendants of those people, in areas where there was enough migration for identification with London to persist in subsequent generations.
- Mockney: Refers to a fake Cockney accent, though the term is sometimes also used as a self-deprecatory moniker by second, third, and subsequent generations of the Cockney diaspora.
Region
Initially, when London consisted of little more than the walled City, the term applied to all Londoners, and this lingered into the 19th century.[11] As the city grew, the definitions shifted to alternatives based on dialect or more specific areas; the East End and the area within earshot of Bow Bells.
The East End of London and the vicinity of Bow Bells are often used interchangeably, representing the identity of the East End. The region within the audible range of the bells varies depending on the direction of the wind, but there is a correlation between the two geographic definitions under the typical prevailing wind conditions. The term can apply to East Londoners who do not speak the dialect and those who do.[17]
London's East End
The traditional core districts of the East End include the Middlesex towns of Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, Spitalfields, Stepney, Wapping, Limehouse, Poplar, Haggerston, Shadwell, Shoreditch, Hackney, Hoxton, Bow and Mile End. Nearly all of these areas had originally been part of the Manor and Parish of Stepney. In the 1600s and 1700s a Cockney's Feast, also later known as the Stepney Feast was held in Stepney each May. The purpose of the event was to raise money so that Stepney boys could be apprenticed in the maritime trades.
The informal definition of the East End has gradually expanded to areas including as Poplar, Stratford, West Ham and Canning Town, as these have formed part of London's growing conurbation.
Bow Bells' audible range
The church of St Mary-le-Bow is one of the oldest, largest, and historically most important churches in the City of London. The definition based on being born within earshot of the bells,[18] cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, reflects the early definition of the term as relating to all of London.
The audible range of the Bells is dependent on geography and wind conditions. The east is mostly low lying, a factor which combines with the strength and regularity of the prevailing wind, blowing from west-south-west for nearly three-quarters of the year,[19] to carry the sound further to the east, and more often. A 2012 study[20] showed that in the 19th century, and under typical conditions, the sound of the bells would carry as far as Clapton, Bow and Stratford in the east but only as far as Southwark to the south and Holborn in the west. An earlier study[21] suggested the sound would have carried even further. The 2012 study showed that in the modern era, noise pollution means that the bells can only be heard as far as Shoreditch. According to legend, Dick Whittington heard the bells 4.5 miles away at Highgate Hill, in what is now north London. The studies mean that it is credible that Whittington might have heard them on one of the infrequent days that the wind blows from the south.
The church of St Mary-le-Bow was destroyed in 1666 by the Great Fire of London and rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. Although the bells were destroyed again in 1941 in the Blitz, they had fallen silent on 13 June 1940 as part of the British anti-invasion preparations of World War II. Before they were replaced in 1961, there was a period when, by the "within earshot" definition, no "Bow Bell" Cockneys could be born.[22] The use of such a literal definition produces other problems since the area around the church is no longer residential, and the noise pollution in that area combined with the absence of maternity wards there means that few are born within earshot.Template:Sfnp[23]
Blurred definitions
Regional definitions are sometimes blurred. Ahead of the 2024–25 season, West Ham United released an away shirt which it called the "Cockney Kit". The promotional material celebrated a Cockney identity for East London based on a territory rather than dialect.
The kit featured the Bow Bells on the reverse as a symbol of the area, and the promotional video included the church of St Mary-le-Bow and parts of East London within earshot of the bells – such as Brick Lane, Upper Clapton and Stratford – as well as a scene in Romford, in suburban East London.[24]
Dialect Template:Anchor
Template:IPA notice Cockney speakers have distinctive accents and dialects and occasionally use rhyming slang. The Survey of English Dialects took a recording from a long-time resident of Hackney in the 1950s, and the BBC made another recording in 1999 which showed how the accent had changed.[25][26] One of the characteristic pronunciations of Cockney is th-fronting.
The early development of Cockney vocabulary is obscure, but appears to have been heavily influenced by Essex and related eastern dialects,Template:Sfnp while borrowings from Yiddish, including kosher (originally Hebrew, via Yiddish, meaning legitimate) and shtum (Template:IPA originally German, via Yiddish, meaning mute),[27] as well as Romani, for example wonga (meaning money, from the Romani "wanga" meaning coal),[28] and cushty (Kushty) (from the Romani kushtipen, meaning good) reflect the influence of those groups on the development of the speech.
John Camden Hotten, in his Slang Dictionary of 1859, refers to "their use of a peculiar slang language" when describing the costermongers of London's East End.
Migration and evolution
A dialectological study of Leytonstone in 1964 found that the area's dialect was very similar to that recorded in Bethnal Green by Eva Sivertsen, but there were still some features that distinguished Leytonstone speech from Cockney.[29]
Linguistic research conducted in the early 2010s suggests that today, some aspects of the Cockney accent are declining in usage within multicultural areas, where some traditional features of Cockney have been displaced by Multicultural London English, a multiethnolect particularly common amongst young people from diverse backgrounds.[30] Nevertheless, the glottal stop, double negatives, and the vocalisation of the dark L (and other features of Cockney speech) are among the Cockney influences on Multicultural London English, and some rhyming slang terms are still in common usage.
An influential July 2010 report by Paul Kerswill, professor of sociolinguistics at Lancaster University, Multicultural London English: the emergence, acquisition, and diffusion of a new variety, predicted that the Cockney accent would disappear from London's streets within 30 years.[30] The study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, said that the accent, which has been around for more than 500 years, is being replaced in London by a new hybrid language. "Cockney in the East End is now transforming itself into Multicultural London English, a new, melting-pot mixture of all those people living here who learned English as a second language", Kerswill said.[30]
A series of new and expanded towns have often had a strong influence on local speech. Many areas beyond the capital have become Cockney-speaking to a greater or lesser degree, including the new towns of Hemel Hempstead, Basildon, and Harlow, and expanded towns such as Grays, Chelmsford and Southend. However, this is, except where least mixed, difficult to discern because of common features: linguistic historian and researcher of early dialects Alexander John Ellis in 1890 stated that Cockney developed owing to the influence of Essex dialect on London speech.Template:Sfnp
Writing in 1981, the dialectologist Peter Wright identified the building of the Becontree estate in Dagenham as influential in the spread of the Cockney dialect. This vast estate was built by the Corporation of London to house poor East Enders in a previously rural area of Essex. The residents typically kept their Cockney dialect rather than adopt an Essex dialect.Template:Sfnp Wright also reports that the Cockney dialect spread along the main railway routes to towns in the surrounding counties as early as 1923, spreading further after World War II when many refugees left London owing to the bombing, and continuing to speak Cockney in their new homes.Template:Sfnp
A more distant example where the accent stands out is Thetford in Norfolk, which tripled in size from 1957 in a deliberate attempt to attract Londoners by providing social housing funded by the London County Council.[31]
Typical features
As with many accents of the United Kingdom, Cockney is non-rhotic. A final -er is pronounced Template:IPAblink or lowered Template:IPAblink in broad Cockney. As with all or nearly all non-rhotic accents, the paired lexical sets COMMA and LETTER, PALM/BATH and START, THOUGHT and NORTH/FORCE, are merged. Thus, the last syllable of words such as cheetah can be pronounced Template:IPAblink as well in broad Cockney.Template:Sfnp[32]Template:Sfnp
A broad Template:IPA is used in words such as bath, grass and demand. This originated in London in the 16th–17th centuries and is also part of Received Pronunciation (RP).Template:Sfnp
The accent features T-glottalisation, with use of the glottal stop as an allophone of Template:IPA in various positions,Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp including after a stressed syllable. Glottal stops also occur, albeit less frequently, for Template:IPA and Template:IPA, and occasionally for mid-word consonants. For example, Richard Whiteing spelled "Hyde Park" as Hy' Par'. Like and light can be homophones. "Clapham" can be said as Cla'am (i.e., Template:IPA).Template:Sfnp This feature results in Cockney being often mentioned in textbooks about Semitic languages while explaining how to pronounce the glottal stop. Template:IPA may also be flapped intervocalically, e.g. utter Template:IPA. London Template:IPA are often aspirated in intervocalic and final environments, e.g., upper Template:IPA, utter Template:IPA, rocker Template:IPA, up Template:IPA, out Template:IPA, rock Template:IPA, where RP is traditionally described as having the unaspirated variants. Also, in broad Cockney at least, the degree of aspiration is typically greater than in RP, and may often also involve some degree of affrication Template:IPA. Affricatives may be encountered in initial, intervocalic, and final position.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
Cockney also demonstrates:
- Th-fronting:Template:Sfnp
- Template:IPA can become Template:IPAblink in any environment. Template:IPA "thin", Template:IPA "maths".
- Template:IPA can become Template:IPAblink in any environment except word-initially when it can be Template:IPA. Template:IPA "they", Template:IPA "bother".Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
- Yod-coalescence, in words such as tune Template:IPA or reduce Template:IPA (compare traditional RP Template:IPA).[33]
- The alveolar stops Template:IPA, Template:IPA are often omitted in informal Cockney, in non-prevocalic environments, including some that cannot be omitted in Received Pronunciation. Examples include Template:IPA Dad's gonna and Template:IPA turn left.Template:Sfnp
- H-dropping. Sivertsen considers that Template:IPAblink is to some extent a stylistic marker of emphasis in Cockney.[34][35]
Phonemic correspondence
- Template:IPA correspond to the RP sounds (though Template:IPA and Template:IPA are most commonly written with Template:Angbr IPA and Template:Angbr IPA, respectively). Template:IPA can be considered to be an allophone of Template:IPA (with both corresponding to RP Template:IPA). Template:IPA also can be considered to be an allophone, a positional variant of Template:IPA (with both corresponding to RP Template:IPA) – see below.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
- Template:IPA corresponds to RP Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
- Template:IPA corresponds to RP Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
- Template:IPA correspond to the centering diphthongs Template:IPA in traditional RP. Template:IPA is often missing from Cockney, being replaced with Template:IPA or a disyllabic Template:IPA.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
- Template:IPA corresponds to RP Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
- Template:IPA and Template:IPA correspond to relatively less diphthongal Template:IPA and Template:IPA in traditional RP.Template:Sfnp
- Template:IPA correspond to Template:IPA in RP.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
Phonetic realisation
The diphthong offsets are only fully close in Template:IPA and Template:IPA: Template:IPA. In all other cases, they are more similar to Template:IPA or Template:IPA. According to Beaken, Template:IPA and Template:IPA typically glide towards Template:IPAblink: Template:IPA, Template:IPA towards Template:IPAblink: Template:IPA, Template:IPA and the wide allophone of Template:IPA towards Template:IPAblink: Template:IPA, whereas Template:IPA and Template:IPA both towards Template:IPAblink: Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp According to Mott, Template:IPA do not occur at all as glides: Template:IPA (he does not show Template:IPA on his charts).Template:Sfnp Furthermore, Wells remarks on the laxness of the unrounded offset of Template:IPA, which is a kind of a centralised Template:IPAblink: Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
In the rest of the article, this is treated as a simple allophonic rule and only Template:Angbr IPA and Template:Angbr IPA are used for the diphthong offsets. In narrow phonetic transcription, their rounded and unrounded counterparts are written with Template:Angbr IPA and Template:Angbr IPA (phonetically Template:IPA and Template:IPA in fully narrow transcription). Only the central offglides Template:IPA and Template:IPA are transcribed as non-syllabic vowels due to the lack of appropriate glide symbols.
Diphthong alterations in Cockney are:Template:Sfnp
- Template:IPA is realised as Template:IPA:Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Template:IPA "beet"
- Template:IPA is realised as Template:IPA:Template:Sfnp Template:IPA "bait"
- Template:IPA is realised as Template:IPA or even Template:IPA in "vigorous, dialectal" Cockney. The second element may be reduced or absent (with compensatory lengthening of the first element), so that there are variants such as Template:IPA. This means that pairs such as laugh-life, Barton-biting may become homophones: Template:IPA, Template:IPA. But this neutralisation is an optional, recoverable one:Template:Sfnp Template:IPA "bite"
- Template:IPA is realised as Template:IPA:Template:Sfnp Template:IPA "choice"
- Template:IPA is realised as Template:IPA or a monophthongal Template:IPA, perhaps with little lip rounding, Template:IPA or Template:IPA:Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Template:IPA "boot"
- Template:IPA typically starts in the area of Template:IPA, Template:IPA. The endpoint glides towards Template:IPAblink, but more commonly, it is completely unrounded, i.e. Template:IPAblink. Thus, the most common variants are Template:IPA and Template:IPA, with Template:IPA and Template:IPA also being possible. The broadest Cockney variant approaches Template:IPA. There is also a variant that is used only by women, namely Template:IPA. In addition, there are two monophthongal pronunciations, Template:IPAblink as in 'no, nah' and Template:IPAblink, which is used in non-prominent variants.Template:Sfnp Template:IPA "coat"
- Template:IPA may all feature centering glides Template:IPA. Alternatively, Template:IPA may be realised as a closing diphthong Template:IPA. Wells states that "no rigid rules can be given for the distribution of monophthongal and diphthongal variants, though the tendency seems to be for the monophthongal variants to be commonest within the utterance, but the diphthongal realisations in utterance-final position, or where the syllable in question is otherwise prominent."Template:Sfnp Furthermore, the main difference between Template:IPA and Template:IPA is length, with the quality being secondary. The contrast appears only in the word-internal position, exactly where the monophthongal variants of Template:IPA are the most common. Thus, word pairs such as his Template:IPA – here's Template:IPA, merry Template:IPA – Mary Template:IPA, at Template:IPA – out Template:IPA and Polly Template:IPA – poorly Template:IPA contrast mainly by length, though Template:IPA may be slightly higher than Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
- Disyllabic Template:IPA realisations of Template:IPA are also possible, and at least Template:IPA are regarded as very strongly Cockney.Template:Sfnp Among these, the triphthongal realisation of Template:IPA occurs most commonly.Template:Sfnp There is not a complete agreement about the distribution of these; according to Template:Harvcoltxt, they "occur in sentence-final position",Template:Sfnp whereas according to Template:Harvcoltxt, these are "most common in final position".Template:Sfnp
- When diphthongal, Template:IPA and Template:IPA have higher starting points than in RP: Template:IPA.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp However, Beaken considers the former to be unshifted in comparison with traditional RP: Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
Other vowel differences include
- Template:IPA may be Template:IPAblink or Template:IPA, with the latter occurring before voiced consonants, particularly before Template:IPA:Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Template:IPA "back", Template:IPA "bad"
- Template:IPA may be Template:IPA, Template:IPA, or Template:IPA before certain voiced consonants, particularly before Template:IPA:Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Template:IPA "bed"
- According to Wells, Template:IPA may be somewhat less open than RP Template:IPA, that is Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp Beaken, on the other hand, considers variants no more open than Template:IPAblink to be the norm:Template:Sfnp Template:IPA "cot"
- Template:IPA has a fully back variant, qualitatively equivalent to cardinal 5, which Beaken (1971) claims characterizes "vigorous, informal" Cockney.Template:Sfnp
- Template:IPA is on occasion somewhat fronted and lightly rounded, giving Cockney variants such as Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp
- Template:IPA is realised as Template:IPAblink or a quality like that of cardinal 4, Template:IPAblink:Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Template:IPA "jumped up"
- Template:IPA is realised as Template:IPAblink or a closing diphthong of the type Template:IPA when in non-final position, with the latter variants being more common in broad Cockney:Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Template:IPA "sauce"-"source", Template:IPA "laud"-"lord", Template:IPA "water."
- Template:IPA is realised as Template:IPAblink or a centering diphthong/triphthong of the type Template:IPA when in final position, with the latter variants being more common in broad Cockney; thus Template:IPA "saw"-"sore"-"soar", Template:IPA "law"-"lore", Template:IPA "war"-"wore". The diphthong is retained before inflectional endings, so that board Template:IPA and pause Template:IPA contrast with bored Template:IPA and paws Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp Template:IPA has a somewhat tenser onset than the cardinal Template:IPAblink, that is Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
- Template:IPA becomes something around Template:IPA or even Template:IPA in broad Cockney before dark l. These variants are retained when the addition of a suffix turns the dark l clear. Thus a phonemic split has occurred in London English, exemplified by the minimal pair wholly Template:IPA vs. holy Template:IPA. The development of L-vocalisation (see next section) leads to further pairs such as sole-soul Template:IPA vs. so-sew Template:IPA, bowl Template:IPA vs. Bow Template:IPA, shoulder Template:IPA vs. odour Template:IPA, while associated vowel neutralisations may make doll a homophone of dole, compare dough Template:IPA. All this reinforces the phonemic nature of the opposition and increases its functional load. It is now well-established in all kinds of London-flavoured accents, from broad Cockney to near-RP.Template:Sfnp
- Template:IPA in some words (particularly good)Template:Sfnp is central Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp In other cases, it is near-close near-back Template:IPAblink, as in traditional RP.Template:Sfnp
The dialect uses the vocalisation of dark L, hence Template:IPA for Millwall. The actual realisation of a vocalised Template:IPA is influenced by surrounding vowels, and it may be realised as Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA or Template:IPA. It is also transcribed as a semivowel Template:IPA by some linguists, e.g., Coggle and Rosewarne.Template:Sfnp However, according to Template:Harvcoltxt, the vocalised dark l is sometimes an unoccluded lateral approximant, which differs from the RP Template:IPA only by the lack of the alveolar contact.Template:Sfnp Relatedly, there are many possible vowel neutralisations and absorptions in the context of a following dark L (Template:IPA) or its vocalised version; these include:Template:Sfnp
- In broad Cockney, and to some extent in general popular London speech, a vocalised Template:IPA is entirely absorbed by a preceding Template:IPA: e.g., salt and sort become homophones (although the contemporary pronunciation of salt Template:IPA[36] would prevent this from happening), and likewise fault-fought-fort, pause-Paul's, Morden-Malden, water-Walter. Sometimes such pairs are kept apart, in a more deliberate speech at least, by a kind of length difference: Template:IPA Morden vs. Template:IPA Malden.
- A preceding Template:IPA is also fully absorbed into vocalised Template:IPA. The reflexes of earlier Template:IPA and earlier Template:IPA are thus phonetically similar or identical; speakers are usually ready to treat them as the same phoneme. Thus awful can best be regarded as containing two occurrences of the same vowel, Template:IPA. The difference between musical and music-hall, in an H-dropping broad Cockney, is thus nothing more than a matter of stress and perhaps syllable boundaries.
- With the remaining vowels, a vocalised Template:IPA is not absorbed but remains phonetically present as a back vocoid in such a way that Template:IPA and Template:IPA are kept distinct.
- The clearest and best-established neutralisations are those of Template:IPA and Template:IPA. Thus rill, reel and real fall together in Cockney as Template:IPA; while full and fool are Template:IPA and may rhyme with cruel Template:IPA. Before clear (i.e., prevocalic) Template:IPA the neutralisations do not usually apply, thus Template:IPA silly but Template:IPA ceiling-sealing, Template:IPA fully but Template:IPA fooling.
- In some broader types of Cockney, the neutralisation of Template:IPA before non-prevocalic Template:IPA may also involve Template:IPA, so that fall becomes homophonous with full and fool Template:IPA.
- The other pre-Template:IPA neutralisation which all investigators agree on is that of Template:IPA. Thus, Sal and sale can be merged as Template:IPA, fail and fowl as Template:IPA, and Val, vale-veil and vowel as Template:IPA. The typical pronunciation of railway is Template:IPA.
- According to Siversten, Template:IPA and Template:IPA can also join in this neutralisation. They may, on the one hand, neutralize concerning one another so that snarl and smile rhyme, both ending Template:IPA, and Child's Hill is in danger of being mistaken for Charles Hill; or they may go further into a fivefold neutralisation with the one just mentioned, so that pal, pale, foul, snarl and pile all end in Template:IPA. But these developments are restricted to broad Cockney, not being found in London speech in general.
- A neutralisation discussed by Beaken (1971) and Bowyer (1973), but ignored by Siversten (1960), is that of Template:IPA. It leads to the possibility of doll, dole and dull becoming homophonous as Template:IPA or Template:IPA. Wells' impression is that the doll-dole neutralisation is rather widespread in London, but that involving dull less so.
- One further possible neutralisation in the environment of a following non-prevocalic Template:IPA is that of Template:IPA and Template:IPA, so that well and whirl become homophonous as Template:IPA.
Cockney has been occasionally described as replacing Template:IPA with Template:IPA, for example, Template:Not a typo (or fwee) instead of three, Template:Not a typo instead of frosty. Peter Wright, a Survey of English Dialects fieldworker, concluded that this was not a universal feature of Cockneys but that it was more common to hear this in the London area than elsewhere in Britain.Template:Sfnp This description may also be a result of mishearing the labiodental R as Template:IPA, when it is still a distinct phoneme in Cockney.
An unstressed final -ow may be pronounced Template:IPAblink. In broad Cockney, this can be lowered to Template:IPAblink.[32]Template:Sfnp This is common to most traditional, Southern English dialects except for those in the West Country.Template:Sfnp
Regarding grammar, Cockney uses me instead of my, for example, Template:" 'At's me book you got 'ere" Template:IPA. (where Template:' 'ere' means 'there'). It cannot be used when "my" is emphasised; e.g., Template:" 'At's my book you got 'ere" Template:IPA. It also uses the term ain't, as well as double negatives, for example, "I didn't see nuffink".Template:Sfnp
By the 1980s and 1990s, most of the features mentioned above had partly spread into more general south-eastern speech, giving the accent called Estuary English; an Estuary speaker will use some but not all of the Cockney sounds.[37][38][39]
Perception
The Cockney accent has long been regarded as an indicator of low status. For example, in 1909 the Conference on the Teaching of English in London Elementary Schools issued by the London County Council, stating that "the Cockney mode of speech, with its unpleasant twang, is a modern corruption without legitimate credentials, and is unworthy of being the speech of any person in the capital city of the Empire".[40] Others defended the language variety: "The London dialect is really, especially on the South side of the Thames, a perfectly legitimate and responsible child of the old Kentish tongue [...] the dialect of London North of the Thames has been shown to be one of the many varieties of the Midland or Mercian dialect, flavoured by the East Anglian variety of the same speech".[40] Since then, the Cockney accent has been more accepted as an alternative form of the English language rather than a lesser one, though the low status mark remains.
In the 1950s, the only accent to be heard on the BBC (except in entertainment programs such as The Sooty Show) was the RP of Standard English, whereas nowadays many different accents, including Cockney or accents heavily influenced by it, can be heard on the BBC.[41] The Cockney accent often featured in films produced by Ealing Studios and was frequently portrayed as the typical British accent of the lower classes in movies by Walt Disney, though this was only so in London.
Spread
Studies have indicated that the heavy use of South East England accents on television and radio may have caused the spread of Cockney English since the 1960s.[42][43][44][45] Cockney is becoming increasingly influential, and some claim that in the future, many features of the accent may become standard.[46]
Scotland
Studies have indicated that working-class adolescents in areas such as Glasgow have begun to use certain aspects of Cockney and other Anglicisms in their speech.[47] infiltrating the traditional Glasgow patter.[48] For example, TH-fronting is commonly found, and typical Scottish features such as the postvocalic Template:IPA are reduced.[49] Research suggests the use of English speech characteristics is likely to be a result of the influence of London and South East England accents featuring heavily on television, such as the popular BBC One soap opera EastEnders.[42][43][44][45] However, such claims have been criticised.[50]
England
Certain features of Cockney – Th-fronting, L-vocalisation, T-glottalisation, and the fronting of the GOAT and GOOSE vowels – have spread across the south-east of England and, to a lesser extent, to other areas of Britain.[51] However, Clive Upton has noted that these features have occurred independently in some other dialects, such as TH-fronting in Yorkshire and L-vocalisation in parts of Scotland.[52]
The term Estuary English has been used to describe London pronunciations slightly closer to RP than Cockney. The variety first came to public prominence in an article by David Rosewarne in the Times Educational Supplement in October 1984.[53] Rosewarne argued that it may eventually replace Received Pronunciation in the south-east. The phonetician John C. Wells collected media references to Estuary English on a website. Writing in April 2013, Wells argued that research by Joanna Przedlacka "demolished the claim that EE was a single entity sweeping the southeast. Rather, we have various sound changes emanating from working-class London speech, each spreading independently".[54]
See also
- Cockney Wanker
- EastEnders
- Estuary English
- Languages of the United Kingdom
- List of British regional nicknames
- Madras Bashai and Bambaiya Hindi, similar working class dialects of Tamil and Hindi respectively used in the cities of Chennai and Mumbai, India
- London slang
- Mockney
- Possessive me
- Cockney rhyming slang
References
Bibliography
- Template:Cite thesis
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- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Accents of English
- Template:Cite book
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External links
- Template:Url
- Template:Url
- Template:Url
- Template:Url — Listen to examples of London and other regional accents and dialects of the UK on the British Library's "Sounds Familiar" website
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Template:English dialects by continent Template:Authority control
- ↑ Green, Jonathon "Cockney" Template:Webarchive. Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
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