londons cockney accent will gone in 30years
The ancient East End way of talking is being replaced by a new hybrid known as Jafaican
London's famous Cockney accent, as spoken by the likes of Michael Caine, Ray Winstone and Barbara Windsor and made famous by musicals My Fair Lady and Oliver!, is dying out and may have disappeared from the city's pubs and markets within 30 years.
In its place is a new hybrid accent, known colloquially as 'Jafaican', which has grown up in the city's immigrant communities and is made up of a mixture of English, African, Afro-Caribbean and Asian speech patterns and slang.
"In much of the East End the Cockney dialect will have disappeared within another generation. People in their 40s will be the last generation to speak it."
"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 learnt English as a second language," he said.
To put it simply, Londoners are now talking like Ali G and Dizzee Rascal, who was born in Bow and is technically a Cockney. However, it is not the end of the road for Cockney, which dates back to the time of Chaucer. Speakers of the formerly much-maligned 'Estuary English' living in counties like Kent and Essex on the outskirts of the capital are now being hailed as the saviours of the historic accent.
Throughout the 20th century traditional Cockney speakers migrated out of the city centre or were relocated to new towns through slum clearance programmes. And they took their accent with them. Some historians are now making recordings of older Cockneys in these areas to save their pronunciation for posterity.
Those who replaced them in London have developed the new so-called Jafaican accent - although it still contains several features of Cockney, for example the dropped 'T' and rhyming slang. And although the term Cockney dates back to the time of Chaucer, it is unlikely that the accent so memorably imitated by Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins has many similarities with the dialect spoken by Londoners in the 1400s. Indeed, the word Cockney itself began life as a derogatory term used by country folk to describe effeminate and mollycoddled city-dwellers. And some defining aspects of Cockney are relatively recent innovations. Rhyming slang, for example, is only 150 years old.
The concept of Cockney has also survived previous waves of immigration and demographic change, so rather than it dying out, it could be that Jafaican becomes known as the latest incarnation of the accent
London's famous Cockney accent, as spoken by the likes of Michael Caine, Ray Winstone and Barbara Windsor and made famous by musicals My Fair Lady and Oliver!, is dying out and may have disappeared from the city's pubs and markets within 30 years.
In its place is a new hybrid accent, known colloquially as 'Jafaican', which has grown up in the city's immigrant communities and is made up of a mixture of English, African, Afro-Caribbean and Asian speech patterns and slang.
"In much of the East End the Cockney dialect will have disappeared within another generation. People in their 40s will be the last generation to speak it."
"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 learnt English as a second language," he said.
To put it simply, Londoners are now talking like Ali G and Dizzee Rascal, who was born in Bow and is technically a Cockney. However, it is not the end of the road for Cockney, which dates back to the time of Chaucer. Speakers of the formerly much-maligned 'Estuary English' living in counties like Kent and Essex on the outskirts of the capital are now being hailed as the saviours of the historic accent.
Throughout the 20th century traditional Cockney speakers migrated out of the city centre or were relocated to new towns through slum clearance programmes. And they took their accent with them. Some historians are now making recordings of older Cockneys in these areas to save their pronunciation for posterity.
Those who replaced them in London have developed the new so-called Jafaican accent - although it still contains several features of Cockney, for example the dropped 'T' and rhyming slang. And although the term Cockney dates back to the time of Chaucer, it is unlikely that the accent so memorably imitated by Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins has many similarities with the dialect spoken by Londoners in the 1400s. Indeed, the word Cockney itself began life as a derogatory term used by country folk to describe effeminate and mollycoddled city-dwellers. And some defining aspects of Cockney are relatively recent innovations. Rhyming slang, for example, is only 150 years old.
The concept of Cockney has also survived previous waves of immigration and demographic change, so rather than it dying out, it could be that Jafaican becomes known as the latest incarnation of the accent
cockney 'more essex than east end'
Cockney speakers are now more likely to live in Essex than in the traditional heartlands of inner London's East End, according to research. Historically the dialect was used by people from the central-eastern boroughs of the capital, but a new multicultural way of speaking has emerged there in recent years.
Dr Sue Fox, a socio-linguistic expert from Queen Mary, University of London found features of the traditional Cockney dialect are now more likely to be heard in Basildon or Barking than within the sound of Bow Bells or modern-day Tower Hamlets - where it originated.
She said: "In the last five decades Cockney has probably undergone more rapid change than at any time in its long history.
"Without doubt the speech forms associated with Cockney can still be heard but, with the multicultural diversity we now see in the East End, the Cockney label would seem to be becoming less and less relevant to the people living there."
According to Dr Fox's research, since the 1950s a vast number of the white working class-families which predominated in the East End in the early part of the 20th century have moved to other parts of the country such as Essex.
The once rural areas have now been urbanised and are now filled with Eastenders and their descendants. She added: "The sheer number of people who have moved from the traditional East End into the surrounding areas of London, and in particular Essex, have ensured that the influence of Cockney is still exerted in these areas and it is there that many features of the dialect can still be heard.
Dr Sue Fox, a socio-linguistic expert from Queen Mary, University of London found features of the traditional Cockney dialect are now more likely to be heard in Basildon or Barking than within the sound of Bow Bells or modern-day Tower Hamlets - where it originated.
She said: "In the last five decades Cockney has probably undergone more rapid change than at any time in its long history.
"Without doubt the speech forms associated with Cockney can still be heard but, with the multicultural diversity we now see in the East End, the Cockney label would seem to be becoming less and less relevant to the people living there."
According to Dr Fox's research, since the 1950s a vast number of the white working class-families which predominated in the East End in the early part of the 20th century have moved to other parts of the country such as Essex.
The once rural areas have now been urbanised and are now filled with Eastenders and their descendants. She added: "The sheer number of people who have moved from the traditional East End into the surrounding areas of London, and in particular Essex, have ensured that the influence of Cockney is still exerted in these areas and it is there that many features of the dialect can still be heard.
"It is probably more accurate to say that Cockney has now become more synonymous with white working-class speakers from a much larger geographical region of south east England and is not generally a term applied to speakers of minority ethnic backgrounds even if they have been born within the traditional Cockney area.
"The Bangladeshi community now makes up over a third of the population in the borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End and the vast majority of people in this area now speak what we have labelled as Multicultural London English.
"They don't identify with being Cockney and this new term is more reflective of the current population." London tradition dictates that to qualify as a true Cockney, babies should be born within earshot of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow Church, Cheapside. However, a new sound mapping study reveals that no London babies are now born within the sound of the Bow Bells.
The Collins team commissioned leading acoustic consultants to produce a new sound map of London to establish how far the sound of the famous ‘Bow Bells’ reaches in 2012 compared to 150 years ago.
The analysis reveals that the zone within earshot of the Bow Bells has shrunk significantly since 1851 when the famous church bells - known to children the world-over for inspiring Dick Whittington ‘to turn again’ - could be heard from the City of London across Islington, Hackney and Tower Hamlets and into parts of Camden, Southwark, Newham and Waltham Forest.
In 2012, it is shown that the chimes of St Mary-le-Bow are only audible across a small patch covering just the City and Shoreditch, in which no maternity wards are located. Could Cockneys soon be brown bread? Sound of Bow Bells that define 'true' Londoners 'are being drowned out by capital's noise pollution' Street noise now 'twice as loud in London' as 150 years ago Cockney influence also dying out because of other dialects
"The Bangladeshi community now makes up over a third of the population in the borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End and the vast majority of people in this area now speak what we have labelled as Multicultural London English.
"They don't identify with being Cockney and this new term is more reflective of the current population." London tradition dictates that to qualify as a true Cockney, babies should be born within earshot of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow Church, Cheapside. However, a new sound mapping study reveals that no London babies are now born within the sound of the Bow Bells.
The Collins team commissioned leading acoustic consultants to produce a new sound map of London to establish how far the sound of the famous ‘Bow Bells’ reaches in 2012 compared to 150 years ago.
The analysis reveals that the zone within earshot of the Bow Bells has shrunk significantly since 1851 when the famous church bells - known to children the world-over for inspiring Dick Whittington ‘to turn again’ - could be heard from the City of London across Islington, Hackney and Tower Hamlets and into parts of Camden, Southwark, Newham and Waltham Forest.
In 2012, it is shown that the chimes of St Mary-le-Bow are only audible across a small patch covering just the City and Shoreditch, in which no maternity wards are located. Could Cockneys soon be brown bread? Sound of Bow Bells that define 'true' Londoners 'are being drowned out by capital's noise pollution' Street noise now 'twice as loud in London' as 150 years ago Cockney influence also dying out because of other dialects
