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I've been curious and wanted to know if anyone knew the origin of the cockney accent and if people still talk that way (like seen in movies and TV shows of the past)? Got curious about this after watching a documentary which included the origins of some regional American accents and some regional accents come from certain regions of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Amazingly, these regions include the hillbilly mountain regions where their accent developed because of their isolation among mountain communities.
I've been curious and wanted to know if anyone knew the origin of the cockney accent and if people still talk that way (like seen in movies and TV shows of the past)? Got curious about this after watching a documentary which included the origins of some regional American accents and some regional accents come from certain regions of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Amazingly, these regions include the hillbilly mountain regions where their accent developed because of their isolation among mountain communities.
Cockneys at least still talk exactly like Dick Van Dyke.
Well they say that the original cockney accent is dying out - there is a new `cool' london accent amongst younger people which has a Jamaican influence apparently. The old south east accent can still be heard in Essex, Kent and surrounding areas
I assume that the modern accents in the UK have developed over hundreds of years. Give the USA a few hundred more years and there will probably be a mass of peculiar regional accents!
Henry Cooper was a porter at Smithfield market. In fact the market also has along history of producing boxers from the East End. I know one person who worked there and he didn't exactly have a real loudmouth "apples and pears" mockney accent like you hear in these films but it was definitely distinguished in the way some of these accents from Essex and Kent seem rather tame and irrtating by comparison.
If you're in any doubt as to how tough some of these cockneys were around the East End you only have to see and hear Lenny Mclean in this clip. He hailed from Hoxton. An area unrecognisable today from the era he grew up in. He was a true cockney alright, not a man you'd want to mess with either. You don't come across this particular accent so much these days but the tiresome mockney pardody is still audible in many town centres in Herts, Surrey Kent and Essex on a Saturday night:-
Great listening to the accent again, time was in London in the 50's the accent was everywhere, remember the barrow boys calling out " get the baby orf the barra it p...ssin all over me strawberries" love it.
Cockneys at least still talk exactly like Dick Van Dyke.
Hollywood has a nasty habit of slaughtering accents, not just English accents. They are horrible at southern USA, Cajun, or Creole accents. I'm Cajun. Our traditional accent has been greatly diluted or softened over the decades. Some areas of Louisiana still have the traditional accents as seen on shows like Swamp People, a show about people who live in the swamp areas hunting gators when it's legal and in season.
Greater London has two quite distinct working-class dialects besides standard middle-class southern British English.
1. Cockney (i.e. Dick van Dyke's accent) is the indigenous white working-class dialect of London. It is most often associated with the East End but is spoken all over Greater London as well as to the overspill towns in Essex, Herts, Berkshire, Surrey and Kent that Londoners have moved to over the years. It's most famous for its "rhyming slang" (my grandfather, who was born in Bethnal Green in the 1920s, was a master). It would have had its origins in the old dialects of the English southeast from where many of the original "Londoners" migrated when the city was expanding, but also with influence from the various immigrant groups that have washed over the city over the centuries (French Huguenots, E. European Jews, Irish). Despite people saying it's dying out in favour of Jafaican I'd say it's still going strong in outer London and in Essex overspill towns.
2. Jafaican (or "Multicultural London English" to give it its proper name) is a product of the era of mass immigration to London since the 1960s. It is a kind of mix of Cockney and Jamaican patois, with quite a lot of Turkish, Pakistani and other immigrant language influence thrown in. It's only really got going since the 70s or 80s and it's rare that you hear older people with the accent - but anyone who has grown up since then and went to a state school in inner London will speak with it to a greater or lesser extent, whether black, white, Turkish or any other race.
While the stereotype is that Cockney is the "white" dialect while Jafaican is the black/ethnic one - but it's not always the case. I've heard long time black Londoners with amazing Cockney accents. Likewise it's not uncommon to hear young white British people with a real Jafaican thing going on. All depends on where you grew up, who your mates are, etc.
People look down on Jafaican at the moment as it's such a new dialect - but really it's a great leveller. Wherever your parents come from and whatever they speak at home - out on the street and at school every young Londoner speaks the same.
And to say it's killed Cockney is not strictly accurate. It's true that it has displaced it from inner city areas like Hackney or Peckham - but Cockney in turn displaced rural dialects in Essex and the Home Counties.
Dork Von Dick? Probably the most outrageous mispronunciation (founded and based on pi88-poor research) of any language anywhere in the 20th century!
"Greater London has two quite distinct working-class dialects besides standard middle-class southern British English." Effing kidding, inyer?
'Greater London has two distinct class working-class accents besides standard middle-class southern British English."
Given that white. born in Britain people are now (officially) a minority in London, where do Punjabi. Japanese, Hindustani, Chinese and about a hundred or more of other languages rate on your scale?
How many people who live and work in London were born there?
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