Thursday 1 July 2010

The 500 year old Cockney Accent "will vanish from London within 30 Years"


From Today's BBC News website
The Cockney accent will disappear from London's streets within 30 years, according to new research.

A study by Paul Kerswill, Professor of Sociolinguistics at Lancaster University shows the Cockney accent will move further east. In London, Cockney will be replaced by Multicultural London English - a mixture of Cockney, Bangladeshi and West Indian accents - the study shows.

"It will be gone within 30 years," says Prof Kerswill.

'Jafaican'

The study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, says the accent, which has been around for more than 500 years, is being replaced in London by a new hybrid language.

The new accent, known in slang terms as Jafaican, is most famously spoken by rap star Dizzee Rascal.
How can people not see this for the ethnic cleansing that it is?

"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," Prof Kerswill says.

There is some hope maybe ......

White flight

Traditional Cockneys have moved out of the capital and into the surrounding counties of Essex and Hertfordshire, especially towns such as Romford and Southend, the study suggests.

In these areas, the accent and the culture continues to thrive and many teenagers still proudly claim their Cockney roots, according to the study.

But how long before Jafaican follows them there?

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UPDATE

The Asian TV news reader who reported this story on the BBC London news at 06:30, presented the story as "Traditional Cockney is being replaced by something more modern .....!"

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is very interesting. Here in the US virtually the same thing has happened in the South with the migration of Northern whites to Southern states as well as Northern blacks moving there as well, along with many foreigners "of color". The native Southerners have moved further inland (West) and the Southern accent has disappeared from states such as North Carolina.

Anonymous said...

My son, was born in Essex, he moved to another part of England a while ago, he's started picking up the accent that is unique to that area. That's normal because the local people are the majority and therefore he is more exposed to their accent.

The scary thing is in London it's the other way around, in some areas the immigrants far outnumber the local population and therefore the local kids pick up different accents and then you get the bastardised Jafaican.

I've lost count of the times I've been on the bus and heard white English kids speak like they're from Jamaica. It grates so much so that I've been tempted a few time to tell them to speak properly.

Labour has a lot to answer for, ethnic cleanising of the English people is one of the charges against them.

Totally unrelated but have you noticed there's not even the tiniest mention on the BBC website about the release of some of the documents from the Chilcot enquiry?

They prove Tony Blair lied to us about Iraq. What's the betting he'll not face any charges.

twwonline said...

"Something more modern?" They love throwing those terms about. 'modern', 'progressive,' 'forward thinking.' It's become blatantly clear that, if you're white, you're not supposed to have any sense of ethnic solidarity and beyond that, you have to accept every form of human mongrelization that comes along without question.