Cockney
Cockney is a dialect of the English language, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by Londoners with working-class and lower middle-class roots. 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]
For other uses, see Cockney (disambiguation).Estuary English is an intermediate accent between Cockney and Received Pronunciation, also widely spoken in and around London, as well as in wider South Eastern 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.
Words and phrases[edit]
Etymology of Cockney[edit]
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][13]
The current meaning of Cockney comes from its use among rural Englishmen (attested in 1520) as a pejorative term for effeminate town-dwellers,[15][10] from an earlier general sense (encountered in "The Reeve's Tale" of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales c. 1386) of a "cokenay" as "a child tenderly brought up" and, by extension, "an effeminate fellow" or "a milksop".[16] This may have developed from the sources above or separately, alongside such terms as "cock" and "cocker" which both have the sense of "to make a nestle-cock ... or the darling of", "to indulge or pamper".[18][19] By 1600, this meaning of cockney was being particularly associated with the Bow Bells area.[4][20] 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."[21] The same year, John Minsheu included the term in this newly restricted sense in his dictionary Ductor in Linguas.[25]
Th-fronting
[52]
Yod-coalescence, in words such as tune [tʃʰʉːn] or reduce [ɹɪˈdʒʉːs] (compare traditional RP [ˈtjuːn, ɹɪˈdjuːs]).
[55]
The /t/, /d/ are often omitted in informal Cockney, in non-prevocalic environments, including some that cannot be omitted in Received Pronunciation. Examples include [ˈdæzɡənə] Dad's gonna and [ˈtɜːn ˈlef] turn left.[56]
alveolar stops
actor and comedian known for playing Jay in The Inbetweeners, born in Croydon, raised in Dagenham
James Buckley
comic actor, filmmaker, and composer, 16 April 1889, born in Walworth, raised in Kennington[115]
Charlie Chaplin
rock guitarist with the Sex Pistols, singer, actor and radio DJ, from Shepherd's Bush[151][152][153]
Steve Jones
identical twin brothers, gangsters, and business owners, born in Hoxton and lived in Bethnal Green
Ronnie and Reggie Kray
former Mayor of London and leader of the Greater London Council, born in Streatham[154]
Ken Livingstone
also known as Johnny Rotten, punk rock singer with the Sex Pistols, born in Holloway[155]
John Lydon
actor, known for playing Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part, from Stoke Newington[114]
Warren Mitchell
businessman, founder of Pimlico Plumbers, born in St Pancras, raised in Elephant and Castle
Charlie Mullins
the actor born in Camberwell in 1889, became famous after abandoning his heavy Cockney accent and developing a unique Mid-Atlantic accent described as "half American, half English and a little Cockney thrown in"
Claude Rains
author, businessman, and former criminal, born in Stepney, lived in Bethnal Green and Waltham Abbey
Roy Shaw
actress, known for her role as Nancy in the 1968 Musical Film "Oliver!", born in Tottenham
Shani Wallis
Up the Junction
Alfie
. Fagin and his working orphans, particularly The Artful Dodger and Nancy, speak in Cockney
Oliver!
. The film had to be subtitled when released in the United States due to audience comprehension difficulties.[174]
Sparrows Can't Sing
. The DVD of this film has an extra feature that explains the rhyming slang used.
The Long Good Friday
, a musical based on Bernard Shaw's play.
My Fair Lady
, a West End musical comedy (with Cockney speech in the title) about Cockney low-life characters.
Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be
(with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who plays Jack, stating "If they [the audience] didn't like Dick's accent, they'll be furious with mine")
Mary Poppins Returns
— Mrs. Nellie Lovett and Tobias Ragg have Cockney accents.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
. A newspaper headline in the film refers to the Pimlico residents as "crushed Cockneys".
Passport to Pimlico
Cockneys vs Zombies
The orcs speak in cockney accents
The Lord of the Rings (film series)
. Ragamuffin, portrayed by Jason Michas, has a Cockney accent.
My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Spring Breakdown
The Gentlemen
Football Factory
Green Street Elite
. The two main characters, Ronnie and Reggie Kray plus a certain number of other characters have a cockney accent.
Legend
. The characters Alfie Solomons and Billie Kimber speak with a cockney accent.
Peaky Blinders
and Blood & Truth are video games released by Sony that center around cockney gangster culture.
The Getaway
Cockney Wanker
EastEnders
Estuary English
Languages of the United Kingdom
List of British regional nicknames
London slang
Mockney
Possessive me
Cockney rhyming slang
Cruttenden, A. (2001). Gimson's Pronunciation of English (6th ed.). London: Arnold.
Ellis, Alexander J. (1890). English dialects: Their Sounds and Homes.
Hughes, Arthur; Trudgill, Peter (1979). English Accents and Dialects: An Introduction to Social and Regional Varieties of British English. Baltimore: University Park Press.
; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
Ladefoged, Peter
Matthews, William (1938). Cockney, Past and Present: a Short History of the Dialect of London. Detroit: Gale Research Company.
Rogaliński, Paweł (2011). British Accents: Cockney, RP, Estuary English. 978-83-272-3282-3.
Łódź, Poland
ISBN
Sivertsen, Eva (1960). Cockney Phonology. Oslo: University of Oslo.
(1982). Accents of English. Vol. 1: An Introduction (pp. i–xx, 1–278), Vol. 2: The British Isles (pp. i–xx, 279–466). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511611759. ISBN 0-52129719-2 , 0-52128540-2 .
Wells, John C.
Wright, Peter (1981). Cockney Dialect and Slang. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd.
Cole, Amanda (4 November 2022). . Dialectologia et Geolinguistica. 30. De Gruyter Mouton: 91–114. doi:10.1515/dialect-2022-0005. S2CID 253258669.
"Cockney moved East: the dialect of the first generation of East Londoners raised in Essex"
Grose's 1811 dictionary
Whoohoo Cockney Rhyming Slang translator
Money slang expressions
— Listen to examples of London and other regional accents and dialects of the UK on the British Library's "Sounds Familiar" website