Cockney

Origin of the word

The word cockney was employed for the first time at the beginning of the XVIIe century by Samuel Rowlands in his Head-Vain Satire The Letting off Blood Humors in the where it refers to a “ Bow-beautiful Cockney ”.

According to the dictionary Webster' S New Universal Unabridged Dictionary , the word cockney could derive from the French expression “ Country of Cocagne ”, expression that the Normands used to indicate London, place of idleness and luxury. Another possible etymology is that of the expression formed starting from cock (cock) and egg (egg), indicating an egg malformed (1362), then with the direction illustrated a person being unaware of the local habits (1521).

The area covered by the term cockney , with the direction indicated in the introduction, varied progressively

The speech cockney

The accent

The cockney indicates also the way of speaking about Cockneys. It is a very popular accent in the sense that it indicates a low social class. It is possible that the accent cockney is at the beginning an imitation of the French accent, which represented the accent of the high society in old times. The characteristics of the cockney speech are the following ones:

First of all, one finds regional components which indicate the south and south-east:

the has are serious and long deliveries before the consonants affricate consonant S: fatty , gaff , etc
the accent is not rhotic, i.e. the R final decide only with the connection, as in standard English.

winner , the winner is .
door , door opening *Le R quiet can come to decide where he is not written. data=dater
dated , dated analysis

On the level of the consonants, one finds certain features of the French accent:

'' HT '' deaf θ often decides like F. Example: breath , marked * sound '' HT '' 2D often decides like v. Example: breathe marked * The H initial tomb frequently. head marked These achievements can be found in other regional accents.

There are however two details which indicate a speech of London infallibly:

the L final or preceding a consonant is tiny room to a dark L very marked, near to one or one. milk will decide.
the goat Split is a complex phenomenon which affects the opening of the Diphtongue/əʊ/, making it approach /a ʊ/. Thus, know will tend towards now , while of now will be flattened in one. This opening is a division (Split) Phonème because it always does not affect it: thus one will be able to attend the differentiation of two Homophone S, for example holy and wholly which will be carried out respectively and. (without considering the fall of H, cf supra.)

the long vowels are diphtonguées. Example: fleece , marked The closing diphthongs also have English a particular distribution of London, more marked even in Cockney:
/e ɪ/~> /a ɪ/
/a ɪ/~>/ɑɪ/; /ɔɪ/
/ɔɪ/~> /o ɪ/

It is what one calls the diphthong shift . Thus, bee bay buy servant boy will decide beɪ baɪ bɔɪ in standard English, and baɪ bɑɪ boɪ in Cockney. This shift of the diphthongs is also found in other accents, in particular Brummie (Birmingham).

the opening of the vowel is sensitive.

London will decide.

O long tends to be closed.

Door will be carried out closer to than standard.

Sometimes, the vowel of batch will be closed.

One can hear it in certain words, like cloth and stop .

the Glottal stop (glottal stop) is very frequent.

This consonant corresponding to the attack of a vowel comes to replace the T in median or final position. Butter will be said, subdue . This is not typical of London but indicates a speech of the popular classes. Tony Blair could be criticized to try to enamel its speech of glottal stops with a purely demagogic aim.

The Rhyming slang

The people speaking cockney use readily the cockney rhyming slang , which is a Argot with the picturesque expressions. As its name indicates it, this slang is based on rhymes, but these rhymes are implied in practice: the starting idea is to make correspond to any word a pair of words with which it rhyme, then to remove the second word of the pair in the spoken language. Ex: stairs will rimera with apples and pears , and one will thus say apples to say staircases. Of the same phon will rimera with dog and bone and dog will want to say telephone.

In practice, the cockney does not use the rhyming slang with abundance. As its overuse is often revealing of a counterfeit of the accent, what is called usually the mockney , as numbers of actors, singers, etc adopt.

Cockneys famous

Fictions

Elisa Dolittle, in the Pygmalion of George Bernard Shaw

Personalities

David Beckham, David Bowie, Mike Skinner (of The Streets), Eddie Argos (of Rough Art), Alfred Hitchcock, Jimmy Pursey (of Sham 69) and Keira Knightley or Carl Barat appear among Cockneys most known.

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