Multicultural London English

Multicultural London English
Region	London
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Ingvaeonic Anglo–Frisian Anglic English British English Multicultural London English
Early forms	Old English Middle English Early Modern English British English Multicultural London English
Writing system	English alphabet (Latin script) ― mainly a spoken dialect; MLE speakers write in standard British English.
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None

Multicultural London English (abbreviated MLE) is a sociolect of English that emerged in the late 20th century. It is spoken authentically by working-class, mainly young, people in London (although there is evidence to suggest that certain features are spreading further afield^[1]). According to research conducted at Lancaster University and Queen Mary University of London, "In much of the East End of London the Cockney dialect... will have disappeared within another generation.... it will be gone [from the East End] within 30 years.... It has been ‘transplanted’ to... [Essex and Hertfordshire New] towns."^[2]^[3]

As the label suggests, speakers of MLE come from a wide variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and live in diverse inner-city neighbourhoods such as Tower Hamlets and Hackney. As a result, it is (arguably) regarded as a multiethnolect.^[4] One study was unable ‘‘to isolate distinct (discrete) ethnic styles’’ in their data on phonetics and quotatives in Hackney and commented that the ‘‘differences between ethnicities, where they exist, are quantitative in nature’’.^[5] In fact, they find that it is diversity of friendship groups that is most important; the more ethnically diverse an adolescent's friendship networks are, the more likely it is that they will speak MLE.^[5]

In the press, MLE is often referred to as ‘‘Jafaican’’ because of ‘‘popular belief’’ that it stems from ‘‘immigrants of Jamaican and African descent’’.^[4]^[6]^[7] However, research suggests that the roots of MLE are much more complex.^[8]^[9]^[10] Two Economic and Social Research Council funded research projects^[11]^[12] found that MLE has most likely developed as a result of Language contact and group second language acquisition.^[13] Specifically, it can contain elements from ‘‘learners’ varieties of English, Englishes from the Indian subcontinent aka South Asia, Africa, Caribbean creoles and [Caribbean] Englishes, along with their indigenised London versions..., local London and south-eastern vernacular varieties of English, local and international youth slang, as well as more ... standard-like varieties from various sources’’.^[14]

Features

Grammar

Was/were variation: The past tense of the verb ‘‘to be’’ is regularised. Regularisation of was/were is something that is found elsewhere in the UK (and other varieties of English such as American English), but MLE has a unique system. Most non-standard systems use was variably for positive conjugations, and weren’t for negative conjugations (System 1 below) to make the distinction between positive and negative contexts clear.^[15] However, in MLE another system has emerged in which both positive and negative contexts have levelled to was.^[16] This feature is rarer among those of Bangladeshi ethnicity who are more likely to use the Standard English system.^[17]

Standard English	Non-standard system 1	Non-standard system 2 (MLE)
I was, I wasn't	I was, I weren't	I was, I wasn't
You were, you weren't	You was, you weren't	You was, you wasn't
He/she/it was, he/she/it wasn't	He/she/it was, he/she/it weren't	He/she/it was, he/she/it wasn't
We were, we weren't	We was, we weren't	We was, we wasn't

An innovative feature is the ability to form questions in ‘‘Why ... for?’’^[17] compared to Standard English ‘‘Why ...?’’ or ‘‘What ... for?’’.
Tag-questions are limited to ‘‘isn’t it’’, realised as ‘‘innit’’, and the corresponding ‘‘is it?’’.
The ‘‘traditional Southern’’^[17] England phrasal preposition ‘‘off of’’ has ‘‘robust use’’,^[17] especially with ‘‘Anglo females’’.^[17]
Man as a pronoun: is sometimes used as a first-person singular pronoun, which may be rendered ‘‘manz’’ when combined with certain verbs such as ‘‘to be’’ and ‘‘to have’’: ‘‘manz got arrested’’, ‘‘manz getting emotional’’. ‘‘Man’’ can also be used to refer to the second-person singular: ‘‘Where's man going?’’ (Where are you going?)

Phonology

Like many other varieties of British English, Multicultural London English is non-rhotic.

Phonetics

While older speakers in London display a vowel and consonant system that matches earlier descriptions, young speakers largely have different qualities. The qualities are on the whole not the levelled ones noted in recent studies (such as Williams & Kerswill 1999 and Przedlacka 2002) of teenage speakers in South East England outside London: Milton Keynes, Reading, Luton, Essex, Slough and Ashford. Yet, from principles of levelling, it would be expected that younger speakers would show precisely these levelled qualities, with further developments reflecting the innovatory status of London as well as the passage of time. However, evidence, such as Kerswill & al. 2006 and Torgerson & al. 2007, contradicts that expectation:\

Vowels

fronting of /ʊ/ ‘‘less advanced in London than in periphery’’:^[18]‘‘lack of fronting of /ʊ/ in inner city is conservative, matching Caribbean Englishes’’.^[18]
lack of /oʊ/-fronting: fronting of the offset of /oʊ/ ‘‘absent in most inner-London speakers’’ of both sexes and all ethnicities, ‘‘present in outer-city girls’’.^[18]
/aɪ/-lowering across region: it is seen as a reversal of the Diphthong Shift.^[19] However, the added fronting is greater in London than in the south-east periphery, resulting in variants such as [aɪ]. Fronting and monophthongisation of /aɪ/ is correlated with ethnicity; it is strongest among non-whites. It seems to be a geographically directional and diachronically gradual process. The change (from approximately [ɔɪ]) involves lowering of the onset, and as such, it is a reversal of the Diphthong Shift. It is interpretable as a London innovation with diffusion to the periphery.
raised onset of the vowel in words like FACE: this results in variants such as [eɪ]. Like /aɪ/, monophthongisation of /eɪ/ is strongest among non-whites. It is also seen as a reversal of the Diphthong Shift.
/aʊ/ realised as [aː] and not ‘‘levelled’’ [aʊ]: In inner-city London, [aː] is the norm for /aʊ/. Additionally, [ɑʊ] is used by some non-whites, especially girls, in the inner city.
Advanced fronting of /uː/: It results in realisations such as [ʏː]. ‘‘Unexpectedly, it [is] most advanced among non-Anglo Londoners and Anglos with non-Anglo networks’’.^[18]
Backing of /æ/:^[18] This can result in variants such as [a̠].
Backing of /ʌ/:^[18] This results in variants such as [ɑ] or [ʌ], rather than [ɐ].

Consonants

Reversal of H-dropping^[18] - word initial /h/ was commonly dropped in traditional cockney in words like hair and hand. This is now much less common, with some MLE speakers not dropping /h/ at all.
Backing of /k/ to [q] - /k/ is pronounced further back in the vocal tract and realised as [q] when it occurs before non-high back vowels, such as in words like cousin and come.^[13]^[17]^[20]
Th-fronting - interdental fricatives can be fronted, so that /θ/ is fronted to [f] in words such as three and through (which become free and frough), and /ð/ is fronted to [v], e.g. brother becomes brover, another becomes anover.
th-stopping - both voiced and voiceless interdental fricatives can be stopped, so that thing becomes ting, and that becomes dat.^[13]^[21]
According to Geoff Lindsey, one of the most striking features of MLE is the advanced articulation of the sibilants /s, z/ as post-dental [s̪, z̪].^[22]

Vocabulary

Examples of vocabulary common in Multicultural London English include:

Adjectives

‘‘Bait’’ (obvious/well known)
‘‘Bare’’ [bɛː] / [ɓɛː] (latter for further emphasis) (Generic intensifier)
‘‘Clapped’’ (ugly)
‘‘Peak’’ [piːk] (Serious/unfortunate)
‘‘Peng’’ (Attractive)
‘‘Buff’’ (Attractive) (often used in conjunction with ‘‘Ting’’ meaning an attractive situation, or more commonly, an attractive female)
‘‘Deep’’ (profound)

Interjections

‘‘Dun know’’ (‘‘of course’’, also an expression of approval)
‘‘Alie!’’ (‘‘I know’’, or an expression of agreement)
‘‘Oh my days!’’ [oʊ maː deɪz] (a generalised exclamation)
‘‘Safe’’ [seɪf] (expression of approval, greeting, thanks, agreement, and also used as a parting phrase)

Pronouns

‘‘Man’’ [mæn] (First-person singular)
‘‘Them Man’’ [mæn] (They)
‘‘Us Man’’ [mæn] (We)

Nouns

‘‘Akh’’ (an endearing term, derived from the Arabic word for brother)
‘‘Bruv’’ (an endearing term used for a close friend or brother)
‘‘Creps’’ (shoes)
‘‘Cunch’’ (the countryside or any town outside London)
‘‘Ends’’ [ɛnz] (Neighbourhood)
‘‘Fam’’ [fæm] (Short for ‘‘family’’, can refer to ‘‘friend’’)
‘‘Myth’’ (used when something is untrue or not going to happen)
‘‘Mandem’’ (group of males)
‘‘OT’’ (out of town)
‘‘Paigon’’ [ˈpeɪɡən] (A modified spelling of English word ‘‘pagan’’, to refer to a fake friend/enemy)
‘‘Roadman’’ (a youth who spends a lot of his time on the streets, can also be used as a general slur)
‘‘Sket’’ (a promiscuous female)
‘‘Ting’’ (a thing or a situation, also an attractive female e.g. 'bad tings')
‘‘Wasteman’’ (A worthless/useless person)
‘‘Yard’’ [jɑːd] (House)

Verbs

‘‘Aks’’ (ask, an example of metathesis that also occurs in West Country dialects)
‘‘Allow’’ (to urge someone else to exercise self-restraint)
‘‘Buss’’ (to wear something or to introduce someone to something, or to ejaculate)
‘‘Cut’’ (to leave)
‘‘Jerk’’ (to rob)
‘‘Link’’ (to rendez-vous)

Use in popular culture

The Bhangra Muffins from Goodness Gracious Me use an early form of Multicultural London English.
Characters of all ethnicities in the Channel 4 series Phoneshop use Multicultural London English.
Characters in the film KiDULTHOOD and its sequel AdULTHOOD also use the dialect as well as its parody Anuvahood.
The satirical character Ali G parodies the speech patterns of Multicultural London English for comic effect.
The gang-member protagonists of the film Attack the Block speak Multicultural London English.
Lauren Cooper (and her friends Lisa and Ryan) from The Catherine Tate Show often use Multicultural London English vocabulary.
In the feature film Kingsman: The Secret Service, the hero Gary ‘‘Eggsy’’ Unwin uses MLE but his mother and step-father use standard Cockney.
Lisa, the police officer in Little Miss Jocelyn, speaks Multicultural London English, using her knowledge thereof to interpret speech for colleagues.
Armstrong & Miller has a series of Second World War sketches with two RAF pilots who juxtapose MLE with a 1940s RP accent.
A BBC article about Adele mentioned her as being a speaker of Multicultural London English.^[23]

Citations

↑ "UrBEn-ID Urban British English project".
↑ University of Lancaster press release 2010.
↑ BBC News 2010.
1 2 Cheshire, Jenny; Nortier, Jacomine; Adger, David (2015). "Emerging Multiethnolects in Europe" (PDF). Queen Mary Occasional Papers in Linguistics: 4.
1 2 Cheshire, Jenny; Fox, Sue; Kerswill, Paul; Torgersen, Eivind (2008). "Ethnicity, friendship network and social practices as the motor of dialect change: Linguistic innovation in London". Sociolinguistica. 22 (1): 1–23. doi:10.1515/9783484605299.1.
↑ Braier, Rachel (2013). "Jafaican? No we're not.". The Guardian.
↑ Clark, Laura (2006). "Jafaican is wiping out inner-city English accents". The Daily Mail.
↑ "Paul Kerswill, University of York webpage".
↑ "Susan Fox, University of Bern webpage".
↑ "Eivind Torgersen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology webpage".
↑ "Linguistic Innovators: The English of Adolescents in London ESRC grant page".
↑ "Multicultural London English: the emergence, acquisition and diffusion of a new variety ESRC grant page".
1 2 3 Cheshire, Jenny; Kerswill, Paul; Fox, Sue; Torgersen, Eivind (2011-04-01). "Contact, the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of Multicultural London English". Journal of Sociolinguistics. 15 (2): 151–196. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9841.2011.00478.x. ISSN 1467-9841.
↑ Kerswill 2013, p. 5.
↑ Wolfram, Walt; Schilling-Estes, Natalie (1994). "Convergent explanation and alternative regularization patterns: Were/weren't leveling in a vernacular English variety.". Language Variation and Change. 6:273-302.
↑ Cheshire, Jenny; Fox, Sue (2008). "Was/were variation: A perspective from London". Language Variation and Change. 21 (1): 1–38. doi:10.1017/S0954394509000015. ISSN 1469-8021.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Kerswill 2007.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Kerswill et al. 2006.
↑ Cheshire et al. 2005.
↑ Torgerson et al. 2007.
↑ FASS.
↑ Lindsey 2011.
↑ BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35152397 BBC Check |url= value (help). Missing or empty |title= (help)

References

University of Lancaster press release, "Research shows that Cockney will disappear from London's streets within a generation". 2010.
BBC News, 1 July 2010 Cockney to disappear from London 'within 30 years',
Kerswill, Paul (2013), Identity, ethnicity and place: the construction of youth language in London. In: Auer, Peter, Hilpert, Martin, Stukenbrock, Anja and Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt,(eds.) Space in language and linguistics. linguae and litterae . Walter de Gruyter, pp. 128–164. ISBN 978-3-11-031202-7
Cheshire, Jenny; Nortier, Jacomine; Adger, David (2015), Emerging multiethnolects in Europe (PDF), Queen Mary's Occasional Papers Advancing Linguistics, 33
Cheshire, Jenny; Fox, Sue; Kerswill, Paul; Torgersen, Eivind (2008), Ulrich Ammon and Mattheier, {Klaus J.}, ed., "Ethnicity, friendship network and social practices as the motor of dialect change: linguistic innovation in London" (PDF), Sociolinguistica : International Yearbook of European Sociolinguistics, Max Niemeyer Verlag, 22: 1–23, ISBN 978-3-484-60528-2
"www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/faculty/activities/539/".
Kerswill, Paul (2007). "Linguistic Innovators: The English of Adolescents in London: Full Research Report" (PDF). ESRC End of Award Report.
Kerswill, Paul; Torgerson, Eivind; Fox, Sue (2006), "Innovation in inner‐London teenage speech", NWAV35, Columbus (PDF)
Torgersen, Eivind; Kerswill, Paul; Fox, Susan (2007), "Phonological innovation in London teenage speech", 4th Conference on Language Variation in Europe (PDF), archived (PDF) from the original on 9 June 2011
Cheshire, Jenny; Fox, Sue; Kerwill, Paul; Torgerson, Eivind (2005). "Reversing 'drift': Changes in the London diphthong system" (PDF). University of Lancaster.
Lindsey, Geoff (2011). "english speech services | Accent of the Year / sibilants in MLE". Retrieved 2 December 2015.

External links

Emily Ashton, Learn Jafaikan in Two Minutes, The Guardian, 12 April 2006.

Dialects and accents of Modern English by continent

Europe

United Kingdom

England	Varieties by common name Barrovian Black Country Brummie Bristolian Cheshire Cockney "Mockney" Cornish Cumbrian East Anglian East Midlands Essex Estuary Geordie Kentish Lancastrian Mackem Mancunian Multicultural London Norfolk Northern Pitmatic Potteries Received Pronunciation Scouse Southern Suffolk Sussex West Country "Mummerset" West Midlands Yorkshire Varieties by geographic location East of England Essex Norfolk Suffolk East Midlands North Cheshire Cumbria [Barrow] Lancashire Manchester Merseyside Sunderland Tyneside Yorkshire South Kent Thames Estuary; London [Multicultural London] Sussex West Country Bristol Cornwall Dorset West Midlands Black Country Birmingham Stoke-on-Trent

Northern Ireland	Mid Ulster Ulster Scots

Scotland	Glasgow Highlands Lowlands

Wales	Cardiff Gower

Ireland

Channel Islands

Elsewhere

North and
South
America

United States	Varieties by common name African American Appalachian Baltimorese Boston Cajun California Chicago; Detroit; Great Lakes Chicano Delaware Valley General American High Tider Maine Miami Midland Midwestern New England New Mexican New York; Brooklynese; North Jersey New York Latino Old Southern Ozark Pacific Northwest Pennsylvania Dutch Philadelphia; South Jersey Pittsburghese Rhode Island Southern Texan Upper Midwestern Western Vermont Yat Yeshivish Yooper Varieties by geographic location Delaware Valley; Mid-Atlantic Pennsylvania Dutch Philadelphia Baltimore Midland Midwest Great Lakes; Inland North Upper Midwest Upper Peninsula of Michigan New England Boston Maine Rhode Island Vermont New York City New York Latino North South Acadiana Appalachia Chesapeake; Pamlico Miami New Orleans Ozarks Texas West California New Mexico Pacific Northwest Western Pennsylvania

Canada	Aboriginal Atlantic Cape Breton Newfoundland Lunenburg Standard Ottawa Valley Pacific Northwest Quebec

Caribbean	Bahamas Barbados Dominican Republic Jamaica Puerto Rico Trinidad

Elsewhere	Bermuda Falkland Islands Guyana

Oceania

Australia	Aboriginal Broad; Strine General Southern Torres Strait Western

Elsewhere	Fiji New Zealand Palau Solomon Islands

Other
continents

Africa	Cameroon Ghana Kenya Liberia Malawi Namibia Nigeria Sierra Leone South Africa Afrikaans Black Cape Flats Indian White Uganda

Asia	Bangladesh Brunei Burma or Myanmar Hong Kong India Malaysia Nepal Pakistan Philippines Singapore Sri Lanka

Black British topics

Black British history	First Africans in London Atlantic slave trade Abolitionism Empire Windrush Bristol Bus Boycott Race Relations Act 1965 Decline and legacy of the British Empire Race riots

Black British culture	Music British hip hop Ska Caribbean Grime UK garage Dubstep Jungle Drum and Bass

Civic and economic groups	Black and Asian Studies Association Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor National Black Police Association

Ethnic and national sub-divisions	African-Caribbean Antiguan and Barbudan Barbadian Jamaican Guyanese Montserratians Trinidadian and Tobagonian Congolese Ghanaian Ivorian Kenyan Nigerian Sierra Leonean Tanzanian Ugandan Zimbabwean Other black groups

Languages	British English Multicultural London English

Lists	Black Britons Large and significant communities

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