COCKNEY

The term 'cockney' is often used to refer to working-class inhabitants of London, particularly east London, and the slang used by these people. It is also often used in reference to the "cockney accent", the accent common among London's working-class.
A "true" cockney is often said to be someone born within earshot of the Bow Bells, i.e. the bells of St Mary-le-Bow church in Cheapside in the City of London (which is not itself in the East End). However, the bells were silent from the outbreak of World War II until 1961^[1]. Also, as the general din in London has increased, the area in which the bells can be heard has contracted. Formerly it included the City, Clerkenwell, Finsbury, Shoreditch, Hoxton, Stepney, Bethnal Green, Limehouse, Mile End, Wapping, Whitechapel, Shadwell, Bermondsey, Rotherhithe, Borough and Peckham
although according to the legend of Dick Whittington the bells could also be heard from as far away as Highgate^[2]. The association with Cockney and the East End in the public imagination maybe due to many people assuming that Bow Bells are to be found in the district of Bow, rather than the lesser known St Mary-le-Bow church.

Contents

Etymology

Cockney area

Cockney speech

Drama, fiction and poetry

Famous Londoners

Famous cockney performances

See also

References

Bibliography

External links

Etymology

The term was in use in this sense as early as 1600, when Samuel Rowlands, in his satire ''The Letting of Humours Blood in the Head-Vaine'', referred to 'a Bowe-bell Cockney'^[3]. John Minsheu (or Minshew) was the first lexicographer to define the word in this sense, in his ''Ductor in Linguas'' (1617), where he referred to 'A cockney or cockny, applied only to one born within the sound of Bow bell, that is in the City of London'^[4]. However, the etymologies he gave (from 'cock' and 'neigh', or from Latin ''incoctus'', raw) were just guesses, and the OED later authoritatively explained the term as originating from ''cock'' and ''egg'', meaning first a misshapen egg (1362), then a person ignorant of country ways (1521), then the senses mentioned above.
Francis Grose's ''A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'' (1785) derives the term from the following story:
:''A citizen of London, being in the country, and hearing a horse neigh, exclaimed, Lord! how that horse laughs! A by-stander telling him that noise was called Neighing, the next morning, when the cock crowed, the citizen to shew he had not forgot what was told him, cried out, Do you hear how the Cock Neighs?''^[5]
An alternative derivation of the word can be found in Webster's ''New Universal Unabridged Dictionary'': London was referred to by the Normans as the "Land of Sugar Cake" (Old French: ''pais de cocaigne''), an imaginary land of idleness and luxury. A humorous appellation, the word "Cocaigne" referred to all of London and its suburbs, and over time had a number of spellings: Cocagne, Cockayne, and in Middle English, Cocknay and Cockney. The latter two spellings could be used to refer to both pampered children, and residents of London, and to pamper or spoil a child was 'to cocker' him. (See, for example, John Locke, "...that most children's constitutions are either spoiled or at least harmed, by cockering and tenderness." from Some Thoughts Concerning Education, 1693)

Cockney area

The region in which "Cockneys" reside has changed over time, and is no longer the whole of London. As mentioned in the introduction, the traditional definition is that in order to be a Cockney, one must have been born within earshot of the Bow Bells. However, the church of St Mary-le-Bow was destroyed in the Great Fire of London and rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. After the bells were destroyed again in 1941 in The Blitz of World War II, and before they were replaced in 1961, there was a period when by this definition no 'Bow-bell' Cockneys could be born. The use of such a literal definition produces other problems, since traffic noise and the current lack of a hospital with a maternity ward in earshot of the church would also severely limit the number of 'true' Cockneys that could be born.
A study was carried by the city in 2000 to see how far the Bow Bells could be heard, and it was estimated that the bells would have been heard six miles to the east, five miles to the north, three miles to the south, and four miles to the west.
Thus while all East Enders are Cockneys, not all Cockneys are East Enders. The traditional core neighbourhoods of the East End are Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, Spitalfields, Stepney, Wapping, Limehouse, Poplar, Millwall, Hackney, Shoreditch, Bow and Mile End. The area gradually expanded as more land was built upon.
Migration of Cockneys has also led to migration of the dialect. As Chatham Dockyard expanded during the 18th Century, large numbers of workers were relocated from the dockland areas of London, bringing with them a "Cockney" accent and vocabulary. Within a short period this famously distinguished Chatham from the neighbouring areas, including the City of Rochester, which had the traditional Kentish accent. In Essex, towns that mostly grew up from post-war migration out of London (e.g. Basildon, Harlow and West Horndon) often have a strong Cockney influence on local speech.

Cockney speech

Cockney speakers have a distinctive accent and dialect, and frequently use Cockney rhyming slang. The Survey of English Dialects took a recording from a long-time resident of Hackney.[6]
John Camden Hotten, in his ''Slang Dictionary'' of 1859 makes reference to "their use of a peculiar slang language" when describing the costermongers of London's East End. In terms of other slang, there are also several borrowings from Yiddish, including ''kosher'' (originally Hebrew, via Yiddish, meaning ''legitimate'') and ''shtumm'' ( originally German, via Yiddish, meaning ''quiet''^[6]), as well as Romany, for example ''wonga'' (meaning ''money'', from the Romany "wanga" meaning coal^[7]), and ''cushty'' (from the Romany ''kushtipen'', meaning good). A fake Cockney accent, as used by some actors, is sometimes called 'Mockney'.
Typical features of Cockney speech include:

★ Use of the glottal stop as an allophone of in various positions^[8][8], including after a stressed syllable. may also be flapped intervocalically^[8]

★ Loss of dental fricatives^[8]:

★
★ becomes in all environments. "math"

★
★ becomes in all environments except word-initially when it is . "bother," "they."

★ Diphthong alterations^[8]:

★
★ → : "bait"

★
★ → : "coat"

★
★ → : "bite"

★
★ may be : "town"

★ Other vowel differences include

★
★ → or ^[8]: "tan"

★
★ → ^[8]

★
★ → when in non-final position^[8]

★
★ → ^[8]: "beet"

★
★ → or ^[8]: "boot"

★ Vocalisation of dark l, hence for Millwall. The actual realization of a vocalized is influenced by surrounding vowels and it may be realized as , or ^[8]

★ Grammatical features[9]:

★
★ Use of ''me'' instead of ''my'', for example, "At's me book you got 'ere ."

★
★ Use of ''ain't'' instead of ''isn't'', ''am not'', ''are not'', ''has not'', and ''have not''

★ Use of double negatives, for example "I didn't see nothing"
Most of the features mentioned above have in recent years partly spread into more general south-eastern speech, giving the accent called Estuary English; an Estuary speaker will use some but not all of the Cockney sounds. The characteristics of Cockney as opposed to Estuary are the dropping of H and grammatical features like the use of ''ain't''.
A television advertisement for Heineken beer in the 1980s showed a Sloane woman receiving elocution lessons in Cockney, parodying ''My Fair Lady''. In the advert, she was being taught to say "The wa'er in Majorca don' taste like wot it ough' a", but could only manage a posh rendition of "The water in Mallorca doesn't taste quite how it should" (until, of course, she drank the beer).
More recently, the Geico automobile insurance company has used a gecko lizard in its television advertising campaign that speaks in a cockney accent. The character is voiced by Jake Wood.
Today, certain elements of Cockney English are declining in usage within the area it is most associated with, displaced by a Jamaican Creole-influenced variety gaining popularity amongst young Londoners, particularly, though far from exclusively, those of Afro-Caribbean descent. Nevertheless, the glottal stop, double negatives, and the vocalization of the dark L (and other features of traditional cockney speech), along with some rhyming slang terms are still in common usage. As cockneys have moved out of London, they have often taken their dialect with them. There may actually be more speakers of the Cockney dialect in Dagenham than in Whitechapel, even though the former is not in the traditional Cockney area.

Drama, fiction and poetry

★ Albert and Harold Steptoe from comedy series ''Steptoe and Son''

★ The children in the movie ''Bedknobs and Broomsticks''

★ Colleen the London collie dog on the cartoon ''Road Rovers''

★ Miss Shirley Brahms (Wendy Richard) from the comedy series ''Are You Being Served?''

★ Rudyard Kipling's "The Widow at Windsor"

★ Jerry Cruncher in Charles Dickens' ''A Tale of Two Cities''

★ Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard Shaw's ''Pygmalion'' (see also ''My Fair Lady'')

★ The character Toad from ''Marvel Comics''

★ Gavroche Thenardier in English productions of the musical of ''Les Miserables'' (as an equivalent of Paris criminal Argot)

★ Fevvers in Angela Carter's novel ''Nights at the Circus''

★ William Somerset Maugham's novel ''Liza of Lambeth''

★ ''Me and My Girl'' (musical)

★ ''EastEnders'' soap opera

★ Wayne Winston Norris, the chirpy cockney carpenter in ''Auf Wiedersehen, Pet''

★ Private Joe Walker, infamous cockney spiv fron ''Dads Army''

★ Guy Ritchie films, such as ''Snatch'' and ''Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels''

★ Eliza Pinchley in ''Family Guy's spoof of ''My Fair Lady''

★ Tobias Ragg and the Beggar Woman in Stephen Sondheim's ''Sweeney Todd''

★ Basher Tarr in the movie ''Ocean's Eleven''

★ Danny Blue in the BBC TV series ''Hustle''

★ Wilson in the movie ''The Limey''

★ In the children's television series ''TUGS'', Ten Cents speaks with a Cockney accent.

★ In the video game ''Fable'', many of the townsfolk and characters speak with a Cockney accent.

★ Most characters in the musical and movie-musical ''Oliver!''

★ The characters in the Thames Television show ''Minder'' made liberal use of Cockney slang, and the show brought terms such as ''porkies'' into common use

★ The Hitcher and his accomplices in ''The Mighty Boosh''

★ Sid, the caretaker in the hit British comedy series ''Mind Your Language''

★ Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper, in ''Doctor Who''

★ Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer in T. S. Eliot's ''Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats'' and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical ''Cats''

★ Most characters in the movie ''Green Street Hooligans''

★ Lucy in ''Jekyll and Hyde the Musical''

★ Most characters in the movie ''To Sir, with Love''

★ Most characters in Harold Pinter's early plays

★ Most characters in the plays and fiction of Philip Ridley

★ Stan Shunpike in ''Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban''

★ Yangus in ''Dragon Quest VIII''

★ The Orks in the Warhammer 40,000 universe (and in the , RTS game series)

★ The Landlady and her Boarders in ''Lucky Stiff'', a musical comedy

★ Death of Inhaling Hatmaking Chemicals in Irregular Webcomic!

★ Corporal Peter Newkirk (played by Richard Dawson) in ''Hogan's Heroes''

★ Sadie in ''

★ Roman in ''Armed and Dangerous''

★ Pim Scutney and Rog Gobshire of Team Britain in the movie ''Beerfest''

★ Almost all characters in Nick Love's films ''The Football Factory'' and ''The Business''

★ Mordor Orcs in Peter Jackson's film trilogy The Lord of the Rings''

★ Sam, Mary, and other minor characters in John Fowles' ''The French Lieutenant's Woman''

★ Pinky, in "Pinky and the Brain"

★ Lee-Hom Wang's new song, "Cockney Girl"

★ Badger, from the television series ''Firefly''

Famous Londoners

★ The London Cockneys were a baseball team who played in the International League from London, Ontario but are now defunct.

★ The Cockney Rejects

★ Alfie Bass (actor, born in Bethnal Green)

★ Marc Bolan (singer, musician, born in Hackney)

★ Bernard Bresslaw (actor, born in Stepney)

★ Eric Bristow (darts player, born in Hackney)

★ Max Bygraves (Singer, songwriter and comedian, born in Rotherhithe)

★ Michael Caine (Hollywood Film Star, born in Rotherhithe)

★ George Carey (archbishop, born in Bow)

★ Charlie Chaplin (Hollywood Film Star, born in Walworth)

★ Chas and Dave

★ Jack Cohen (founder of Tesco supermarket chain, born in Whitechapel)

★ Windsor Davies (actor, born in Canning Town)

★ Roger Delgado, (actor, born in Whitechapel)

★ Craig Fairbrass (actor, born in Stepney)

★ Bud Flanagan, (actor, comedian, and singer, born in Whitechapel)

★ Samantha Fox (model/singer, born in Mile End) Note that she often pronounces her first name as "Samanfer", adding an "r"

★ Gary Holton (actor, musician, born in Hackney)

★ Kenney Jones (musician, born in Stepney

★ Kray twins, Ronald and Reginald (gangsters, born in Hoxton)

★ Ronnie Lane (musician, born in Bow)

★ Angela Lansbury (actress, born in Poplar)

★ Vera Lynn (singer, born in East Ham)

★ Lenny McLean (bare knuckle/unlicensed boxer/actor, born in Hoxton). Also known as "The Guv'nor". Played 'Barry the Baptist' in ''Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels''.

★ Gary Oldman (actor, director born in New Cross)

★ Mike Reid (actor/comedian, born in Hackney)

★ Philip Ridley (artist, writer, film maker, photographer born in Bethnal Green)

★ Roy Shaw (bare knuckle/unlicensed boxer, born in Stepney)

★ Terence Stamp (actor, born in Stepney)

★ Tommy Steele (singer, musician and actor, born in Bermondsey)

★ Sir Alan Sugar (Businessman, born in Hackney)

★ Barbara Windsor (actress, born in Shoreditch)

★ Ray Winstone (actor, born in Hackney)

Famous cockney performances

★ Bill Bailey's classic skit about cockney and classical composers

★ Timothy Bateson as The Worm in the film ''Labyrinth''

★ Ronnie Barker as 'Fletch' in the TV comedy series ''Porridge''

★ James Beck's lovable cockney spiv Private Joe Walker from war time comedy ''Dad's Army''

★ Kathy Burke as 'Linda LaHughes' in comedy series ''Gimme Gimme Gimme'' and the film ''Nil By Mouth''

★ Michael Caine in ''The Italian Job'' (original), ''The Ipcress File'' and the ''Jack the Ripper'' film. Examples of cockney slang can be found in his performance with Mike Myers in ''Austin Powers in Goldmember'', as well as his signature film, ''Alfie''.

★ Phil Daniels narrating on the title track of Blur's ''Parklife'' album

★ Don Cheadle's performance in ''Ocean's Eleven'' (2001)

★ Harry H. Corbett and Wilfred Brambell as Albert and Harold Steptoe in ''Steptoe and Son''

★ Arthur English as 'Beverley Harmon' and Wendy Richard as 'Shirley Brahms' in comedy series ''Are You Being Served?''

★ Gary Holton as 'Wayne Norris' in ''Auf Wiedersehen, Pet''

★ Bob Hoskins as 'Harold Shand' in ''The Long Good Friday and Mona Lisa''

★ Eric Idle in the song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" (''Life of Brian'')

★ David Jason as Del Boy (or Derick Trotter) in ''Only Fools and Horses'', though he was a South Londoner, he used much Cockney rhyming slang. Nearly all of the other characters in Fools and Horses were Londoners as well.

★ Ben Kingsley as 'Don Logan' in ''Sexy Beast'' (2000)

★ Juliet Landau as vampire Drusilla in TV shows ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' and ''Angel''.

★ James Marsters as Spike (Buffyverse) in ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' and ''Angel''.

★ Tress MacNeille as Colleen the London collie in the cartoon ''Road Rovers''

★ Warren Mitchell as Alf Garnett in ''Til Death Us Do Part''

★ Dick Van Dyke's infamous and much parodied attempt at a cockney accent which is often mocked as a 'how not to do Cockney' in ''Mary Poppins''

★ Simon Nash as Ten Cents in the children's television series ''TUGS'' (1989)

★ Catherine Tate as Joannie "Nan" Taylor in ''The Catherine Tate Show''

★ Jessie Wallace as 'Kat Slater' on the soap opera ''EastEnders''

★ Dennis Waterman and George Cole in the 1980s TV series ''Minder''

★ Ray Winstone in ''Scum'', ''Nil By Mouth'', ''Sexy Beast'' and ''Henry VIII''

★ Rita Malone in "Flushed Away"

★ Christian Bale as Alfred Borden in ''The Prestige (film)''

See also

★ British English

★ Cockney rhyming slang

★ Languages of the United Kingdom

★ London slang

References

1. [1]
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Bibliography

★ English Accents and Dialects: An Introduction to Social and Regional Varities of British English, Hughes, Arthur, , , University Park Press, 1979,

★ Cockney, Past and Present: a Short History of the Dialect of London, Matthews, William, , , Gale Research Company, 1938,

★ Cockney Phonology, Sivertsen, Eva, , , University of Oslo, 1960,

External links

★ Grose's 1811 dictionary

★ Whoohoo Cockney Rhyming Slang translator

★ Sounds Familiar? — Listen to examples of London and other regional accents and dialects of the UK on the British Library's 'Sounds Familiar' website

★ A Short Video of Cockney Speech