Cockney Accent and Dialect

By Courtney and Hannah

Where did it come from?

Rhyming slang is believed to have originated from the
East End of London in 1840s.
Its not known if rhyming slang was a linguistic
accident or a game to intentionally confuse non-locals.
If deliberate, it may have been used to maintain a sense
of community. It is possible that it was used in the
marketplace to allow vendors to talk amongst
themselves without customers knowing what they
were saying. Or another suggestion is that it may have
been used by criminals to confuse the police.

Dialect - Cockney Rhyming Slang Words

and Phrases:

Apples and Pears Stairs

Barney Rubble Trouble
Bob Hope Soap
Dicky Dirt Shirt
Dinky Doos Shoes
Trouble and Strife Wife
Tomfoolery Jewellery

Backslang

Owt for two.

Yob (sometimes modified to yobbo) boy.
Elrig for girl
Shif for fish
Eno for one
Erth for three

Characteristics of Cockney Accent

There are a great many phonetic differences between Cockney and RP, some
of the most noticeable are:
1. th
Cockney would replace voiceless th in words like think, theatre, author, with /f/,
Similarly, voiced th in the, this, and Northern, would be pronounced /v/
2. Glottal Stops
Cockney speakers will use glottal stops to replace /t/ before consonants and weak vowels
It is also common for a glottal stop to replace a /k/ before a consonant, cottage and butter.
3. // replaced with /e/
Any word producing the front open // vowel would be pronounced with mid-open /e/ instead:
black, hat, that, ran.
4. h dropping

In cockney, you dont pronounce /h/ at all. Eg, house, horse, how.

Cockney Grammar
Cockney is by and large general nonstandard.
It uses as double negatives. (There aint nuffink like it.)
Mixes done and seen for did and saw. (I done it yesterday, I just seen er.)

Question tags are commonly used to invite agreement or show their position.
(I'm elpin you now, inneye?, Well, e knew all abaht it, dinnee?)
Prepositions to and at are frequently dropped in relation to places. (I'm goin
down the pub, He's round is mate's, They're over me mum's.)
Object prepositions commonly mixed. (My shoes = me shoes, those shoes =
them shoes.)
Doesnt, havent, isnt, arent, hasn't = aint

Examples~!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0fNaH5f
BXo