“Cockney: An Overview of the London
dialect and its representation in
fictional works.”
I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Daniela Cesiri, for her patience, kindness
and her invaluable advice. My appreciation also goes to my parents for their support
throughout my studies and to my boyfriend Mattia.
Finally, many thanks go to my friend Laura, whose apartment in Bermondsey was
inspirational.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE
The History of Cockney
Origins of Cockney
Cockney during the 18th and 19th century
Cockney during 20th century and in present-day English
CHAPTER TWO
Linguistic Features
Pronunciation
Grammar
Cockney Rhyming Slang
CHAPTER THREE
Sociolinguistic Features
Representation of Cockney in Literature, Music and Cinema
Social perception of Cockney and its influence on Standard English
CONCLUSIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION
Cockney has intrigued me since I first heard about it when I was at the Secondary School, when my
English teacher introduced to those young students a strange dialect of English. Through the years, I
went to London several times and I felt curious to hear new rhymes each time. When I studied
Cockney at the university, I knew it could be the right topic for my thesis because, in my opinion, it
seems a perfect way of combining business and pleasure.
First of all, we must make clear the difference between two important words, dialect and
accent. We shall use dialect to refer to varieties distinguished from each other by differences in
grammar and vocabulary. On the other hand, we use accent to refer to varieties that have different
pronunciations (Hughes –Trudgill 1987: 11-12).
In Chapter One, I will introduce the Cockney dialect and slang answering simple questions
such as: Where it was born or why analysing its history throughout the centuries and its situation in
Present-day English, giving a precise definition of Cockney. In Chapter Two, I will list the
Linguistic features of Cockney, regarding its phonetics and phonology, grammar and the so-called
Rhyming Slang. In Chapter Three, I will show the socio-linguistic features of Cockney with
different Cases in literature, music and cinema.
To conclude, I will try to illustrate what was Cockney in the past and which is its meaning
today, how it developed throughout the centuries and its social perception among Londoners and
non-Cockney speaking.
CHAPTER ONE
The History of Cockney
1.1 The origins of Cockney
In England, there is one standard language recognised nationwide as the only official language; all
non-standard varieties are considered more dialects than varieties and are used only in limited areas;
this is the case of Cockney.
It first appeared in 1362, when it meant a “cock’s egg”, indicating a misshapen egg. During
the Early Modern English (EModE) period, it was used when referring to a weak townsman,
opposed to a strong fellow citizen. It was during the 17th century, the term came to indicate a
Londoner and traditionally refers only to a specific region and speakers within the City. It began
200 years ago, as a secret language of the London underworld and it was the typical accent of
London working class. Originally, a true Cockney is someone who is born within hearing distance
of the bells of St. Mary le Bow, Cheapside, in the City of London. Further to a study carried out in
2000 to see how far the Bow Bells could be heard, it was estimated that they would have been
audible six miles to the east, five to the north, three to the south, and four to the west. An area that
covers Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, Spitalfields, Stepney, Wapping, Limehouse, Poplar, Millwall,
Hackney, Hoxton, Shoreditch, Bow, and Mile End, as well as Bermondsey, south of the River
Thames (OED)
The OED‘s first recorded use of Cockney language is dated 1776, but it has been suggested
that a Cockney style of speech is much older as there are examples of the use of Cockney in 16th
century studies of the English pronunciation. Although, it was not until the 18th century that the
phoneticians began to consider Cockney. The problem in researching its origins is in the fact that it
was largely a spoken language with very few written records and, as mentioned before, it was a
secret code used by traders, thieves and London working class. In order to see one of the first use of
Cockney, we have to go back to the dialogues in the Elizabethan and Jacobean plays and on
colloquial documentations written by Londoners of that period. Plays dealing with London life do
not appear until Shakespeare’s time because before than dramatists were too concerned within
imitating Greek and Roman classics. It was with the development of the chronicle plays that writers
realized there was drama in English stories and traditions and that a character with an English name
1
could be as effective on the stage of one whose name ended with “o” like the Italians for example
(OED).
Shakespeare’s treatment of the Cockney is best known in the character of Mistress Quickly, a
portrait of a character that has become one of the puppets in the dramatist’s cupboard, the Cockney
char-woman. Although she is given only few Cockney pronunciations, her explosions differ from
the laws of polite speech in a way that she seems to be closer to other London characters (Matthews
1972:4-5).
“I am undone by this going; I warrant you he’s an infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang,
hold him sure: good Master Snare, let him not ‘scape. A’ comes continuantly to Pie –coner – saving
your manhoods – to buy a saddle; and he is indited to dinner at the Lubber’s – head in Lumbert
street, to Master Smooth’s the silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is entered and my case so openly
known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer […]”. (Henry IV, Part II, ii.)
Furthermore, in the drama of this period the most careful study of Cockney speech is to be found in
The Knight of the Burning Pestle, a five acts play written by Francis Beaumont in 1613 but first
performed in 1607 and it is considered the first parody in English literature. It is generally accepted
as an outstanding example of burlesque and mock-heroic play of the period in which the Cockney
character finds a niche Franklyn (1953:5-6). The play is a satire on chivalric romances similar to
Don Quixote and in particular a parody of Thomas Heyword’s The Four Prentices of London and
Thomas Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday. George and Neil, the citizen grocer and his wife
exemplify in their interpolated remarks several facets of the Cockney character. Thus, it is hard to
illustrate the speech style of all the characters in one single quotation, because all characters have
single characteristics but the two following passages are ones of the more representative:
Wife: He’s not in earnest, I hope, George, is he?
Citizen: What if he be, sweetheart?
Wife: Marry, if he be, George, I’ll make bold to tell him he’s an ingrant old man to use his bed-fellow
so scruvilly.
Citizen: What! How does he use her, honey?
Wife: Marry, come up, sir saucebox! I think you’ll take his part, will you not? Lord, how hot you are
grown! You are a fine man, an you had a fine dog; it becomes you sweetly!
Citizen: Nay, prithee, Nell, childe not; for, as I am an honest man and a true Christian grocer, I do not
like his doings.
Wife: I cry you mercy, then, George! You know we are all frail and full of infirmities. (III. v.)
2
Wife: Marry, with a vengeance, I heartily sorry for the poor gentleman: but if I were thy wife, i’faith,
greybread, i’faith […]
Citizen [That is George, her husband, who is feeling a little self-conscious] : I prithee sweet
honeysuckle, be content.
Wife: Give me such words, that am a gentlewoman born! Hang him, hoary rescal! Get me some drink,
George! I am almost molten with fretting: now, beshrew his knave’s heart for it!
Thomas Dekker’s play known as The Shoemaker’s Holiday or The Gentile Craft, first performed in
1599, although one of the pleasantest comedies of London life of that time, is not so rich in
Cockney language even if the character, Simon Eyre, has an unorthodox way of speaking but it
cannot be regarded as a representative of Cockney as it is possible to see in the following passage
(Matthews 1972:6).
“Were be these boys, these girls, these drabs, these scoundrels? They wallow in the fat brewis of my
bounty, and lick up the crumbs of my table, yet will not rise to see my walks cleansed. Come out you
powder – beef queans! What, Nan! What, Madge Mumble – Crust! Come out, you fat midriff –
swagbelly whores, and sweep me these kennels that noisome stench offend not the noses of my
neighbours.”
On the contrary, Julian Franklyn in The Cockney, a survey of London Life and Language (1953:67), says that with no doubt Matthews’ judgement is sound as far as the actual language employed by
Simon is concerned, but in so far as his robust, independent, objective character is revealed by his
words, he us indeed the typical go – ahead Cockney of all ages. Among the works of Ben Jonson, as
far as The Alchemist and The Bartholomew Fair are concerned there are characters that might have
been drawn as Cockneys while in Every Man in His Humour, the characters of Oliver Cob and his
wife Tib, from a linguistic point of view are Jonson’s best efforts in Cockney characterization. Cob
is particularly interesting for his emphasis of certain mannerisms used by other Cockney characters
as in the following passage where there is a fairly typical specimen of his dialect:
“Nay, soft and fair; I have eggs on the spirits; I cannot go yet, sir. Now am I, for some five and fifty
reasons, hammering, hammering revenge; oh for three or four gallons of vinegar, to sharpen my wits!
Revenge, vinegar revenge, vinegar and mustard revenge. Nay, an he had not lyen in my house,
‘twould never have grived me; but being my guest, one that, Ile be sworn, my wife has lent him her
smock off her back, while his one shirts has been at washing; pawned her neckerchers for clean bands
3
for him; sold almost all my patters to buy him tobacco; and he to turn monste of gratitude and strike
his awful host! Well, I hope to raise up an host of fury for’t; here comes Justice Clement.”
Moreover, the plays of Thomas Heywood which are mostly set in London and have citizens for
character only contribute partially to our knowledge of Cockney besides a slight inclination towards
“sententiousness and proverb – mongering among the citizens held up for admiration” as reported
by Matthews (1972:9). Among the many London plays by Thomas Middleton, only in The Roaring
Girl characters occasionally employ Cockney terms. On the one hand, some people have been led to
think that because the dramatists of this period used no definite Cockney dialect, it follows that
there could have been no such dialect in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. On the other hand,
this ignores the fact that, in plays and songs, details were usually left to actors and performers. In
addition, until the eighteenth century, plays were written almost solely for performance and authors
were content with giving only hints about dialect. In all the previous discussed plays, the most
remarkable omission is the Cockney pronunciation, while mannerisms and idioms are consistently
used. Pronunciation is the only element in a play which involves no departure from the script in
performance, and it is certain that some pronunciations were far more common among the poorer
classes than among the good speakers. The most descriptive, as well as, the most entertaining of
these writings is the diary of Henry Machyn (1550-1565). He was a merchant-tailor of London
maker and furnisher of funeral cloths (Mattews 1972:13).
“The xix day of Aprell was a wager shott in Fynsbere feld of the parryche of the Trenete the lytyll of
vj men agaynst vj men and one more parte had xv for iij and lost the game: and after shott and lost anodur game.
The sam [day] owre master parsun and entryd in-to helle and their ded [died] at the barle breyke with
alle the wyffe of the sam parryche, and ever was master parsun in the fyre, ser Thomas Chambur ;
and after they whent and dronke a Hogston vij in bred and bere,butt ij quarttes of claret, alle, and
after the cam to the Swane in Wyttyngtun college to on master Fulmer a vetelar, ther they good
chere, and payd for yt.”
“The xxx day of July master Dave Gyttons, master Meynard and master Draper, and master Smyth,
master Coldwelle […], and mony mo, ded ett alff a busshell of owsturs in Anckur lane at master
Smyth and master Gytton’s seller apone hogheded, and candyll light, and onyons and red alle and
claret alle, and muskadylle and malmessy alle, fre cope at viij in the mornyng.”
4
In the last two entries there are several phonetic spellings which reflect Cockney variants such as:
anodur, vetelar, mo, monser and alff. In this sense, Machyn’s diary can be considered the best
single guide to the vulgar pronunciation of London in the sixteenth century and he is faithful to the
habits of Cockney speech in idiom and as well as in grammar. Furthermore, other information upon
pronunciation, grammar and some mannerisms of the Cockney speech may be collect from London
parish records. Hundreds of people contributed to these volumes and since the majority of people
living in London at that time was London-born, it is possible to assume that they all reflect the
linguistic habits of Londoners of the middle and lower-middle classes of that time. As a result, there
are several linguistic features, typical of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that can be
observed studying those documents like for example the use of a higher vowel like e instead of a
normal a, words that were normally spelt with ol were pronounced with a diphthong more similar to
howl, a normal ou or ow is represented by u, often w and u were interchanged, substitution of sh for
s and the th-fronting resembles the habits of present-day Cockney as well as the dropping h.
FIGURE 1. Map of the City of London Source: https://maps.google.com/
5
1.2 Cockney during the 18th and 19th century
It was not until the eighteenth century, when the standard of correctness had been settled, that
grammarians and linguistics discovered the interest of non-standard forms of speech and, as a
consequence, we have to wait until the middle of the eighteenth century in order to have any
relevant comment on the features of the vulgar speech of London. The first sings of interest in
Cockney are the letters that appear in some novels of the period. Those letters, cannot be considered
a serious linguistic study, but bring out some pronunciations that we know were prevalent in
Cockney speech in the previous centuries. The following three letters show a gradual closeness to
the pronunciations that were employed by Machyn and in the parish records of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries which later will became the hall-marks of the Cockney speech (Matthews
1972:26-27).
“Most Devine and Adwhorable Creeture,
I doubt not those IIs, briter than the son, which have kindled such a flam in my hart, have likewise
the faculty of seeing it. It would be the heist preasumption to imagin you eggnorant of my loav. No,
madam, I sollemly purtest, that of all the butys in the universal glob, there is non kapable of
hateracting my IIs like you […].”
“Deer Kreeter,
As you are the animable hopjack of my contemplayshins, your aydear is infernally skimming before
my keymerycal fansee, when Murphy sends his puppies to the heys of slipping martals; and when
Febus shines from his merrydyng throne; whereupon, I shall canseeif old whorie time has lost his
pinners, as also Cubit his harrows, until thou enjoy sweet purpose in the loaksheek harm’s of thy
faithful to commend.”
“Coind Sur,
Heaving the playsure of meating with you at the ospital of anvillheads, I take this lubbertea of latin
you know, that I lotch at the hottail de May cong dangle rouy Doghouseten, with two postis at the
gait, naytheir of um vory hole, ware I shall be at the windore, if in kais you will be so good as to pass
that way at the sicks a cloak in the heavening.”
It is during the eighteenth century that the Cockney dialect and Cockney characters were beginning
to take a place in literature and probably the development of a Standard English was a contributory
6
factor for the growth of the language. The Cockney returns to the stage as he had left it and the best
Elizabethan stage-Cockneys were the product of the conflict between the City and the stage. The
Cockney reappears still as an Aunt Sally which means someone or something which is a target for
insult and criticism. All the plays that were amusingly burlesques with the frequent use of
vulgarisms in which the writers satirise their characters for vulgarity of mind as well as of speech,
have helped to foster the opinion that Cockney is a mean and vulgar speech which must be avoided
by all who pretend to respectability. Samuel Foote was one of the first writers to formalise the
Cockney. The dialect of the characters in his novels was not always fully developed into that type of
Cockney which one associates to the Cockneys of nineteenth-century novels. None of his characters
is completely represented as a dialect type, but their vulgarisms indicate that the Cockney was about
to join the small group of dialect characters, for this reason, Foote appears to have been the first
writer to effect the introduction (Matthews 1972:31).
Therefore, several comments upon Cockney begin to appear. At first they were only
occasional remarks condemning London pronunciations, later on, the schoolmaster, John Yeomans
in his book The Abecedarian makes the following statement.
“A is rank’d the first letter in the order of every alphabet; but the citizens of London have injuriously
converted its eligible pronunciation to that of e”
Several years later, Granville Sharp in his Short Treatise on the English Tongue has a slightly more
detailed comment.
“Mr. John Gignoux in his Child’s best instructor … in his Table of Words written very different
from their pronunciation at page 82, has too much followed the common London pronunciation
which, tho’ perhaps in general the best, yet has some very exceptionable particularities, among
which are Potticary for Apothecary; Athis for Atheist; Awkurd for Awkward; Belcony for Balcony;
Sirket for Circuit; Irun for Iron; Stummuch for Stomach…”
In addition, there is a third comment in Solomon Lowe’s The Critical Spelling Book, when the
author discusses the standard of correct speech.
“I have formed my rules upon what I conceive to be the most common way of pronouncing them
among the better sort of people at London. Thought even among them we find… corruptions which
one may venture to declare inexcusable (ex. bushop, kiver, scrouge, squench, squeegee, yerb,
yuern).”
The earliest analysis of the characteristics of Cockney is to be found among the works of James
Elphinston. His chief scholastic activity was on the subjects of grammar and spelling reform which
7
he treated in his volumes: Principles of English Grammar Digested 1785; English Orthography
epitomized 1790 and Property Ascertained in her Picture 1787. In these works he analysed the
various vulgarisms that he noted in the London speech of his time. The next discussion of Cockney
can be found in The Pronouncing Dictionary written by John Walker in 1791. It is in a section of his
dictionary entitled Rules to be observed by the Londoners, that it is possible to find his comments
on Cockney. He observed that there were four pronunciations as the most characteristic of Cockney
errors, the interchange of w and v as in weal (veal), winegar, vine (wine), vind; the loss and addition
of initial h as in art (heart) or harm (arm); the pronunciation of initial wh as w, wet (whet), wile
(while) and the introduction of a vowel before the plural of words ending in –st like postes, fistes,
mistes and so on.
The work Real Life in London by Pierce Egan (1772-1849) is very interesting from a
linguistic point of view and its author was very well qualified to be the father of the London novel.
This book is a species of guidebook to London scenes and London characters, with a strong
predilection for the shadier scenes and the shadier characters and it is arranged in a series of
alternative scenes of high life and low life in which the slang and the language of each character is
displayed. Egan deals with some aspects of Cockney that were ignored before; his description and
his language of the Cockney indicates the birth of the so-called “Eternal Cockney” (Matthews
1972:41-42). The influence of Egan is clear in the works of Lytton, Ainsworth, Thackeray and
Dickens.
1.3 Present-day Cockney
Bernard Shaw said, in a note to Captain Brassbound’s Conversion, that he had taken the liberty of
making a special example of Drinkwater’s Cockney dialect and he adds his personal note on the
subject:
“When I came to London in 1876, the Sam Weller dialect passed away so completely that I should
have given it up as a literary fiction if I had not discovered it surviving in a Middlesex village. Some
time in the eighties the late Andrew Tuer called attention in the Pall Mall Gazette to several
particularities of modern Cockney, and to the obsolescence of the Dickens dialect that was still being
copied from book to book by several authors. Then came Mr. Anesty’s Cockney dialogues in Punch,
and Mr. Chevalier’s coster songs and patter. The Thompkins verses contributed by Mr. Barry Pain to
the London Daily Chronicle also did something to bring the literary convention for Cockney English
up to date.”
8
In the following few passages, it is possible to note that all these quotations contain some references
to some pronunciations that were familiar in the earlier type of Cockney and that are now
considered characteristics of vulgar London speech.
“ ‘Andsome, ‘Arriet. Ow my, if it yn’t that bloomin’ old Temple Bar, as they did aw’y with out o’
Fleet Street!” (from the Punch’s Almanac).
“Such words as paper, shape, train are pronounced piper, shipe, trine, the very first letter of the
alphabet begin thus wrongly taught. Cab is keb, bank is benk, strand is strend. The final consonants
are so feebly uttered that it is sometimes impossible to tell whether the pupil says life or like or light.
H is constantly transposed. G is dropped in such words as coming, going. Most pupils cannot trill the
r, in many cases r appears improperly at the end of words. (Letter of the Reverend A. J. D. D’Orsey
to the School Board of London).
As previously said, Shaw indicates as Andrew Tuer the first writer to make an exclusive use of the
new dialect, The Kaukneigh Awlminek, 1883. In this work, the chief characteristic of the older type
of the dialect is no longer used and the new predominant feature of Cockney is replaced by a group
of new sounds and by the end of the nineteenth century the Cockney used by Dickens and
Thackeray was not used anymore (Matthews 1972:62-69).
The Cockney dialect at the present time is extremely varied, for many reasons and if any
novelist attempt to reproduce it as it is actually spoken, few of his readers will understand it. The
London today is extremely varied, and the population too mixed for a uniform pronunciation, and
such social factors as education have produced many modifications of the characteristic sounds.
Many of these sounds, such as vowels and diphthongs sounds, are due to the slackness of Cockney
speech; Cockney avoid the movement of the lips and jaw as far as possible, preserving a roughly
half-open position of the lips. This habit causes a nasalization and leads to a slight rounding of
vowel sounds that need a full opening of the lips for their correct articulation. Another tendency of
the dialect is to centralize back vowels and diphthongs; in this way, many sounds that are normally
separated in standard speech, become closer to another; the general effect of this feature is to make
the dialect confused and to many outsiders it appears whining and weak. Moreover, in vowel
sounds, the dominant feature of Cockney is its use of diphthongs in words that in Standard English
are pronounced with monophthongs and vice versa. Instead of the standard [i:] like me, see, tree or
speak the Cockney pronounces respectively [məi], [səi], [trəi] and [spəik] and in addition, the vowel
9
[u:] is replaced by the diphthong [əű]. For the standard diphthong [au] such as in town, down,
cloud, round, cow and now, a monophthong is employed in the broadest form of the dialect; this
monophthong is a vowel between ah and short u in Standard English. In Cockney, the glottal stop
replaces t and k between vowels as in the following sentence, “what a lot of little bottles” will
sound: [wɔʔ ə lɔʔ ə liʔu bɔʔuz]; the voiced and unvoiced th is replaced by v and f and among the
Cockneys there is the general agreement to drop the initial h (Matthews 1972:76-80).
To conclude, this is the historical development of Cockney and its chief features at the present-time;
most of the pronunciations are those that both Tuer and Shaw tried to represent, even if in the last
century there have been a small phonetic change.
10
CHAPTER TWO
Linguistic Features of Cockney
2.1 Pronunciation
The Oxford English Dictionary (2007) says of Cockney that it tends to be faster than any other
English speaker’s speech. Most typically, it is the speech of the working-class of the East End of
London, which includes the harbour. It is considered a rhotic accent that means the letter /r/ is
pronounced before a consonant (as in hard) or at the ends of the words (as in far) as, for instance, in
American (AmE) or Canadian English (CanE).
According to Wright (1981:139), the Cockney accent is speeded up by the glottal stop and
the tendency to drop the initial unstressed syllables, for example ‘ouse for house, ‘ammer for
hammer or s’pose for suppose, cause also the speech to sound clipped and fragmented to outside
ears. The phenomenon of TH-fronting, is a very common feature in Cockney. It consist in changing
the sound of TH /θ/ with /f/ or /v/ e.g. thin [fin], then [vɛn], three [free]. Another feature that is easy
to spot in the speech of a Cockney is Nasalisation, especially in vowels preceding the consonants m
and n. It consists in moving the lips and the jaws as little as possible in order to preserve the lips in
a roughly half-open position even when the pronouncing vowels require a full opening for the
standard pronunciation. Vowels are pronounced more or less in the same way of Standard English
(SE). Although, according to (Matthews 1972:169-170), there are some differences in-fact, in some
cases, Cockney pronounces a short I instead of an E or vice versa, for example “cemetery” instead
of cemetery or “meracle” instead of miracle.
Moreover, in the passage between the Middle English (ME) and the Early Modern English
(EModE) periods, there was a great change in the pronunciation of vowels, The Great Vowel Shift
and it consists in in a general raising of all long vowels. As a consequence, in Cockney, we assist to
another raising of the vowels and for this reason, vowels change from /ʌ/, /i:/, /u:/ and /ɔ:/ to /a/, /əi/,
/əʊ/, /ɔʊ/ and /ɔwə/ respectively for example bird /bi:d/ > /bəid/, boot /bu:t/ > /bəʊt/, sword /sɔ:d/ >
/sɔʊd/, and saw /sɔ:/ > /sɔwə/.In addition, we assist also to a change in diphthongs as in Spain >
[spʌin], boy > [bɔi], light > [lɑiʔ] or soul > [sɑʊ].
As far as consonants are concerned, the most typical characteristic refers to /p/, /t/ and /ʧ/
that are pre-glottalized. T-glottaling is a feature that, according to Wells (1982: 324), can be
1
considered one of the most stereotyped characteristics of Cockney it consists in a change of sound
of the phoneme /t/ that is pronounced as the glottal stop /ʔ/ as in the following examples, pity
[ˈpʰɪʔi] batter [ˈbæʔə], beater [ˈbiʔə], biter [ˈbaɪʔə], bitter [ˈbɪʔə] or butter ˈ[bʌʔə]. When /l/ occurs
finally after a vowel before a consonant in the same syllable for example milk; or as a syllable itself
like table, it is realised as a vowel. When the preceding vowel is /ɔ:/, there may be complete loss of
/l/. Thus Pauls may be [po:z], i.e. identical with pause. The vowels that represent /l/ can alter the
quality of the vowels preceding them in such a way as to make homonyms of pairs like: pool and
pull, doll and dole, peal and pill.
FIGURE 1. Vowel charts. Source :http://dialectblog.com/british-accents/
FIGURE 2. Cockney diphthongs charts. Source: http://dialectblog.com/british-accents/
2.2 Grammar
The grammar of a dialect changes throughout centuries, but very slowly and several grammatical
features can be found in many dialects across the country. The majority of these features can be
found also in Cockney. This is the case of multiple negation or either known as the “double
negative”1, for instance, the negative form of the sentence ‘I had some dinner’ in SE could be ‘I
didn’t have any dinner’ or ‘I had no dinner’. However, according to Hughes and Turdgill (1979:4445) in Cockney, one can do both these two things at once and the result is the double negative: ‘I
1
Linguists prefer the terms multiple negation or negative concord since this construction is not limited to two negatives.
2
didn’t have no dinner’. The form ‘ain’t’ is very common across Cockneys. It is pronounced [eint],
[ɛnt] or [ɪnt] and it corresponds to the negative forms of the present tense of be: ‘isn’t’, ‘aren’t’ or
‘am not’ but, it functions also as the negative present tense of have, corresponding to ‘haven’t’ or
‘hasn’t’. Furthermore, another grammatical feature of Cockney is in its use of pronouns, where it
uses the objective pronoun ‘me’ instead of the possessive adjective ‘my’ and it has ‘regularized’ the
formation of the reflexive pronouns as in the example ‘hisself’, ‘itsself’ and in place of ‘those’ it
employs ‘them’.
Question tags are widely used to invite agreement or establish one's position: ‘I am helping you
now, ain’t I?’ or ‘Well, he knew all about it, didn't he?’ and usually, the prepositions ‘to’ and ‘at’
are frequently dropped in relation to places like: ‘I'm going down the pub’ or ‘He’s round his
friend's house’. Moreover, comparatives and superlatives tend to become enhanced: ‘littlest’,
‘worser’; more and most are called in to aid the effect, ‘It’s more worser than I fawt’; and as far as
adjectives are concerned, they become adverbs: ‘You do talk foolish’, ‘I know you want to get done
quick, but the job’s got to be done proper’. Who, which and that, are turned ‘as’ and ‘what’ as in:
‘A bloke as I know’ or ‘A dog what can run fast’. ‘Been’ and ‘gone’, both separately and together,
are used as indicators: ‘I’ve been and filled in the form all wrong, and now I’ve gone and broke the
pen’. In addition, Franklin (1953:265) highlights the use of ‘never’ instead of ‘did not’ or the use of
‘there is’ instead of ‘there are’ can be seen as typical cockney errors of grammar.
2.3 Cockney Rhyming Slang
Rhyming Slang (RS) was originally developed by the Cockneys around 1840s as a secret language
of the London underworld and according to Wright (1981:94); it was originated by different
sources: beggars, bricklayers and Cockney navvies who worked at the East End Docks. On the
other hand, Matthews (1972:132) believes, it was first used by ballad-sellers and costermongers
and, as the rhymes became a part of music hall songs and writings in sporting journals, they spread
gradually among Londoners and became more used. Music halls enriched the Cockney vocabulary,
as they were true folk songs sung from all Londoners.
The vocabulary of Cockney mainly consists of slang words and in particular of RS
expressions, which probably is the best-known and most discussed usage of Cockney. The main
feature of RS is in its construction by replacing a common word with a rhyming phrase of two
words and then, omitting the secondary rhyming word, making the meaning elusive to listeners who
do not know it. As in the example: dollar > Oxford scholar, the word dollar will be replaced with
Oxford “Could you lend me an Oxford?” or stairs > apple and pears where the word stairs will be
3
replaced with apple “Get up those apples to bed”. RS persists still today with the creation of new
rhymes such as: ‘Posh and Becks’ for sex, referred to the couple Victoria Adams (aka Posh Spice
from the 90’s pop group, The Spice Girls) and the footballer David Beckham.
Sometimes the rhyme does not take place if the words making up the phrase are pronounced
in RP but only a Cockney accent is used. According to the OED (2007), like Routemaster buses and
Black cabs, it is an essential part of London’s tourist-orientated image. Some examples of the most
common RS are phrases such as ‘Adam and Eve’ for believe, ‘Kettle and Hob’ for watch,
‘Butcher’s Hook’ for look, ‘Ruby Murray’ for curry, ‘Dog and Bone’ for telephone, ‘Trouble and
Strife’ for wife, ‘Barnet Fair’ for hair or ‘A la Mode’ for code. Some of these expressions have
become so popular, that they are sometimes used even in Standard English Source:
http://londontopia.net/londonism/fun-london/language-top-100-cockney-rhyming-slang-words-andphrases/.
4
CHAPTER THREE
Sociolinguistic features of Cockney
3.1 Representation of Cockney in literature, music and cinema.
As previously said in Chapter One, in the history of the English language and in its
literature there are several authors and poets that can be considered Cockneys,
Cockney speakers or that simply used some Cockney characters in their novels and
poems. In order to better understand the role of these authors, we have to go back
to 1819 when some poets such as Leigh Hunt, John Keats, William Hazlitt and
Percy B. Shelly were defined as The Cockney School of Poets, in a dismissive way
from a review on the Blackwood’s Magazine, in order to highlight their lack in
sophistication and moreover, it was an attack to their class background (Dart
2015:3). Leigh Hunt’s (1784-1859) masterpiece was certainly The Story of Rimini
(1816) based on the story of Paolo and Francesca from the Canto V, Inferno by
Dante Alighieri. In the following extracts, it is possible to see how, in some scenes,
Hunt used some vulgarisms typical of the Cockney style and his intent to be
sexually licentious.
THE FATAL PASSION.
[…] So now you stood to think what odours best
Made the air happy in tha lovely nest:
And now you went besides the flowers, with eyes
Earnest as bees, restless as butterflies.
Never, be sure, before or since was seen
A summer-house so fine in such a nest of green.
All the green garden, flower-bed, shade, and plot,
Francesca loved, but most of all this spot.
[…] As thus they sat, and felt, with leaps of heart,
Their colour change, they came upon the part
Where fond Geneura, with her flame long nurst,
1
Smiled upon Launcelot when he kiss'd her first:—
That touch, at last, through every fibre slid;
And Paulo turned, scarce knowing what he did,
Only he felt he could no more dissemble,
And kissed her, mouth to mouth, all in a tremble.
Sad were those hearts, and sweet was that long kiss:
Sacred be love from sight, whate'er it is.
The world was all forgot, the struggle o'er
Desperate the joy — That day they read no more.
John Keats and Leigh Hunt were more than simply contemporary poets, they were
also good friends and this is testified by a numerous series of letters between the
two; for this reason, J. Keats (1795-1821) was deeply influenced by Hunt in-fact
he was also accused of adopting Hunt’s style in the Blackwood’s Magazine (Dart
2015:57).
“Mr. Keats has adopted the loose, nevertheless verification, and Cockney rhymes
of the poet of Rimini.”
Stylistically speaking, John Keats is more interested in the sensuous qualities of
his poetry, in its capacity to create an autonomous world constructed entirely out
of the possibilities inherent in language and we can say that in this way he
anticipated the “art for art’s sake” tendency of the 19th century (Thomson Maglioni 2004:408). The poetry of Keats is characterized by sensual imagery,
most notably in the series of Odes and it is for this stylistic feature, similar to
Hunt, that he was considered one of the Cockney poets. The Odes are a series of
six poems written by Keats in 1819; Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode on Indolence,
Ode on Melancholy, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode to Psyche and Ode to Autumn.
John Keats write like Hunt’s disciple and even if he was a far greater poet than his
mentor he owe a lot to his example; most notably in terms of freedom and
suppleness of his tone, his versification and his handling of classical subjects. In
addition, Keats inherited from Hunt a deep interest in themes of self-education and
escape, but the main difference between the two is that while Hunt simply
2
moralize on the subject, Keats write like an ardent and anxious inquirer (Dart
2015:67).
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) was a writer particularly famous for his
humanistic essays and for literary criticism in-fact, still today; he is considered one
of the greatest critics of the English literature. In an extract from his “On
Londoners and Country People” (1823), he gives us the definition of who or what
really is a Cockney and he criticized the Cockney way of living. Moreover, he
defined Cockneyism as the tendency to confuse an acquaintance with London with
a knowledge of the world. In Hazlitt’s eyes, the Cockney interprets reality solely in
terms of his own immediate surroundings (Dart 2015:13).
“I do not agree with Mr. Blackwood in his definition of the word Cockney. He
means by it a person who has happened at any time to live in London, and who is
not a Tory – I mean by it, a person who has never lived out of London, and who
has got all his ideas from it. The true Cockney has never travelled beyond the
purlieus of the Metropolis, either in the body or in the spirit. Time and space are
lost to him. He is confined in a spot. He sees everything near, superficial and
little.” […]
“A real Cockney is the poorest creature in the world, the most literal, the most
mechanical, and yet he too lives in a world of romance – a fairy land of his own.”
“He is a shopman, and nailed all day behind the counter: but he sees hundreds and
thousands of gay well-dressed people pass – an endless phantasmagoria – and
enjoys their liberty and gaudy fluttering pride. He is a footman – but carriages, and
visits a thousand of shops. Is he a tailor? The stigma on his profession is lost in the
elegance of the patterns he provides, and of the persons he adorns; and he is
something very different from a mere country botcher.”
Moreover, one of the best examples of Cockney literature is to be found in the
novels of Charles Dickens (1812-1870); he was a writer and social critic and he is
considered the greatest novelist of the Victorian Age. His success begun in 1836
with the series of publication of The Pickwick Papers. He introduced Sam Weller,
the smart-talking Cockney of the White Hart Inn and Weller and Dickens soon
3
became household names. Most of the central characters are easily placed within
the Cockney universe: Pickwick is a retired businessman from Goswell Street,
Benjamin Allen and Bob Sawyer are two medical students from Lant Street in the
Borough, which is where Dickens’ family lived. The two main exceptions to this
are Sam Weller and Alfred Jingle. Dickens’ striking use of colloquial expressions
and adapted spelling to convey a sense of the natural rhythms of London speech
became a hallmark of his characterizations. Dickens exploits several linguistic
features to capture Weller’s Cockney dialect; Sam Weller’s speech is
unmistakably vulgar from the start: consonants are frequently omitted, as in ’ere
instead of here, as are vowels or whole syllables as in ’tain’t for it isn’t and ’cept
for except. Spelling is used to suggest a different vowel quality, as in gal for girl,
or socially marked pronunciation such as nothin’. Changing in dialect grammar
appears in ain’t for isn’t, a lookin’ and more tenderer. Perhaps the most unfamiliar
feature to us is the switching of v and w in words such as inwariable and wery
(Source: www.bl.uk).
4
FIGURE 1 Source: www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126779.html
“Wotever is, is right, as the young nobleman sveetly remarked wen they
put him down in the pension list ‘cos his mother’s uncle’s vife’s
grandfather vunce lit the king’s pipe vith a portable tinder-box.
Not a bad notion that, Sam, said Mr. Bob Sawyer approvingly.
Just wot the young nobleman said ev’ry quarter-day arterwards for the rest
of his life, replied Mr. Weller.”
FIGURE 2 Source:http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126781.html
5
Of course, there are several examples of Cockney characters in the works of
Dickens like for example Bob Cratchit, Scrooge’s poor clerk in A Christmas
Carol or Newman Noggs, Ralph’s assistant in Nicholas Nickleby, but Dickens’
best known portrait of a Cockney in his fiction is John Wemmick in Great
Expectations. It was written in 1859-60 but the action is set in 1823 and the novel
draws on the literature of the Cockney School and the 1820s anti-Cockney satire.
Wemmick is Mr Jaggers's clerk and the protagonist Pip's friend.
“Pip develops a real affection for Wemmick and his way of life at Walworth; but
this doesn’t prevent him from being very funny about his Cockney false
consciousness. In many ways, the manner in which Wemmick has arranged his
life looks suspiciously like success: he is the Cockney Triumphant – a man of
pure private cultivation – a lower-middle-class hero” Dart (2015:99).
In addition, one of the most famous author in Cockney literature both for the
language and for his characters is George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950). Shaw was
an Irish playwright and a Nobel Prize winning (Literature 1925) that deeply
influenced theatre, culture and politics during the first half of the last century. His
best known play is The Pygmalion (1913), it was named after a Greek
mythological character that falls in love with his scholar like Professor Higgins
falls in love with the Lady Elisa Doolittle.
"I don't want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady." (Act II)
It is the story of a pedantic British linguist who bet to turn a Cockney flower girl
into a perfect Lady of Society; the following extract is taken from the preface of
the play and introduces Shaw’s thoughts and critics about the English language.
The main theme of The Pygmalion is the construction of social class through
language. In this play, language is seen from two different perspectives. For
Higgins, it is a way of demonstrating that the difference between classes is merely
a question of education, while for Eliza it represents a real possibility for social
advancement. The language Shaw uses reflects an unusual mix of different
registers and accents, from working-class Cockney to the Received Pronunciation
(RP) of the upper classes. Eliza is a fascinating character for the way she comes to
6
perform both these types of language contaminating one with the other (ThomsonMaglioni 2004:172-173).
"The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children
to speak it. They spell it so abominably that no man can teach himself what it
sounds like. It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making
some other Englishman hate or despise him. German and Spanish are accessible
to foreigners: English is not even accessible to Englishmen. The reformer
England needs today is an energetic phonetic enthusiast: that is why I have made
such a one the hero of a popular play."
FLOWER GIRL: “Ow, eez ye-ooa san, id e? Wal, fewd dan y’ de-ooty bawmz a
mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel’s falhrzn that ran awy tbath
pyin. Will ye-oo py me f’them?” […]
THE NOTE TAKER: “I can. [Reads, reproducing her pronunciation exactly]
Cheer ap, Keptin; n’haw ya flahr orf a pore gel.”
This was an extract of the fist dialogue between Eliza and Professor Higgins in
Act I, and it is possible to see strong Cockney pronunciation of the flower girl,
which sounds almost impossible to understand.
This play is certainly one of the most beloved play of G. B. Shaw and for
this reason; it has even been adapted into a Broadway musical, My Fair Lady
(1956) starring Rex Harrison as Professor Higgins and Julie Andrews as Eliza
Doolittle. It was followed by numerous adaptation and several film versions
throughout the years, a recent adaptation is dated 2013, but the most famous is
certainly the film version in 1964 starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn, The
film won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best
Director. The film version and the play are similar in the characterization and in the
dialogue between the characters; Higgins is a pretentious character in both the play
and the movie and his attitude towards his pupil is extremely patriarchal, moreover,
he has a poor opinion of women in general which is kept in the film version. The
first most important and obvious change is to be found in the play’s genre, from a
drama to a musical. This makes a huge difference to the tone of the storyline, in-
7
fact, the frequent songs give the characters constant opportunity to say their exact
feelings, whereas the play gives the characters a certain mysteriousness. One of the
biggest modifications to the play is the ending of the musical. The play ends with a
fight between Higgins and Eliza, resulting in Eliza emancipating herself and
leaving to attend a wedding, never to return to Higgins, who refuses to accept this.
While in the musical, Eliza is shown to return to Higgins, despite all that happens,
as she sees that he really is in love with her. Shaw’s version of the story shows
Higgins to be a man of arrogance and pride until the last act. It is in the final fight
in which Higgins crosses his boundaries and pushes Eliza to leave him with her
dignity and self-respect. On the contrary, the musical shows Eliza to be submissive
and to return to a man who behaved in an uncourteous and disrespectful manner to
her, but the musical focuses on what the audience wants which is an happy ending.
3.2 Social perception of Cockney and its influence on Standard English.
The first definite comments on the most acceptable type of English may be found
in books written during the reign of Queen Elizabeth and it is from the 16th and
17th century that there was the attempt to unify English speech by finding an
absolute standard of pronunciation. In The Art of English Poesie dated 1589, the
author advises a would-be poet on his choice of language saying he should take as
an example the usual speech of the Court, and that of London.
“…ye shall therefore take the usuall speech of the Court, and that of
London and the shires lying about London within lx myles, and not much
aboue. I say not this but that in every shyre of England there be gentlemen
and others that speake but specially write as good as Southerne as of
Middlesex or Surrey do.”
London increasing importance as the focus of the official and cultural life of the
country made it inevitable that London English became the standard, but the
movement towards the unification of the language begun only in the last century,
in-fact, in the Middle English (ME) period there was no recognition of the
8
superiority of one type of speech over the others. At the end of the 16th century, the
population of London was nearly a tenth of the all population of England and
Wales and since that time, the number has gradually increased. Moreover, the
invention of the printing press and the great number of Universities served to
diffuse the new standard. Despite the fact that, London’s speech became the
accepted one, it was almost impossible that everyone across the country could
speak London speech in the same way and for this reason, it sounded differently.
In this sense, London’s speech when used as the accepted speech by other
people was artificial as they adopted it only when it was strictly necessary. In order
to study the difference between the two kinds of the same speech, scholars
compared the speech of a group of good speakers with the speech of the ordinary
London’s population at the same time and they noted that the misspellings of these
people were remarkably similar to the misspellings of the Cockneys at the same
time or they even anticipated some Cockneyisms like: ‘sparigous’ for asparagus,
‘fraid’ for afraid or ‘ence’ for since. These words like many others were formerly
used both from Cockneys and by the best speakers of that time. Cockney has been
the most important of all non-standard dialect of English for its influence on the
accepted speech. In the EModP the vulgar language of London served as the
model for the accepted language and later on, when the SE was formulated, it
became the criterion of error by which correct speech could be measured
(Matthews 1972:202-223).
9
CONCLUSIONS
As previously said, the intent of this dissertation was that of giving a general idea, or better, a general
perception of the dialect of London. If traditionally, a Cockney is someone from East-end London
and the dialect of East-enders, today things are different and the Cockney dialect spread across the
city. When it first appeared in a pejorative way, to define poor people of the working class, those
neighborhoods such as Cheapside, Shoreditch, Finsbury, Bow and Bermondsey were extremely poor,
but today they are experiencing a phenomenon like Brooklyn in NYC and they are emerging as new
in areas. Even if Cockney rhyming slang is definitely used less often today, it is far from dead. In
fact, the invention of new rhyming slang still emerges to this day especially using names of the
celebrities such as ‘Ayrton Senna’ meaning tenner or ‘posh and becks’ meaning sex (Source:
www.englishtowns.net).
In conclusion, it is possible to say that if Cockney was born as a poor language, it developed
throughout the centuries into a proper dialect with its features and rules, and it became so popular that
there is also literature in Cockney dialect. Nowadays, considering the particular condition of the
English language and specifically that of RP that is not the “perfect English” anymore; we will assist,
in my opinion, in a rapid increase in the use of dialects such as Cockney and in this way, it will be
frequently used and lose its coded feature which is so characteristic.
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