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From: "Derek" <>
Subject: Re: [EoLFHS] Cockney Jokes and Speech
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 19:08:46 -0000
References: <000c01c3c417$469270c0$0201a8c0@participation.co.uk> <3FDFAA39.ECAFADBA@comcast.net> <002301c3c478$e2e0aa80$a064a8c0@nildram.net>


My family lived in the East End of London for at least five generations.
Here is one very old London joke my father used to tell.

Two lads are passing a barbers.
One looks in and sees a man having a singe.
"Here, Bill, come and look at this, there's a bloke here looking for them with lights."

My best shot at representing the pronunciation is:
"Ere, Bill, cum ern look a' 'is. 'ere's (airs) er bloke 'ere (ear) lookin' fer 'em wi' loits!"

However it is a long time since I heard genuine old (pre TV and pre so-called slum-clearance) East End speech, so I can not can not
claim authenticity for the vocabulary, the syntax or the pronunciation. I do not know how much variation existed as one moved
around the East End in (say) the early 1900s. Presumably quite a lot. What has been written on the subject?

A Google search for "east end speech" produced only one hit, at
http://books.guardian.co.uk/firstbook2002/story/0,12366,789647,00.html,
an unhelpful reference to "The Snow Geese" by William Fiennes.

However "cockney speech" did better, with about 32 hits. The first, at
http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/tours/eastenders/churches.cfm, refers to "The Old East End, Cockney speech", implying that the two
are the same. It includes a recording of an example of East End speech but even this seems to have changed the syntax and softened
the accent from the speech I recall. As one of the speakers says, as someone interacts with different people, the language they
hear 'rubs off' on them.

Born in Leytonstone, I never myself never lived in the real East End. Moving from Leytonstone to Dagenham, Leyton, Maidenhead,
Cricklewood, Exeter, Croydon, Harlow and Hertford (pronounced locally as 'Harford"), my own speech, which I only really hear when I
listen to a recording of my voice, is a mix of various influences. The same is true of my relatives, whose speech varies greatly,
some having stayed in the East End and some having, like me, moved to a variety of places and had different educational influences.
When I was at school in Hendon my teachers did their best to change my speech. My vowel sounds were their least successful
achievement. Even now, when I spell my name, many people transcribe the "a" in my name as "i", although I can not myself here the
"ai" diphthong that seems to be the cause, even when I listen to a recording. It is not only speech but also hearing that differs
from one accent to another. I suspect we each tend to hear our own speech as 'accent free'.

Derek




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