Multicultural London English

Multicultural London English
Region	London
Native speakers	(no data)
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Ingvaeonic Anglo–Frisian Anglic English Multicultural London English
Early forms	Old English Middle English Early Modern English British English Multicultural London English
Writing system	none - mainly a spoken language, MLE users write in standard British English
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None

Multicultural London English (abbreviated MLE) is a dialect (and/or sociolect) of English that emerged in the late 20th century. It is spoken authentically by working class, mainly young, people in London. However, elements of the sociolect are widely imitated throughout southern England. According to research conducted at Lancaster University, Multicultural London English is gaining territory from Cockney.

It is said to contain many elements from the languages of the Caribbean (Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and other Commonwealth Caribbean islands), African American English, as well as traditional Cockney. Although the colloquial name "Jafaican" implies that it is "fake" or pseudo-Jamaican, some researchers indicate that it is not the language of white youth trying to imitate black, but rather that "[it is] more likely that young people have been growing up in London exposed to a mixture of second-language English and local London English and that this new variety has emerged from that mix.

Features

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)

Interjections

• "Dun know" ("of course", also an expression of approval)
• "Oh my days!" [ou ma deiz] (A generalised exclamation)
• "Safe" [sɛif] (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" [peɪɡən] (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)
• "Wasteman" (A worthless/useless person)
• "Yard" [jaːd] (House)

Verbs

• "Allow" (to urge someone else to exercise self-restraint)
• "Buss" (to wear something or to introduce someone to something)
• "Cut" (to leave)
• "Jerk" (to rob)
• "Link" (to rendez-vous)

Grammar

The past tense of the verb "to be" is regularised, with "was" becoming universal for all conjugations, and "weren't" likewise for negative conjugations. This leaves "I was, you was, he was" etc., and "I weren't, you weren't, he weren't" etc.

Tag-questions are limited to "isn't it", realised as "innit", and the corresponding "is it?".

"Man" is sometimes used as a first person singular male plural, which may be rendered "manz" when combined with certain verbs, e.g. "to be" and to have, e.g. "manz got arrested", "manz getting emotional" (said in the film Anuvahood).

"Man" can also be used to refer to the second-person singular (male), e.g. '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. These qualities are on the whole not the levelled ones noted in recent studies of teenage speakers in south-east England outside London, e.g. Milton Keynes, Reading, Luton, Essex, Slough and Ashford. Yet older speakers would expect youth to show precisely these levelled qualities, with further developments reflecting the innovatory status of London as well as the passage of time. However, evidence contradicts this expectation:

• fronting of /ʊ/ less advanced in London than in periphery: lack of fronting of /ʊ/ in inner city is conservative, matching Caribbean Englishes.
• 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.
• /aɪ/-lowering across region: This is seen as a reversal of the Diphthong Shift. 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 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. This is also seen as a reversal of the Diphthong Shift.
• /aʊ/ realized 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.
• backing of /k/ to [q] before non-high back vowels

Some features continue changes already noted in the south-east:

• reversal of H-dropping
• advanced fronting of /uː/: This results in realizations such as [ʏː]. Unexpectedly, it is most advanced among non-white Londoners and whites with non-white networks.
• backing of /æ/: This can result in variants such as [a̠].
• backing of /ʌ/: This results in variants such as [ɑ] or [ʌ], rather than [ɐ].
• Th-fronting or Initial Th-stopping accompanied by Th-fronting intervocally.

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 WWII RAF Sketch with two pilot POWs using neo-Cockney

See also

• London slang
• Koiné language

Further reading

• David Sutcliffe, Black British English, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982.
• Oxford Graduate Seminar, 12 November 2007: "Linguistic innovators: the English of adolescents in London" [ppt].
• Paul Kerswill and Eivind Torgersen. "Endogenous change in inner-London teenage speech?: 'Diphthong Shift' reversal and other vowel changes" [ppt].

External links

• The Guardian: "Learn Jafaikan in Two Minutes" - Article by Emily Ashton