[dogsbody70]

Originally Posted by Columbine

Cockney English has a lot of different sounds. It's more from the front of the mouth than the throat, and breathier. They drop sounds a lot too:

They becomes 'dey'
Brother becomes 'bruvver'
Maths becomes 'maffs'
Path becomes 'parf'
Happy become 'appy'
Clapham (a place name) becomes 'Cla'am'
Jumped up becomes 'jampt'ap'

Grammar differences include using 'me' instead of 'my', and 'a'int' instead of isn't. "Nah, dat ain't right," would be "No, that isn't right" in standard English.

And of course, the rhyming slang. Rhyming slang is calling something by a phrase that rhymes with it.
So:
Dog and bone = telephone
Plates of meat = feet
Apples and pears= stairs

But sometimes they drop part of the phrase, so you'd hear people say "ooh, me plates 'urt." for 'ooh, my feet hurt!', or "Just 'ead on ap dose apples" for "just head on up those stairs"

I spent many years in London as a child plus later on in life.

I think that since they have immigrants there from Jamaica etc they brought there own way of speaking with them

Mostly its the way we use or change vowel sounds that makes a difference too.

But certainly we do tend to drop the first and last letters of some words, become lazy.

I used to be a broad cockney until I was fostered out to pastures new.

when I mixed with people of a different class I tried to improve my own way of speaking--


I do actually love that we still have variety on our speech-- it would be boring otherwise.


I used to use !AINT" (IT isn't) all the time. Hate it actually.

we drop "T's" and so many people pronounce the letter "H" as HAICH which I even hear on the Media.

WOT for what-- Wo losing the OT sound.


I think we are supposed to aim to speak the Queens English" which I assume is taught by the english Language Schools. In the olden days-- announcers on the radio spoke the King or Queen's English-- but nowadays we hear dialects from different parts of the country.

I cannot understand Liverpudlian dialect at all-- dislike Birmingham speech-- but Love the geordie.


Love the West country dialect-- even genuine Sussex is lovely.

Here we have so many people who have moved down from London-- so many youngsters really sound a lot like Londoners.

I believe we all seem to copy our Peers, and have one way of talking when mixing with our friends-- and another when with our parents.

Certainly I used to struggle with say "WIV instead of WIth-- which was common. Used such words as BARF larf, and my vowel sounds were grotty.

HOW NOW BROWN COW was a sentence we had to practice to try to enunciate the "OW" sound correctly.

So I suspect every country has its local ways of speaking.


I do know that when I lived in Scotland-- the local Scots deliberately exaggerated their accent because I was a sassenach. LOL.

I hated the Edinburgh habit of saying "A HA" instead of saying Yes. It sounds as if the person is bored-- and its easier to say "A HA" rather than Yes.

Yet some Scots accents are wonderful.