Multicultural London English

Multicultural London English (shortened to MLE) is a sociolect of English that emerged in the late 20th century. It is mainly spoken by working-class people, or by middle-class people who copy working-class speech, in multicultural parts of London.

MLE is spoken by people from many different ethnic and cultural backgrounds who live in varied neighbourhoods. Because of this, it can be seen as a multiethnolect. One study in Hackney could not find clear, separate ethnic styles of speech. Instead, its researchers said the differences between ethnic groups, where they existed, were a matter of degree. Linguists have suggested that the diversity of young people's friendship groups helps explain how MLE developed. The more ethnically mixed an adolescent's friends were, the more likely that teenager was to speak MLE.

Versions of MLE have also appeared in diverse neighbourhoods of other English cities, such as Birmingham and Manchester. These versions mix MLE with local influences. Because of this, some linguists use the term Multicultural British English (MBE) for a wider family of English varieties. This is also called Multicultural Urban British English (MUBE) or Urban British English (UBE), and it grew out of MLE and is strongly shaped by it.

From the mid-2010s onwards, the worldwide growth of grime and UK drill helped elements of MLE spread around the world. Some words from MLE are now used in Australian, Canadian, Dutch, and Irish English.

History

MLE grew mostly from the large movement of people from the Caribbean to the UK after World War II, and to a lesser extent from South Asia and West Africa. Black British English became widely noticed in the 1970s. The popularity of Jamaican music, such as reggae and ska, helped create a new dialect based on Jamaican patois, which laid the groundwork for MLE. In the early 1980s, research found that teenagers of Afro-Caribbean descent were "bidialectal", switching between Jamaican creole and London English. White working-class teenagers sometimes used creole-inspired words but kept their accents. In 1985, Smiley Culture released "Cockney Translation", one of the first records where British "white english" and British "black english" appeared side by side, though still distinct. Later, more natural mixes became common. Hip-hop artists such as London Posse blended Cockney and patois-influenced English in their music, reflecting how young working-class Londoners spoke. In 1987, Dick Hebdige, a British sociologist, said that "In some parts of Britain, West Indian patois has become the public language of inner-city youths, irrespective of their racial origin."

By the late 1990s, London was becoming more multilingual and residential segregation was less common. In Hackney at least, Cockney was no longer the most widely spoken local dialect, so children from many backgrounds adopted MLE. Linguist Tony Thorne noted that white working-class schoolchildren were using "recreolised lexis." In the following decade, MLE became more common, shown in music such as grime and British hip hop, and in films like Kidulthood. In the 2000s, many names appeared for it, including "Nang slang", "Blinglish", "Tikkiny", and "Blockney." It is sometimes called "Jafaican," meaning "fake Jamaican," because of a popular belief that it comes only from people of Jamaican and Caribbean descent. However, two Economic and Social Research Council-funded research projects found that MLE most likely developed through language contact and group second language learning. It mixes features from learners' varieties of English, Englishes from India and Africa, Caribbean creoles, local London and south-eastern dialects, youth slang, and more standard forms. Research at Lancaster University and Queen Mary University of London in 2010 suggested that Cockney would disappear from much of the East End within a generation, having been "transplanted" to Essex and Hertfordshire New towns. Variants of MLE have also appeared in diverse areas of Birmingham and Manchester, mixing MLE with local influences. Some linguists use the name Multicultural British English (MBE), which grew out of MLE. The word "urban" was dropped from its other names partly because the variety spread beyond cities, and partly because "urban" was often used as a euphemism for African American or Black people.

From the mid-2010s, the worldwide growth of grime and UK drill helped MLE spread internationally. Musicians such as Onefour, Drake, and 73 De Pijp, from Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and Ireland, have been noted for using MLE-based words. Australian linguists also noted that words such as 'peng' (meaning attractive or good) were used by Australian youth. In Canada, Multicultural Toronto English has developed strong similarities to MLE, even though it arose independently from similar cultural influences.

Grammar

The past tense of "to be" has been regularised, so "was" and "were" are often used the same way. This happens across the English-speaking world. Many speakers in Britain use "was" in positive sentences and "weren't" in negative ones, which makes the difference clearer. MLE speakers use any of three systems, and their choice is linked to their ethnicity and gender. Cheshire and Fox (2008) found that non-standard "was" was most common among Black Caribbean speakers and least common among speakers of Bangladeshi descent.

MLE also has some features that are less common in standard English. Speakers ask questions like "Why ... for?", where standard English would say "Why ...?" or "What ... for?". They also use "off of", a phrase with "robust use", especially among "Anglo females". "Man" is widely used to mean "I", as in "man got arrested." Some words do special jobs too. "Innit", short for "isn't it", works as a tag-question and can also show which information is the topic or new. "This is" can introduce direct speech at key points in a dramatic story. "Still" has a newer role as a sentence-final particle, related to its use as a discourse marker in standard English. It works as a modal particle that affects epistemic modality, showing intersubjectivity and politeness. It can be used alone or collocated with "though".

Phonology

Older speakers in London today have vowel and consonant sounds that match older accents such as Cockney. Young speakers often sound different. Their sounds are not the levelled ones found in recent studies of teenagers in South East England outside London, such as in Milton Keynes, Reading, Luton, Essex, Slough and Ashford. People might expect young speakers to use levelled sounds, but studies by Cheshire et al. (2011) and Cheshire et al. (2013) show otherwise.

The vowel fronting of the FOOT sound is stronger in the outer-city borough of Havering than in Hackney. Many inner-London speakers do not front the "oh" sound, though it is found among outer-city girls. The "eye" sound is lowered across the region, and this is seen as a reversal of the diphthong shift. Fronting and simplifying of this sound are strongest among Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) speakers. Among consonants, the "h" sound at the start of words is now much less often dropped than in traditional Cockney. Speakers often change the "th" sound, so "thing" can become "ting". Speakers of Jamaican descent may also use t-glottalization, and hypercorrections can be heard among them. Like most accents of England, Multicultural London English is non-rhotic.

Vocabulary

Multicultural London English has many words of its own. Some describe people and things, such as "bait" for something obvious or well known, "peng" for an attractive person or something good, and "wet" for something uncool or boring. Speakers also use words for friends and family, such as "bruv" for a close friend or brother, "fam" for family or friend, and "cuz" for a cousin or anyone who is a friend. "Akh" is a term of endearment that comes from the Arabic word for brother, and "paigon" is a changed spelling of the English word "pagan", used for a fake friend or enemy.

Other words are used in everyday talk. "Safe" can be a greeting, a sign of approval, or a parting phrase. "Wagwan" means "What's going on?" and "dun know" means "of course" or "you already know." Some verbs describe actions, such as "chirpse" for flirting with someone, "crease" for laughing hard, and "air" for ignoring somebody.

In popular culture

Multicultural London English appears in many TV shows and films. In The Real McCoy, one of the earliest seen forms of the language is widespread throughout the series. The Bhangra Muffin characters from Goodness Gracious Me use an early form of it, and characters of all ethnicities in the Channel 4 series PhoneShop use it all the time. Characters in the film Kidulthood and its sequel Adulthood speak it, as do those in the parody film Anuvahood and its sequel Sumotherhood. The satirical character Ali G, created by Sacha Baron Cohen, copies its speech patterns for comic effect. The gang in Attack the Block speak it, several characters in People Just Do Nothing use it, and Lauren Cooper, with her friends Lisa and Ryan from The Catherine Tate Show, often uses its vocabulary.

In Kingsman: The Secret Service, the lead character Gary "Eggsy" Unwin uses it, while his mother and stepfather use regular Cockney. Lisa, the police officer in Little Miss Jocelyn, speaks it and interprets speech for her colleagues. Armstrong & Miller has a series of World War II sketches with two RAF pilots who mix the dialect's vocabulary and grammar with a 1940s RP accent for comedy. A BBC article mentioned Adele as a speaker. The Chicken Connoisseur (Elijah Quashie), a YouTube user who rates takeaways selling chicken and chips, frequently uses its vocabulary. The TV show Chewing Gum uses it throughout. The song "Man's Not Hot" by comedian Michael Dapaah, under the name Big Shaq, satirises UK drill music using the dialect. Many characters in Top Boy use it. The Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse version of Hobie Brown / Spider-Punk uses it heavily, and the character's voice actor, Daniel Kaluuya, is from London. In the Netflix series Supacell, many characters speak it. Man Like Mobeen features a version that includes influences from the local Birmingham dialect and accent, as well as Urdu.