Geographic and Social Aspects of Cockney

The traditional London East End has experienced rapid movement of population and social changes in most recent decades. Cockney is mainly associated with the working class of the inner-most suburbs of eastern London, which includes the modern borough of Tower Hamlet’s and the southern part of the borough of Hackney.

Cockney accent has spread out from the traditional Cockney area due to massive population shifting of many white working class Anglos. The first reason to that spreading has to do with the “slum-clearance” program, which was a part of the post-war construction after World War 2. Due to lack of housing in the East End after the war, large parts of its original inhabitants were moved out and decentralized to areas further east, or the easternmost suburbs of London, like Barking and Havering, to estates that were built for this purpose,  or to the new-established towns such as Basildon and Harlow  in Essex, and MiltonKeynes in Buckinghamshire. The result of this was that the population in the East End was decreasing to the point of becoming a forth of what it was before the two World Wars.

The highlighted area is the traditional London East End

Since 1981, the population has steadily started to grow again, but now with significant social changes.

The second reason has to do with the closing of the busy docks in Tower Hamlet’s in the 1970’s, which resulted in unemployment amongst the dock workers, who had to seek work somewhere else. Many of them moved to Tilburywhere the only remaining dock was located. In 1981, the government sought to remedy the declining situation of the dock industry in London, and the Dockland Development Corporation was established. The area began to florish again, and a new financial centre was established. As a consequence, a lot of new housing was developed in the sarounding area. These prestigious housing developments attracted a community that was more middle class than the traditional working class with which the area was originally associated.

The third reason for the social changes in this area is the fact that London, and particularly the East End, has been for a long time the point of arrival of many immigrants to Britain. The increasing population in the East End since 1981 is by large due to Bangladeshi immigration during this period. The Bangladeshi now make about one third of  the population in the traditional East End, and are a substantial part of the new working class.

In view of all this, it is reasonable to assume that there have been linguistic changes in this area as well. The Cockney accent can no longer be restricted to the area with which it was traditionally associated. However, by acknowledging that that the Cockney accent is as much a class as a regional accent, it is also plausible to consider it as the working class speech of London.   

The traditional East End is one of the most diverse in terms of ethnicity. More than half of inhabitants of Tower Hamlet’s (one of the main Cockney buroughs and considered here as representative of the London East End as a whole) belonged to another ethnicity than white British. According to National Statistics Online, about 30% are Bangladeshi origin. Tower Hamlet’s is also a region of many contrasts. On one hand, there are very deprived area with  high unemployment, criminal levels and slice of population experiencing poverty level. On the other, some of the areas experience high prosperity.

Since 1960, when Eva Sivertsen published “Cockney Phonology”, there have not been many studies on the language spoken in the traditional East-End. Her study is a thorough descriptive phonological account on cockney. Further studies have concentrated on the question of ethnicity as a motivator for language change.