A multigenerational study of English in London
What does how we speak tell us about ourselves, our history, and the city we live in?
The language of London tells the story of the social changes the city has undergone through history. As a city that has always had exceptionally high levels of social contact, it is one of the best places in the world to hear the history of social and political change through the voices of its people.
The last 50 years have seen some of the most significant linguistic changes in British English take place in London, with the formation of Estuary English, Multicultural London English, British Asian English, and many changes in pronunciation across South East England. Each of these tells a bigger story about the city and its people, and the changes they have been through.
A living language shaped by a global city
For centuries, London has been the source of influence for forms of the English language around the world. A source of innovation and the birthplace of new ways of speaking, driven by its constantly changing population and its unique place in the Anglophone world.
For nearly 2000 years, migration has meant that London English has always absorbed diverse inputs: from Old English through Middle English, Cockney, to more modern variations such as Estuary English, Multicultural London English and Black British English.
Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Jewish diaspora, Irish, sailors from Asia, China, and Africa, French Huguenots, British colonial military returnees, and postcolonial, postwar and EU migrants have all contributed to the English language as we speak it today.
What does London and its people tell us about how language changes?
Studying language in a city like London shows that the way language changes is actually quite systematic and predictable. There are universal principles of how a language changes over time, and why, and we can see the same repeating cycles happening again and again.
New ways of speaking emerge out of both language-internal reasons and social contact. Initially these attract comment, partly because they tend to develop among working class and younger speakers; they then become very familiar and widespread; and ultimately they become mainstream and unremarkable for the next generation.
As language in London has been recorded for so long, we can see this lifecycle vividly: the birth of a new way of speaking, watching it ‘grow up’, and eventually becoming the ‘old’ way of speaking. And then the same process repeating again.
Importantly, this means that today’s ‘good’ language— for example, the vowels used by BBC newsreaders—was often yesterday’s ‘poor’ language. And groups that face language-based discrimination today are in fact simply part of a universal process of language regeneration. They are usually the future direction of mainstream usage.
21st Century London is a unique opportunity to study language change in real time
London today offers a unique opportunity to study language change happening in real time.
Multicultural London English (MLE) is a distinct NEW dialect that has developed over the last 30 years as a result of mass immigration. The first generation of MLE speakers are now entering middle-age, with a second generation of children growing up. Many initially stigmatised accent features of MLE have already started to go mainstream, and can be heard across a range of advertising and media.
Children and adolescents are the main innovators in language change. In London today we have the opportunity to observe whether, and how, these new features are transmitted to the next generation, in real time. A rare opportunity to study the development of a language while it is happening.