Cockney status used to be defined by geography. Can people who aren't even Londoners now claim it?
By Adriana ElguetaThe Modern Cockney Festival concluded recently with the dialect being officially recognised as a community language by an east London council. Among other things, the month-long event featured a pearly burka, jellied eels and a debate about who really likes pie and mash.
Andy Green and Saif Osmani, who were behind the Modern Cockney Festival, are embracing this change. They believe the cockney identity is still thriving but has evolved. "Cockneydom spans far and wide. People [at the festival] identify as Bangladeshi cockneys or Kent cockneys. They all have some roots and culture in common, even if their community has had more influences."Saif Osmani and Andy Green believe the culture is under threat because of physical and social changes in London's East End
"I had this idea in my head that cockney is not dead, it's just moved to Essex," she says. "My feeling was that there was a real enclave of cockney; just anecdotally, I felt there was a lot of cockney spoken by young people." Before the cockney influx, she points out, an Essex accent was typically more rural-sounding - similar to the way people speak in Suffolk and Norfolk. She says that although this accent can still be heard in less urban areas and in the north of the county, it is losing ground.
"As soon as they started moving to Essex, they began to consider their accent an Essex one. It happened very quickly. As soon as the community relocated, there started to be this reinterpretation of Essex. Though some people do still consider themselves to some extent to have a cockney accent, this has rapidly been changing to identifying with an Essex one."
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