Black British English
| Multicultural London English | |
|---|---|
| Region | London |
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Indo-European
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Early forms
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| English alphabet (Latin script) ― mainly a spoken dialect; MLE speakers write in standard British English. | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | None |
Multicultural London English (abbreviated MLE) is a sociolect of English that emerged in the late 20th century. It is spoken authentically by working-class, mainly young, people in London (although there is evidence to suggest that certain features are spreading further afield). According to research conducted at Lancaster University and Queen Mary University of London, "In much of the East End of London the Cockney dialect... will have disappeared within another generation.... it will be gone [from the East End] within 30 years.... It has been ‘transplanted’ to... [Essex and Hertfordshire New] towns."
As the label suggests, speakers of MLE come from a wide variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and live in diverse inner-city neighbourhoods such as Brent, Lambeth and Hackney. As a result, it is (arguably) regarded as a multiethnolect. One study was unable ‘‘to isolate distinct (discrete) ethnic styles’’ in their data on phonetics and quotatives in Hackney and commented that the ‘‘differences between ethnicities, where they exist, are quantitative in nature’’. In fact, they find that it is diversity of friendship groups that is most important; the more ethnically diverse an adolescent's friendship networks are, the more likely it is that they will speak MLE.
In the press, MLE is often referred to as ‘‘Jafaican’’, conveying the idea of ‘‘fake Jamaican’’, because of ‘‘popular belief’’ that it stems from ‘‘immigrants of Jamaican and Caribbean descent’’. However, research suggests that the roots of MLE are much more complex. Two Economic and Social Research Council funded research projects found that MLE has most likely developed as a result of Language contact and group second language acquisition. Specifically, it can contain elements from "learners’ varieties of English, Englishes from the Indian subcontinent and Africa, Caribbean creoles and Englishes along with their indigenised London versions (Sebba 1993), local London and south-eastern vernacular varieties of English, local and international youth slang, as well as more levelled and standard-like varieties from various sources."
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Wikipedia