London Slang - Modern Influences

Modern Influences

In 2005, Professor Sue Fox from Queen Mary, University of London concluded that Cockney rhyming slang was dying out because children in London are being overwhelmed by words and phrases from outside cultures. Teenagers especially are incorporating into their vocabularies new words borrowed from outside the UK. This new slang is also influenced by new technologies, especially mobile phone SMS (short message service) or text messages. While "dat" and "dere" may be of Afro-Caribbean origin along with many other terms, their use in text messages as easier-to-key options to "that" and "there/their" cement them as slang in common usage. It is also factual that there are various forms of "London Slang". Slangs spoken in Black areas such as Brixton, Peckham, Harlesden, Stonebridge, Hackney, Tottenham etc incorporate many other terms which other areas do not use or often catch onto much later. For example terms such as: "Cah" = Because - e.g. "Cah di man dem wanna fly up North today." = "Because all of us want to go to North London tonight." "Manna" = Manna straight rudebwoy you know star = "I'm a rudeboy."

These and many more are relative mainly to the Afro-Caribbean community as a result of pop culture and have spread out into p redominantly Caucasian/Asian areas over time. It is also factual that many dialects are not exactly the same. For example, in South London terms such as "Wallad" (meaning fool) have become popular in Brixton and Peckham as a result of people converting to Islam. As a result the terms have been mixed in with standard English and cockney creating a new yet varying dialect across the city.

The large number of immigrant communities and relatively high level of ethnic integration mean that various pronunciations, words and phrases have been fused from a variety of sources to create modern London slang. The emerging dialect draws influences from Jamaican English and other Caribbean speech. This form of slang was born and is mainly spoken in Inner London and has been popularised by UK Rap music. Although the slang has been highly influenced by black immigrant communities, a large number of teenagers of all ethnicities in London have adopted it. Popular slang words include sick ("good"), bare ("very", "a lot of"), alie ("indeed", or to encourage agreement), skeen ("I concur"), seen, long ("boring", "repetitive"), wallad, peak ("very good"), sket (short for the Afro-Caribbean phrase Skettle, meaning a loose woman), wagwarn ("what is happening", "hello"), wavey, badman ("thug"), jezzy ("loose woman" (from Jezebel)), ting ("thing", or, when pluralised, to refer to the current situation), bossman (patriarchal figure), safe ("trustworthy", "good", or to show agreement), spliff ("marijuana" or to refer to an individual marijuana cigarette), peng, leng ("weapon", "attractive girl"), piff ("above average", derived from a strain of marijuana), nang (something desirable), dutty ("dirty"), Happz ("happy"), allow it ("leave it be") .

Other examples, include calling the police 'feds'; this probably comes from the shortened term used for federal agents (FBI) in the USA. Also, shortening the names of places, so for instance the West End becomes 'West' or Kentish Town becomes 'Kentish', is popular in everyday street English. An example in the form of a sentence would be that the phrase, "Let's go to the West End tonight, you guys, and let us rob some stuff." becomes, "You man, come we go West tonight and rip bare shit."