The emergence and characteristics of Multicultural London English (MLE)

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Government of the Russian Federation

Federal state academic institution

Of Higher Education

«Higher School of Economics»

Faculty of Foreign Languages and Intercultural communications

Department of foreign languages

Thesis on the subject of:

«The emergence and characteristics of Multicultural London English (MLE) »

Reviewer Student Taratukhin Arseny Victorovich

Associate Professor Sergeyenko P.I.

Academic supervisor

Professor Vishnyakova Olga Dmitrievna

Moscow 2019



Contents

Abstract

Introduction

Chapter 1. Demographics and Background

1.1 Migration waves in the UK in the 20'th and 21'st century

1.2 Relationship between MLE and native sociolects

1.3 MLE versus «Jafaican»

Chapter 1 conclusions

Chapter 2. Aspects of the sociolect

2.1 MLE grammar

2.2 Phonetic aspects of MLE

2.3 Lexicological aspects of MLE

Chapter 2 conclusions

Chapter 3. Examples in the present-day life

3.1 Impact of MLE upon British culture

3.2 Persistence and future trends

Chapter 3 conclusions

Conclusions

References

Appendix A



Abstract

This work plans to observe and address the current state of the emerging multicultural London English (MLE) by describing the main cultural and geographic vectors of development. Multicultural London English is an emerging sociolect that comes about as a byproduct of emigration of workers and professionals from different cultural environments and them contributing to the formation of a substrate of the mainstream English language. Due to the dynamic nature of the subject and its constant state of development this paper shall observe it largely through a theoretical lens. The main objective is to determine and classify the core cultural and ethnic groups that have the most effect on the current phenomena. As such, we'll frame the environment as not a monolithic structure but a loose collection of smaller sociolects of foreign ethnic groups that are tied together through geographic, cultural and economic connections. Using said data, we'll try to make a rough outline of the future development of the language.

The practical part of the paper shall focus on the questions of analysis and construction of existing and new corpusi that can be classified under MLE. Our work shall exist under the assumption that the primary demographics that would utilize MLE are individuals residing in London and perhaps other major metropolitan areas of the United Kingdom that are under 30 years of age.



Introduction

Before we begin, we must define what we consider to be Multicultural London English (MLE) otherwise known as urban London English or “Jafaican”. According to Macmillan dictionary, MLE is “a way of speaking that is common among young people in London and the south of England. It has elements of Caribbean, South Asian and African American English as well as features of traditional London speech”. From that, we can conclude that MLE is a sociolect that originated in the London metropolitan area from a mix of different ethnic diasporas that reside there. As such we can see the integration of new phonetic and grammatical norms as well as new elements of vocabulary somewhat reminiscent of the Ebonic dialect of American English. As we all know, language isn't a static entity and constantly evolves and mutates due to external and internal effects. One of those shifts in recent years has been observed in the English language with the rapid expansion of the London Metropolitan area and the arrival of workers and professionals from all over the world.

Their contributions to the language have formed a sociolect that scholars have dubbed the Multicultural London English (MLE). The topic at hand shall cover two major issues: the key vectors of formation of the sociolect and its future trajectory of development. The subject presents a striking relevance to public life as it signals the emerginc cultural shifts caused by the changing demographics in major urban areas of the United Kingdom.

Various scholars (mostly from Western Europe and the United States) have covered said issue, for example “Contact, the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of Multicultural London English Jenny Cheshire, Paul Kerswill Sue Fox, Eivind Torgersen (2011)” or “A Study of Rhythm in London: Is Syllable-timing a Feature of Multicultural London English? Anita Szakay, Eivind Torgersen (2011)”

It is worth noting that while previous research on the topic largely covered the sociolinguistic aspects of the topic, it does not seem at the time that any scholars have analysed the subject through a lens of corpus linguistics. By analyzing the corpus of cultural products such as music lyrics, as well as journalistic texts for instances of neologisms that may be classified as falling under MLE. The core issue of previous more sociolinguistic based works is that they tend to overlook the data and geographic aspects of language formation, which is vital when analysing anything that's tied to demographics and the emergence of new cultures. While there may be several key assumptions and caveats when overlooking the the corpus of work, the paper will detail the nuances and points of debates in the intro to the theoretical section of the paper as well as in the addendum and the appendix.

Overall, the purpose of the study is to give a brief overview of the emergence of the MLE dialect, create and develop several hypotheses on the meta-research level of approaching the research metropolitan dialects in general and later offer a glossary of most prominent neologisms and changes in the dialect in comparison to standard London English. This is justified since each of the pillars of the work are required in order to “triangulate” and find the clearest and fullest picture of the emerging phenomena.

The three major questions of the study are as follows: What is MLE? How did it come about? What will come of it in the future? We'll start out with a hypothesis that the main way MLE formed is through several vectors of migration: Slavic vector, Ebonic vector, Asian vector and the Oriental vector and how each blended and contributed to the formation of the language. This will largely be done through a methodology of analyzing the corpus of words for lexical vestiges of host cultures to calculate an approximate influence of each of the major vectors. Afterwards, it will become possible to compile a list of most common and pervasive neologisms as well as the vector they are likely to come from. Current approximations dictate that it's likely that the data shall show an increasing shift of prominence of linguo from North Africa and the approximate regions, as well as broader influence from the Americas by the 2030's.

One of the major hurdles of the project was the absence of a theoretical basis out of which it's possible to explore the specific elements of MLE. Upon delving into the literature one of the first things one notices is that the field largely consists out of individual students out of various cultures recalling their personal experiences of implementing the lexical, grammatical and phonetical elements from their culture into London English and thereby generating a sort of dialect when adopted by a larger community. As such it's somewhat difficult to create a firm basis for any specific analysis. For example, such works included Contact, the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of Multicultural London English, Jenny Cheshire, Paul Kerswill Sue Fox, Eivind Torgersen (2011)”, “A Study of Rhythm in London: Is Syllable-timing a Feature of Multicultural London English? Anita Szakay, Eivind Torgersen (2011).

In order to combat this issue we have prompted to fall back on more general literature that handles the subject of emergence of dialects and various other branches of a language in order to create said framework which future researchers may utilize. For example, New-dialect formation: The inevitability of colonial Englishes, P Trudgill (2004), How do dialects get the features they have? On the process of new dialect formation, R Hickey (2003), Dialect, Language, Nation, E Haugen (1966) may be of use as far are recent contributions to the field may be of use. multicultural english yafai language

Scholars often group MLE as part of a broader “Urban English” sociolect movement with universities such as the University of Manchester setting up the Uran British English Identification project “UrBEen-ID” in order to classify and create an ethnography of said linguistic phenomena.

When studying the transition between cockney and MLE the work of Professor Linsley Geoff was vital in tracking the phonetic and linguistic development and change between the two varieties of inner city English Wright, Peter (1981). Cockney Dialect and Slang. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd.

Cheshire, Jenny; Kerswill, Paul; Fox, Sue; Torgersen, Eivind (1 April 2011). "Contact, the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of Multicultural London English". Journal of Sociolinguistics. 15 (2): 151-196. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9841.2011.00478.x. ISSN 1467-9841. Lindsey, Geoff (2011). "english speech services | Accent of the Year / sibilants in MLE". Retrieved 2 December 2015

Due to the theoretical nature of the task most of the paper will be purely theoretical in nature, although citing existing research and demographic polls done in the United Kingdom. One of the initial difficulties is the geographic distance of the research team from the city of London, where it would be possible to ask the locals about their observations in language and cultural shifts in certain areas of the large city. As such, we are forced to fall back on data gathered from reputable sources such as the UK demographic census as well as migration data and the cultural and ethnic analysis of the labour pool of the city. Said data shall be placed in a theoretical framework upon which we shall draw the conclusions and see the outcomes of the research paper.

The work will integrate corpus research and demographic data to frame the territorial and cultural background of the London Metropolitan and its inhabitants. The later chapters shall provide examples of video and audio files depicting individuals using MLE in active speech. While there are various glossaries and dictionaries, it's been difficult to establish a corpus of MLE due to much of the slang being highly verbal in nature and not translating as much into the written word. As expected, “street slang” isn't often seen in high class poetry or even newspaper articles.

We expect to see that the language groups that had the most influence on the Multicultural London English are the Slavic cultures such as Poles, Russians and Ukrainians as they comprise a large percentage of the workforce in said area, even if they have a large expectation by their surroundings to “assimilate” both culturally as well as linguistically. Afterwards we'll see influence of Middle Eastern cultures, most predominantly the of the Arabic language and its phonetic and lexical contributions to English. Following that we'll likely encounter a significant influence of the West African and Caribbean demographics upon the English language of the city, as said cultural groups tend to be closely knit together and develop their own ebonic dialect when placed in a diaspora.

In terms of future developments of the language, we're likely to see the “fragmentation” of the language following the change in demographics in major metropolitan areas. As such the future that what we consider nowadays as MLE will become a family of distinct diaspora dialects that are united by their geographic area. There is though the issue of diasporas only developing unique cultures when separated from their homelands for extended periods of time, which may be difficult in an era of globalization and the internet.

The first chapter of this work shall be delegated to discussing the demographic background of the UK and the inner London area to answer the question of which ethnic groups have the most influence on the formation of MLE and who are its most prominent users. The second chapter of this work shall answer the question of what are the internal dynamics of MLE and how does the language form and develop, as well as the distinctions between multiethnolect aspects of the unit versus the ethnolect ones. The third chapter shall answer the question of the internal dynamics and the future development of MLE, as well as impacts of MLE upon British culture and identity.



Chapter 1. Demographics and background

There are two aspects of this chapter that need to be addressed. One being the recent history of demographic changes in the UK and the other being the history of already existing sociolects in the London major metropolitan area which were largely spoken by the native population.

1.1 Migration waves in the UK in the 20'th and 21'st century

It's self evident that any language is incapable of existing without any active speakers. As such one of the keys for understanding the development of a sociolect in a major metropolitan area is to understand the underlying demographic changes that accompanied them. In the case of the current project, we must look into the demographic changes in the UK post WWII mostly because the reconstruction period was the largest demographic shift in British history in recent memory, with a significant number of migrants coming from non-European areas such as the Caribbean, the Middle East or East Asia. Afterwards, we can connect the areas from which said migrants came from to the map of dominant language groups in the area and the size of each of the migration vectors as to determine the biggest influencers on the establishment of the sociolect.

To quote the Rienzo, Cinzia and Carlos Vargas-Silva. “Migrants in the UK: An Overview,” Migration Observatory briefing, COMPAS, University of Oxford, August 2018, there are a few key points to keep track off for the purpose of this research. Between 2004 and 2017 the UK population increased from 5.3 to 9.4 million, 3.4 million of which reside in the London metropolitan area as of 2017. According to the statistic from below between 1991 and 2001 the largest contributor of migrants were ex-USSR and other Warsaw pact states such as Poland, Ukraine and Russia. Post 2004 we see increased migration from non-EU states topping to 67% of migrants coming from non-EU states in 2017 according to Oxford Migration Observatory. Nevertheless, we see that the largest national group of migrants and the biggest contributor of workers to the UK and London come from the republic of Poland. As of 2017 London houses 37% of all foreign-born nationals.

fig. 1

Figure 1 depicts the major prevalent language groups by their geographic location.

People living in the UK
	1971	1981	1991	2001
All people	52,559,260	53,550,270	54,888,744	57,103,331
People born abroad	2,390,759	2,751,130	3,153,375	4,301,280
People born abroad as a % of total	4.55	5.14	5.75	7.53

Change in people living in the UK
	1971-1981	1981-1991	1991-2001
	+/-	+/- %	+/-	+/- %	+/-	+/- %
Change in all people	991,010	1.89	1,338,474	2.50	2,214,587	4.03
Change in people born abroad	360,371	15.07	402,245	14.62	1,147,905	36.40

British residents born abroad - regional groupings
	TOTAL NUMBERS	AS % OF ALL PEOPLE
Region Name:	1991	2001	+/- %	1991	2001	+/- %
Asian states in ex-USSR	n/a	3,440	n/a	n/a	0,01	n/a
Baltic States	n/a	10,619	n/a	n/a	0,02	n/a
Non-EU states in W Europe	n/a	73,439	n/a	n/a	0,13	n/a
North Africa	n/a	71,923	n/a	n/a	0,13	n/a
Other Central & W Africa	n/a	86,444	n/a	n/a	0,15	n/a
Other Eastern Europe	14,032	23,607	68.24	0.03	0.04	0.01
Other European ex-USSR	n/a	29,123	n/a	n/a	0.05	n/a
Other Far East	n/a	118,704	n/a	n/a	0.21	n/a
Other Middle East	n/a	71,635	n/a	n/a	0.13	n/a
Other North America	n/a	8,827	n/a	n/a	0.02	n/a
Other Oceania	n/a	5,571	n/a	n/a	0.01	n/a
Other South & E Africa	n/a	196,651	n/a	n/a	0.31	n/a
Other South Asia	n/a	6,377	n/a	n/a	0.01	n/a
South America	34,518	76,412	121.37	0.06	0.13	0.07

As one can see from the above data the demographic shift in the UK from 1991 to 2017 is best divided into two periods. The period following the collapse of the USSR and the Berlin wall which lead to increasing number of workers from Poland and other Slavic states moving to the United Kingdom. In the 2010's we saw a spike in migration from India and Pakistan, leading to them taking second and third place in contributors to largest migrant population, with the first place still being held by Poland. However we see India over-represented in the percentage of residents living in inner London according to the Migrant Observatory with 8,9% percent. Pakistan follows suit with 3,8%.



From this we may draw a conclusion that the biggest demographic influences on inner London are India, Poland and Bangladesh. One Slavic nation and two South Asian states. However, the following data does go into conflict with previously mentioned research which indicates the overwhelming influence of the Caribbean and West African states on the vocabulary and phonetic norms of Multicultural London English. There are several hypotheses that may address the issue at hand. One being that because English is the “lingua franca” within India, Pakistan and Bangladesh due to the region being divided between various ethnic groups the largely highly educated migrants from said region arrive in the UK without the need to forge their own unique linguistic identity. However the question of why the Polish and other Slavic diasporas didn't forge their own sociolects is up for debate.

According to Cheshire, Jenny; Fox, Sue; Kerswill, Paul; Torgersen, Eivind (2008). Ethnicity, friendship network and social practices as the motor of dialect change: Linguistic innovation in London. Sociolinguistica. 22. pp. 1-23. certain ethnic groups are more predisposed to forging their identities through a formation of sociolects than others, which may explain the disproportionate influence of African peoples in the formation of Multicultural London English. Still, said communities and international influence through media and the internet still have an influence as seen in Kerswill, Paul (2013) Identity, ethnicity and place : the construction of youth language in London. In: Auer, Peter, Hilpert, Martin, Stukenbrock, Anja and Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt, (eds.) Space in language and linguistics. linguae and litterae . Walter de Gruyter , pp. 128-164.

1.2 Relationship between MLE and native sociolects

In the research it's important to remember that despite the aforementioned colossal demographic shift in London, that the territory of the inner city area isn't a “blank slate” and is widely known to have its own complicated and detailed history of sociolects, most notably the iconic cockney dialect. However, with the gentrification of the working class areas and the proliferation of mass media the “native” accents have undergone what is dubbed by dialectologists as “dialect levelling” Chambers, K., & Trudgill, P. (1984). Dialectology (reprinted 1984). Cambridge: University Press. Cheshire, J., Edwards, V., & Whittle, P. (1989). Urban British dialect grammar: the question of dialect leveling. English World Wide 10: 185-225. Kerswill, P., & Williams, A. (2000). Mobility and social class in dialect leveling: evidence from new and old towns in England. In K. Mattheier (ed.), Dialect and Migration in a changing Europe (pp. 1-13). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Essentially as class mobility improves and migration processes kick in the conditions of semi-isolated working class areas start being replaced which ends up slowly eroding or “levelling” the accent. It's possible to make an academic assumption that while the “pure” influence of cockney has been diminished, its remnants still linger in the emerging sociolects such as MLE or other “Urban English” sociolects.

One of the key issues with constructing a corpus of MLE is that it's a sociolect that doesn't translate well into the written format, with speakers most often omitting it or finding alternatives. While there is urban slang equivalents online, the ways in which they are constructed and replayed are quite different to how the spoken word is produced that they might as well be considered their own separate dialects. There are intersections such as phonetic norms of MLE and cockney being warped by internet “l33tspeak”Blashki, Katherine; Nichol, Sophie (2005). "Game Geek's Goss: Linguistic Creativity In Young Males Within An Online University Forum". Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society. 3 (2): 77-86., Rome, James Andrew (2001-12-18). "relax we understand j00". Sigma Tau Delta, The International English Honor Society. Case Western University, Beta Beta Chapter. Archived from the original on 2007-02-16. Retrieved 2007-05-03 a practice of corrupting words by omitting letters until only a single letter omitting a phoneme appears as well as replacing vowels with various numbers. It is up to debate if this is to be considered to be in the same groups or a category of its own, largely due to it not being confined to London and being widely influenced by the broader anglophone world. One of the examples of this is fig. 2 a popular internet reaction image depicting a young British man with a puzzled expression looking to the left as the text on the bottom displays “U WOT M8” a corruption of the phrase “You what, mate?” an MLE and Cockney expression used as a reaction to bad news or perceived offense. However it is worth noting that the image is most often used by non-MLE speakers and is aimed to mock the working class youths of Brittain's inner cities.

fig. 2

Another issue with the nature of the sociolect is that London's inner cities aren't homogenous and are split between different communities by ethnic diasporas, social stratification or profession, as such each group has their own phonetic and linguistic means of expression within confines of the sociolect. As such it's difficult to distinguish between inner city phonetic norms and things such as national accent within the Caribbean and African populations. Especially considering the aforementioned ethnic diversity within the area. Using the data provided earlier it's possible to split MLE into different vectors of development by the national origin and ethnicities of the speakers. For example, as will be brought up in the phonetic analysis of the sociolect, there is a distinct difference between the pronunciation habits of self-identifying white and non-white speakers with the former being much closer to cockney which dominated the region. Due to this multitude of issues, scholars have proposed to describe MLE not as a sociolect but as an emerging multiethnolect Cheshire, Jenny; Nortier, Jacomine; Adger, David (2015). "Emerging Multiethnolects in Europe". Queen Mary Occasional Papers in Linguistics: 4.. A type of sociolect that has only recently began to develop in highly multicultrural areas. Due to this being, at the time of writing, a new field of research there still aren't developed tools for analysing those types of phenomena as street sociolects, which are largely verbal are notoriously difficult to compile a corpus out of and tend to quickly become outdated due to the speech and the rate at which youth is exposed to outside culture. For example, we saw traditional cockney rhythmic slang become usurped by more hip-hop influenced ones in the 90's as internet made communication significantly easier "Trouble and strife for cockney rhyming slang". The Times. London. 22 August 2005. Retrieved 17 July 2007. "'Nang' takes over Cockney slang". BBC News. 11 April 2006. Retrieved 17 July 2007

1.3 MLE versus “Jafaican”

Often MLE is referred as Jafaican or “fake Jamaican” due to its influence from Jamaican and Caribbean communities, however it's possible to claim that MLE as a multiethnolect is a different entity from the various African ethnolects Van Herk, Gerard (2012). What is Sociolinguistics?. Ethnicity: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 162-178. which reside in the area. After all, there is a magnitude of difference between the lexicological and phonetic habits of Nigerian and Jamaican users of inner city London English and those of native residents. Carlock, Elizabeth; Wölck, Wolfgang (1981). "A method for isolating diagnostic linguistic variables: The Buffalo ethnolects experiment". In David Sankoff and Henrietta Cedergren (ed.). Variation Omnibus. Edmonton: Linguistic Research. pp. 17-24. Clyne, M. (2000). Lingua Franca and Ethnolects in Europe and Beyond. Sociolinguistica, 14(1). doi:10.1515/9783110245196.83

It's possible to make the argument that meanwhile the ethnic diasporas adopt inner city slang while retaining their native accents as a means of forging a distinct identity, other users of MLE may do so in an effort to forge class solidarity and lack the ethnic component. In a sense, the phonetic norms of the African inner city youth may be a reflection of native accents, while white youth speak a modified version of cockney accent English. This does provide the research with several issues such as differentiating between the native accents of first generation migrants to the city which would dissipate within a few decades and broader trends within the development of a multiethnolect. However creating a hypothetical distinction between the trends does solve the issue of pronunciation of MLE varying depending on the ethnicity of the interlocutor.

Chapter 1 conclusions

In conclusion we may say that the inner London area got the brunt of the migration wave that happened in the second half of the 20'th century. The migration to the United Kingdom has happened in waves, one being in the 1990's after the collapse of the Berlin wall, which prompted workers from largely Slavic countries such as Poland or Ukraine to come to the UK to seek a better life. The second wave being from commonwealth states such as India, Pakistan or Bangladesh. While Poland still is the largest exporter of workers, India and Pakistan take up second and third place respectfully in population numbers.

While the ethnic factor is vital, it exists in parallel with socio-economic factors. We can evidently see from the beforehand mentioned research that MLE seems to be spread in working class areas and is generally considered to be a “lower-class” sociolect, with middle and upper class residents, regardless of their ethnicity, generally avoiding it. Scholars have dubbed MLE as an multiethnolect, which is a combination of several ethnolects that exists as a lingua franca of sorts between different urban communities.

One of the issues with analysing sociolects and ethnolects in the 21'st century is the existence of social media which harbours a different and distinct environment for the evolution of speech and cultures in general. As such it's difficult to pinpoint any linguistic phenomena within the same language sphere to any single geographic area and as such this ends up creating a set of problems. In addition the lexical sphere has become more splintered as online communities paved the way for more insular communities to develop in their own ways. There is still a reliable way to study the developments in the language by collecting a corpus of the spoken word within the major metropolitan areas, however this does present the problem where not all institutions are capable of affording to travel to said locations in order to spend months collecting their studies.



Chapter 2. Aspects of the sociolect

This chapter shall analyse the aspects of the sociolect by breaking them up into different components such as: Phonetics, Grammar and Vocabulary use.

2.1 MLE Grammar

In terms of grammar, according to Cheshire, Jenny; Fox, Sue (2008). "Was/were variation: A perspective from London". Language Variation and Change. 21 (1): 1-38 one of the defining features of urban grammatical norms is the regularization of “to be” as in “sometimes it be like that”. Overall, the past tenses tend to be misused in a rather liberal way. In addition, according to Kerswill, Paul (2007). "Linguistic Innovators: The English of Adolescents in London: Full Research Report" (PDF). ESRC End of Award Report. another common market is the phrasal of questions in the form of “Why...for?” instead of “What...for?”.

2.2 Phonetic aspects of MLE

When it comes to phonetics, the biggest influence on the formation of phonetic norms of MLE is the cockney accent which it shares territoriality with, as stated above. For example, MLE shares the same phonetic norms as Cockney when it comes to its pronunciation of vowels for example as stated in Matthews, William (1938). Cockney, Past and Present: a Short History of the Dialect of London. Wright, Peter (1981). Cockney Dialect and Slang. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd.Detroit: Gale Research Company. we can see non-rhotic features such as the last -er being pronounced as [?]. For example “brother” would be pronounced as “brutha” or or “letter” as “letta”. In addition, we can see the fronting of the /?/ or lack of /o?/ fronting Cheshire, Jenny; Kerswill, Paul; Fox, Sue; Torgersen, Eivind (1 April 2011). "Contact, the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of Multicultural London English". Journal of Sociolinguistics. 15 (2): 151-196. /ae/ can undergo backing and come out as /a/ according to the aforementioned study. Other phonetic features include backing of /?/ resulting in [?] and /a?/-lowering across region, although this reverse diphthong has been noticed to be most prevalent among the Caribbean and African population and other non-whites, which indicates that this was a recent shift. When it comes to the phonetic dynamics of the consonants, one of the biggest shifts from traditional cockney is the reversal of the /h/ dropping according to Lindsey, Geoff (2011). "english speech services | Accent of the Year / sibilants in MLE". Retrieved 2 December 2015. as recent studies have shown that this trend is becoming less and less common as younger Londoners don't drop their /h/'s quite as frequently as their predecessors. Despite this, the accent retains its non-rhotic features. Worth mentioning from the beforehand mentioned Lindsey paper is the fact that the sibilants /s, z/ are articulated as post-dental [s?, z?]

2.3 Lexicological aspects of MLE

The leixocological aspects of MLE are the most difficult to quantify as much of it overlaps with urban youth slang and as such is subject to perpetual and rapid change, however there have been several attempts by both academic and citizen researches to create a glossary or a corpus of the most commonly used terms and their meaning. For the creation of more of a “full” picture the following section will include news and media articles. One of the more detailed sources on the subject is Tim Wood's internet glossary with examples of MLE and urban slang. Here are a few examples from the following source.

Term:	Description
Dash	To dash is to pass something to somebody - but it can be “pass” in the broadest possible sense, including to throw violently with the intention of causing hurt or damage.
Heads	People
Hoodies	Guys on the street
Kotch	Sit and relax
Lips	To kiss
Mash Man	A gunman
Nang	Good or of high quality
On top	When a situation is out of control.
Owned	To be made a fool of.
Po-po	Police
Rents	Parents or legal guardians
Rude boy	A badman, a person who is hardened by the street
Seckle	Settle down
Shook	Nervous, neurotic or anxious
Teething	Stealing
Whip	Car or some other vehicle

Chapter 2 conclusions

In conclusion, in our attempt to answer the question of the internal structure and dynamics of MLE we can see the following traits. In terms of grammar, one of the most prominent features is the liberal misuse of past tense, much akin to American Ebonic dialect.

Meanwhile, when it comes to phonetics, the dialect splinters into different subcategories. Some speakers have phonetic traits similar to cockney, although they don't drop their h's as much as their predecessors. Certain phonetic aspects of MLE are more common in the Caribbean and East African population than in those of white speakers, as those lean more on the cockney phonetic norms. One of the major issues is differentiating between general phonetic norms and accents prominent to certain ethnic groups.



Chapter 3. Examples in present-day life

MLE is most often used by the working-class youths of inner London, especially in the areas with low-income housing and an ethnically diverse population. Due to its recent emergence and slang-heavy nature, the most wide use of it can be found among the youth of under 30 years of age. An example of active MLE speech can be found in the video food critiques of takeaway meals in the London inner city area by Elijah Quashie otherwise known as the “Chicken Connoisseur” who uses the vocabulary and the phonetic norms in his in-depth critiques of meals in various pubs and chip shops. Sampson, Issy (4 August 2018). "Chicken Connoisseur Elijah Quashie: 'Deep down, vegans want to be us!'". the Guardian.

3.1 Impact of MLE upon British culture

A lot like cockney which predated the sociolect, the speech is viewed in a low light, as it's often associated with lower-class and poor youths. According to the UrBEn-Id survey conducted by Dr. Richard Drummond of Manchester Metropolitan University, the manner of speaking of viewed poorly especially among the older population as seen below.



Due to the nature of the speech, the broadest impact the phenomena had was on the youth and especially youth culture such as the hip-hop and rap music scene. Despite or because of that MLE is seen through the lens of being associated with crime and other antisocial behavior. Britain, a society known for its deep history of class discrimination has often portrayed people speaking cockney or other “lower class” accents as being dimwitted and uneducated. The same attitude extends to MLE in broad terms.

While inner London had a working class sociolect ever since it became a major metropolitan area, what distinguishes MLE is the fact that it began as an integration of various ethnolects into its core. It's possible to make a hypothesis that MLE only exists on the convergence of working class dialect with newly emerging ethnolects in the Arabic and African communities. One of the functions of the ethnolects is the establishment of identity within the confines of a foreign culture, which may explain the large difference between white and non-white MLE users as seen in Carlock, Elizabeth; Wölck, Wolfgang (1981). "A method for isolating diagnostic linguistic variables: The Buffalo ethnolects experiment". In David Sankoff and Henrietta Cedergren (ed.). Variation Omnibus. Edmonton: Linguistic Research. pp. 17-24. Clyne, M. (2000). Lingua Franca and Ethnolects in Europe and Beyond. Sociolinguistica, 14(1)

There have been several depictions of MLE in pop culture, one of the more comprehensive ones being in the film Kingsman: Secret Service where we see an interplay between MLE and cockney, where the protagonist Eggsy speaks MLE, while his mother speaks an older variant of cockney, showing the generational shift in language. Another example are the cast of the science fiction thriller “Attack the Block” which use the ethnic variant of MLE rather heavily.

The television show “Chewing Gum”, due to its location in inner city London often has characters speaking and communicating in MLE. However the most prominent use of MLE remains in UK “drill” and “trap” music, a subgenre of rap. Cheshire, Jenny; Kerswill, Paul; Fox, Sue; Torgersen, Eivind (2011). "Contact, the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of Multicultural London English". Journal of Sociolinguistics. 15 (2): 151-196.

Due to the nature of the sociolect, while we did see it becoming more prominent in the inner-city areas, its spread has omitted rural territories, which managed to preserve its distinct regional dialects and accents.

3.2 Persistence and future trends

As the demographic situation in the inner London area continues to shift we are expecting to see no diminishment in the use of the following sociolect. One of the possible future trends we may see is to see future splintering of the sociolect as time goes on and new ethnic groups becoming integrated into the London metropolitan area.

As we can see from Cheshire, Jenny; Fox, Sue; Kerswill, Paul; Torgersen, Eivind (2008), Ulrich Ammon and Mattheier, {Klaus J.} (ed.), "Ethnicity, friendship network and social practices as the motor of dialect change: linguistic innovation in London", Sociolinguistica : International Yearbook of European Sociolinguistics, Max Niemeyer Verlag, 22: 1-23, sociolects are often a tool for ethnic diasporas to forge their own unique identities within the confines of a larger structure. So should communication change we may eventually see Polish communities splinter off from the mainland and form their own sociolect. However, this does go again the general trend of dialect levelling as social media and mass communication take over.

The question of the persistence of MLE remains open as the 21'st century has so far been defined by large migration waves as well as revolutionary communication technology, both of which have transformed language in a basic way. Due to the multitude of factors as well as possible “black swan” events such as the emergence of AI it's difficult to be certain how persistent the sociolect is. Most likely scenario is that we'll see it form, transform and mutate into different branches and splinters of urban English much like its predecessor, cockney English, did beforehand. It remains an open question if MLE will splinter into various smaller ethnolects or would converge into a more cohesive entity.

Chapter 3 conclusion

In this chapter we have answered the question of the impact of MLE upon British culture. Due to its hip-hop influence most of the vocabulary seems to be related to the Ebonic dialect in the United States, which tends to alienate the general public, especially those living in rural areas, who see it as a corruption of established norms. Largely the multiethnolect doesn't seem to step outside its territory of the inner city areas. In terms of future developments it's difficult to draw conclusions as the phenomena has formed in the past few decades due to massive social and demographic shifts, as such there is no crystalized form of speech to study. In addition, construction of a corpus is difficult as most of the speech is verbal and doesn't translate to the written form.



Conclusions

In the conclusion we must reiterate that the demographic shifts that happened in London continue to occur in other Western cities such as Paris and Berlin and because of that we are seeing equivalent sociolects emerge in said areas. It's important that we are to study in-detail and document the development of those types of urban phenomena in order to predict and map the future of our own linguistic developments. Still, we shouldn't worry about this eroding traditional established language norms as the current phenomena appears to be localized to lower class areas. The future of the sociolect is uncertain since it's a phenomena that has only began rising to prominence in the 90's and as such is much under investigation. There is a large possibility of further mutation and splintering into smaller sociolect groups by ethnicity, profession or class as more and more of the Inner London area becomes gentrified and the working class people are forced out into other areas of the city.

Overall, at the start of this research paper I entered imagining MLE as a persistent ethnic sociolect akin to the Ebonic for the African diaspora in the US or Yiddish for Ashkenazi Jews of central Europe, however after going through the research it appears that inner city English appears to have its most persistent grammatical and phonetic parts taken from cockney and other working class mannerisms, while the most malleable part being the vocabulary which constantly switches slang terms and takes its cues out of the hip-hop scene. MLE is often referred as Jafaikan or “fake Jamaican” due to its perceived ethnic influence, however in-reality its roots are closely linked to working class dynamics that persisted in London beforehand. It's incredibly difficult to link all the branches and variations of MLE under a single theoretical umbrella as the research suggested different areas, professions and ethnic communities have their own variant of the sociolect, as such the idea of a cohesive and unified London inner city English may only exist within the academia and is not representative of the situation in the life of the average London resident.

As mentioned in the phonetics section, it is possible to make the case that African and non-white speakers of MLE have their own set of phonetic norms, however that is impossible to distinguish from a personal accept or one common to a certain diaspora and as such may be omitted. There is influence from ethnic minority communities, however it isn't as common as otherwise perceived as those phonetic variations fall inside the parameters of before described working class speech mannerisms.

What is paramount for future research into the field is the creation of a technical and theoretical framework for research and classification of multiethnolects such as MLE, as our current methods of data analysis overlook big data farms such as Twitter or Facebook where much of the discourse is takes place.



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Appendix A

Pidgin and MLE

According to Muysken, Pieter; Smith, Norval (2008). "The study of pidgin and creole languages" (PDF). In Arends, Jacques; Muijsken, Pieter; Smith, Norval (eds.). Pidgins and Creoles: An Introduction. John Benjamins. pp. 3-14. Pidgin is a simplified form of a language used for communication between different groups of people that don't share a Lingua Franca, as such a certain linguistic bridge is constructed. Unlike creole, pidgin is incomplete and lacks grammatical and phonetic consistency. Pidgin exists in various communities from around the globe, although its prevalence has shrunk over time as mass education became prominent, especially in East and South Asia.

However one geographic area where the use of pidgin English became more widely used in the past decades is West Africa, especially Nigeria. Much like MLE the lexicon and the phonetic norms of pidgin are unstable and research is currently underway to determine the role of social media on long term language development. Due to migration laws in the United Kingdom, Nigerian nationals that come into the nation are expected to receive a higher education beforehand and as such are less likely to speak pidgin, however it's possible to see the influence of this bridge tongue in the ethnolects of large British cities. Most notable if you analyse the phonetic and grammatical norms of the two linguistic phenomena, such as how past tense is simplified or out-right removed or how “do” is often pronounced as “di” due to the phonetic norms of the region. It's rather possible that an in-depth study of pidgin in the United Kingdom is hampered by the low status attributed to it.

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