Cockney English

Cockney is the vernacular of London, the popular speech of the city. Because London is the capital of England, it has a special relationship to the standard, Received Pronunciation. The features of RP, notably vowel values, have been continued in Cockney, so that for instance the diphthong in the word lake has been lowered from [leɪk] to [lɛɪk]. This is part of a general shift so that the vowel in nine [naɪn] has been retracted to [nɑɪn], etc. You will notice in the sound sample that the speaker has a number of non-standard features in his English, e.g. he uses a glottal stop intervocalically as in water [wɔ:ʔə] (this feature is spreading to general usage in the south-east of England, often known as Estuary English). The speaker also shows the Cockney shift of [θ] to [f] as in three [fri:].

   Sample sound file