Re: CHAT: Cockney Orkish as she is spoken.

At 9:51 am -0800 23/2/99, JOEL MATTHEW PEARSON wrote:
>On Tue, 23 Feb 1999, Andrew Smith wrote:
>
>> The
>> agency through which I am auditioning advised me to do the audition in a
>> British accent and they suggested Cockney.  I'm still trying to see the
>> connection.  So can anyone suggest what is so 'orkish' about Cockney, and
>> how I can 'debase' that dialect to sound authentic.
>
...........
>
>The choice of Cockney as a replacement for orkish dialects makes
>*some* sense, though, if you look at the sociological underpinnings
>of the Lord of the Rings:  If the Shire is meant to stand in for rural
>England and rural English values (as is commonly assumed), then Mordor
>could be seen as a stand in for grimy, polluted, industrial London.
19th cent. & early 20th cent. London may have been grimy & polluted - but
that was mainly because of the dense concentration of population, the habit
of heating houses by burning coal, making gas from coal to provide steet
lighting and domestic fuel, use of steam trains, burning coal to make
electricity etc. What brought most people to the metropolis was commerce
and 'filthy lucre' rather than industry.  The real _industrial_ heartland
was the "Black Country" of the indrustrial west Midlands, so on that
account a Black Country accent would be more appropriate - except most of
the English speaking world outside of the UK would probably need subtitles
:)

>From
>that point of view it makes sense to portray Orcs as Cockneys, who are
>commonly stereotyped as being crass, vulgar, and criminal.  I'm not saying
>I agree with the analogy (I actually find it quite offensive), but I can
>understand where it might come from...
I regret I very much think Joel is right and the film makers are
perpetuating a senseless stereotype.  Like Joel, I find it quite offensive
- indeed, extremely offensive.

I find it very sad that after a century which has witnessed far too often
the hatred, bitterness and senseless cruelty & killing that such
stereotypes too readily engender, some people seem to be taking these often
groundless & quite mischievous stereotypes into the 3rd millennium with
them.

If the film makers actually turned to Tolkien and saw what he said, they'd
find a language which is not at all reminiscent of Cockney.  One of the
most notable features of Cockney is that standard English [T] and [D] are
pronounced [f] and [v] respectively.  In the Black Speech [T] is certainly
attested as are [x] and [Q] which most Cockneys would not easily pronounce.
We're even told that the Orkish /r/ was uvular like that of French and most
modern German speakers.  I've *never* heard anything like an uvular /r/ in
Cockney - and I hear Cockney very often. Indeed, looking through the Black
Speech material this evening I see nothing particularly 'British' about it
and certainly nothing remotely resembling Cockney.

I'm afraid IMO the attitude "Oh, let's make the nasty orcs sound like
Cockneys" shows both lamentable laziness as regards research and
inexcusably offensive stereotyping.

Ray.