Re: CHAT: Blandness (was: Uusisuom's influences)

Ray:
> In London itself, /aw/ is either [A:] or [&:] in Cockney, according to
> whether one lives north or south of the Thames (I always forget which is
> which - And will no doubt enlighten me :).
[...]
> Here in Surrey, /aj/ seems to be more like [Qj]; certainly in London it
> tends this way - I suspect to compensate for tendency of Londoners to
> pronounce /ej/ as [Ej] or even [&j].  In some northern dialects the [j] has
> virtually disappeared and we have [A:];
Both remarks about "[A:]" *seem* wrong to *me* if "A" has its usual ASCII-IPA
value of turned script a, but would seem right to me if replaced by "[a:]".

As for the north/south of the Thames distinction, I try to go south of the
(southbank of the) Thames as little as possible, so have no observations to
make from my own experience. From what I've read of other reports,
monophthongization of /aU/ to [&:] is canonical Cockney, i.e. centred on
the East End, tho I've seen journos write about "Sarf London", so maybe
there is indeed in S. London a [A:] realization I happen not to have
noticed or read about. The only N/S London distinction I recall having
read about is that (allegedly) yod dropping after coronals (Tuesday
News = Toozday Nooz) is a distinctively N London phenomenon. I ought
to be able to vouch for this from my own experience, living in N
London as I do, but where I live there is little to be found of an
indigenous proletariat: the area is very heavily transient/hiberno-indomoslem
(i.e. lots of very recent immigrants, with the local shops alternating
between halal butchers and shops selling junk and lurid hibernocatholic
devotional gewgaws).

--And.

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