Would you Adam ’n’ Eve it? Cockney history revealed

Talk of the town: Lily Allen reflects a younger urban mode of speech
12 April 2012

An exhibition tracing Cockney English from before the time of Charles Dickens through to the music of Blur and N-Dubz opens tomorrow.

Lyrics from songs written in recent years show how "ain't" is still popularly used instead of isn't, just as Dickens recorded the Cockney of Victorian London with characters such as Sam Weller in The Pickwick Papers.

But British Library curator Jonnie Robinson said artists including Lily Allen and Kate Nash reflect a younger urban mode of speech with their use of the glottal stop in words such as city and little.

Examples of their music are played in the exhibition, which charts the evolution of the English language.

Mr Robinson said other features of Cockney, including Mr Weller's use of the letter w instead of v in words such as very, have since disappeared.

An English book, The Good Child's Book of Stops, was using the term "period" to mean full stop in the 19th century even though the phrase is regarded as an American import in the UK today.

Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices is illustrated with exhibits including the earliest surviving copy of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf and the first printed book in English, Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, translated and printed by William Caxton circa 1473-74.

The exhibition runs at the British Library until April 3 2011. Admission is free.

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