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From Cockney to the Queen
Help us understand how people speak across London and Southeast England
No tasks are currently available for this project.

In recent years, the demographics and accents found across London and Southeast England have changed dramatically. Typically, accents across the Southeast have been described as ranging from the lowest-class accent, Cockney, to the highest class, “Queen’s English” (RP). In recent years, what we think of as a “Cockney” accent may have changed. High rates of ethnic and linguistic diversity have led to Multicultural London English (MLE) emerging in parts of London. In this project, contributors will listen to audio clips of young people from across London and Southeast England and will try to identify the speakers’ class and ethnicity based solely on their accents. They will also provide us with detailed descriptions of the different groups of people and accents that can be found across Southeast England. Responses will be used in research exploring language variation and change in Southeast England and tracking where Cockney accents are most found in modern times.