Favorite way to say red wines in a german accent?

Talking with a cockney or black accent which do you do?

• its a well known thing nowadays to see young white kids talking in a accent that originates with black people. then you have black people that talk in such a way that if you only heard their voice you would think they were white? i'm not so sure if the ar wright mate or err arr mate is so common these days? its either the black street slang or the queens english...maybe in the 60s it was considered fashionable to talk with a cockney accent thanks to actors like micheal caine etc. i must say that as a kid i always wished i had a proper cockney accent but i didn't because i was born in nw london and the nw london accent is not as profound as the cockney accent. i must say i find the cockney accent on women very attractive and the Northern lincolnshire accent too. my ex has a very broad lincolnshire accent...she says mandey rather than mandy. anyway please share your thoughts and experiences? do you find white people trying to talk so called black pretentious? and does it surprise you to hear black people talking as if they were white? hi graham, thanks for your well thought out and detailed answer. its funny because my generation and i'm talking about those that were born in the early or mid sixties we tended to imitate white kids way of talking...i remember my mum often saying to me that i was white outside as in when i was with my friends and black inside as in i tended to act according to my skin color...i did not agree with them but maybe thats how i came across when i was indoors...she could not possibly know the way i spoke and acted when i was out with friends? my parents always tried to steer me away from forming friendships with white people...her reason being that they will lead me into to trouble and then blame me when the cops turn up...and they would also beat me up eventually...did that ever happen? yes it did but that does not mean my mum was right because i have also been let down by black people who have also beaten me up. so we are all potentionally bad regardless of race. thanks again

• Answer:

  After eventually deciphering what you have written, I gather that you are asking about white youngsters talking like black youngsters and vice versa. There is no doubt that second and third generation black youngsters, particularly in the South East - regardless of whether their heritage is Caribbean or African - have developped a vernacular that is particular to them; as a keen student of language and dialect, my feeling is that this vernacular is based on Jamaican - with influences from both the accent and the patois - although it is now entirely "Londonised"; there is also no doubt that to some extent, this vernacular has extended to other communities, including the indigenous population - but to what extent this is natural linguistic evolution and to what extent it is the "fashionable" way to speak I have no idea. I suspect, however, that it is the latter. My own children grew up before this phenomenon manifested itself, but my friends' teenage children - and I am talking rural Sussex and Surrey here - sound like average traditional Surrey and Sussex kids when they talk to their parents and to strangers - and as though they are about to break into rap when they speak to each other. It has to be said that this trend is far more noticeable amongst boys than girls. Conversely, most of my black work colleagues sound like any average native of Lewisham, Ashford (Kent) and Croydon, which is where most of them were born and brought up. One, however - the son of two Jamaican-born barristers - sounds like Donald Sinden when he speaks and he always manages to give me the same feeling of inferiority and intimidation that I felt whenever my headmaster at school used to talk.