So, my wife says to me today - "what is it about Londoners that means that the remnants of Cockney, or at least the East Enders legacy means that even today - Londoners tend to drop their "th" into an "f"?" Well, that wasn't the full question, because we all understand that that speech mannerism is set in history and tradition. No her real question was why it is not consistent.. F for "Fings" and "Fursday" and such like - but I have never heard a Londoner say Fis or Fat instead of This and That.
So if you are capable of using the "TH" in some words - why not others?
I do not have an answer for it - I simply raise a question...
But - having been asked the question - it appears that the subject is called th-fronting - and there is a full entry in Wiki about it. It is all about Theta (ð) turning to EFF (f) - but also it refers to "TH"
(ð) turning into VEE (v) in the middle of a word... An example given is BATHE turns to Bave...
A study shows that though it is rare for the latter style of th-fronting to occur at the start of a word, such as the one I mentioned - THAT becoming VAT - this was found in the speech of South-East London in a survey completed 1990-4...
Th-fronting is a prominent feature of several dialects of English, notably Cockney, Estuary English, some West Country and Yorkshire dialects, Newfoundland English, African American Vernacular English, and Liberian English, as well as in many foreign accents (though the details differ among those accents)..
Well - if you have a question there is an answer out there!!
A 2003 study found that th-fronting was most prevalent in and around the cities of London and Bristol.The first reference to "th"-fronting in London speech occurs in 1787. By 1850 it appears to have been considered a standard feature of working class speech in the city, and had the same status in Bristol by 1880. The use of the labiodental fricatives [f] and [v] for the dental fricatives [θ] and [ð] was noted in Yorkshire in 1876. In his 1892 book A Grammar of the Dialect of Windhill, Joseph Wright noted variable th-fronting in his district in words such as think, third and smithy.
In 1988, it was noted as spreading amongst non-standard accents in England. Although th-fronting is found occasionally in the middle and upper (middle) class English accents as well, there is still a marked social difference between working and middle class speakers. Th-fronting is regarded as a 'boundary marker' between Cockney and Estuary English, as depicted in the first descriptions of the latter form of English and confirmed by a phonetic study conducted by researcher Ulrike Altendorf. Nevertheless, Altendorf points out that th-fronting is found occasionally in middle class (Estuary) speech as well and concludes that "it is currently making its way into the middle class English accent and thus into Estuary English".
In popular music, the singer Joe Brown's 1960s backing band was christened The Bruvvers (that is, "the brothers" with th-fronting). The 1960 musical Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be was stated to be a Cockney Comedy. Even if it was written by Lionel Bart
An article in the Telegraph in September 2016 stated that multiculturalism was causing th-fronting to spread and that the /θ/ sound would disappear from British speech by 2066...
Well - today the Chateau 41 was bottled and Demi-Johned
It beginning to look a lot like Christmas ..
Have a Dalek
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