section_path: Demography/Accents
section_name: Accents
paragraph_text: Accents
  
  Cockney is an accent heard across London, mainly spoken by working-class and lower-middle-class Londoners. It is mainly attributed to the East End and wider East London, having originated there in the 18th century, although it has been suggested that the Cockney style of speech is much older. Some features of Cockney include Th -fronting (pronouncing "th" as "f"), "th" inside a word is pronounced with a "v", H -dropping, and, like most English accents, a Cockney accent drops the "r" after a vowel. John Camden Hotten, in his A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words of 1859, makes reference to Cockney "use of a peculiar slang language" (Cockney rhyming slang) when describing the costermongers of the East End. Since the start of the 21st century the extreme form of the Cockney dialect is less common in parts of the East End itself, with modern strongholds including other parts of London and suburbs in the home counties. This is particularly pronounced in areas like Romford (in the London Borough of Havering) and Southend (in Essex), which have received significant inflows of older East End residents in recent decades.
  
  Estuary English is an intermediate accent between Cockney and Received Pronunciation. It is widely spoken by people of all classes.
  
  Multicultural London English (MLE) is a multiethnolect becoming increasingly common in multicultural areas amongst young, working-class people from diverse backgrounds. It is a fusion of an array of ethnic accents, in particular Afro-Caribbean and South Asian, with a significant Cockney influence.
  
  Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent traditionally regarded as the standard for British English. It has no specific geographical correlate, although it is also traditionally defined as the standard speech used in London and south-eastern England. It is mainly spoken by upper-class and upper-middle class Londoners. Standard Southern British English (SSBE) has been considered as an evolution of RP that is now common and widely spoken in London and the south-east of England by a wide variety of people, but is distinct from Estuary English and MLE.