Non-Native English Speakers: Which English is more important?

[Al B. Sure!]

Are you trying to trick me into watching a rap video? Not happening.

Tell me what he's saying. I call bull**** that you can understand Cockneys and not that retarded South or Oakland thug.

[Al B. Sure!]

Here you go... it has translations:



It's more about slang but their way of speaking is no less removed from Standard English than that "ebonics" video

[giblets]

Rap kills brain cells. No wonder they've developed a speech impediment. They're still more comprehensible than the thug in that other video.

[Al B. Sure!]

They're still more comprehensible than the thug in that other video.

O RLY?

[giblets]

YA RLY.

[Al B. Sure!]

I'm done speaking to your perpetually contrarian disingenuous ass.

Cockney is the British version of "ebonics". It's just as distant as standard English in vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar but is fundamentally the same language: English.

[giblets]

Who says they have to be equally unintelligible? Maybe Ebonics is more unintelligible.

[Cort Haus]

That rap bloke isn't a cockney, Al, and nor is the language. He's from Essex, not inner London, and is actually a sort of caricature of what many people call 'Chav'. Note the burberry clothes.

I haven't a clue what he was saying as it was too fast to hear and probably full of street slang that an old fart like me wouldn't even want to know about. He might even be copying stuff from American rap.

Cockney was originally a dialect of English going back to Saxon times which became associated with East London and then a 4-5 mile radius from the old Roman / Medieval City. It later (18th/19th Century I think) became associated with rhyming slang, which involved the replacing of words usually with rhyming pairs, probably to act as a code for various nefarious activities.

[Cort Haus]

Cockney is the British version of "ebonics".

I don't think so. See above.

[Al B. Sure!]

It later (18th/19th Century I think) became associated with rhyming slang, which involved the replacing of words usually with rhyming pairs, probably to act as a code for various nefarious activities.

Modifications of the language and slang as code for nefarious activities... hmm. Gee, that's nothing at all like what the jive talkers and the modern jive talkers who speak this "ebonics" did

Not at all analogous.

[Docfeelgood]

Modifications of the language and slang as code for nefarious activities... hmm. Gee, that's nothing at all like what the jive talkers and the modern jive talkers who speak this "ebonics" did

Not at all analogous.

I don't think so

[Docfeelgood]

Ebonics is the variant of language used by black americans who were not paying attention during childhood development english when pronunciation and annunciation were being taught in grade school classes like 2, 3, 4, and 5.

[Dauphin]

It later (18th/19th Century I think) became associated with rhyming slang, which involved the replacing of words usually with rhyming pairs, probably to act as a code for various nefarious activities.

Blimey! I fort dat was a pile ov crap. The popo may be stupid but I fnk they could 'ave worked i' aaaht pret'y quick like if 'alf ov London was speakin' it. Nuff said, yeah?

[Al B. Sure!]

Blimey! I fort dat was a pile ov crap. The popo may be stupid but I fnk they could 'ave worked i' aaaht pret'y quick like if 'alf ov London was speakin' it. Nuff said, yeah?

And that, spoken quickly, with some more slang (like rhyming slang) peppered into it, would be no less deviant from standard English than this so-called "ebonics" that Docfeelgood posted.

[Dauphin]

Actually, it's a local accent spoken by many people here. I can understand it fluently.