I climbed the stairs to the top deck and found a seat near the back, tripping over beer cans and the detritus of a take-away session on the way. Some unbelievably crap ring-tone from a dodgy mobile burst out in front of me. Mentally, I had called it already.
A foreign language. Japanese this time. I looked arond. One English newspaper. The only person not making a racket was someone who could read English. A minority, irritated as me, perhaps?
For a few years now, I have been dumbfounded and much to my surprise, irritated by the sheer number of foreigners in London. Foreigners who just don’t speak a word of English. I hear Polish, Russian, Romanian, Czech (it’s mostly East Europeans), Portugese, Arabic, Spanish and sometimes even Australian (kidding!). Of course, there is another foreign plague of a language - that crass cross between Chav and Jamaican Patois. The least honest accent of all.
“And she was like, chnaa meen?”
“Iz it?”
“Ja get me? N I woz like, I ain’t avin it, yeah? Coz it’s like, he’s in my face, init?”
“Iz it?”
Where does this bastard language come from? Is it not possible to communicate without littering every sentence with “like”? Is nothing what it actually is anymore? Is everything, even reality, reduced to metaphor?
Let’s get this out of the way; if it’s a Jamaican speaking in a Jamaican accent, fine. I actually miss that too. But if you’re second or third generation, you really should be speaking English now. Same goes for South Asians. A little bit of defloration of the language is acceptable too. I guess I’m just getting old and irascible, but standards are part of values and we are sorely missing both.
Every time I get on the bus it’s the same. Crap languages, foreign languages. Some honest cockney, some Queen’s English, even some cleanskin/brownskin trying to speak English, even if in the old “bud bud ding ding” accent would actually be nice. Foreign languages and crap cross crass shouted inconsiderately down their permanently connected mobile phones.
What happened to orderly queuing anyway? You don’t get queues at bus stops anymore. You get throngs. Then you get a scrum for the front as big lads, black, white, brown, English, foreign, makes no difference, they all barge past the pregnant ladies, the women with prams and the elderly. This has happened in twenty years. Two decades ago, we had order at bus stops. Now, we have town centres that can’t be visited at night without a police escort or an AK-47 and no English speakers on a bus. Not even the bloody driver.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
de 09.12.05 at 1:59 am
Chav patois is the new Estuary English. Sadly, its somewhat worse.
Just a reminder about Estuary English:
“Even his accent makes the point. Far from the Estuary English of his detractors and nearer to Chaucer than Prince Charles, it announces itself unaffected by the intimidating pressures of the control dialect of English society.” —Melvyn Bragg about Greg Dyke, new Director-General of the BBC
In short Chav Patois may slip into acceptability, just like Jonafon Woss. Of course, he sounds quite charming now.
I heard the classic Smiley Culture track “Cockney Translation” (1985) on the radio a few days back. It made me laugh, but also reminded me that Jamaican Patois (even the London variety) bears little connection to the new form.
The sheer inefficiency of Chav Patois is its outstanding quality. Its not so much a form of communication, more a form of attitude standardisation. I guess the point is well made by Little Britains “Yes but no but” girl.
Nothing ever gets said other than “x irritates me”. It would be hard to continue society or make necessary advancements with this lingo.
Sir Isaac Newton: “And I was like, chillin nah wotimeen? Den some fruit jus hit me init? I aint takin it from no tree, you get me? So i got an axe and bus’ it good. Wikked.”
Stef 09.12.05 at 10:20 am
Bizarre. I could have written this same post word for word.
What has shocked me most is the speed of the change. How long did it take? Five? Ten years?
The major downside of all of this is the lack of social cohesion the follows on from the rapid increase in diversity. I’d be the last person to criticise diversity but if it recahes a level where no-one gives a fuck about anyone else becuase they have absolutely nothing in common, all sorts of social structures collapse.
The strangest part for me is finding myself thinking like that even though my own family are migrants.
Shahid 09.12.05 at 10:41 am
David - as usual your comment is better than my post.
Stef - what’s doubly bizarre is that I could have written your comment word for word too. Totally spot-on as regards the collapse of social cohesion. No shared values means no values and enormous mistrust.
And I say this given my parents were migrants, but things were different then.
Anonymous 09.12.05 at 11:28 am
Diversity is good, but unchecked, it leads to chaos. Everyone’s looking at the pakis, but it’s he east europeans that are taking over. Nobody notices because they’re white. I’ve nothing against them, but we shouldn’t have so many of them.
the olive ream 09.12.05 at 12:32 pm
Shahid,
What about the bastardization fo the English language by the people of the Indian subcontinent? Lol!
I love the way people from South India (i know i am generalizing here but) ask a question, e.g. “You are going there, no?” “You are having Diet Coke, no?” “You are picking me up, no?” and the best one is the question that follows all of these; “Yes, no?” (Meaning I am correct in assuming that your answer is YES).
I also find it fascinating why people from Pakistan (specifically Karachi) add an ‘is’ in front of words that begin with an ‘S’, as in “isstupid”. The best line I heard was in a Botany class; “Isstiff Isstem like Isstructure”.
I have a pretty thick asian accent as well. God knows what I really sound like, I’d be horrified to find out. Probably a whole lot of “Birdy Num Num, and Howdy Pardner”.
Shahid 09.12.05 at 12:57 pm
That’s what I meant when I referred to the classic “bud bud ding ding” - I actually liked that - and it conveys information - and is honest, not like the Chav Patois of the third generation pakis in London - adopted, fake and utterly without information.
And yes - I love the “is” added before the s. Awesome. Up until the age of 6, I said “ispaghetti”. I wonder how that started? I’m glad I stopped that shit!
raven 09.16.05 at 5:02 pm
The “iss” problem is rooted in a Hindi/Urdu rule that prohibits words starting with “s-consonent” without a preceding vowel. So “salam” is ok but “school” is “is-school.”
Anonymous 09.18.05 at 1:21 am
Great, a suspect Paki complaining about a crap multicultural society. Ha ha
Shahid 09.18.05 at 1:25 am
The irony hadn’t escaped me either.
Anonymous 09.26.05 at 10:51 pm
Can’t you see this all part of the agenda of the NWO? Diversification, multi-culturism etc. Divide and rule. get rid of the whole notion of patriotism. Get rid of the nation state. Do away with love of one’s country. Breed a a society of obedient mutts. Flood the west with Somalis.
It is all deliberate and it is happening in America too. How exactly the bankers and the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers benefit from all this I have not quite worked out. Can anyone here enlighten me further?
Anonymous 05.02.06 at 7:21 pm
I don’t get the BIG deal? I never heard anybody but ‘is’ before a ’s’….. Is it just me or are londoners just really weird? I’m a paki from new york and i speak english really well, so all of you bitches need to go get an update.