After the riots in August 2011, David Starkey appeared on Newsnight and ranted about white people becoming black as they spoke the same language as black people. Back then we called him a clueless racist fart (you know how we do when we get tongue-tied).
Luckily there are professional people like Paul Kerswill who can teach Starkey a thing or two, without the name-calling. Paul is a Professor of Sociolinguistics at Lancaster University. His latest research is a long-term study of ‘Multicultural London English’ in the East End — misleadingly dubbed ‘Jafaican’ by the media.
In this video, Paul tells us that there are at least 100 languages spoken in London. He references David Starkey’s interview on Newsnight and breakdown how urban language is seen as the language of criminials.
Watch the video and you will see how language has evolved in London.
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