When this blog was in an unintended hiatus, it was possible to retrieve the posts through a reader’s feed reader. But this one comment that appeared at that time was lost – but the commenter, the blogger of Language Miscellany, has now been found. His interesting post was about the possibility that Tower Hamlets council might declare Cockney one of the local languages – for International Mother Tongue Day on 21 February (not long to go now). This was reported in 2023. Cockney in Tower Hamlets is the post:
On 15 March 2023, Tower Hamlets Council discussed a petition started by Grow Social Capital CIC and Bengali East End Heritage Society and signed by 31 people. The petition asked the Council ‘to ensure that the Cockney language, identity, and its unique cultural heritage related to the East End of London be recognised as a community language and be celebrated annually on 21st February on International Mother Language Day, and for Cockney to be included in any community language provisions by the Council.’
It does not seem to me that Cockney is a language, and even Estuary English is not. I should say I may be a Cockney myself, as I was born in the Mothers Hospital in Hackney, just before the NHS came into existence, but at that time the bells of Bow Church were not actually ringing for a few years after WWII, or so I was told. The exact dates and which bells were ringing is confusing. But new bells were ringing from 1961.
