Contact, Community and Grime: The Emergence of /q/ Among Young Londoners

The youth of Northern Europe’s largest cities are at the forefront of a linguistic revolution. Large-scale immigration to inner-city areas is creating vibrant, diverse cities. London is no exception; those born outside of the UK increased by 54% between 2001- 2011, a population increase of 1,055,360. Crucially, 22% of the population do not have English as their main language, and Hackney's primary schools contain 26 different languages. Consequently, young people across London have created a new, diverse, innovative variety, compiled of features from their various L1 languages, traditional London varieties, and innovative forms. These varieties, typically used by the inner-city working-class, are known as multi-ethnolects, and are used by all ethnicities within Northern Europe's 'Multicultural Metropolises'. The variety specific to London is known as Multi-Cultural London English (MLE). In MLE, research has shown that these features are prevalent among white British working- class inner-city Londoners, but are used less frequently than among ethnic minorities. /k/ → /q/ backing, a phenomenon in which velar stops become uvular stops when preceding low back vowels, namely /α/ and /ʌ/, is one such innovative form, original to MLE. However, its social distribution has been under-researched. Using both auditory and acoustic analysis, it will be shown that /q/, contrary to previous research into MLE, seems to be ethnically marked, spreading to London's non-MLE speaking outer-boroughs, and prevalent among the middle-class. This is in part due to the increasing diversity of London's outer- boroughs and increased contact with MLE speakers, however can also be explained by the mainstream success of London's politically-charged, inner-city underground music scene: Grime. The emergence of Grime into the mainstream, epitomised by the chart success of Stormzy's 'Gang Signs and Prayer', has broadcasted MLE further than the streets of inner-city London, shaking up its enregisterment in the process - many in the media have begun to call it 'the language of Grime'. This report finds that among young Londoners, there is a distinct, significant correlation between Grime listeners and /q/ frequency, exclusive of ethnicity, class or location. As a genre, Grime is inherently 'London', and this seems to have attracted the attention of all young Londoners, from all backgrounds. Looking into research on Hip-Hop National Language, this report tentatively concludes that London may be in the process of creating its own unique language variety based on musical culture and ideology - London Grime Language (LGL). This report will discuss the history of MLE and its enregisterment, the social variants that detail the distribution of /q/ frequency, and the potential beginning of a new London-based variety - London Grime Language, in relation to previous work into MLE predominantly conducted by Cheshire, Kerswill and Rampton.