Linguistic features

Linguistic features adapted from Pronunciation Studio are listed below:

• H-dropping 

In cockney, you don’t pronounce /h/ at all. So ‘horrible’ is /ɒrɪbəw/, ‘hospital’ is /ɒspɪʔəw/, ‘who’ is /uː/ and ‘help’ is /ewp/.

• T-glottaling 

Cockney speakers will use glottal stops to replace /t/ before consonants and weak vowels: water /wɔ:ʔə/, cottage /kɒʔɪdʒ/. It is also common for a glottal stop to replace a /k/ before a consonant: blackboard /bleʔbɔ:d/. 

• TH-fronting 

Cockney would replace voiceless ‘th’ /θ/ in words like ‘think’, ‘theatre’, ‘author’, with /f/, so they would be pronounced /fɪŋk/, /fɪəʔə/, /ɔ:fə/

Similarly, voiced ‘th’ in ‘the’, ‘this’, and ‘Northern’, would be pronounced /v/, so /və/, /vɪs/ and /nɔ:vən/

• L–vocalization 

The phoneme l in final-word position usually becomes a vowel sound. Milk becomes /miok/, fill becomes /fɪo/, field becomes /fɪod/, fall becomes /foʊ/, people becomes [‘pɪipo].

Another feature that is common to Cockney and distinguishes it from RP and Popular London is Cockney diphthong shift (illustrated below): 

(Adapted from http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2011/05/aussie-dogs.html)

Another feature mentioned in introduction is Cockney Rhyming Slang. You can find some of the top favourite words and phrases below:

1. Adam and Eve – believe
2. Alan Whickers – knickers
3. apples and pears – stairs
4. Artful Dodger – lodger
5. Ascot Races – braces
6. Aunt Joanna – piano
7. Baked Bean – Queen
8. Baker’s Dozen – Cousin
9. Ball and Chalk – Walk
10. Barnaby Rudge – Judge
11. Barnet Fair – hair
12. Barney Rubble – trouble
13. Battlecruiser – boozer
14. bees and honey – money
15. bird lime – time (in prison)
16. Boat Race – face
17. Bob Hope – soap
18. bottle and glass – arse
19. Brahms and Liszt – pissed (drunk)
20. Brass Tacks – facts
21. Bread and Cheese – sneeze
22. Bread and Honey – money
23. Bricks and Mortar – daughter
24. Bristol City – breasts
25. Brown Bread – dead
26. Bubble and Squeak – Greek
27. Bubble Bath – Laugh
28. butcher’s hook – a look
29. Chalfont St. Giles – piles
30. Chalk Farm – arm
31. china plate – mate (friend)
32. Cock and Hen – ten
33. Cows and Kisses – Missus (wife)
34. currant bun – sun (also The Sun, a British newspaper)
35. custard and jelly – telly (television)
36. Daisy Roots – boots
37. Darby and Joan – moan
38. Dicky bird – word
39. Dicky Dirt – shirt
40. Dinky Doos – shoes

(Adapted from: https://londontopia.net/londonism/fun-london/language-top-100-cockney-rhyming-slang-words-and-phrases/)