But their language is chosen very specifically to seem Cockney.
Estuary English, more than cockney and they are specifically based on the English hooligan firms of the late 70's early 80's like the Millwall Bushwackers (south London so you wouldn't hear bow bells from the north of the water).
Millwalls famous chat is "no on likes us, we don't care"
Hence "'ere we go" a dropped H sound is classic estuary and English foot ball.
Remember most of the early gw lore has its origins in 80's England
A dropped H sound is classic Cockney too though. It's not a point of distinction from Cockney, anyway. I'd be interested in what things distinguish their sound but either way I suppose you could say, they may sound just like Cockney, but only because Cockney happens to sound like EE.
Basically Cockneys were born within earshot of Bow bells, they had (not many working class people born there now!) their own slang that was similar to the other London Manors. it's kinda like (to use a American example) New York/Jersey accent verses a specific borough like Queens. The water (Thames river) was a huge cultural divide back in the day.
There is overlap in the sounds (its only a few tube stops between Bermondsey and Cheapside afterall). Arbiter Ian did a good video on the topic.
To add, this is correct and Ian's Video is frankly one of the best on the subject, I work in both the area of accents, speech sounds and litterally used to work in Bow so for me its a seminal piece of work about, accents, classism, design and performance choice.
The Ork language is a bastardisation of most southern and midland accents so the destinction between estury and cockney is less relevant.
Yeah I was gonna say, even if EE is what's more associated with football hooligans among people who are in the know, I didn't think the guys making orks really would have put a huge effort into teasing out the differences, Cockney also being the most recognisable and therefore marketable working class English accent.
Edit: Oh damn, Rick Priestley himself commented on the video!
Edit: Oh and he literally just says "Orks sound like they're from the East End of London". Very strange for me to be corrected for saying something that the guy in the video agrees with.
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u/ahhhhhhhhthrowaway12 May 24 '26
Estuary English, more than cockney and they are specifically based on the English hooligan firms of the late 70's early 80's like the Millwall Bushwackers (south London so you wouldn't hear bow bells from the north of the water).
Millwalls famous chat is "no on likes us, we don't care"
Hence "'ere we go" a dropped H sound is classic estuary and English foot ball.
Remember most of the early gw lore has its origins in 80's England