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The term Cockney has had several distinct geographical, social, and linguistic associations. Originally a pejorative applied to all city-dwellers, it was eventually restricted to Londoners and particularly to the "Bow-bell Cockneys":〔 those born within earshot of Bow Bells, the bells of St Mary-le-Bow in the eastern Cheapside district of the City of London. More recently, it is variously used to refer to those in London's East End, or to all working-class Londoners generally. Linguistically, Cockney English refers to the accent or dialect of English traditionally spoken by working-class Londoners. In recent years, many aspects of Cockney English have become part of general South East English speech, producing a variant known as Estuary English. ==Etymology== The earliest recorded use of the term is 1362 in passus VI of William Langland's ''Piers Plowman'', where it is used to mean "a small, misshapen egg", from Middle English ''coken'' + ''ey'' ("a cock's egg"). Concurrently, the mythical land of luxury Cockaigne (attested from 1305) appeared under a variety of spellings—including Cockayne, Cocknay, and Cockney—and became humorously associated with the English capital London.〔 Cockney: a native of London. An ancient nickname implying effeminacy, used by the oldest English writers, and derived from the imaginary fool's paradise, or lubberland, ''Cockaygne''.〕 The present sense of Cockney comes from its use among rural Englishmen (attested in 1520) as a pejorative for effeminate town-dwellers,〔 from an earlier general sense (encountered in "the Reeve's Tale" of Geoffrey Chaucer's ''Canterbury Tales'' ) of a "cokenay" as "a child tenderly brought up" and, by extension, "an effeminate fellow" or "a ". This may have developed from the sources above or separately, alongside such terms as "" and "" which both have the sense of "to make a ... or darling of", "to indulge or pamper".〔''Oxford English Dictionary'', 1st ed. "cocker, ''v''.1" & "cock, ''v''.6". Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1891〕 By 1600, this sense of Cockney was being particularly associated with the Bow Bells area.〔Rowlands, Samuel. ''The Letting of Humours Blood in the Head-Vaine''. 1600.〕 In 1617, the travel writer Fynes Moryson stated in his ''Itinerary'' that "Londoners, and all within the sound of Bow Bells, are in reproach called Cockneys." The same year, John Minsheu included the term in this newly restricted sense in his dictionary ''Ductor in Linguas''. The use of the term to describe all Londoners generally, however, survived into the 19th century〔 before becoming restricted to the working class and their particular accent. The term is now used loosely to describe all East Londoners, although some distinguish the areas (such as Canning Town) that were added to London in 1964. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「cockney」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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