In Northern Europe's major cities, new varieties of the host languages are emerging in the multilingual inner cities. While some analyse these 'multiethnolects' as youth styles, we take a variationist approach to an emerging 'Multicultural London English' (MLE), asking: (1) what features characterise MLE? (2) at what age(s) are they acquired? (3) is MLE vernacularised? (4) when did MLE emerge, and what factors enabled its emergence? We argue that innovations in the diphthongs and the quotative system are generated from the specific sociolinguistics of inner-city London, where at least half the population is undergoing group second-language acquisition and where high linguistic diversity leads to a feature pool to select from. We look for incrementation (Labov) in the acquisition of the features, but find this only for two 'global' changes, BE LIKE and GOOSE-fronting, for which adolescents show the highest usage. Community-internal factors explain the age-related variation in the remaining features.Key words: multiethnolects, youth language, language contact, new dialect formation, London English Running title: Multicultural London English Dans certaines villes importantes de l'Europe de Nord, on observe l'émergence de nouvelles variétés de la langue hôte dans les quartiers multilingues. Tandis que certains ont analysé ces variétés « multiethniques » comme appartenant au langage des jeunes, nous adoptons ici une approche variationniste pour analyser une telle variété émergente à Londres, que nous appelons « Multicultural London English » (MLE), en nous posant les questions suivantes : (1) quels traits structuraux caractérisent le MLE ?; (2) à quel(s) âge(s) sont-ils acquis ?; (3) le MLE est-il « vernacularisé » ?; (4) à quel moment le MLE est-il apparu/a-t-il vu le jour, et quels facteurs lui ont permis à émerger? Nous soutenons que les innovations dans les diphtongues et le système du discours rapporté résultent de la situation sociolinguistique spécifique des quartiers multilingues et déshérités de Londres, où au moins 50 pour cent de la population acquiert l'anglais comme langue seconde « au sauvage » avec des amis, et où la grande diversité linguistique entraîne un réservoir de traits linguistiques (« feature pool ») hétérogène. En ce qui concerne l'acquisition des traits, nous ne trouvons le phénomène labovien d'incrémentation que pour deux changements globaux (BE LIKE et l'avancement de la voyelle en GOOSE), ces deux formes nouvelles étant les plus fréquentes chez les adolescents. Pour les autres traits linguistiques, la variation selon l'âge des locuteurs s'explique plutôt par des facteurs internes à la communauté.Page 3 of 64 1. New language varieties in the inner city: language contact and group second-language acquisition In a number of European cities, the latter part of the twentieth century has seen the emergence of new, distinct varieties of the host languages in multilingual, working-class neighbourhoods. A considerable amount of research in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany an...

A B S T R A C TThis article presents a systematic analysis of morphosyntactic variation in London English, investigating was/were variation in the speech of adolescents and elderly speakers in a multicultural inner London area and a less diverse outer London area. In outer London, dialect leveling to a mixed was/weren't system is well underway, as in many other areas of the U.K. Negative weren't is frequent and a grammaticalized invariant weren't it tag is developing. In inner London, variation in adolescent speech is strongly influenced by ethnicity, resulting in a lower overall frequency of was leveling and, in negative contexts, a mixed pattern of leveling to both wasn't and weren't. The patterns of variation of Anglo "heritage" inner London adolescents differ both from elderly speakers in the same area and from their peers in outer London. Our analysis confirms the need for socially realistic models of language change that take account of the social diversity of large multicultural urban cities.

A B S T R A C TThis study contributes to innovation and diffusion models by examining phonetic changes in London English. It evaluates Sapir's notion of "drift," which involves "natural," unconscious change, in relation to these changes. Investigating parallel developments in two related varieties of English enables drift to be tested in terms of the effect of extralinguistic factors. The diphthongs of PRICE, MOUTH, FACE, and GOAT in both London and New Zealand English are characterized by "Diphthong Shift," a process that continued unabated in New Zealand. A new, large data set of London speech shows Diphthong Shift reversal, providing counterevidence for drift. We discuss Diphthong Shift and its "reversal" in relation to innovation, diffusion, leveling, and supralocalization, arguing that sociolinguistic factors and dialect contact override natural Diphthong Shift. Studying dialect change in a metropolis, with its large and linguistically innovative minority ethnic population, is of the utmost importance in understanding the dynamics of change.This article is about vowel changes, specifically changes in diphthongs in London English. We will discuss what forces might be at work when an established, purportedly universal or natural phonetic change seems to have been halted and is, in fact, reversing. Reversals of apparently completed changes are reported for mergers; however, mergers are the phonological consequence of phonetic changes, not the process that may have led to this consequence. Prime examples of such processes are vocalic chain shifts (Hock, 1986:156-158, 637-639;Labov, 1994), which are held to be subject to functional (Meillet, 1967:104-105) and psychoacoustic (Lindblom, 1986) constraints, leading to the maintenance of phonetic distance between phonological units and an apparent striving forWe are grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council for funding the project Linguistic Innovators: The English of Adolescents in London (Ref. RES-000-23-0680), of which the work reported here forms a part. We also thank three reviewers for many helpful comments and suggestions.

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Londres, comme bien d’autres grandes métropoles européennes, accueille des immigrants venus de nombreux pays. Dans certaines zones de l’agglomération, les familles immigrées sont maintenant plus nombreuses que les familles blanches britanniques qui y vivaient depuis des générations. Il en résulte que l’Anglais parlé dans ces quartiers a changé rapidement, marqué par des innovations qui sont à nos yeux l’effet indirect d’un contact entre nombreuses langues. Nous discutons quelques-unes de ces innovations en nous interrogeant sur les causes et les moyens de leur apparition, et en examinant quels sont les indices disponibles de leur maintien.