Fing and bruvver

Right now is a very exciting time to be doing research on the English language. All languages change: if you heard Shakespeare, you would find him hard to understand; and if we had recordings of Anglo-Saxon, you would not understand it at all. The sounds of English have changed enormously over time.

Why is this? We do not really know. It is just an inherent characteristic of human languages that they change. We do not fully understand how changes take place, either, so when we do have a chance to observe a change as it is happening, that is exciting. It is too late to observe how the change from Chaucer's “k-nicht” – his way of saying knight – to our “nite” happened; but here in England we can now very happily study, while it happens, a fascinating new change involving the two th sounds, as in thigh and thy. Older Norfolk people will have noticed that many younger people no longer have these sounds. They replace them with f and v, as in fing and bruvver.

When sounds fall together like this, it is technically called a merger. This particular merger is known as TH-fronting. It started in London around 1850 and had spread to Bristol by 1870. It was reported in Reading around 1950, Norwich in 1960, Hull 1970 and Glasgow 1980. There is a clear pattern of geographical spread: it has not arrived in Liverpool yet, but it probably will.

Some people are not as excited about TH-fronting as I am. They complain about it. They are part of the venerable Complaint Tradition which is repeated in every generation: older people hear youngsters speaking differently and object.

There is nothing wrong with TH-fronting, however. Nothing terrible comes of it.