{"id":741,"date":"2019-11-06T12:18:18","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T12:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/?p=741"},"modified":"2019-11-06T12:18:18","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T12:18:18","slug":"cushty-kazakh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/2019\/11\/06\/cushty-kazakh\/","title":{"rendered":"Cushty Kazakh"},"content":{"rendered":"

With thousands of miles between the East End of London and the land of Kazakhs, cushty<\/em> was the last word one expected to hear one warm spring afternoon in the streets of Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan, since renamed Nur-Sultan). The word cushty<\/em> (meaning \u2018great, very good, pleasing\u2019) is usually associated with the Cockney dialect of the English language which originated in the East End of London.<\/p>\n

\"Del
Del Boy from Only Fools and Horses<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Check out Del Boy’s Cockney sayings<\/a> (Cushty from 4:04 to 4:41).<\/p>\n

Cockney is still spoken in London now, and the word is often used to refer to anyone from London, although a true Cockney would disagree with that, and would proudly declare her East End origins. More specifically, a true \u2018Bow-bell\u2019 Cockney comes from the area within hearing distance of the church bells of St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, London.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Due to its strong association with modern-day London, the word \u2018Cockney\u2019 might be perceived as being one with a fairly short history. This could not be further from the truth as its etymology goes back to a late Middle English 14th century word cokenay<\/em>, which literally means a \u201ccock\u2019s egg\u201d \u2013 a useless, small, and defective egg laid by a rooster (which does not actually produce eggs). This pejorative term was later used to denote a spoiled or pampered child, a milksop, and eventually came to mean a town resident who was seen as affected or puny. <\/p>\n

The pronunciation of the Cockney dialect is thought to have been influenced by Essex and other dialects from the east of England, while the vocabulary contains many borrowings from Yiddish and Romany (cushty<\/em> being one of those borrowings \u2013 we\u2019ll get back to that in a bit!). One of the most prominent features of Cockney pronunciation is the glottalisation of the sound [t], which means that [t] is pronounced as a glottal stop<\/a>: [\u0294]. Another interesting feature of Cockney pronunciation is called th-fronting, which means that the sounds usually induced by the letter combination th<\/em> ([\u03b8] as in \u2018thanks\u2019 and [\u00f0] as in \u2018there\u2019 are replaced by the sounds [f] and [v]. These (and some other) phonological features characteristic of the Cockney dialect have now spread far and wide across London and other areas, partly thanks to the popularity of television shows like \u201cOnly Fools and Horses\u201d and \u201cEastEnders\u201d.<\/p>\n

As far as grammar is concerned, the Cockney dialect is distinguished by the use of me<\/em> instead of my<\/em> to indicate possession; heavy use of ain\u2019t<\/em> in place of am not, is not, are not, has not, have not<\/em>; and the use of double negation which is ungrammatical in Standard British English: I ain\u2019t saying nuffink<\/em> to mean I am not saying anything<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Having borrowed words, Cockney also gave back generously, with derivatives from Cockney rhyming slang becoming a staple of the English vernacular. The rhyming slang tradition is believed to have started in the early to mid-19th century as a way for criminals and wheeler-dealers to code their speech beyond the understanding of police or ordinary folk. The code is constructed by way of rhyming a phrase with a common word, but only using the first word of that phrase to refer to the word. For example, the phrase apples and pears<\/em> rhymes with the word stairs<\/em>, so the first word of the phrase \u2013 apples<\/em> \u2013 is then used to signify stairs<\/em>: I\u2019m going up the apples<\/em>. Another popular and well-known example is dog and bone \u2013 telephone<\/em>, so if a Cockney speaker asks to borrow your dog, do not rush to hand over your poodle! <\/p>\n

\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/MSbWz1PIJY8
\nTest your knowledge of Cockney rhyming slang!<\/p>\n

Right, so did I encounter a Cockney walking down the field of wheat (street!) in Astana saying how cushty it was? Perhaps it was a Kazakh student who had recently returned from his studies in London and couldn\u2019t quite switch back to Kazakh? No and no. It was a native speaker of Kazakh reacting in Kazakh to her interlocutor\u2019s remark on the new book she\u2019d purchased by saying \u043a\u04af\u0448\u0442\u0456<\/em> [ky\u0283.t\u0268\u02c8] which sounds incredibly close to cushty<\/em> [k\u028a\u02c8\u0283.ti]. The meanings of the words and contexts in which they can be used are remarkably similar too. The Kazakh \u043a\u04af\u0448\u0442\u0456<\/em> literally means \u2018strong\u2019, however, colloquially it is used to mean \u2018wonderful, great, excellent\u2019 \u2013 it really would not be out of place in any of Del Boy\u2019s remarks in the YouTube video above! Surely, the two kushtis<\/em> have to be related, right? Well…<\/p>\n

Recall, that cushty<\/em> is a borrowing from Romany (Indo-European) kushto\/kushti<\/em>, which, in turn, is known to have borrowed from Persian and Arabic. In the case of the Romany kushto\/kushti<\/em>, the borrowing could have been from the Persian kho\u0161i<\/em> meaning \u2018happiness\u2019 or \u2018pleasure\u2019. It would have been very neat if this could be linked to the Kazakh \u043a\u04af\u0448\u0442\u0456<\/em>, however, there seems to be no connection there… Kazakh is a Turkic language and the etymology of \u043a\u04af\u0448\u0442\u0456<\/em> can be traced back to the Old Turkic root k\u00fc\u010d<\/em> meaning \u2018power\u2019, which does not seem to have been borrowed from or connected with Persian. Certainly, had we been able to go back far enough, we might have found a common Indo-European-Turkic root in some Proto-Proto-Proto-Language. As things stand now, all we can do is admire what appears to be a wonderful coincidence, and enjoy the journeys on which a two-syllable word you\u2019d overheard in the street might take you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With thousands of miles between the East End of London and the land of Kazakhs, cushty was the last word one expected to hear one warm spring afternoon in the streets of Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan, since renamed Nur-Sultan). The word cushty (meaning \u2018great, very good, pleasing\u2019) is usually associated with the Cockney dialect of the English language which originated in the East End of London. Check out Del Boy’s Cockney sayings (Cushty from 4:04 to 4:41). Cockney is…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,8,25,96],"tags":[],"coauthors":[98],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-borrowing","category-english-languages","category-etymology","category-kazakh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":765,"href":"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions\/765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morph.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}