Jafaican it? No we're not | Mind your language

Comedians might play the patois of multicultural Britain for laughs, but spoken English has been drawing on influences from other languages and dialects for centuriesBritish comedy has always liked a foreign voice to poke fun at, particularly one that hails from one of the former colonies; from Peter Sellers' "Indian" accent to the characters from 70s sitcoms such as Mind Your Language and Love Thy Neighbour. Meanwhile, Jim Davidson forged a career on the back of Chalky White, a particularly offensive imitation of a black Jamaican.It's unlikely that we'll see Davidson on the box any time soon and equally unlikely that we'll see a Bangladeshi man waggling his head and saying "oh blimey" to raucous canned laughter.In a complete volte face, what we laugh at now is the white man who tries to adopt a Jamaican (or Jafaican) accent in an attempt to appear cool or "street". E4's sitcom Phone Shop is a particularly good example of this new comedy trend.Working in a mobile phone shop in Sutton are a cast of characters, including Jerwayne (who has a black London accent) and a motley crew who try to copy his patter. Lance, the shop's manager, is too old and Christopher too posh, but both try with varying degrees of success to master multicultural London English. Only Ashley, who has grown up with Jerwayne, is able to nail it, to devastating comic effect.We can probably trace this trend back to the late 90s, when Sacha Baron Cohen's character Ali G first graced our screens. Much of the hu...
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