- Korean Billy is a YouTuber who makes videos explaining British slang and dialects.
- The YouTuber tells us the inspiration behind one of this most successful videos, the London 'roadman' dialect.
- He says listening to Grime and Hip-Hop music helped him make the video.
Read the full transcript below:
So basically the "roadman" dialect, well what I call roadman dialect is London, multicultural dialect, I would say. Mainly people in London, they use a certain type of vocabulary, a certain type of words and accent, like "mandem" and "safe." Stuff like that.
I kind of think that this kind of language is considered as like "hip" language these days. I can see that more and more British teenagers start to use that roadman language to look quite cool and hip, which I find quite interesting and funny.
To make the roadman video, I did lots of research actually. Some of my subscribers taught me some roadman words. I think I also heard some Grime music, or like Hip-Hop music, because in the lyrics there is some roadman language, so I also checked that out.
I made the roadman video and that was because I got lots of comments and feedback and requests from British teenagers actually. So I just wanted to communicate with British teenagers and teenage audience. They asked me to cover something about London teenage or London multicultural so-called 'roadman' dialect.
For me, it's like, practising acting a different character actually. When I get into a dialect video I change my characteristics into a local characteristic. So it's like kind of practising acting, and I also have to practice and slightly master the accents.
I didn't really expect that that video would go viral and get really successful, but that went quite well. And that was really exciting for me.
Produced by David Ibekwe. Special Thanks Alison Millington.