Chav, Chava or Charva or Charver is a derogatory term applied to certain young people in the United Kingdom. The stereotypical image of a chav is a white aggressive teen or young adult, of working class background, who wears branded sports and casual clothing, who often fights and engages in petty criminality, and is often assumed to be unemployed or in a low paid job. The term may originate from the Romani language.[1] [2]. In its English form, the term is generally derogative, and has appeared in mainstream dictionaries in 2005.[3][4]
Caricature of a chav
The term chav has many regional alternatives; its North East England variant charva or charv, used in Tyne and Wear. Charver was a common word of wide but not all-embracing popularity in Newcastle throughout the latter half of the 19th century, synonymous with lad or kid, and derivative of chawvo, a Romany expression meaning "a young person, a friend". During the 1990s, charver underwent a semantic disfigurement, and massive growth in usage within speakers of Geordie and some related dialects. Its shift in meaning was towards that of an insult; at this point charver and chav became synonyms, although the latter was yet to enter common parlance. It is likely that the term chav is a recent derivative of charver, but also possible that the two words are entirely etymologically distinct.[5][6][7] Other equivalents to chav include scally, prevalent in north-west England (particularly Liverpool) and townie, a word now seemingly enveloped by chav. Similar words in use outside England include ned or scunner in Scotland, spide or skanger in Ireland, and spide, milly (from Mill-girl) and steek in Northern Ireland.
Response to the term has ranged from amusement to criticism that it is a new manifestation of classism.[8] One BBC TV documentary suggested that chav is an evolution of previous working-class youth subcultures associated with particular commercial clothing styles, such as mods, skinheads and casuals[9]. However, chav is not a straight synonym for "working class person"; it refers to a specific mode of behaviour, dress and speech that is far from universal amongst the British working class.[citation needed]). The term has been associated with juvenile delinquency, the ASBO Generation and yob culture.
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