Our 14th November 2019 meeting of the HU3A Mind Your Language Group took place in the Parlour at the URC.

We had 13 members present, which was a very good turnout. Thanks to the attendees for very active participation in the meeting.

The principal focus in this meeting was on Dialects. Below you will find Dave Dowlutta’s notes from his presentation.

Please bring along more “pedant’s corner” examples to future meetings. Perhaps a look at double negatives next time? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikODMvw76j4

So our next meeting is December 12th, and will take place even though this date is Election Day 2019, and that the URC is a polling station. I just suggest that you avoid the parking lot

If you can make it, come prepared to make a festive contribution to the meeting!

Regards,

Rodney

Dave Dowlutta’s Notes on Dialects

Here are some notes, mainly Bullet points, that I have put together.

I started the session by explaining that two months ago I heard on BBC ONE news, morning program, of the emergence of a new Dialect in London called Multicultural Dialect. Research is currently in progress by Westminster University to investigate it further.

I decided to find out about English Dialect itself. I found more information about the development of English language over the years than English Dialect. I suspect that centuries ago people were more concerned with their survival than collecting information about dialect. A large percentage of the population could not read and write, facilities for research including technology did not exist like today. So information that we have about English Dialect is about hear say information, passed down from one generation to another. Once older members of society passed on, the information they had disappeared in thin air. Somehow, I managed to get a little bit of information about researched carried out about 70 years ago. Interviews by academics in some key areas have shed some light about the development of English dialects.

Oxford Dictionary defines Dialect as:

‘a form of a language used in a particular region or a particular social group.’

According to Vox Forge ‘a dialect is a type of a language derived from a primary language.’ Dialects are spoken by a group of people united by geography or class.

From the above definition we can infer that dialects are spoken mainly by ‘working class people’ doing a particular kind of job or living in a particular area. They will perhaps be poorly educated, due to lack of opportunity in life, or for other unknown reasons. They certainly do not speak ‘Queen’s English’ or Received Pronunciation as it is known.

In United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) English is the primary language so any English Dialect would have stemmed from it. I repeated the definition ‘a dialect is a variety of a language that differs from the standard language. In our case the standard language is English.

How is a dialect different from standard English?

Dialects are linguistic varieties which differ in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar from each other and from standard English.

I added that every language throughout the world, for example French, Italian, Spanish, Indian and Chinese will have their own pockets of dialects.

I then asked the question:

How many dialects are there in the British Isles?

Answer: 37 dialects (excluding London dialect)

I listed them:

Northern Scots

North East

Cheshire

Cumbria

Barrovian (Barrow in Furness)

Geordie (Tyneside)

Hartlepudian

Lancashire. Macken (Sunderland)

Mancunian (Greater Manchester)

Northumbrian & County Durham

Pitmatic (Former mining communities of Northumberland)

Scouse (Merseyside)

Smoggie (Teeside)

Yorkshire (Tyke or Yorkie)

West Midlands

East Midlands

Black Country

Brummie (Birmingham)

Potteries (North Staffordshire)

Coventry

East Anglian

Norfolk

Suffolk

Cockney (Working class London and surrounding areas)

Essaxon (Essex)

Estuary (Middle class London, Home counties and Hampshire)

Pompey (Portsmouth)

Cornish (West Country)

Devon

Kentish (Kent)

Anglo Cornish

London Multicultural Dialect (In the pipeline)

Question:

How many dialects are there throughout the English-speaking world? UK, USA, Australia and Canada. Answer:

160 Distinct English dialects.

Another question I asked (perhaps) nothing to do with Dialect was:

What is the most widely spoken language after English in England and Wales?

Answer:

546, 000 Polish speaking. (could be more now)

I wanted to find out the history of English dialects but what I found was mostly the history of the English Language that led to the emergence of various dialects.

Modern regional dialects in England stem basically from the different speech patterns of OLD ENGLISH, the Germanic language spoken by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and other smaller tribes who migrated to Britain during the fifth and sixth centuries AD. They collectively referred to themselves as ‘Engle’ or ‘Englisc’. During the 8th and 9th centuries large settlement of Danish and Norwegian Vikings occurred, and for a time most of England North of a line from London to Chester was under the control of the Vikings, and was known as ‘The Danelaw’.

The heaviest concentration of the Scandinavian settlers was in Northumbria (especially North West England and Yorkshire), North East Mercia (especially Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire) and East Anglia.

The language spoken by these people was OLD NORSE, a close relative of Old English.

As the two peoples gradually became intermixed, the language of the invaded absorbed that of the invaders.

By this process many words and phrases of Scandinavian origin passed into English especially in the Danelaw.

Even today there is a marked contrast between the dialect spoken in North Staffordshire, which was part of Danelaw, and that spoken in the South of the country, which remained in English hands.

North Staffordshire speech contain many more Scandinavian words but its use of certain vowel sounds is very similar to that found in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire, all areas of strong Danish influence.

With the Norman conquest of 1066, French and Latin became the languages of the Church, the Court and the ruling elite. English was driven underground. By the time of the re-emergence of the English language as a state language in the 14th century, it had undergone profound changes, including the addition of many words of French and Latin origin.

Around 1400 a ‘standard’ form of English began to appear, at a time when regional dialects were so different as to make people from the North and South of England almost incomprehensible from each other. A South East Midland dialect, ‘Standard English’ was adopted as the speech of the Court based in London, and consequently grew in status and prestige over other dialects. Because of this it was polished and refined more than other forms of English and changed much faster. This is why regional dialects often retain older words and pronunciations which Standard English has dropped.

We must not confuse Dialect with Accent.

A Dialect is a type of a language that is derived from a primary language.

Whereas an Accent is the manner in which different people pronounce words differently from each other.

Dialect is commonly used in literature and in movies. I gave as example the recent BBC ONE series POLDARK, shot partly in Cornwall in which a few cast members had to use Cornish dialect.

Study of Dialect in Llkeston, Derbyshire.

Researchers studied a particular area called the ‘Erewash valley speech’. They found that the dialect in that area is fast disappearing. As old residents of that area die so does the dialect. This is true throughout the world.

Dialect is linked in most cases to the lower classes so it can be a hindrance to social mobility.

Attending interviews and speaking in a strong dialect can be a problem to securing an office job.

They also found that people are often proud of their dialect.

However, it highlights social class differences, rivalries or other prejudices.

George Bernard Shaw commented: ‘it is impossible for an English man to open his mouth without making some other English man hate or despise him’.

As well as pride there is also stigma placed on many traditional working- class dialects.

In his work on the dialect of Bolton, Graham Shorrocks wrote:

‘I have personally known those who would avoid, or could never enjoy a conversation with a stranger because they were too ashamed to open their mouths.’

He continued: ‘it has been drummed into people, often in school, and society at large, that dialect, speech and accent, is incorrect, impure, vulgar, clumsy, ugly, careless, shoddy, ignorant and altogether inferior.’

There are, however, vigorous pockets of resistance in some areas where they want to protect their dialect.

Yorkshire Dialect, also known as Broad Yorkshire, Tyke, Yorkie or Yorkshire English. An English dialect of Northern England has roots in older languages, Olde English and old Norse.

Yorkshire Dialect Society exists to promote use of the dialect in both humour and serious linguistics.

There is also an East Riding Dialect Society that was set up in Driffield, East Yorks. Yorkshire dialect is generally not as stigmatised as other regional dialects. It has been represented in classic works such as: Wuthering Heights, Nicholas Nickleby and the Secret garden.

The survey of English dialects identified many different dialects and accent in Yorkshire.

Yorkshire Dialect Society draws a border at the river Wharfe between two main zones. South West of the river more influenced by Mercian dialect whilst the North East influenced by Northumbrian dialect.

Over time speech has become closer to standard English and the features that once distinguished

One town from another has disappeared.

Wilfred Pickles, a Yorkshire man born in Halifax, was selected by the BBC as an announcer for its North Regional Service. He went on to become an occasional newsreader on the BBC Home Service during World War Two.

He was the first newsreader to speak with a regional accent rather than the Received Pronunciation. It was a deliberate attempt to make it more difficult for the Nazis to impersonate BBC Newsreader.

DH Lawrence, author of Lady Chatterley’s lover, said that dialect had a deep personal significance to him. It symbolized the roughness of his father who was a collier and spoke ‘broad Eastwood’ and the gentleness of his mother to whom he was very close. She tried her best to avoid local speech herself, and wanted her children to avoid it too.

What is Old Norse?

Old Norse was a North Germanic language once spoken in Scandinavia, the Faroe islands, Iceland, Greenland, parts of Russia, France, the British isles and Ireland. It was the language of the Vikings or Norsemen. The modern language most related to Old Norse is Icelandic, the written form of which has changed little over the years.

Between 800 and 1050 AD a division began to appear between East Norse, which developed into Swedish and Danish, and West Norse, which developed into Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic and Norn, an extinct language once spoken in Shetland, Orkney, and Northern parts of Scotland.

Which language did the Vikings speak?

A lot depending on where they were, who they were and where they were from. Vikings age lasted quite a long time and contained nations all over Northern Europe.

References:

Accent, Dialect and The School.

Peter Trudgill (1975)

Ey Up Mi Duck!

Richard Scollins and John Titford (Parts one and two) 1976 Roots of English

Exploring the History of Dialects: A. Taglia Monte, (2013).