DEPAnT:lm,;T OF FOLKLOr.E MeUlorial Uniycr~ity of ?\cWfo\uHUand The journal of The Survey of Language and Folklore The University of Sheffield Departments of ~~~~~S~u~~7~~~~es & The Language Centre DEPART~Ir::XT OF rOL!{LOaE Memorial Univcr::;lty of )l"c-,',follnJ!and Editorial Launching a new jo urnal is at best a risky business, not least at a time of economic stringency. It was with high ho pes, t ho ugh wit h some misgiv ings, t hat t he Survey of Language and Fo lklore first decided to publish Lore alld Language in July 1969. Si nce then t he journal has established itself in the small but select. field of similar publications, and has a steadil y increasing circulation not only in the British Isles but also elsewh ere in Europe, North America and beyond. Our policy is to publish articles, notes and queries on the full range of cultural tradition, concentrating on language and folklore as topics of central concern . A journal o f this kind offers a unique opportunity for the exchange of information o n t he extremely wide-ranging aspects of cultural tradition. It also offers younger writers, as well as those o f established reputation, a chance to ma ke their views known. Indeed, one o f the most heartening developments in the journal has been the response of both the established and t he lesser known writers who have contributed material for publication and so in­ creased the continuing d ialogue bet ween all of those concerned with these kindred fi eld s of research. No-one here at the Survey would clai m that the publication has been an easy task. In t he early days we were bedevilled by d ifficulties o f format a nd exorbitant printing costs. In recent issues we have suffered from even sharper increases in costs, especially of paper, and the after-effects o f the three­ day week did not ma ke things any easier. Thanks to the efforts of all those volunteers who help with the publication, and especially t he Business Editor, Paul Smith, who is responsible for sales and format and puts in a great deal o f work behind the scenes, we fee l that t he journal has steadily improved in appearance and layout, although much still remains to be done. The Printing Unit at the University o f Sheffield has now taken over the prod udion side of the journal and o ffers us every assistance. Our three sponsors - t he Departments of English Language and Extramural Studies, and the Language Centre at the Un iversity - have given us their fu ll support from the beginning, and without their help Lore and Lang/lOge could not have come into being. It is with a sense o f relief that I wri te this final editoria l in the last issue of Lore and Lal1guage Vo lume I. Looking back over the ten issues we fee l that some progress has been mad e and that the steady annual increase in subscribers is a very healthy sign. Wi th Volume II , No. 1, Lore and Lal/guage will change to the A5 fo rmat, in conformity wit h the new standard paper sizes. We fee l that t hi s change will be very much for the better. The subscriptio n for t his much more substantial new volume will be consid erably less than that for comparable publications, although inevitably more realistic than t he present subscription whi ch has resulted in an overall deficit in the last fi ve years. We hope that all o ur readers will continue to support Lore and Language, not o nly by subscribing but also by contributing material for publicatio n. The Survey of Language and Folldore The Survey o f Language and Fo lklore centred at Sheffield Un iversit y is establishing an Archive o f traditional material fo r reference and research. Co llection is organised through regio nal teams, local representatives and correspond ents, who cont ribute material o n specially-designed sli ps o r in the fo rm of questio nnaires, descriptions, diagrams, photographs, tape-recordings or items of material culture. The collecting programme aims at comprehensive coverage of all aspects of Folklo re: Language (Speech, sayings, :lames, etc.); Ch lld lore; Custom and Beli ef; Fo lk Narrative; Fo lk Music. Dance and Drama; Material Cul ture, Work Techniques. Arts and Crafts. If the important work o f collecting is to be carried o ut on t he large scale envisaged, many more volunteers are needed to assist in the task o f collecting and classifying the informatio n. The Survey aims to collect material fro m all parts o f the British Isles and more local representatives and correspondents are urgently required. Details o f local activities may be obtained from the Survey's headquarters. Dialects of North-Eastern England Mike Shields It is perhaps invidious to quote proverbs to a readership which includes folklorists, but I feel I should state at the outset my awareness of the dangers of partial knowledge. I am encouraged, however, by the extensive linguistic recording carried out by enthusiastic amateurs, and I feel that there is a certain justice in a non-professional attempt to offset the (linguistically) amateur efforts of Dobson et al to popularise - in a "parliamo Glasgow" sort of way - the so-called Geordie accent. The region covered by this study extends down the eastern half of northern England lying between the rivers Coquet and Tees. North of this area, the dialect more properly belongs to the border regions, while west and south lie Cumberland and Yorkshire, each with its own linguistic peculiarities. The phonetic symbols used are those of the I PA, and the transcription is fairly broad. Consonants are undifferentiated fTOm Standard English, apart from Northumbrian Irt / , which is similar to the French or German Ir f sound. An English IT I also occurs in other parts of the region. It should also be noted that ( w i is never aspirated as in some Standard English pronunciations of what'? Major Dialect. Divisions On the map (see p. ), two major isogloss bundles are shown, running roughly east/west, and displaced north and south of the Tyne by approximately the same d istance. They tend to follow the Tyneside conurbation, the largest centre of population in the area, and they divide the region into three distinct. speech communities. A more subtle distinction is provided by the minor, north/south isoglosses which divide the central, Tyneside region into three. It would be perfectly feasible to subdivide regions 1 and 3, but this is beyond the scope of this necessarily limited study. Again, it would be possible to divide the sub­ regions 2A, 2B, and 2C still further. For example, the coastal region 2C has some cases of differentia­ tion north and south of the river, and, indeed, South Shields itself had, within living memory, four distinct accents in different parts of the town. Limiting oneself, for the above reasons, to a study of the macro-divisions only, it can be stated that three principal dialects occur within the North Eastern region. They arc characterised by substantial vowel differences, and, to a lesser extent, by differences in usage. Norlhumbrian is spoken in the towns, mining-villages, and countryside of Northumberland proper. It is notable for marked vowel mutations and the distinctive sound IR/ . Tyneside vowels are "pure" in that they do not normally form diphthongs or have closure, and the speech is limited to an area not more than about five miles north or south of the Tyne. South of this area, various forms of Durham dialect are spoken until they blend into the North Yorkshire of Teesside, while a similar type of speech extends westwards along WeardaJe to Allenheads (Northumberland), near the Cumbrian border. D r';PAr.T:iEXT C~: FO:"h!..OI!E MCl! 'orial University of Xc\'.-foundland '--------- - --------- - - - - - ~ ~ N ) w.. ,,' Extent and Division of N .E. English Dialect s 1 Northumberland 2 Tyneside: (A) West; (B ) Mid; (C) Coastal 3 Durham Examples of Speech Differences Differentiation between areas 1, 2 and 3 are illustrated in the following table: English word local "spelling" side side s (i sl id siid school skeul s k u : 0 I s ka ul face fyess t e : s ' f e j a s road road " 0 ' d r o : d ro ' ~ d here heor h i · 0 hi . , ' e ' j a our wor w":) / w:; : w a/ ~ o' w ~ a u /'0uwa ball baal bx- I ba : I biea l cow (:00 k ~ : ku : ka u home hyem j¥m j ~m /h ¢;3 m j :;: m/o '! m The last word in the above table (home) is popularly supposed to be an imported Scandinavian wo rd (ef. iljc/1l, Dan. Norw.), but it is probably a local pronunciation of the Old English form ( ham). This also explains the difference in the treatment of this word and the apparently similar vowel in road. Also worthy of not(' is the emphatic form of ol/r. Children in area 2:-\ might ask, in their version of the perennial question "Can we have our ball back?", [ka n we hiiv we ba : I ba k ] , If, ho wever, tllPy wpre stating that the ball was theirs rather than someone e l~e 's~ they ~\'ould say " It's ourball", [ .. ts ' L W ~ b ~ : I J ,0r(Areal) [ 1. t s w:; b ~ '1 J. Specch Di fferences within Area 2 The best example of a word which varies in pronunciation within the Tyneside speech-area is the form do not or dOll 't .