Yorkshire dialect and accent

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Yorkshire dialect refers to the varieties of English used in the northern English county of Yorkshire. These varieties are often referred to as Broad Yorkshire or Tyke. ^[1]

In 2007, Ian McMillan published a book named Collins Chelp and Chunter: a Guide to the Tyke Tongue. This was a compilation of words that are used in the Yorkshire dialect as well as a few pieces of Yorkshire humour and illustrations. Many words are pinned down to specific areas of Yorkshire, or to specific towns or villages; one word is even ascribed to Grange Moor, a small village between Barnsley and Huddersfield. There is also The Yorkshire Dictionary, edited by Arnold Kellett, which is more comprehensive and contains several words that have fallen out of everyday use in Yorkshire. The Yorkshire Dialect Society exists to promote use of the dialect in both humour and in serious linguistics; there is also an East Riding Dialect Society. The dialect has roots in older languages such as Old English and Old Norse; it should not be confused with the recently-invented slang of Yorkshire colloquialisms (unlike the dialect, these are scarcely ever written down).

Yorkshire is generally not as stigmatised as other dialects, and has been used in classic works of literature such as Wuthering Heights. An April 2008 survey found that Yorkshire accents are now ranked above Received Pronunciation for inspiring confidence in the speaker.^[2]

Contents 1 Geographic distribution 2 Accent (pronunciation) 2.1 Vowels 2.2 Consonants 2.3 Further information 3 Vocabulary and grammar 4 Yorkshire dialect and accent in popular culture 5 References 6 Books written in Yorkshire Dialect 7 In-depth studies of individual dialects in Yorkshire 8 See also 9 External links

[edit] Geographic distribution

There is much variation in this region, some very local; the Survey of English Dialects identified many different accents in Yorkshire. On a large scale, there are differences between a Dales dialect and a Scarborough dialect – both of which can be, in turn, very hard for outsiders to understand. Even relatively close places, for example, Leeds and Harrogate, a mere 13 miles apart, have distinct accents and even dialects, with Leeds accents tending to be very deep and gruff, compared to the generally posh RP Harrogate accent. Natives will usually have little difficulty in identifying that a speaker is from a different, though close, town (for example "Dee" ("thee") and "Dah" ("tha"), see below). Another example is the accent differences across Yorkshire over the pronunciation of the same dialect word for the narrow passage between terraced houses ("Jennel", "Jinnel", "Ginnel"), and the pronunciation of "over" ("ovver", "o'er"). One source of confusion is how a floo-er would be a flower and a term of affection in the north and east ridings, but a floor in the West Riding. When it is used as a term of affection, people from the West Riding are often confused at how someone is being called a floor.

The Yorkshire Dialect Society draws a border roughly at the River Wharfe between two main zones. The area to the south-west of the river is more influenced by Mercian dialect whilst that to the north-east is more influenced by Northumbrian dialect. This distinction was first made by A.J. Ellis in On Early English Pronunciation. It was approved of by Joseph Wright, the founder of the Yorkshire Dialect Society and the author of the English Dialect Dictionary. In the S.E.D., the dialect analysts Rohrer, Sheard and Stead mapped a precise boundary by visiting several villages.^[3]

The East Riding dialect has a lot of similarities with the Danish language[3]. The West Riding is less pure in its influence, also containing elements of Icelandic, Norman and Saxon. However, many of the things that have sharply divided the two areas have now passed out of use. For example, it would be very rare to hear someone from the East Riding say "down south" as doon sooth anymore, just as it would be rare for someone from the West Riding to say "eat meat" as eyt meyt anymore.

Also in certain respects, the Middlesbrough and South Tees accent is a form of Yorkshire accent that hinters on a cross between North Yorkshire and Durham; however, much to the amusement and sometimes frustration of locals, it is often confused for Geordie, usually by people in the South of England.

Studies have shown that accents in the West Riding (that is, mostly, modern West and South Yorkshire) are well-liked by the country and are associated with common sense, loyalty and reliability. In response to this, call centres have been increasingly located in this area.^[4]

Other northern English dialects include

• Geordie (spoken in Newcastle upon Tyne)
• Pitmatic (spoken in Durham and Northumberland)
• Scouse (spoken in Liverpool)
• Mackem (spoken in Sunderland)
• Lancashire dialect and accent, which varies across the county.

[edit] Accent (pronunciation)

Some features of Yorkshire accents are general features of northern English accents. Many of these are listed in the northern English accents section on the English English page. For example Yorkshire speakers have short IPA: [a] in words like bath, grass, chance as opposed to the long [ɑː] of Received Pronunciation (RP). Yorkshire accents tend to substitute /ʊ/ for RP /ʌ/, making pairs of words like put and putt homophones.

Most Yorkshire accents are non-rhotic, but rhotic accents do exist in some areas that border with Lancashire. Much of the East Riding is partially rhotic: a final r on a word, as in letter, hour, quarter would be pronounced in a rhotic manner, but an r mid-way through a word, as in start, yard, burn would be pronounced in a non-rhotic manner.^[5]

Other features of pronunciation include:

[edit] Vowels

• A final y is normally said as [i] although the Sheffield area is more likely to use [ɛ].
• In some areas, especially in the southern half of Yorkshire, there is a tendency to pronounce the phoneme /aʊ/ (as in mouth) as a monophthong [aː], often represented with "ah", hence "dahn" for down, "sahth" for south. In these areas, the words out and art may be indistinguishable. ^[6]
• Words such as car, far, art, park, etc. have an [aː] sound, except in the few rhotic areas of Yorkshire.
• The phoneme /aɪ/ (as in price) may also become a monophthong, [ɑː] or [aː]. For example, five becomes [fɑːv], price becomes [prɑːs]. This is most common in the East Riding; it becomes less and less common as you go further west in Yorkshire.
• Many Yorkshire accents have an extra vowel phoneme compared with other accents such as RP, pronounced as a diphthong [ɛɪ], used in words with eigh in the spelling, such as eight and weight, which is then pronounced differently from wait. See Wait-weight merger vowels. Some words with igh in the spelling, like night, can be pronounced with /iː/ (as in fleece) instead of /aɪ/ (as in price).
• In some Yorkshire accents, the word right can also be pronounced with the same [ɛɪ] as weight, similar to an RP pronunciation of rate.^[7] The word write is usually pronounced as in RP, however. Fight can also be pronounced to rhyme with weight.
• Another group of words where [ɛɪ] may turn up in some accents is in words with ea in the spelling derived from a Middle English /ɛ/ lengthened by Middle English open syllable lengthening, such as eat, meat and speak. In some accents, the three words meet, meat and team, which all have the same vowel /ɪi/ in RP, may have three different vowels, [iː], [ɛɪ] and [ɪə] respectively.^[8]
• The vowel in words like face, space, taste (in RP a diphthong [eɪ]) is usually pronounced either as a dipthong /eə/ or as a monophthong /eː/, with the former being more common and the latter being confined to areas south of Leeds. Words with ake at the end may be pronounced with /ɛ/ (as in dress), as in "tek", "mek", and "sek" for take, make, and sake. The traditional Yorkshire pronunciations were tak, mak, sak but these are now considered archaic.
• Words with the RP vowel /əʊ/, as in goat, may have a variety of different sounds. In traditional accents, diphthongs including [oi], [ɔu], [ɔə] and [uə] are used and in south Yorkshire particularly, words such as coal and hole may be pronounced as rhyming with coil ^[9]. Other common sounds include a long back monophthong [ɔː] and, in a recent trend, a fronted monophthong [ɵː] (which can sound close to the vowel of RP nurse). The latter is said to originate amongst females in Hull^[10]; it has only developed in the last decade, yet it has now spread as far as Bradford. (Watt and Tillotson 2001)
• Amongst the "broadest" speech, the Old English long oo in words such as book, cook, look can still be heard. This is more likely to be heard the further west that you go in Yorkshire, and it is fairly widespread in Lancashire.
• In both the West Riding and in the city of York, the vowel /uː/, as in goose, can be realised as a diphthong [ʊu]. ^[11]
• The West Riding to the south of Leeds and Bradford shares one feature with much of the east of England. Past participle endings which are pronounced /ɪz/ and /ɪd/ (with the vowel of kit) in RP may be pronounced with a schwa, /ə/. As these accents are mostly non-rhotic, this means that the plural of badge can sound like the plural of badger and the plural of box can sound like the plural of boxer.
• In Hull, Middlesbrough and other parts of the east coast, the sound in "word", "heard", "nurse", etc. is pronounced in much the same way, with an extended /eə/ sound (e.g imagine elongating the vowel part of 'wed' to sound 'word').
• In the Barnsley area, there are some words where an /a/ becomes an /e/. For example, have is pronounced ev and master and is pronounced mester.
• In some areas of South Yorkshire "won't" may be pronounced as /wɛint/, "wain't". A more traditional Yorkshire pronunciation is /wiənt/, "weeant".
• "Where" and "there" often becomes a dipthong /iə/ leading to pronunciation as "wee-yuh" and "thee-yuh" with the 'uh' representing a schwa. This sound was once used in any mid-word ea - for example, team, head, deaf - but this is now only found amongst the very oldest speakers.

[edit] Consonants

• In some areas, an originally voiced consonant followed by a voiceless one can be pronounced as voiceless. For example, Bradford may be pronounced [bɹatfəd], with [t] (although more likely with a glottal stop, [ʔ]) instead of the expected [d]. ^[12]
• As with many other dialects in the surrounding areas, middle and final /ng/ sound in for example Thing, Sing, Singer, Finger are often replaced or followed by a strong /k/ sound.
• As in most of England, the younger generation presents an increasing tendency to use a glottal stop for all non-initial /t/ sounds, excepting those in consonant clusters. e.g [bɒʔl] for bottle, [saʔ] for sat. This originates in London and parts of East Anglia, but has now spread across England so that it is common in people under 30.^[13] However, older residents of Yorkshire are more likely to replace a /t/ before a vowel with an /r/ so that "getting better" becomes "gerring berrer", "get off" becomes "gerroff", "put it down" becomes "purrit down", etc.
• Sheffield pronunication of "th" (especially where it represents /ð/) tends somewhat towards [d]. This pronunciation, particularly in the second person pronouns "dee" and "dah" (for thee and thou/thy) has led to Sheffielders being given the nickname "dee dahs" (cf. "thee tha") by people from nearby Rotherham and Barnsley. However, the pronunciation is now very rare and had already began to die out by the time of the 1950s Survey of English Dialects^[14].
• The swallowing of /k/, /p/ and /t/ is associated more with the north-east of England, but it can also be heard in the Barnsley area.^[15]
• Many people pronouce /ð/as a [v], ie "bruvver" instead of "brother".

[edit] Further information

These features can be found in the English Accents and Dialects collection on the British Library Collect Britain website. This website features samples of Yorkshire (and elsewhere in England) speech in wma format, with annotations on phonology with X-SAMPA phonetic transcriptions, lexis and grammar.

See also Wells (1982), section 4.4.

[edit] Vocabulary and grammar

Yorkshire dialect shares many features with other English dialects used in northern England or in Scotland (e.g. "Aye" for "Yes").

Examples of vocabulary and grammar more specific to Yorkshire dialects include

• Definite article reduction: shortening of the to a form without a vowel, often written t`. "Down the pub" is pronounced "down t` pub", where the t` represents a sound more like a glottal stop than a true t sound. That is, the phrase sounds like "downt <very brief pause> pub", where the t of downt is completely or very nearly absent. Giving the t` a full t sound ("down <brief pause> terpub") or omitting it entirely ("down pub") are mistakes commonly, and often deliberately, made by someone affecting a Yorkshire accent, or more usually a "comedy generic northern" accent. "Down to the pub" uses two t`s, each pronounced as above ("Down <t`> ter <t`> pub"). Phoneticists will understand that in the above examples, er represents schwa. In South Yorkshire, particularly in the Dearne Valley, the word "the" is often omitted entirely, "Down pub" would be widely understood as a complete sentence. This is particularly true around the village of Wath-upon-Dearne. See this overview and a more detailed page on the Yorkshire Dialect website, and also Jones (2002).
• The use of owt and nowt--derived from Middle English aught and naught. They are pronounced /aʊt/ (as out) and /naʊt/ (like nout) in North Yorkshire, but as /oʊt/ like oat and /noʊt/ like noat in most of the rest of Yorkshire. There is also "summat" for "something," /səmət/ (as summut or like summit), derived from Middle English some-aught; heard also in rural parts of the USA such as in the Appalachians.
• The word dun't is used instead of don't or doesn't.
• Nouns describing units of value, weight, distance, height and sometimes volumes of liquid have no plural marker. For example, "ten pounds" becomes "ten pound"; "five miles" becomes "five mile".
• Location descriptions gain an extra of. For example, "off the streets" becomes "off of the streets"; "alongside the table" becomes "alongside of the table".
• The word us is often used in place of me or in the place of our (e.g. we should put us names on us property), also common is to use the sound ahs in place of us and ah in place of our (e.g. we should put ahs name on ah property). (Compare the German "uns" or "unsere" meaning "us" or "our".)
• Use of the singular second-person pronoun thou (often written tha) and thee.
• In the West Riding, all cases of the past tense of to be is were insteas of was in normal English: "I were wearing t'red coat, but he were wearing t'green one". In some areas, was is rather pronounced as "wuh". The East Riding does the opposite and makes all cases into was.
• In the North and West Ridings, "there are" often becomes "there is", often said 'thuz' in the West.
• Some areas abbreviate "I am not" to I aren't rather than the usual I'm not. This is common around York. In the screenplay of Rita, Sue and Bob Too, it was used frequently, so it is likely to have once been used in Bradford also.
• While is often used in the sense of until (e.g. unless we go at a fair lick, we'll not be home while seven.) "Stay here while it shuts" might cause a non-local to think that they should stay there during its shutting, when the order really means that they should only stay until it shuts. "Wait while lights flash" is seen on British road signs at railway level crossings (railroad grade crossings); the potential for misunderstanding is obvious.
• In common with many other dialects, aye is frequently used for yes.
• Generally in cities, such as Leeds and Sheffield, love is a term used by anyone, although duck is also used in Sheffield.
• The word daft has a slightly different connotation in parts of Yorkshire. In most of Britain, its usage corresponds to "silly" but it is often used to mean "unintelligent" in Yorkshire.
• The word self may become sen, e.g. yourself becomes thy sen. The north-west of Yorkshire is more likely to use sel, e.g. thysel.
• Remnants from the Vikings include the verb laik, to play. The younger generation tend to abbreviate this to lek, however.

[edit] Yorkshire dialect and accent in popular culture

Many films demonstrate Yorkshire accents, although this source needs to be used with care: the film industry is notorious for using "generic Northern" accents or confusing Lancashire and Yorkshire. In the best examples, characters will even use Yorkshire dialect--often as a somewhat simplistic device to establish their (lower) social class. Good films for hearing Yorkshire accents are Kes, filmed around Barnsley with local actors; the 1997 film The Full Monty, featuring Sheffield, which is a mix of Derbyshire and mild Yorkshire accents (lead actor Robert Carlyle is not from Sheffield (he is from Maryhill, Glasgow) but is well known for working hard at getting his accent right, but even he slips up occasionally in this film); and the 1998 film Little Voice, featuring a Scarborough accent (though Jane Horrocks is well known for her Lancashire accent).

In television, the sitcom Last of the Summer Wine, filmed in Holmfirth, has the many characters using local language forms. All Creatures Great and Small was set entirely in the Yorkshire Dales and many of the characters, especially the local farmers, speak with this accent. The Chuckle Brothers speak with an accent that southerners find much easier to understand and that can be found around Rotherham. Similarly, some programmes misrepresent it (or at least do not claim to be very local). The 1996 film Brassed Off was filmed in Grimethorpe, yet the accents are not representative. The soap Emmerdale is set around Otley ("Hotten"), but the accent heard in the soap does not reflect local trends accurately.

Ted Hughes originated from Mytholmroyd, close to the border with Lancashire, and spent much of his childhood in Mexborough, South Yorkshire. He spoke with one of the rhotic Yorkshire accents.

Within the British Isles, the accent tends to have strong associations with common sense, so exaggerated Dales accents are occasionally heard in British comedy when "plain speaking" is called for.

• Blackadder — In the third season episode 'Amy and Amiability', the episode's eponymous heroine Amy Hardwood's father (played by Lancastrian Warren Clarke) plays a stereotypical Eighteenth Century Yorkshire mill owner complete with Dales accent.
• Red Dwarf — In the fourth season episode 'DNA', the android Kryten's third spare head develops a broad Dales accent and stereotypical demeanor after it succumbs to 'droid rot'. As the episode's plot concerns the android being transmogrified into a human, Spare Head 3 is the straight-talking voice of hard reality, reminding Kryten that he 'came into this world as a Mechanoid, and a Mechanoid you'll always be' as a mild parody of typically British drama concerning class mobility and the common perception of a Dales accent being a solidly working-class one.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus — The only Python from Yorkshire is Michael Palin, from Sheffield in South Yorkshire, but in "plain speaking / hard times" sketches, a Yorkshire Accent is almost obligatory ("We lived in a hole in t' road, ate gravel" etc.; "Trouble at t' Mill. One of t' crossbeam's gone out of skew on t' treadle.").
• Battlestar Galactica (2004) — In the third season episode 'Dirty Hands', Dr. Gaius Baltar's native accent on agrarian Aerelon is spoken as a Yorkshire accent, which he abandons after teaching himself an inner colonies' accent (represented by RP) as a child.
• Wallace of Wallace and Gromit has a Yorkshire accent.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation – In episode 156 & 157 Gambit, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, played by Yorkshireman Patrick Stewart, bears a distinct Huddersfield accent.

Alex Turner, vocalist of Arctic Monkeys, Jon McClure, of Reverend and The Makers, Jon Windle, of Little Man Tate (band), and Joe Carnall, of Milburn (band) are all known to sing in Sheffield accents, as well as many other local bands in and around Sheffield.

[edit] References

• Alexander, D. (2001). Orreight mi ol'. Sheffield: ALD. ISBN 1-901587-18-5. A book about the traditional Sheffield dialect.
• Jones, M. J. (2002). The origin of Definite Article Reduction in northern English dialects: evidence from dialect allomorphy. English Language and Linguistics 6.2: 325-345.
• Wakelin, M. F. (1977). English Dialects: An Introduction, , Revised Edition, London: The Athlone Press.
• Watt, D. and Tillotson, J. (2001). A spectrographic analysis of vowel fronting in Bradford English. English World-Wide 22:2, pp 269-302. Available at [4]
• Wells, J. C. (1982). Accents of English 2: The British Isles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-28540-2.

[edit] Books written in Yorkshire Dialect

• Yorkshire ditties (Series 1) by John Hartley – {link}
• Yorkshire ditties (Series 2) by John Hartley – {link}
• Yorkshire tales (Series 3) by John Hartley – {link}
• Yorkshire Dialect Poems (1673-1915) and traditional poems by Frederic William Moorman – {link}
• Songs of the Ridings by Frederic William Moorman – {link}
• "A Kind of Loving" and "Joby" by Stan Barstow. (specifically that of Dewsbury and Ossett)
• Most of the dialogue in "GB84" by David Peace.
• A Kestrel for a Knave later turned into the film Kes.
• The Secret Garden (parts of) by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• Wuthering Heights (parts of) by Emily Brontë (note that this is very old-fashioned Haworth dialect)

[edit] In-depth studies of individual dialects in Yorkshire

• K.M. Petyt, Emily Bronte and the Haworth Dialect
• Joseph Wright, A Grammar of the Dialect of Windhill
• Hans Tidholm, The Dialect of Egton in North Yorkshire
• David Battye, Sheffield Dialect

Several nineteenth century books are kept in specialist libraries.

[edit] See also

• Yorkshire colloquialisms

All Creatures Great And Small by James Herriot

Up And Down In The Dales, In the Heart Of The Dales, Head Over Heels In The Dales, by Gervase Phinn

[edit] External links

• Sounds Familiar? — Listen to examples of regional accents and dialects from across the UK on the British Library's 'Sounds Familiar' website
• English Accents and Dialects collection on the British Library Collect Britain website.
• Yorkshire Dialect website
• Yorkshire Dialect Society
• Chapter from a 1892 book on "Yorkshire Folk Talk". The descriptions focus on the dialect specifically of the East Riding
• Dialect Poems from the English regions
• Whoohoo Yorkshire Dialect Translator
• Guide to Yorkshire words given to international recruits to the Doncaster West N.H.S.

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