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EspañolYORKSHIRE DIALECT AND ACCENT
(Redirected from Yorkshire dialect)
The 'Yorkshire dialect' refers to the varieties of English used in the northern English county of Yorkshire. In some areas of Yorkshire, these varieties refer to themselves as 'Broad Yorkshire' or 'Tyke'.
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 and a Dewsbury Dialect Society.
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 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, along with famous dialect analysts such as Rohrer, Sheard and Stead, 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. The East Riding dialect has a lot of similarities with the Danish language[1]. Grammar in the East Riding tends to be more consistent than in the West, for West Riding dialect is less "pure" in its influences. For example:
★ In the East Riding, words ending in -ight (//) are always pronounced as //. In the West, however, -ight sometimes is pronounced as // (in words like light and night), sometimes as (//) (fight, right) and sometimes as //(like bright, might).
★ In the East, "do not" and "will not" become "deaan't" and "weean't". "Deean't" is not heard of in the West, but "weean't" is.
★ In the East, the /aʊ/ sound (like in house) becomes /u:/, thus "doon sooth" is said for "down south". In the West, these sounds are sometimes /a:/, sometimes /əʊ/ and sometimes remain as /aʊ/.
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.
Other northern English dialects include
★ Geordie (spoken in Newcastle upon Tyne)
★ Pitmatic (spoken in Durham)
★ Scouse (spoken in Liverpool)
★ Mackem (spoken in Sunderland)
★ Lancashire dialect and accent, which varies across the county.
(The following sections are rather technical, and perhaps therefore dry for the non-specialist)
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 in words like ''bath, grass, chance'' as opposed to the long of Received Pronunciation (RP). Yorkshire accents tend not to distinguish RP and , making pairs of words like ''put'' and ''putt'' homophones, but parts of the East Riding pronounce ''put'' in an intermediate way between Standard English and the rest of the North.
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.[1]
Other features of pronunciation include:
★ In some areas, especially in the southern half of Yorkshire, there is a tendency to pronounce the phoneme (as in ''mouth'') as a monophthong , often represented with "ah", hence "dahn" for ''down'', "sahth" for ''south''. In these areas, the words ''out'' and ''art'' may be indistinguishable. [2]
★ Words such as ''car, far, art, park,'' etc. have an sound, except in the few rhotic areas of Yorkshire.
★ The phoneme (as in ''price'') may also become a monophthong, or . For example, ''five'' becomes , ''price'' becomes . In the East Riding, "find" (RP ) becomes . Much of West Yorkshire uses a sound that is mid-way between the Standard English diphthong and the monophthongs found in other Yorkshire accents.
★ Many Yorkshire accents have an extra vowel phoneme compared with other accents such as RP, pronounced as a diphthong , 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 (as in ''fleece'') instead of (as in ''price'').
★ In some Yorkshire accents, the word ''right'' can also be pronounced with the same as ''weight'', similar to an RP pronunciation of ''rate''.[3] The word ''write'' is usually pronounced as in RP, however. ''Fight'' can also be pronounced to rhyme with ''weight''.
★ Another group of words where may turn up in some accents is in words with ''ea'' in the spelling derived from a Middle English 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 in RP, may have three different vowels, , and respectively.[4]
★ The vowel in words like ''face, space, taste'' (in RP a diphthong ) is usually pronounced as a monophthong [eː]. Words with ''ake'' at the end may be pronounced with (as in ''dress''), as in "tek", "mek", and "sek" for ''take'', ''make'', and ''sake''.
★ Words with the RP vowel , as in ''goat'', may have a variety of different sounds. In traditional accents, diphthongs including , , and are used and in south Yorkshire particularly, words such as ''coal'' and ''hole'' may be pronounced as rhyming with ''coil'' [5]. Other common sounds include a long back monophthong and, in a recent trend, a fronted monophthong (which can sound close to the vowel of RP ''nurse''). The latter is said to originate amongst females in Hull[6]; it has only developed in the last decade, yet it has now spread as far as Bradford. (Watt and Tillotson 2001)
★ In both the West Riding and in the city of York, the vowel , as in ''goose'', can be realised as a diphthong . [7]
★ 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 and (with the vowel of ''kit'') in RP may be pronounced with a schwa, . 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 'e' sound (e.g imagine elongating the 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, an originally voiced consonant followed by a voiceless one can be pronounced as voiceless. For example, ''Bradford'' may be pronounced , with instead of the expected . [8]
★ 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 for ''bottle'', for ''sat''. This is replacing the diversity that once existed in pronouncing such words. Within West Yorkshire alone, the S.E.D. found that the word "getting" was pronounced as "gerring" in Leeds, "gItting" in Thornhill and "ge:ting" in Golcar. Yorkshire accents have converged in this respect.
★ Sheffield pronunication of "th" tends somewhat towards . This pronunciation, particularly in the 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 not very widespread; it was not found during the 1960s Survey of English Dialects[9], and some Sheffielders claim its prevelance has always been exaggerated.
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.
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 pub", where the ''t'' of ''downt'' is completely or very nearly absent. Giving the ''t`'' a full ''t'' sound ("down 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 ter 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'' (sometimes spelled as ''aught'' and ''naught'', but never pronounced and as those spellings might suggest) for "anything" or "nothing".
★ 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". NEVER "He's got five dog". This is also the case in Dutch and German.
★ 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'': "I were wearing t'red coat, but he were wearing t'green one". Amongst younger speakers this may be pronounced "woh" or "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 Sheffield and Leeds, ''love'' is a term used by anyone, said to anyone in any situation and in some environments it is used on the end of almost every sentence which is addressing someone (e.g. ''"That'll be three pounds please love"'').
★ 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.
For further details and a full list, go to Yorkshire colloquialisms
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 accents (the main actor is not from Sheffield, but is well known for working hard at getting his accent right - but 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 (though not always ''very'' local, the series is renowned as something of a "pension fund" for elderly actors with generally Northern English (and sometimes wider) backgrounds). 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. 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 as a child.
1. See the Welwick and Nafferton accents on the S.E.D.[2] [3]
2. Several recordings in the English Accents and Dialects collection show this feature, for example this Sheffield speaker.
3. For Sheffield, Alexander (2001) uses the spellings "leet" and "neet" for ''light'' and ''night'', but "reight" and "feight" for ''right'' and ''fight''.
4. See Wakelin (1977), p90, for details. For Sheffield, Alexander (2001) uses the spellings "eight" and "meight" for ''eat'' and ''meat'', but "creeam" and "teeam" for ''cream'' and ''team''. See also ''Meet-meat merger''.
5. These phonetic transcriptions are from Watt and Tillotson (2001). For Sheffield, Alexander (2001) uses the spellings "nooase" for ''nose'' and "rooad" for ''road'', but "coyal" and "oyal" for ''coal'' and ''hole''. See Wakelin (1977), p89, for some information on the origin of the different vowels.
6. http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/individual/leeds-university-arif-ayeshah.shtml
7. Several recordings in the English Accents and Dialects collection show this feature, for example this Ossett speaker.
8. In the English Accents and Dialects collection, this is referred to as ''Yorkshire assimilation''. Several of the recordings in the collection show this feature, for example this Bradford speaker.
9. http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/personalisation/object.cfm?uid=021SED00C908S48U00002C01
★ 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.
★ 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)
★ 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
★ 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
The 'Yorkshire dialect' refers to the varieties of English used in the northern English county of Yorkshire. In some areas of Yorkshire, these varieties refer to themselves as 'Broad Yorkshire' or 'Tyke'.
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 and a Dewsbury Dialect Society.
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 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, along with famous dialect analysts such as Rohrer, Sheard and Stead, 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. The East Riding dialect has a lot of similarities with the Danish language[1]. Grammar in the East Riding tends to be more consistent than in the West, for West Riding dialect is less "pure" in its influences. For example:
★ In the East Riding, words ending in -ight (//) are always pronounced as //. In the West, however, -ight sometimes is pronounced as // (in words like light and night), sometimes as (//) (fight, right) and sometimes as //(like bright, might).
★ In the East, "do not" and "will not" become "deaan't" and "weean't". "Deean't" is not heard of in the West, but "weean't" is.
★ In the East, the /aʊ/ sound (like in house) becomes /u:/, thus "doon sooth" is said for "down south". In the West, these sounds are sometimes /a:/, sometimes /əʊ/ and sometimes remain as /aʊ/.
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.
Other northern English dialects include
★ Geordie (spoken in Newcastle upon Tyne)
★ Pitmatic (spoken in Durham)
★ Scouse (spoken in Liverpool)
★ Mackem (spoken in Sunderland)
★ Lancashire dialect and accent, which varies across the county.
Accent (pronunciation)
(The following sections are rather technical, and perhaps therefore dry for the non-specialist)
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 in words like ''bath, grass, chance'' as opposed to the long of Received Pronunciation (RP). Yorkshire accents tend not to distinguish RP and , making pairs of words like ''put'' and ''putt'' homophones, but parts of the East Riding pronounce ''put'' in an intermediate way between Standard English and the rest of the North.
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.[1]
Other features of pronunciation include:
Vowels
★ In some areas, especially in the southern half of Yorkshire, there is a tendency to pronounce the phoneme (as in ''mouth'') as a monophthong , often represented with "ah", hence "dahn" for ''down'', "sahth" for ''south''. In these areas, the words ''out'' and ''art'' may be indistinguishable. [2]
★ Words such as ''car, far, art, park,'' etc. have an sound, except in the few rhotic areas of Yorkshire.
★ The phoneme (as in ''price'') may also become a monophthong, or . For example, ''five'' becomes , ''price'' becomes . In the East Riding, "find" (RP ) becomes . Much of West Yorkshire uses a sound that is mid-way between the Standard English diphthong and the monophthongs found in other Yorkshire accents.
★ Many Yorkshire accents have an extra vowel phoneme compared with other accents such as RP, pronounced as a diphthong , 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 (as in ''fleece'') instead of (as in ''price'').
★ In some Yorkshire accents, the word ''right'' can also be pronounced with the same as ''weight'', similar to an RP pronunciation of ''rate''.[3] The word ''write'' is usually pronounced as in RP, however. ''Fight'' can also be pronounced to rhyme with ''weight''.
★ Another group of words where may turn up in some accents is in words with ''ea'' in the spelling derived from a Middle English 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 in RP, may have three different vowels, , and respectively.[4]
★ The vowel in words like ''face, space, taste'' (in RP a diphthong ) is usually pronounced as a monophthong [eː]. Words with ''ake'' at the end may be pronounced with (as in ''dress''), as in "tek", "mek", and "sek" for ''take'', ''make'', and ''sake''.
★ Words with the RP vowel , as in ''goat'', may have a variety of different sounds. In traditional accents, diphthongs including , , and are used and in south Yorkshire particularly, words such as ''coal'' and ''hole'' may be pronounced as rhyming with ''coil'' [5]. Other common sounds include a long back monophthong and, in a recent trend, a fronted monophthong (which can sound close to the vowel of RP ''nurse''). The latter is said to originate amongst females in Hull[6]; it has only developed in the last decade, yet it has now spread as far as Bradford. (Watt and Tillotson 2001)
★ In both the West Riding and in the city of York, the vowel , as in ''goose'', can be realised as a diphthong . [7]
★ 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 and (with the vowel of ''kit'') in RP may be pronounced with a schwa, . 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 'e' sound (e.g imagine elongating the 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''.
Consonants
★ In some areas, an originally voiced consonant followed by a voiceless one can be pronounced as voiceless. For example, ''Bradford'' may be pronounced , with instead of the expected . [8]
★ 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 for ''bottle'', for ''sat''. This is replacing the diversity that once existed in pronouncing such words. Within West Yorkshire alone, the S.E.D. found that the word "getting" was pronounced as "gerring" in Leeds, "gItting" in Thornhill and "ge:ting" in Golcar. Yorkshire accents have converged in this respect.
★ Sheffield pronunication of "th" tends somewhat towards . This pronunciation, particularly in the 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 not very widespread; it was not found during the 1960s Survey of English Dialects[9], and some Sheffielders claim its prevelance has always been exaggerated.
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.
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
★ The use of ''owt'' and ''nowt'' (sometimes spelled as ''aught'' and ''naught'', but never pronounced and as those spellings might suggest) for "anything" or "nothing".
★ 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". NEVER "He's got five dog". This is also the case in Dutch and German.
★ 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'': "I were wearing t'red coat, but he were wearing t'green one". Amongst younger speakers this may be pronounced "woh" or "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 Sheffield and Leeds, ''love'' is a term used by anyone, said to anyone in any situation and in some environments it is used on the end of almost every sentence which is addressing someone (e.g. ''"That'll be three pounds please love"'').
★ 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.
For further details and a full list, go to Yorkshire colloquialisms
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 accents (the main actor is not from Sheffield, but is well known for working hard at getting his accent right - but 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 (though not always ''very'' local, the series is renowned as something of a "pension fund" for elderly actors with generally Northern English (and sometimes wider) backgrounds). 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. 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 as a child.
References
1. See the Welwick and Nafferton accents on the S.E.D.[2] [3]
2. Several recordings in the English Accents and Dialects collection show this feature, for example this Sheffield speaker.
3. For Sheffield, Alexander (2001) uses the spellings "leet" and "neet" for ''light'' and ''night'', but "reight" and "feight" for ''right'' and ''fight''.
4. See Wakelin (1977), p90, for details. For Sheffield, Alexander (2001) uses the spellings "eight" and "meight" for ''eat'' and ''meat'', but "creeam" and "teeam" for ''cream'' and ''team''. See also ''Meet-meat merger''.
5. These phonetic transcriptions are from Watt and Tillotson (2001). For Sheffield, Alexander (2001) uses the spellings "nooase" for ''nose'' and "rooad" for ''road'', but "coyal" and "oyal" for ''coal'' and ''hole''. See Wakelin (1977), p89, for some information on the origin of the different vowels.
6. http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/individual/leeds-university-arif-ayeshah.shtml
7. Several recordings in the English Accents and Dialects collection show this feature, for example this Ossett speaker.
8. In the English Accents and Dialects collection, this is referred to as ''Yorkshire assimilation''. Several of the recordings in the collection show this feature, for example this Bradford speaker.
9. http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/personalisation/object.cfm?uid=021SED00C908S48U00002C01
★ 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.
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)
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
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
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