Peculiarities of British Dialects

     Geordie also has a large amount of vocabulary not seen in other English dialects. Words still in common use today include canny for 'pleasant' – приятный ("an embodiment of all that is kindly, good, and gentle. The highest compliment that can be paid to any person is to say that he or she is canny"), hyem, yearm for 'home' - дом (I’m gannin hyem - 'I’m going home'), divn't (divvent) for 'don't', hacky for 'dirty' – грязный (Hacky-dorty -  'very dirty' – очень грязный), and howay meaning something like 'Come on!' – Живей! or 'Well done' – Хорошо! When a Geordie uses the word larn for 'teach' - учить, it is not a misuse of the English word 'learn'; the word is derived from the Anglo Saxon word 'laeran', meaning 'to teach'.

           Some words do appear to have currency further north into the Scottish Lowlands. These are: bonny 'pretty' – милый, прелестный (is usually used like canny to describe character as well as looks. A bonny bairn - 'a good looking child' – милый ребёнок. A bonny singer - 'an accomplished singer' – талантливый певец), burn 'stream' – поток/ручей, muckle 'very' - очень, cuddy 'small horse, donkey' – осёл/маленькая лошадь (He's a greet sackless cuddy - 'He's a big stupid donkey'), spuggy 'sparrow' - воробей, hadaway 'go away/begone' – убирайся! or 'you're kidding' – ты шутишь!, sackless 'stupid, useless' – глупый/бесполезный, cushat 'wood pigeon' – дикий голубь.

           Other typical Geordie words are also found further south, and appear to be part of a general Northern English lexicon: aye 'yes' – да (why aye - 'of course' - конечно), gob 'mouth' - рот, give over  'stop it' – прекрати!, chuffed 'happy' - счастливый, wisht  'be quiet' – успокойся!, nowt 'nothing' - ничего, nigh on 'nearly' - близко, na 'no' - нет.

     The following words can be considered truly Geordie words: pet 'term of address for females' (e.g. "thanks, pet"), bullets 'sweets' – конфеты (so called from the shape of a bullet. The best known are black bullets. A black bullet consists of a dark brown peppermint flavoured spherical boiled sweet. They contain only 3 ingredient's: sugar, glucose and peppermint oil), marra 'friend, mate' – друг/товарищ, bait  'food' – еда (bait-poke or bait-can - 'a metal container to carry food to work'), lowp  'to jump' - прыгать, ten o'clock  'morning snack' – лёгкий утренний завтрак/закуска (He' ye had yor ten o'clock yit?), get 'stupid person' – глупый человек, netty  'toilet/lavatory' – туалет/уборная, cree '(bird) cage' – птичья клетка, hoy 'throw' – бросать/кидать (to hoy a stone - 'to throw a stone'), deek 'see, look at' – видеть/смотреть на, dunsh 'push, bump' – сталкиваться/врезаться/толкать, toon 'Newcastle' - Ньюкасл, gannin 'going', weees 'who is' - кто, ooot 'out' – вне/снаружи/за пределами ч-л, the neet 'tonight' – сегодня вечером, morrer 'tomorow' – завтра (see yer the morrer- 'see you tomorrow') . In Newcastle there are such common phrases and greetings:

     Hoo ye gannin? or Hoo's ya fettle?  'How are you?' – Как поживаете?

     Champion. 'Very good, very well' – Очень хорошо

     Bonny day the day.  'It's nice weather' – Прекрасная погода

     Whey aye, man.  'That's right' - Именно

     Give ower, y'a kiddin.  'Come on, you're joking' – Да ладно, ты шутишь!

     Hadaway man.  'I'm still not convinced' – Я всё ещё не уверен

     Ya taakin shite.  'I really disagree with that' – Я абсолютно с этим не согласен

     Tara now, pet.  'Goodbye (to female)' – Прощай (женщине)

     Wee's yon slapper?  'Who's the young lady?' (derogatory) – Что за девчёнка?

Grammar.

Probably the most noticeable feature of Geordie grammar is a confusing difference in pronoun forms. The term us is used to indicate a singular 'me' - я, while the plural form for 'us' – мы is wu or even wuz. So give us it means 'give me it' (дайте мне это) and give wu it means 'give us it' (дайте нам это). Yee means 'you' - ты, Geordies use youse for plural 'you' – вы (множ.), me for 'my' – мой/моё. 'Our/my' (наш/мой) is pronounced wor. Typical members of the family thus include: wor lass my 'wife' – моя жена, wor kid 'my younger brother' – мой младший брат, wor fatha 'my father' – мой отец, etc.

     The plural form yous is also in use, and possibly appeared due to influence from the large influx of Irish people to Tyneside in the second half of the nineteenth century.

     The negative form of the verb "to do" is divvent instead of "don't" and there are distinctive past tense forms of verbs such as tell – говорить (telt), forget - забывать (forgetten) and put – класть (putten).

   For example:

     I telt you to give us a one, but you've forgetten. If you divvent give us it noo, I'm gannin yearm. ('I told you to give me one, but you've forgotten' - Я говорил тебе дать мне это, но ты забыл. 'If you don't give me it now, I'm going home' – Если ты не отдашь мне это, то я уйду домой).

   The example above also shows the common combination 'give me one' as in give us a one.

      In many cases, what is the simple past form in Standard English is also used as a participle in the Geordie variety. For example, in Standard English you say 'I took' but 'I have taken' and 'I went', but 'I have gone'. However, in broad Geordie, I've took one and He's never went there may be used. This feature has long been stigmatised as "bad English" but it is actually a consistent part of the grammar.

      Another notable grammatical feature is a combination of certain words such as 'might' and 'could' which are not allowed together in most standard varieties. It is possible to say, for example: He might could come tomorrow – Он может прийти завтра.

    Often, quantity expressions such as five year (пять лет) and ten pound (десять фунтов) are used without a plural -s.

      A common feature is the use of the word man to indicate rather more than reference to a male person. For example, in ye cannet, man 'you really can't' (ты действительно не можешь), the word man acts as a final particle emphasising the impossibility of the action. Another final particle mar has a similar function of emphasis, as in it's cowld the day, mar 'it is really cold today' (сегодня очень холодно), while the end of the sentence as in who says, like? or it's not my fault, like may request or provide exemplification.

     Another difference from Standard English in the grammar is that but can occur at the end of a sentence. For example:

     It'll be dark, but – Но уже будет темно

     You might could lose it, but – Но ты можешь потерять это

Also, the object pronoun can be used at the end of a sentence for emphasis:

     I really love chips me

     I cannet understand it, me

Phonetics.

In Geordie most consonant sounds are similar to those of Standard English. The most notable exception is the famous "burr" or uvular r sound, roughly similar to the French pronunciation of "r". This is by no means universal on Tyneside, but more common in mining communities further north. It has received a lot of interest from linguists, although its use appears to be declining today. Unlike many English dialects, initial "h" is not dropped from the beginning of words, but word-final -ing is usually pronounced as -in.

     The most notable feature of the consonants occurs in the sounds in the middle of words like "bottle". In Geordie, the t sound is not replaced completely. Rather, it is half replaced so that there's a glottal stop and the t pronounced at the same time. There may also be a "v" sound inserted in some sequences, such as give it tiv us - 'give it to me' (дай это мне) or A sez tiv im - 'I said to him' – Я сказал ему.

     It is the vowel sounds that really give Geordie speech its distinctive character. On the end of words "er" becomes "a" ("father" is pronounced "fatha", both "a" sounds as [æ]). Many [a] sounds become more like [e]: "hev" for "have". Double vowels are often pronounced separately: "boat" becomes "boh-ut". Some words acquire extra vowels ("growel" for "growl", "cannet" for "can't"). The "or" sound in words like "talk" becomes "aa", while "er" sounds in words like "work" becomes "or". The "oo" in words like "cook", "book" or "look" becomes "uu". Like other northern dialects, the u vowels tend to be short, so that the vowel sounds in the words 'foot' and 'bus' are the same. Final vowels are usually given rather greater stress than in Standard English, so that words like "fighter" and "mother" sound like "faita" and "mutha". Some vowels involve the combination of two different vowels, such as those in "eight" and "throat" which sound more like "ee-ut" and "throw-ut". These are the real shibboleths of Geordie speakers. There are some more extreme variants too, for example, 'take' may be pronounced tek and 'face' fyes. The vowel in 'town' is typically pronounced toon. Fanatical followers of Newcastle United Football Club are well known as the Toon Army. Similarly, 'brown', 'about', 'pound' and so on are pronounced broon, aboot and poond.

     The position of the vowels as in the Standard English "shore" and "bird" is rather more complex. There are two separate Geordie vowels equivalent to the "shore" vowel in Standard English. Words spelled with an "l" such as "walk" are pronounced with a distinctive lengthened a sound usually written "waak" in dialect writing. Those without "l" such as "board" are roughly the same as Standard English. The standard "bird" vowel is usually rendered as the sound in "chalk", so that "heard" becomes indistinguishable from "hoard" and "bird" from "board". This sound confusion is the basis for a well-known Geordie joke: 

Workman visiting doctor: Me leg's bad, man, can ye give us a sick note?

Doctor: Can you walk?

Workman: Work? Y'a kiddin' man, A cannet even waak! 

     Also in Geordie, 'blow' becomes blaa and 'cold' cowld, but in other words such as 'flow' and 'slow' the vowels are not changed in the same way.

A number of words are said to have pronunciation indicating a possible survival from earlier periods of English, such as gan 'go', lang 'long' (длинный), aks 'ask' (просить/спрашивать) and deed 'died' (умерший). The word 'can't' is usually pronounced cannet.

     Intonation patterns in Geordie are quite distinctive, with a rising intonation at the end of declarative sentences (statements), but the issue is complex and no definitive studies have been done. 

• YORKSHIRE

Yorkshire is still England's biggest county. Once it was the heart of the Danelaw, the Viking kingdom in Britain. To this day, the lexicon of dialect speakers in the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire retains many words that derive from Old Norse. Scandinavian influence on the language does not stop with the end of the Danelaw, however: in the 19th and 20th centuries maritime trade and commerce in the North Sea and the Baltic brought many Danes, Norwegians and Swedes to ports like Hull and Newcastle. The West Riding also has a large corpus of words of Old Norse origin. The Norwegian influence is stronger here, whereas Danish is more influential in the East Riding - there are more "Norwegian" forms than the "Danish" of, say, the East Riding. There is a historical explanation in the trade routes from Dublin, via the north-west coast of England, over the Pennine uplands to York, capital of the Danelaw. We see an illustration of this in the place-name ending -thwaite, of Norwegian origin, which is common in West Yorkshire, Lancashire and the Lake District, but rare east of the Pennines, where the Danish cognate -thorpe is far more common.

Vocabulary.

Trudgill⁸ remarks on the prodigious variation in vocabulary arising from both the historical settlement patterns of the various European invaders and the later linguistic changes following settlement.

The examples below are from the lexicon of Yorkshire dialect speakers.

Nouns

Attercop: spider – паук (Old English "poisonous spider")

Backend: autumn - осень

Bairn: child - ребёнок (Also used in Scotland and Northumberland)

Blaeberry: bilberry - черника

Blain/blen: sore/swelling/boil – рана/опухоль/нарыв (Old English)

Dale: valley – долина, лощина

Foss, force: waterfalls, rapids – водопады, пороги реки

Goodies/spice: sweets – конфеты, сладости

Gowk: cuckoo - кукушка

Kelter/kelterment: junk/rubbish/litter – мусор/хлам

Kittling: kitten - котёнок

Lug/tab: ear - ухо

Nowt: nothing – ничего (Rhymes with "stout" or "coat". Literally "Naught")

Owt: anything –что-нибудь (Rhymes with "stout" or "coat". Literally "Aught")

Urchin: hedgehog - ёж (this sense is preserved in sea-urchin).

Varmint: vermin – паразиты (насекомые)/вредители (Old form surviving in America and Yorkshire)

Yam: home -дом (Compare modern Norwegian hjem, sounded as "yem".)

Yat: gate - ворота

Yatstead: threshold – порог

Yoon: oven - печь

Pronouns

Nay: no – нет

Verbs

Addle: to earn - зарабатывать (From Old English via Old Norse)

Ban: to curse, to swear – богохульствовать

Dee: to die - умереть

Lap: to cover/wrap up - накрываться/кутаться

Laik/lark: to play/laze – играть/бездельничать (Old Norse)

Mash: to brew, as in tea or beer – заваривать чай/варить пиво

Putten: past tense of the verb to put - клал

Puther: to make clouds of smoke or dust – дымить/пылить

Rick, reek: smoke, to smoke –дым, курение/курить

Sile: to rain heavily – лить как из ведра

Skell: To tip or spill - опрокидывать/рассыпать/расплескивать (Old Norse)

Thoil/thole: to tolerate/put up with/stand/bear - терпеть/мириться/выносить/выдерживать (Old English)

Adjectives

Backendish: autumnal – осенний

Blake: sallow, yellow – болезненный, землистый, жёлтый (usually in relation to someone's complexion)

Cat Hawed: drunk – пьяный (pronounced "cattored")

Gloppened, glottened: astonished, surprised, flabbergasted – изумлённый, удивлённый, поражённый

Mafted: very hot or breathless – очень жаркий, безветренный

Nesh: weak, feeble – слабый, немощный, хилый (Old English)

Nithered: (past participle) cold/shivering - холодный/дрожащий (Old Norse)