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The reason why we have chosen this theme is that of enlargement of our knowledge of English language, of penetration in its historical past. These materials will help us to evaluate and understand the peculiarities of foundation and development of this language, its dialects and accents. Our aims are:
to examine the most prevalent British dialects;
to compare their lexis (the word stock of the dialect), grammar and phonetics with those of Standard English ones, and to clarify what is the difference between them;
to show the peculiarities of British dialects
There have been cases of a variety of speech being deliberately altered to serve political purposes. The example is Moldovan. No such language existed before 1945, and most non-Moldovan linguists remain sceptical about its classification. After the Soviet Union annexed the Romanian province of Bessarabia and renamed it Moldavia, Romanian, a Romance language, was transposed into the Cyrillic alphabet and numerous Slavic words were imported into the language, in an attempt to weaken any sense of shared national identity with Romania. After Moldavia won its independence in 1991 (and changed its name to Moldova), it reverted to a modified Latin alphabet as a rejection of the perceived political connotations of the Cyrillic alphabet. In 1996, however, the Moldovan parliament, citing fears of "Romanian expansionism," rejected a proposal from President Mircea Snegur to change the name of the language back to Romanian, and in 2003 a Romanian-Moldovan dictionary was published, purporting to show that the two countries speak different languages. Linguists of the Romanian Academy reacted by declaring that all the Moldovan words were also Romanian words. Even in Moldova, the head of the Academy of Sciences' Institute of Linguistics, Ion Bărbuţă, described the dictionary as a politically motivated "absurdity".
I.2. British Dialects
The size of the British Isles often leads people to assume that the language spoken in its countries of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland is somewhat homogeneous and first time visitors are often surprised to find that they have difficulty in understanding the accents and dialects of certain regions. Even within the country of England alone there is great diversity of dialect both regionally and socially. The term "British English", when used by British speakers, often refers to the written Standard English and the sociolect known as Received Pronunciation (RP). The written Standard English dates back to the early XVI century in its current form. It is primarily based on dialects from the South East of England and is used by newspapers and official publications. RP is the most extended and socially accepted pronunciation (accent) which is used by educated people in London and the South of England. A possible reason for this phenomenon is the support for its use by the most prestigious public schools (Winchester, Eton, Harrow, Rugby, etc.) and the old universities (Oxford, Cambridge). It should be emphasized that only 3-5 % of the population of England speak RP. RP is also known as Queen’s English or BBC English.
Standard English is considered to be the model for educated people but what is it exactly nobody knows. There are many approaches to the understanding of what the Standard English is:
1. Some lexicologists consider Standard English as the official language of Great Britain taught at schools and universities, used by the press, the radio and the television and spoken by educated people. It may be defined as that form of English which is current and literary, substantially uniform and recognized as acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood. Its vocabulary is contrasted to dialect words or dialectisms belonging to various local dialects. Local dialects are varieties of the English language peculiar to some districts and having no normalized literary form. Regional varieties possessing a literary form are called variants. Dialects are said to undergo rapid changes under the pressure of Standard English taught at schools and the speech habits cultivated by radio, television and cinema.
2. According to P. Trudgill4 Standard English is not "a language" in any meaningful sense of this term. He says that SE is less than a language because it’s only one variety of English among many.
3. There is also another point of view that SE has nothing to do with pronunciation also. It is widely agreed that while all RP speakers also speak Standard English, the reverse is not the case. But RP is standardized accent of English and not SE itself.
To sum up all aforesaid we’d like to emphasize that at least most British sociolinguists are agreed, that Standard English is a dialect. As we mentioned above SE is just one variety of English. It is a sub-variety of English. Sub-varieties of languages are usually referred to as dialects, and languages are often described as consisting of dialects.
The development of dialects in Britain we can trace from the ancient times. The various Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes) who invaded Britain after 437 AD brought with them their own dialects of West Germanic. These formed the basis for the appearance of later dialect areas. The language itself, as spoken by these people after they arrived in Britain, is sometimes called Anglo-Saxon but nowadays more usually Old English. The submergence of the various British Celtic languages (of which Welsh is the only modern survivor) also lead to innovations in British English. The Viking invasions resulted in more Norse influence in the north than in the south, thereby contributing another layer to the existing dialects. Moreover, the Norman French invaders influenced the south more than the north, which came to be more conservative linguistically. The Great Vowel Shift of the 1500's didn't affect northern English dialects, which came to be called Scots English. Because of the long history of dialect creation in the English speaking areas of Great Britain, there are more dialects of English in Britain than in America, Canada, and Australia combined.
In spite of the fact that Great Britain is not such a big country there is a great variety of different dialects on its territory. During the centuries, English language has changed enormously in different ways in every part of Great Britain. Nowadays it is almost impossible to find out how many dialects exist in England and classify them because they change gradually from one part of the country to another creating a kind of "continuum". Significant changes in dialect (pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary) may occur within one region.
The four major divisions are normally classified as:
Southern English dialects
Midlands English dialects
Northern English dialects
Scottish English and the closely related dialects of Scots and Ulster Scots (varieties of Scots spoken in Ulster).
There is also Hiberno-English (English as spoken in Ireland) and the form of English used in Wales. The various English dialects differ in the words they have borrowed from other languages. The Scottish and Northern dialects include many words originally borrowed from Old Norse; the Scottish dialects include words borrowed from Scots and Scottish Gaelic. Hiberno-English includes words derived from Irish.
There are many differences between the various British dialects. These can be a major obstacle to understanding between people from different areas. However, modern communications and mass media have reduced these differences significantly. In addition, speakers of very different dialects may modify their pronunciation and vocabulary, towards Standard English.
The classification of modern British dialects presents serious difficulties as their boundaries are instable.
England
Scotland
Wales
Northern Ireland
On the map below we can discern dialects and languages on the territory of British Isles.
This map shows only some dialects; let’s say "the most popular". As to the languages we can say with confidence that the United Kingdom has no official language. English is the main language and the de facto official language, spoken monolingually by an estimated 95% of the UK population.
However, some nations and regions of the UK want to speak and to promote their own languages. In Wales, English and Welsh are both widely used by officialdom, and Irish and Ulster Scots enjoy limited use alongside English in Northern Ireland, mainly in publicly commissioned translations. Additionally, the Western Isles region of Scotland has a policy to promote Scottish Gaelic.
Under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which is not legally enforceable, the UK Government has committed itself to the promotion of certain linguistic traditions. Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Cornish are to be developed in Wales, Scotland and Cornwall respectively. Other native languages afforded such protection include Irish in Northern Ireland, Scots in Scotland and Northern Ireland, officially known as "Ulster Scots" or "Ullans" in Northern Ireland but in the speech of users simply as "Scotch" or "Scots", and British Sign Language.
Nevertheless let’s return to the dialects. The conservatism is one of the main features of the modern English territorial dialects. Some deviations from literary standard mostly are conditioned not on evolution but on its absence: many linguistic phenomena from different periods of the language history are preserved in dialects.
Map from Pictures of England5
County Key: Yorks = Yorkshire, Wars = Warwickshire, Leics = Leicestershire, Mancs = Manchester, Lancs = Lancashire, Derbys = Derbyshire, Staffs = Staffordshire, Notts = Nottinghamshire, Shrops = Shropshire, Northants = Northamptonshire, Herefs = Herefordshire, Worcs = Worcestershire, Bucks = Buckinghamshire, Beds = Bedfordshire, Cambs = Cambridgeshire, Herts = Hertfordshire.
II. The classification of British dialects according to their location
In this chapter we want to classify the British dialects according to places where they are spoken, i.e. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The dialects of England differ sharply from all other dialects. Why is it that people in different parts of the country speak differently? Trudgill (1994:5-7) thinks that English is constantly changing, and that different changes take place in different parts of the country, or the spread of changes will be halted by barriers to communication such as countryside which is difficult to cross.
1. ENGLAND
As England is a big country, the dialects there seize 3 territories: Northern, Midlands and South. In these territories the dialects are spoken differently because of the influence of different languages and cultures. Linguists agree that about 900 English words of Scandinavian origin, including get, hit, leg, low, root, skin, same, want and wrong. It is impossible to prove that these words could not have existed in the ancient English language long before the Scandinavian invasion. While most people in Central England say "boy and girl," a huge northern area uses "lad and lass." This area coincides with the distribution of "lug" instead of 'ear,' etc. The words lad, lass and lug and similar basic dialectal words are the last remnants of a sunken language, the peaks of an iceberg that was not originally English in its vocabulary. It indicates that the majority of the speakers of their core area once consisted of foreigners, whether Picts, Goths or Scandinavians.
1.1. Northern English
Various names have been proposed for the speech of the industrial North of England: 'Geordie', 'Pitmatic', 'Durham English', 'Mackem', 'Cumbrian', 'Scouse', etc. All Northern English seems a truer echo of Old English (Anglo-Saxon) than Southern English - especially in its vowel sounds. It retains a great number of Norse-based words than Southern English, but shares with it an admixture of words derived from Norman-French in the feudal era. Like every other dialect, the speech of the North has interacted with 'Standard English', with increasing convergence in recent centuries. Northern English dialects include such counties as: Northumberland, Durham, Cumbria, North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Lancashire, Manchester, East Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Lancashire, Merseyside, Cheshire. The counties of northern England are not far from the Scottish border, so the influence of Scottish English is noticeable, though there are of course many features only of northern English regions. The Northern dialect closely resembles the southern-most Scottish dialects. It retains many old Scandinavian words, such as bairn [bεən] for 'child'. The most outstanding version is Geordie, the dialect of the North East and namely of the Newcastle area. It has much in common with Mackem – the dialect of Durham. The term "Mackem" is used to describe someone native to the city of Sunderland (an industrial city and port in the English county of Tyne and Wear). Alternatives include 'Makem' or 'Mak'em'. The term was coined by shipyard workers in the XIX century in Newcastle to describe their Wearside counterparts. The Geordies would 'Take' the ship to be fitted out that the Mackems 'Made', hence 'Mackem and Tackem' ("make them" and "take them"). The term came into increasing use during the late 1980s and early 1990s, partly due to the labelling of Sunderland people as 'Mackems' by 'Geordies' and partly by Sunderland people themselves who did not want to be identified as Geordies.
Geordie is a term used to describe a person originating from Tyneside (the city Newcastle-upon-Tyne and its surrounding area) and the former coal mining areas of northern County Durham and the dialect spoken by such people. The villages around Newcastle, until recently depending largely on the coal industry, are home to many of the broader dialect speakers. There are a number of rival theories to explain how the term came about, though all accept that it derives from a familiar diminutive form of the name "George". In recent times Geordie has also started to mean a supporter of Newcastle United football club no matter where their origin often including people from well outside the traditional area. This movement is opposed by traditional geordies however both due to their wanting to seem unique and the fact that many of them are supporters of the rival football club Sunderland.
The word "Geordie" is said to date from the early XVIII century, when Newcastle people declared support for the English kings George I and II, in opposition to the rest of the population of Northumberland, who supported the Scottish Jacobite rebellions. Although the name is localised to the Newcastle area, the dialect here merges gradually into the Northumbrian and Scottish dialects to the north and to a lesser extent into Durham and Yorkshire varieties to the south. Geordie derives much less influence from French and Latin than does Standard English, being substantially Angle and Viking in origin.
The relationship between the local dialect and Standard English, like in other parts of Britain, has not always been comfortable. Non-standard pronunciation and grammatical forms have been widely proscribed in school classes, and speakers of the dialect themselves will often express a view that their language is substandard or bad. Until very recently, there has been no educated role model on radio or television, and many people from the area feel that they are discriminated against on the basis of the way they speak.
An alternative (and more likely) explanation for the name is that local miners used "Geordie" safety lamps designed by George Stephenson, rather than the "Davy Lamps" designed by Humphry Davy which were used in other mining communities. This is the version that is generally preferred by the Geordies themselves.
Distinctively Geordie words are more than 80 % Angle in origin, compared to Standard English, where the figure is less than 30 %. Modern English words by comparison are predominantly of Latin origin because modern English derives from the dialects of southern England which were continuously influenced by the Latin and Norman French favoured by the educated classes of Oxford, Cambridge and London.
Geordie words should not be seen as sloppy pronunciation or a poor use of language, as they are in fact of great antiquity. Indeed many old words and phrases commonly used in the old works of Chaucer and Shakespeare which are no longer used in other parts of Britain have survived as common usage in the North East. Many educated Geordies, especially in the urban area, have a wider degree of competence in both standard and non-standard speech so that, depending on context; they have a range of forms at their disposal. Generally, the more informal the context, the greater the number of dialect features. There are also signs of a growing pride in the distinctive nature of the dialect, with Geordie dictionaries, versions of bible stories and so on, appearing on the market. There are also bumper stickers with humorous messages such as Divn't dunsh us, I'm a Geordie! – Смотри не столкнись со мной, я Джорди6! (Don't bump into me, I'm a Geordie!).
Vocabulary.
People in the North-east believe that a lot of Geordie words come from "Scandinavian". There is a strong link with the language of the Anglo-Saxon immigrants of the first millennium, particularly those from the Angle areas of what is now southern Denmark. Words such as lop – вошь,блоха - 'flea, louse or its egg' ("The penny lop was the local cinema which was full of people with fleas"7), hoppings – ярмарочная площадь - 'fairground', ket – мусор - 'rubbish' and worm – монстр - 'monster' ("the name given to the legendary monsters described in so many ballads. The Lambton Worm is the best known. But there was the Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heugh near Bamburgh, and the "Dragon-Worm" of Sockburn in Durham") have been suggested as Anglo-Saxon survivals. Invaders from further north, known popularly as "Vikings", probably had a greater influence on the language further south in Durham and Yorkshire. Geordie language is, in fact, quite closely allied to Lowland Scottish, although the exact etymology of many words of the area is still not fully understood.
Varnigh is in common use, meaning 'almost' - почти, or 'very nearly' – очень близко. Other dialect words such as penker - мрамор - 'marble' and plodge 'wade through mud, wade in water with bare feet' may have an onomatopoeic element, while a Romani origin has been suggested for some words such as gadgie – парень -'chap' and baari - 'excellent' - превосходный.
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/
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