Peculiarities of British Dialects

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)

Slape: slippery - скользкий

Wick: lively – активный, энергичный (Relates to quick, originally meaning "alive")

Forms like mafted and nithered come from verbs that have passed out of use.

Adverb

Appen: perhaps – возможно, наверное (like Shakespeare's haply)

 

Some words in Yorkshire dialect at first sight seem to be Standard English but, as Kellett⁹ points out, "they do not mean what they appear to mean". He gives the following examples:

Flags - not banners to be waved, but paving stones – не развивающиеся знамёна, а булыжники

Gang - not a group of people, but the verb ‘to go’ – не группа людей, а глагол "идти"

Real - a description of something good or outstanding, not genuine – описание чего-то значительного или выдающегося, а не реального

Starved - relating to feeling cold rather than a state of hunger – ощущение холода, а не голода

Sharp - used in the sense of ‘quickly’ rather than having a point or edge – быстро, но никак не связанное с острием или лезвием

Right - employed not only to indicate direction but as an intensifier in the sense of ‘very’ – используется не только для указания направления, но и усиление значения слова "очень"

 

Yorkshire dialect is rich in idiomatic expressions. The following examples are taken from Kellett:

Allus at t’ last push up - always at the last moment – Всегда в последний момент

Nobbut a mention - just a small amount – Всего лишь малое количество

It’s nut jannock - it’s not fair – Это не честно

’e wor ’ard on - he was fast asleep – Он спал крепким сном

Livin’ tally / ower t’ brush - living together as man and wife but not married – Жить вместе в гражданском браке

Tek a good likeness - be very photogenic – Быть очень фотогеничным

It caps owt - it beats everything – Это ни с чем не сравнить

Goin’ dahn t’ nick - ill and not going to get better – Безнадёжно больной

A reight gooid sooart - a really kind person – Очень добрый/добряк

Ah wor fair starved - I really was cold – Я действительно замёрз

 

Grammar.

All the following examples of Yorkshire dialect grammar are taken from Arnold Kellett’s  "Basic Broad Yorkshire"¹⁰. The text below contains only a small example of basic grammar and it does not include all the varieties of form and construction.

Verbs

Present tense

The following examples show verb formation together with examples of personal pronouns.

to laik (play)

                               Ah/Aw   (I)                    laik              Wer/wi  (We)                 laik

                                  Tha/Thoo (You)           laiks               Yer/Yo(u)  (You)             laik

                                    ’e  (He)                        laiks               Thet/ther/the’  (They)         laik

                                    Shoo/sher/sh’  (She)     laiks

 

Future tense

Indicated by ‘bahn’ or ‘off ti’. For example:

Ah’m bahn ter side them pots                               ’e’s off ti shut t’ yat

I’m going to put those dishes away                      He’s going to shut the gate

Я собираюсь  убрать эту посуду                        Он собирается закрыть ворота

Past Tense

Some of the participles used in the formation of the past tense are a retention of earlier forms of English:

                                         gat/getten           Got            frozen       frozen

                                         fahned/fan/fun   Found       putten       put

Negatives

‘Nut’ and ‘nooan’ are the equivalents of ‘not’ Yorkshire speech:

Thoo’ll nut finnd owt                    Ah’m nooan bahn yonder

You’ll not find anything                I’m not going there

Вы ничиго не найдёте                 Я не иду туда

 

Double negatives are quite common in dialect:

’e nivver said nowt neeaways ti neean on ’em  

He never said anything at all to anybody

Он никогда  никому ничего не говорил

 

Possessive pronouns

Possessive pronouns do not differ greatly from those of Standard English:

                                       mi/ma         my  mine/mahne      mine

                                       thi/thy       your thine                  yours

                                        ’is              his          ’is                  his

                                    ’er              her          ’ers                  hers

                                      wer/ahr        our           ahrs                  ours

                                      oor               our          oors                 ours

                                     yer           your yours                 yours

                                    the’r             their theirs                theirs

 

Plurals

Plural forms are not normally used when referring to periods of time or to quantities:

six pund                        two week owd 

six pounds                        two weeks old

шесть фунтов                  двухнедельной давности

Plurals of some nouns exist in their older form. For example:

childer children (дети)               hosen               stockings (чулки) 

spice           sweets (конфеты)              shoon/shooin      shoes (ботинки)

 

Prepositions

Some prepositions differ very much from those of Standard English:

aboon above (выше, ранее)              behunt/behint    behind (сзади, позади) 

afooar before (вначале, прежде)         fra/frev              from (от, из) 

baht          without (без)                           ter/tul/tiv              to (к, на)

Demonstrative Adjectives

When used in dialect the demonstratives (that, this) are normally accompanied by ‘theeare’ (there) or ’ere (here):

that theeare pig                 this ’ere cannle 

that pig                          this candle

 

Phonetics.

Trudgill¹¹ considers that one of the most important features of this dialect is the fact that such words as long, wrong, strong, etc are pronounced with a short <a> instead of an <o>, (i.e. Lang, wrang, strang, etc.) and that find, blind, etc. are realized with a short <i> (finnd, blinnd, etc.). Such pronunciations, he says, link back to the original Anglo-Saxon realizations. Similarly, the employment of a monophthong (i.e. a pure vowel) by Northern speakers in such words as house, out, and cow (i.e. hoos, oot and coo) is the retention of the original medieval pronunciation.

Trudgill further observes that, in some areas of the North, a modified version of the Anglo-Saxon long <a> is preserved in such words as home and stone, their pronunciations being

hee-am and stee-an. Likewise, spoon, fool, etc. are realized as spee-oon, fee-ool, and so on.

Other important features of Yorkshire dialect are: -ing which is pronounced as -in'

(e.g. walkin', talkin', etc.); the use of the short <a> (as in cat) in words like bath and dance; and the dropping of word-initial <h> (e.g. 'appy, 'orrible, etc.).

Kellett remarks that the er sound is modified so that thirst, for example, becomes thust or thost.

Diphthongs

aa  thus naame (roughly nay-em) for name  

ooa  (roughly oo-er) so that words such as floor, door and afore become flooar, dooar and               

                                                                                                                                        afooar 

ow   as in browt, owt and nowt (i.e. brought, anything and nothing). The realization of this     

           sound is not equivalent to the Standard English pronunciation of now but more like aw-oo oi   used in such words as coit, throit and 'oil (i.e. coat, throat and hole) 

eea   appears in words like again, death and street (pronounced ageean, deeath and streeat)

 

• SCOUSE

Scouse is the dialect of English found in the northern English city of Liverpool and adjoining urban areas of Lancashire and the Wirral region of Cheshire. "The Beatles" made this dialect famous. The adopted Merseysider and language expert Fritz Spiegl once described the Liverpool dialect as "one-third Irish, one-third Welsh and one-third catarrh".

The dialect of Merseyside is highly distinctive, and wholly different from those of neighbouring regions of Lancashire and Cheshire. The word Scouse was originally a variation of lobscouse -the name of a traditional dish of mutton stew mixed with hardtack eaten by sailors.