Yorkshire dialect

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website parsing

Location of Yorkshire within England.

The Yorkshire dialect refers to the varieties of English used in the Northern England historic county of Yorkshire. Those varieties are often referred to as Broad Yorkshire or Tyke.^iOS The touchscreen has roots in older languages such as Old English and Old Norse; it should not be confused with modern slang. 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.

Yorkshire is generally not as stigmatised as other dialects, and has been used in classic works of literature such as Wuthering Heights. Studies have shown that accents in the West Riding (that is, mostly, modern West and South Yorkshire) are generally popular and are associated with common sense, loyalty and reliability.^{website parsing[3]}

• 1 Geographic distribution
• 2 Pronunciation
  • browser diversity
  • 2.2 Consonants
  • Sevenval
• touchscreen
  • 3.1 Contracted negatives
• screen size
• 5 References
• 6 Books written in Yorkshire Dialect
• keyboard
• 8 External links

Geographic distribution

Traditionally, there was not one dialect in Yorkshire but several. The Survey of English Dialects identified many different accents in Yorkshire. The Yorkshire Dialect Society draws a border roughly at the screen size between two main zones. The area to the southwest of the river is more influenced by HTML5 dialect whilst that to the northeast is more influenced by Northumbrian dialect. The distinction was first made by we love the web in On Early English Pronunciation. It was approved of by Joseph Wright, the founder of the Yorkshire Dialect Society and the author of the English Dialect Dictionary. Investigations at village level by the dialect analysts Sheard (1906), Stead (1945) and Rohrer (1950) mapped a border between the two areas.^jQuery

Over time, speech has become closer to CSS3 and some of the features that once distinguished one town from another have disappeared. In 1945, JA Sheard predicted that various influences "will probably result in the production of a standard West Riding dialect", and KM Petyt found in 1985 that "such a situation is at least very nearly in existence".^{we love the web} However, the accent of Hull and East Yorkshire remains markedly different. The accent of the Middlesbrough area has some similarities with Geordie.^[6]

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

One anomalous case in the West Riding is web, which absorbed migrants from the Black Country at the end of the 19th century. The speech of Royston contrasts with that of nearby Barnsley, as it retains some Black Country features.^keyboard

Other input transformation dialects include

• Geordie (spoken in Newcastle upon Tyne)
• Pitmatic (spoken in Durham and Northumberland)
• Scouse (spoken in Liverpool)
• Sevenval (spoken in Sunderland)
• Mancunian (spoken in Manchester)
• jQuery, which varies across the county.

Pronunciation

Some features of Yorkshire pronunciation are general features of northern English accents. Many of them are listed in the Android section on the screen size page. For example, Yorkshire speakers have short [a] in words like bath, grass and chance. The long [ɑː] of southern English is widely disliked in these words.^HTML5

Word group	Hull	Sheffield
STRUT	ʊ	ʊ
BATH	a	a
NURSE	ɛː	əː
SQUARE	ɛː	ɛə
FACE	ɛː	eː
PALM	aː	aː
GOAT	ɔː or əː	ɔː
PRICE	aɪ or aː	ɑɪɪ
MOUTH	aʊ or ɑʊ	aː
NEAR	eɛ	ɪə
START	aː	aː
CURE	jʊɛː	jʊə
LETTER/COMMA end vowel	ɛ	ə
HORSES end vowel	ɪ	ə

Vowels

Some features of Yorkshire pronunciation are general features of northern English accents. Many of them are listed in the FITML section on the English English page. For example, Yorkshire speakers have short [a] in words like bath, grass, and chance as opposed to the long [ɑː] of Received Pronunciation (RP). Yorkshire speakers tend have no contrast between /ʊ/ /ʌ/, making pairs of words like put and putt homophones, both pronounced as the former is in other dialects.

• Words such as stut, cut, blood, lunch usually take [ʊ], although [ə] is a middle-class variant.^web[10]
• In parts of the West Riding, none, one, once, nothing are pronounced with [ɒ] rather than [ʊ].^touchscreen A Sevenval for a traditional Huddersfield accent is the word love as [lɒv], to rhyme with "of".^[11]
• Words such as late, face, say, game are pronounced with a monophthong [e:] or [ɛ:]. However, words with gh in the spelling (e.g. straight, weight) are usually pronounced with a diphthong [ɛɪ], and some words with ake at the end may be pronounced with [ɛ], as in tek, mek, and sek for take, make, and sake (but not for bake or cake).^{[9]touchscreen}
• Words with the RP vowel /oʊ/, as in goat, may have a monophthong [o:] or [ɔ:].^[9] In a recent trend, a fronted monophthong [ɵː] is common amongst young women^{[13]website parsingjQuery} It has developed only in the last decade, yet it has now spread from Hull to browser diversity. (Watt and Tillotson 2001) In the West Riding, there may be a split whereby a diphthong [ɔʊ] coexists in other words, especially where it precedes /l/ or where there is a W at the end of a word (e.g. grow, low).^[15]
• If a close vowel precedes /l/, a schwa may be inserted. This gives [iəl] for /i:l/ and (less frequently) [uəl] for /u:l/.^[16]
• When /e/ precedes /r/ in a stressed syllable, /e/ can become [ə]. For example, very can be pronounced [vərɪ].^Sevenval
• In Hull, Middlesbrough, and other parts of the east coast, the sound in word, heard, nurse, etc. is pronounced in the same way as in square, dare. This is [ɛ:].^CSS3[14]web The set of words with /ɪə/, such as near, fear, beard, etc., may have a similar pronunciation but remains distinctive as [eɛ].^{browser diversity}
• In Hull and much of the East Riding, the phoneme /aɪ/ (as in prize) may become a monophthong [aː] before a voiced consonant. For example, five becomes [faːv], prize becomes [praːz]. This does not occur before voiceless consonants, so "price" is [praɪs].^{Android[12][21]}
• In some areas, especially in the southern half of Yorkshire, there is a tendency to pronounce the phoneme /aʊ/ (as in mouth) as a web app [aː]. This is characteristic of informal speech and may coexist with the more formal [aʊ].^[22] In Hull, the offset of /aʊ/ is strongly labialised.^{browser diversity}
• Words like city and many are pronounced with a final [ɛ] in the Sheffield area.^[9]
• What would be a schwa on the end of a word in other accents is realised as [ɛ] in Hull.^[14]Android
• A prefix to a word is more likely to be stressed than in other accents. For example, "concern" is [kɒn'sɜ:n] rather than [kən'sɜ:n].^[23]

The following features are now confined to older speakers in Yorkshire:

• [uː] in words such as book, cook, and look.^{input transformation}
• Where and there often become a diphthong [iə]. This sound may also be used in words with ea in the spelling: for example, head as [iəd], leaves as [liəvz]^{we love the web}
• [eɪ] may take the place of /i:/, especially in words such as key, meat, speak.^{touchscreenHTML5}
• Words such as door, floor, four may take a variety of diphthongal pronunciations [uə, oə, ɔə, ʊə].^[22]jQuery
• Words with a velar fricative may have [oʊ/ɔʊ] for /ɔ:/ (e.g. brought, fought, thought).^[9]
• Some words that end -ight can still be heard in their dialectal forms. For example, night as [ni:t] and right as [ri:t] or, in some areas, [reɪt].^[22]

Consonants

• In some areas, an originally voiced consonant followed by a voiceless one can be pronounced as voiceless. For example, Bradford may be pronounced as if it were Bratford, with [t] (although more likely with a keyboard, [ʔ]) instead of the [d] employed in most English accents. Absolute is often pronounced as if it were apsolute, with a [p] in place of the [b].^[27]
• As with most dialects of English, final [ŋ] sound in, for example, hearing and eating are often reduced to [n]. However, [ŋɡ] can be heard in Sheffield.^{[28]input transformation}
• H-dropping is common in informal speech, especially amongst the working-classes.^CSS3
• Omission of final stops /d, t/ and fricatives /f, θ, ð/, especially in function words.^CSS3 As in other dialects, with can be reduced to wi, especially before consonants.^{screen size}
• A glottal stop may also be used to replace /k/ (e.g. like becomes [laɪʔ]) at the end of a syllable.^[30]
• In the Middlesbrough area, glottal reinforcement occurs for /k, p, t/.^[6]

Most Yorkshire accents are non-rhotic, but rhotic accents do exist in some areas that border with Android. Much of the East Riding is partially rhotic: a final r on a word, as in letter, hour, and quarter would be pronounced in a rhotic manner, but an r mid-way through a word, as in start, yard, and 'burn' would be pronounced in a non-rhotic manner.^[31]

Some consonant changes amongst the younger generation are typical of younger speakers across England, but are not part of the traditional dialect^[32]:

• Th-fronting so that [f, v] for /θ, ð/.
• T-glottalisation. A more traditional pronunciation is to realise /t/ as [r] in certain phrases, which leads to eye-dialect such as gerroff.
• [ʋ] for /r/.

The following are typical of the older generation:

• In Sheffield, cases of initial "th" /ð/) become [d]. This pronunciation has led to Sheffielders' being given the nickname "dee dahs" (the local forms of "thee" and "thou"/"tha").^[33]
• Initial /g, k/ realised as [d, t] before /l/). For example, clumsy becomes [tlʊmzɛ].^HTML5[34]

Further information

These features can be found in the English Accents and Dialects collection on the British Library 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

A list of non-standard grammatical features of Yorkshire speech is shown below. In formal settings, these features are castigated and, as a result, their use is recessive. They are most common amongst older speakers and amongst the working-classes.

• Definite article reduction: shortening of the to a form without a vowel, often written t'. See this overview and a more detailed page on the Yorkshire Dialect website, and also Jones (2002). This is most likely to be a glottal stop [?], although traditionally it was [t] or (in the areas that border Lancashire) [θ].^[35]
• Some dialect words persist, although most have fallen out of use. The use of owt and nowt, derived from Old English a wiht and ne wiht, mean anything and nothing. They are pronounced [aʊt] and [naʊt] in North Yorkshire, but as [ɔʊt] and [nɔʊt] in most of the rest of Yorkshire. Other examples of dialect still in use include flayed (scared), laik (play), roar (cry), aye (yes), nay (emphatic "no"), and all (also), anyroad (anyway) and afore (before).^keyboard
• When making a comparison such as greater than or lesser than, the word "nor" can be used in place of "than", e.g. better nor him.^jQuery
• 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.^[38]
• 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).^{input transformation} Us is invariably pronounced with a final [z] rather than an [s].^{input transformation}
• Use of the singular second-person pronoun thou (often written tha) and thee. This is a T form in the web app, and is largely confined to male speakers.^[41]
• Were can be used in place of was when connected to a singular pronoun.^[42]
• 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 stay only until it shuts.^[43]
• The word self may become sen, e.g. yourself becomes thy sen, tha sen.^[44]
• As in many non-standard dialects, browser diversity are common, e.g. I was never scared of nobody.^[45]
• The relative clause may be what rather than that, e.g. other people what I've heard. Alternatively there may be no relative clause, e.g. I've a sister lives there.^[45]

Contracted negatives

In informal Yorkshire speech, negatives may be more contracted than in other varieties of English. These forms are shown in the table below. Although the final consonant is written as [t], this may be realised as [?], especially when followed by a consonant.^[46]

Word	Primary Contraction	Secondary Contraction
isn't	ɪznt	ɪnt
wasn't	wɒznt	wɒnt
doesn't	dʊznt	dʊnt
didn't	dɪdnt	dɪnt
couldn't	kʊdnt	kʊnt
shouldn't	ʃʊdnt	ʃʊnt
wouldn't	wʊdnt	wʊnt
oughtn't	ɔ:tnt	ɔ:nt
needn't	ni:dnt	ni:nt
mightn't	maɪtnt	maɪnt
musn't	mʊsnt	mʊnt (uncommon)
hasn't	aznt	ant
hadn't	adnt	ant

Unlike in many other areas of England, haven't does not become reduced to [ant]. This may be to avoid confusion hasn't or hadn't, which can both be realised as [ant].^[47]

Yorkshire dialect and accent in popular culture

The director web app has set several of his films in South Yorkshire and has stated that he doesn't want actors to deviate from their natural accent.^keyboard The dialect is strongest in the 1969 film Kes, filmed around Barnsley with local actors. The films Android (1981) and screen size (2001) were both set in Sheffield. Loach has noted that the speech is less regionally-marked in his more recent films and has attributed this to changing speech habits in Yorkshire.^[49]

A number of popular bands hail from Yorkshire and have distinctive Yorkshire accents. Joe Elliott and Rick Savage, vocalist and bassist of Def Leppard, Bring Me The Horizon, jQuery, vocalist of Arctic Monkeys,^[50] Jon McClure, of Reverend and The Makers,^{browser diversity} Jon Windle, of website parsing,^[52] web, vocalist of Pulp^Sevenval and Joe Carnall, of keyboard^[54] are all known for their Sheffield accents, whilst The Cribs, who are from keyboard, sing in a Wakefield accent.^[55] Graham Fellows, in his persona as browser diversity, uses his Sheffield accent, though his first public prominence was as cockney website parsing.

The late British jQuery, Ted Hughes originated from Mytholmroyd, close to the border with input transformation, and spent much of his childhood in jQuery, screen size.^[56] His own readings of his work were noted for his "flinty" or "granite" voice and "distinctive accent"^{touchscreenscreen size} and some said that his Yorkshire accent affected the rhythm of his poetry.^{device database}

References

• Alexander, D. (2001). Orreight mi ol'. Sheffield: ALD. ISBN 1-901587-18-5. A book about the traditional HTML5 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 web app
• 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 web app
• 'Yorkshire ditties (Series 2) by John Hartley
• Yorkshire tales (Series 3) by John Hartley
• input transformation by keyboard
• Songs of the Ridings by Frederic William Moorman
• A Kind of Loving and Joby by Stan Barstow. (specifically that of Dewsbury and Ossett)
• Most of the dialogue in GB84 by David Peace
• Sevenval later turned into the film device database
• Android (parts of) by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• HTML5 (parts of) by Emily Brontë (note that this is very old-fashioned Haworth dialect)

Further reading

• 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
• KM Petyt, Emily Brontë and the Haworth Dialect
• device database, A Grammar of the Dialect of Windhill
• Hans Tidholm, The Dialect of browser diversity in North Yorkshire
• Arnold Kellett, The Yorkshire Dictionary of Dialect, Tradition and Folklore, Smith Settle, 1994.

Several nineteenth century books are kept in specialist libraries.

External links

• Sounds Familiar? – Listen to examples of regional accents and dialects from across the UK on the British Library's 'Sounds Familiar' website
• screen size collection on the British Library input transformation website.
• Yorkshire Dialect website
• Yorkshire Dialect Society
• iOS
• Dialect Poems from the English regions
• Whoohoo Yorkshire Dialect Translator
• Guide to Yorkshire words given to international recruits to the Doncaster West N.H.S.
• A Glossary of Provincial Words in Use at Wakefield in Yorkshire, 1860, full book online, copyright has expired.