Barrovian (or Barrow dialect) is an accent and

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

found in

Barrow-in-Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of Barrow-in-Furness. In 2023 the ...

and several parts of the town's wider borough in

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, historically in the county of Lancashire. Although a member of the

Cumbrian dialect The Cumberland dialect is a local Northern English dialect in decline, spoken in Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire North of the Sands, not to be confused with the area's extinct Celtic language, Cumbric. Some parts of Cumbria have a mor ...

, The Barrovian and south Cumbria accent has a lot in common with the dialect of northern Lancashire, particularly the Lancaster/

Morecambe Morecambe ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster district in Lancashire, England. It is in Morecambe Bay on the Irish Sea. Name The first use of the name was by John Whitaker in his ''History of Manchester'' (1771), w ...

area. Barrovian is also used as a

demonym A demonym (; ) or gentilic () is a word that identifies a group of people (inhabitants, residents, natives) in relation to a particular place. Demonyms are usually derived from the name of the place (hamlet, village, town, city, region, province, ...

for inhabitants of Barrow.

Origins

Up until the mid-19th century Barrow was nothing but a cluster of small villages with the Cumbrian dialect prevailing throughout, huge growth however occurred between 1860 and 1880 spurred on by the introduction of the

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

to the Furness peninsula and the rapidly expanding

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...

and jute works. Barrow also became a major shipbuilding centre in the early 20th century. From a few thousand to 70,000 residents in under half a century, the majority of these were immigrants to the town drawn by the burgeoning industries. Large influxes came from elsewhere in

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

(especially the counties of Antrim and Tyrone) and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, with existing shipbuilding regions such as the

Clyde Clyde may refer to: People * Clyde (given name) * Clyde (surname) Places For townships see also Clyde Township Australia * Clyde, New South Wales * Clyde, Victoria * Clyde River, New South Wales Canada * Clyde, Alberta * Clyde, Ontario, a tow ...

and

Tyneside Tyneside is a built-up area across the banks of the River Tyne in northern England. Residents of the area are commonly referred to as Geordies. The whole area is surrounded by the North East Green Belt. The population of Tyneside as published i ...

providing a significant percentage of migrants in the early to mid-20th century. During the 1890s, one in six of the local population had been born in Ireland or Scotland. Barrow became a melting pot of accents and dialects and although it remains primarily Cumbria/Lancashire-orientated has strong influences from a wide geographical area. Numerous place names in Barrow are of

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

and

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

origin. Although they have long been

Anglicised Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...

, many have had their pronunciation skewed over time by the aforementioned immigrant groups. One notable example being the suburbs of

Roose Roose or Roosecote is a suburb and ward of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England. The word 'roose' is Celtic for "moor" or "heath" and the suffix 'cote' of Roosecote means "hut" or "huts" (the word 'cottage' is derived from 'cote'). Before the buil ...

which was settled by Cornish tin miners and is now pronounced locally with a 'z' in place of the 's'. The name

Furness Furness ( ) is a peninsula and region of Cumbria in northwestern England. Together with the Cartmel Peninsula it forms North Lonsdale, historically an exclave of Lancashire. The Furness Peninsula, also known as Low Furness, is an area of vill ...

is also pronounced to sound like 'furnace'.

Phonology

A 2005 study of the Barrovian dialect by the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

found a number of traits common amongst the populace. Most of the observations made are similar to other Northern English dialects with the sound /ʌ/ (as in 'up' or 'mother') being pronounced /ʊ/ (as in 'good' or 'put'). Other observations made included frequent

T-glottalization In English phonology, ''t''-glottalization or ''t''-glottalling is a sound change in certain English dialects and accents, particularly in the United Kingdom, that causes the phoneme to be pronounced as the glottal stop in certain positions. ...

on last letters and frequent intervocalic and syllable initial T-glottaling. In

Plain English Plain English (or layman's terms) are groups of words that are to be clear and easy to know. It usually avoids the use of rare words and uncommon euphemisms to explain the subject. Plain English wording is intended to be suitable for almost anyone, ...

this can be described as the letter 't' being dropped from the middle or end of words. Examples of this include the word 'cart' (/kɑrt/) being pronounced as 'car' (/kaːʔ/), with a

Glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...

after the letter 'r'. Alternatively the number 'twenty' (/twɛnti/) could be pronounced 'twen-y' (/twɛnʔi/). The same study also found frequent G-dropping,

H-dropping ''H''-dropping or aitch-dropping is the deletion of the voiceless glottal fricative or "''H''-sound", . The phenomenon is common in many dialects of English, and is also found in certain other languages, either as a purely historical developmen ...

and

Th-fronting ''Th''-fronting is the pronunciation of the English "th" as "f" or "v". When ''th''-fronting is applied, becomes (for example, ''three'' is pronounced as ''free'') and becomes (for example, ''bathe'' is pronounced as ''bave''). (Here "fron ...

. Respective examples of these phonetics include: 'freezing, exciting, sleeping' being pronounced 'freezin, excitin, sleepin' (where G-dropping speakers pronounce the -ing syllable as �n while non-G-dropping speakers have /ɪŋ/); 'appy (/hæpi/), hour (/haʊ.wər/), have (/hæv)' being pronounced 'appy (/æpi/), our (/aʊə/), ave (/æv)' with removal of the front '/h/'; and 'through (/θru/), thought (/θɒːt), three (/θri/)' being pronounced as 'rough (/frɪu/), frought (/frɒːt/), free (/frɪi/)'. Pronunciation of words ending with the sound 'ure' (/ˈu:r/) are another distinct indicator of the Barrovian dialect. Some words drop the /u:/ completely and convert the 're' (/r/) to 'er' (/ər/), Examples of this include the word 'brochure' being pronounced 'broch-er' (/ˈbroːʃə/), 'texture' as 'text-er' (/ˈtɛkstʃə/) and 'figure' as 'fig-er' (/ˈfɪgə/). Alternatively many words containing /ˈu:r/ are pronounced /u:.ər/ (e.g. in the Barrovian dialect 'moor' rhymes with 'truer'). Further examples being: 'cure' (/ˈkjʊər/) pronounced 'kyou-er' (/ˈkjɪuə/), 'tour' (/tʊər/) as 'too-er' (ˈtɪuə), 'mature' as 'ma-chou-er' (/ˈməˈtʃɪuə/) and 'secure' as 'sec-you-er' (/səkˈjɪuə/). There is no

convention Convention may refer to: * Convention (norm), a custom or tradition, a standard of presentation or conduct ** Treaty, an agreement in international law * Convention (meeting), meeting of a (usually large) group of individuals and/or companies in a ...

for which words drop the letter 'u' and which emphasise it, with little correlation between word length and pronunciation.

Phrases and lexis

The words 'dead' and 'well' are often used in conversation to mean 'very' or make a strong point, for example "it was well good", or "it was dead bad". The word 'like' is frequently used with little meaning, as is the term 'and that' which roughly translates to the use of the term '

etc. ''Et Cetera'' ( or (proscribed) , ), abbreviated to ''etc.'', ''etc'', ''et cet.'', ''&c.'' or ''&c'' is a Latin expression that is used in English to mean "and other similar things", or "and so forth". Translated literally from Latin, means 'an ...

' in a spoken conversation. For example, "I bought some crisps and biscuits and that" (a boughʔ sʊm crisps’n biscuits n’aʔ). The list below contains common words and daily greetings in

Standard English In an English-speaking country, Standard English (SE) is the variety of English that has undergone substantial regularisation and is associated with formal schooling, language assessment, and official print publications, such as public service a ...

(in bold) and their Barrovian equivalent (in italics), and examples of use in a sentence or phrase (in

parentheses A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

). * I - ''a'' (a went out last night) * Anything - ''aught/owt'' * Barrow - ''Barra'' * Clothes - ''clobber'' * Drunk - ''ratted, off your head (off yer’ead), recked'' * Going on a trip or walk - ''going on a bod'' * Hello - ''iya'' * Him/Her - ''im/er'' * Here you go - ''eer yare'' * How are you - ''Ow are ya (owar-y)/ (y')oriʔe/oreeʔ'' * Later - ''after'' * Me - ''us'' (leave us alone) * Moody - ''mardy'' * Mother - ''mam'' * Nothing - ''nowt'' * Playing truant - ''jigging'' * Saw - ''sin'' (I sin her yesterday in town) * Something - ''summat'' * Trousers - ''kecks, pants'' * Unfair - ''tight'' * Where are you? - ''where y'aʔ?'' * Where are you going? - ''where y'off?'' * We - ''us (us two)'' * Up to no good - ''Shithouse''

Barrovian as a demonym

'Barrovian' is also used to refer to an individual hailing from Barrow. For some the term has become

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

ous with local football team

Barrow A.F.C. Barrow Association Football Club is a professional football club based in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England. The club plays in EFL League Two, the fourth tier of the English league system. Since 1909, Barrow have played their home games at H ...

The term 'Old Barrovian' was used in the 20th century to refer to alumni of the Barrow Boy and Girl Grammar Schools,oldbarrovians.org/ which through a complicated history has become Furness Academy.

Recognition

Outside of

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

, Barrovian is relatively unknown in comparison to more widespread dialects. A poll conducted by

Travelodge Travelodge (formerly TraveLodge) refers to several hotel chains around the world. Current operations include: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and several countries in Asia. However, many of t ...

in 2014 resulted in Barrovian being placed sixth 'least favourite' of regional accents in the UK behind

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, Brummie, Cockney,

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

and

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...

respectively.

Notable speakers

References

{{English dialects by continent Barrow-in-Furness British English English language in England