Yorkshire accent

The Yorkshire dialect (also known as Broad Yorkshire, Tyke, Yorkie or Yorkshire English) is a dialect of English, or continuum of dialects, spoken in the Yorkshire region of Northern England. The dialect has roots in Old English and is influenced by Old Norse. The Yorkshire dialect has faded and faces extinction, but organisations such as The Yorkshire Dialect Society and the East Riding Dialect Society exist to promote its use.

The dialect has been represented in classic works of literature such as ''Wuthering Heights'', ''Nicholas Nickleby'' and '' The Secret Garden'', and linguists have documented variations of the dialect since the nineteenth century. In middle of the twentieth century, the Survey of English Dialects collected dozens of valuable recordings of authentic Yorkshire dialects.

Early history and written accounts

In the fragments of early dialect work, there seems to have been few distinctions across large areas: in the early 14th century, the traditional Northumbrian dialect of Yorkshire showed few differences with the dialect spoken at Aberdeen, now often considered a separate Scots language. The dialect has been widely studied since the 19th century, with an early work by William Stott Banks in 1865 on the dialect of Wakefield, and another by Joseph Wright who used an early form of phonetic notation in a description of the dialect of Windhill, near Bradford. Significant works that covered all of England include the works of Alexander John Ellis in the mid and late 19th Century, the English Dialect Dictionary around the turn of the 20th century.

Charles Dickens' ''Nicholas Nickleby'' (1839) and Emily Brontë's ''Wuthering Heights'' (1847) are notable nineteenth century works of literature which include examples of contemporary Yorkshire dialects. The following is an excerpt of Brontë's use of Yorkshire dialect in ''Wuthering Heights'', with a translation to standard English below:

'''Aw wonder how yah can faishion to stand thear i' idleness un war, when all on 'ems goan out! Bud yah're a nowt, and it's no use talking—yah'll niver mend o'yer ill ways, but goa raight to t' divil, like yer mother afore ye!'''

'''I wonder how you can stand there in idleness and worse, when all of them have gone out! But you're a nobody, and it's no use talking—you'll never mend your evil ways, but go straight to the Devil, like your mother before you!'''

Geographic distribution

Yorkshire is a massive territory and the dialects are not identical in all areas. In fact, the dialects in the North and East Ridings are fairly different to that of the West Riding as they retained the original Northumbrian characteristics. The Yorkshire Dialect Society draws a border roughly at the River Wharfe between two main zones. The area southwest of the river is Northumbrian in origin, but with influence from the East Midlands dialects since the industrial revolution, whilst that to the northeast, like Geordie, the Cumbrian dialect and the Scots language, is descended more purely from the Northumbrian dialect. The distinction was first made by A. J. Ellis in ''On Early English Pronunciation''.Ellis also identified a third area around Craven, Ribblesdale, upper Wensleydale and Swaledale as part of his "West Northern" area (numbered Area 31), alongside almost all of Cumbria as well as north Lancashire and south Durham. In the tradition of the Yorkshire Dialect Society, this area is usually grouped with the North Riding dialect. The division 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 Stead (1906), Sheard (1945) and Rohrer (1950) mapped a border between the two areas. A rough border between the two areas was mapped by the Swiss linguist Fritz Rohrer, having undertaken village-based research in areas indicated by previous statements by Richard Stead and J.A. Sheard, although there were "buffer areas" in which a mixed dialect was used, such as a large area between Leeds and Ripon, and also at Whitgift, near Goole.

One report explains the geographic difference in detail:Yorkshire dialect an explanation
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This distinction was first recognised formally at the turn of the 19th / 20th centuries, when linguists drew an isophone diagonally across the county from the northwest to the southeast, separating these two broadly distinguishable ways of speaking. It can be extended westwards through Lancashire to the estuary of the River Lune, and is sometimes called the Humber-Lune Line. Strictly speaking, the dialects spoken south and west of this isophone are Midland dialects, whereas the dialects spoken north and east of it are truly Northern. It is possible that the Midland influence came up into the region with people migrating towards the manufacturing districts of the West Riding during the Industrial Revolution.

Over time, speech has become closer to Standard English and some of the features that once distinguished one town from another have disappeared. In 1945, J. A. Sheard predicted that various influences "will probably result in the production of a standard West Riding dialect", and K. M. Petyt found in 1985 that "such a situation is at least very nearly in existence". However, the accent of Hull and East Yorkshire remains markedly different. The accent of the Middlesbrough area has some similarities with Geordie accents.Joan C. Beal, ''An Introduction to Regional Englishes'', Edinburgh University Press, 2010, pp. 95–99

One anomalous case in the West Riding is Royston, 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.

Authentic recordings

The Survey of English Dialects in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s recorded over 30 examples of authentic Yorkshire dialects which can be heard online via the British Library Sound Archive. Below is a selection of recordings from this archive:

* Miss Madge Dibnah (b.1890) of Welwick, East Yorkshire, "female housekeeper". According to the Library, "much of her speech remains part of the local dialect to this day".
* Cooper Peacock (b.1887) of Muker, North Yorkshire, farmer.
* Unidentified speaker of Golcar, West Yorkshire, mill worker.
* Mrs Hesselden (b.1882) of Pateley Bridge North Yorkshire.
* Easton, Ronald (b.1895) of Skelton, North Yorkshire, farmer.

Pronunciation

Some features of Yorkshire pronunciation are general features of northern English accents. Many of them are listed in the northern English accents section on the English English page.

Vowels

* Words such as ''strut, cut, blood, lunch'' usually take , although is a middle-class so-called "fudged" variant.
* Most words affected by the trap-bath split in South East England – the distinction between the sounds and – are not affected in Yorkshire. The long of southern English is widely disliked in the "bath"-type words. However, words such as ''palm, can't, spa'' are pronounced with a long vowel, usually more fronted .
* In parts of the West Riding, ''none, one, once, nothing, tongue, among(st)'' are pronounced with rather than A shibboleth for a traditional Huddersfield accent is the word ''love'' as , pronounced to rhyme with "of".
* Words such as ''late, face, say, game'' are pronounced with a monophthong or . However, words with gh in the spelling (e.g. straight, weight), as well as exclamations and interjections such as ''hey'' and ''eh'' (the tag question), are usually pronounced with a diphthong . Some words with ''ake'' at the end may be pronounced with , as in take to ''tek'', make to ''mek'' and sake to ''sek'' (but not for ''bake'' or ''cake'').
* Words with the Received Pronunciation vowel , as in ''goat'', may have a monophthong or . In a recent trend, a fronted monophthong is common amongst young women, although this has been the norm for a long time in Hull (where it originates from). It has developed only since 1990, yet it has now spread to Bradford. historically there was a four-way split whereby a diphthong (west riding) or (north and east ridings) exists in words subject to vocalisation in middle english (e.g. grow, glow, bow, bolt, folk, nought, ought). The Os in some words are pronounced as , such as ''open'', ''broke'', ''woke'', and ''go''. Other words spelled ow were pronounced with an aw sound such as know, snow, and blow, from old english āw. An (west riding) or (north and east ridings) sound was found in words that were subject to open syllabic lengthening in middle english such as coal and hole. Another was (west riding) or (north and east ridings) that originated from old english ā (e.g. bone, home, both, loaf, most). This four-way split was found throughout all northern england and contrasted with the historic two-way split found in the south and midlands.
Due to dialect levelling however, these sounds were merged into the modern monophthong , and (east riding) by the 1950s.
* If a close vowel precedes , a schwa may be inserted. This gives for and (less frequently) for .
* When precedes in a stressed syllable, can become . For example, ''very'' can be pronounced .
* In Hull, Middlesbrough and the east coast, the sound in ''word'', ''heard'', ''nurse'', etc. is pronounced in the same way as in ''square, dare''. This is . The set of words with , such as ''near, fear, beard,'' etc., may have a similar pronunciation but remains distinctive as .
** In other parts of Yorkshire, this sound is a short or long . This seems to have developed as an intermediate form between the older form (now very rare in these words) and the RP pronunciation .
* In Hull, Middlesbrough and much of the East Riding, the phoneme (as in ''prize'') may become a monophthong before a voiced consonant. For example, ''five'' becomes (fahv), ''prize'' becomes (). This does not occur before voiceless consonants, so "price" is .
* In the south of the west riding, there is a tendency to pronounce the diphthong (as in ''mouth'') as a monophthong (mahth) like in the east midlands, from where it originates. This is characteristic of informal speech in this area and may coexist with the more formal . In Hull, the offset of is strongly labialised. It occurs more in specific words – such as ''down'', ''about'', ''now'', ''how'', and ''out'' – than others.
** the traditional pronunciation of these words is in the east riding and eastern part of the north riding, in the western half of the north riding it is , this is now far less common than the RP found throughout Yorkshire.
* Words like ''city'' and ''many'' are pronounced with a final in the Sheffield area.
* What would be a schwa on the end of a word in other accents is realised as in Hull and Middlesbrough.
* A prefix to a word is more likely not to take a reduced vowel sound in comparison to the same prefix's vowel sound in other accents. For example, ''concern'' is or , rather than .
* In some areas of the Yorkshire Dales (e.g. Dent, Sedburgh), the FLEECE vowel can be so that ''me'' is and ''green'' is .

The following features are recessive or even extinct, generally they’re less common amongst younger than older speakers in modern Yorkshire:
* Words originating from old English ō (e.g. goose, root, cool, roof) historically had an sound in the west riding as well as an sound in the north and east ridings, today a more RP like pronunciation is found in all Yorkshire accents.
* Long vowel in words such as ''book'', ''cook'', and ''look''. Whilst some speakers adhere to the long vowel sound, other speakers adhere to the short vowel sound so much it is overextended so that ''food'' is also said this way.
* ''Where'' and ''there'' often become a diphthong . This sound may also be used in words with ''ea'' in the spelling: for example, ''head'' as (eead), ''leaves'' as (leeaves)
* may take the place of , especially in words such as ''key, meat, speak''.
* Words such as ''door, floor, four'' may take a variety of diphthongal pronunciations .
* Words which once had a velar fricative in Old and Middle English or a vocalised consonant may have for (e.g. ''brought, thought, nought, ought, grow, gold, bolt'').
* Words that end ''-ight'' join the fleece lexical set, today they can still be heard in their dialectal forms. For example, ''neet'' and ''reet'' . This can also be heard in Nova Scotia, Geordie and the Lancashire dialect.

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 (although more likely with a glottal stop, ) instead of the employed in most English accents. ''Absolute'' is often pronounced as if it were ''apsolute'', with a in place of the .
* As with most dialects of English, final sound in, for example, ''hearing'' and ''eating'' are often reduced to . However, can be heard in Sheffield.
* H-dropping is common in informal speech, especially amongst the working classes.
* Omission of final stops and fricatives , especially in function words. As in other dialects, ''with'' can be reduced to ''wi'', especially before consonants. ''Was'' is also often reduced to ''wa'' (pronounced roughly as "woh"), even when not in contracted negative form (see table below).
* A glottal stop may also be used to replace (e.g. ''like'' becomes ) at the end of a syllable.
* In the Middlesbrough area, glottal reinforcement occurs for .
* In some areas, an alveolar tap (a 'tapped r') is used after a labial (''pray, bright, frog''), after a dental (''three''), and intervocalically (''very, sorry, pair of shoe''s).

Some consonant changes amongst the younger generation are typical of younger speakers across England, but are not part of the traditional dialect:
* Th-fronting so that for (although Joseph Wright noted th-fronting in the Windhill area in 1892).
* T-glottalisation: a more traditional pronunciation is to realise as in certain phrases, which leads to pronunciation spellings such as ''gerroff''.
* Possible for .

The following are typical of the older generation:
* In Sheffield, cases of initial "th" become . This pronunciation has led to Sheffielders being given the nickname "dee dahs" (the local forms of "thee" and "thou"/"tha").
* realised as before . For example, ''clumsy'' becomes .

Rhoticity

At the time of the Survey of English Dialects, most dialects in Yorkshire were non-rhotic, but full rhoticity could be found in Swaledale, Lonsdale, Ribblesdale, and the rural area west of Halifax and Huddersfield. In addition, the dialects on the east coast of Yorkshire retained rhoticity when was in final position but not in pre-consonantal position. A 1981 MA study found that rhoticity persisted in the towns of Hebden Bridge, Lumbutts and Todmorden in Upper Calderdale.

Rhoticity seems to have been more widespread in Yorkshire in the late 19th and early 20th century: for example, the Wakefield dialect was marked as rhotic in the works of AJ Ellis and the recording of a prisoner of war from Wakefield in the Berliner Lautarchiv displayed rhotic speech, but Wakefield dialect now is firmly non-rhotic.

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

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 . This is most likely to be a glottal stop , although traditionally it was or (in the areas that border Lancashire) .
* 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'', as well as ''summat'' to mean ''something''. They are pronounced and in North Yorkshire, but as and in most of the rest of Yorkshire. Other examples of dialect still in use include ''flayed'' (sometimes ') (scared), ''laik'' (play), ''roar'' (cry), ''aye'' (yes), ''nay'' (emphatic "no"), ''and all'' (also), ''anyroad'' (anyway) and ''afore'' (before).
* 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''.
* 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''.
* 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). ''Us'' is invariably pronounced with a final rather than an .
* Use of the singular second-person pronoun ''thou'' (often written ''tha'') and ''thee''. This is a T form in the T–V distinction, and is largely confined to male speakers.
* ''Were'' can be used in place of ''was'' when connected to a singular pronoun. The reverse – i.e. producing constructions such as ''we was'' and ''you was'' – is also heard in a few parts of Yorkshire (e.g. Doncaster).This is also common in Rotherham, South Yorkshire.Pronouncing 'hospital' as 'hospickle' and 'little' as 'lickle' is also common in Rotherham, as is shop workers and bus drivers greeting both males and females as 'love' or 'duck.'
* ''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. Joseph Wright wrote in the English Dialect Dictionary that this came from a shortening of the older word ''while-ever''.
* The word ''self'' may become ''sen'', e.g. ''yourself'' becomes ''thy sen'', ''tha sen''.
* Similar to other English dialects, using the word ''them'' to mean ''those'' is common, e.g. ''This used to be a pub back in them days''.
* The word ''right'' is used to mean ''very'' or ''really'', e.g. ''If I'm honest, I'm not right bothered about it''.
* As in many non-standard dialects, double negatives are common, e.g. ''I was never scared of nobody''.
* The relative pronoun may be ''what'' or ''as'' rather than ''that'', e.g. ''other people what I've heard'' and ''He's a man as likes his drink''. Alternatively there may be no relative pronoun, e.g. ''I've a sister lives there''.

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 , this may be realised as , especially when followed by a consonant.

''Hadn't'' does not become reduced to . This may be to avoid confusion with ''hasn't'' or ''haven't'', which can both be realised as .

Scandinavian York

Scandinavian York (also referred to as Jórvík) or Danish/Norwegian York is a term used by historians for the south of Northumbria (modern day Yorkshire) during the period of the late 9th century and first half of the 10th century, when it was dominated by Norse warrior-kings; in particular, used to refer to York, the city controlled by these kings.

Norse monarchy controlled varying amounts of Northumbria from 875 to 954, however the area was invaded and conquered for short periods by England between 927 and 954 before eventually being annexed into England in 954. It was closely associated with the much longer-lived Kingdom of Dublin throughout this period.

Yorkshire Dialect Society

The Yorkshire Dialect Society exists to promote and preserve use of this extensively studied and recorded dialect; there is also an East Riding Dialect Society.

The Yorkshire society is the oldest of the county dialect societies; it grew out of the committee of workers formed to collect material for the ''English Dialect Dictionary''. The committee was formed in October 1894 at Joseph Wright's suggestion and the Yorkshire Dialect Society was founded in 1897. It publishes an annual volume of ''The Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society''; the contents of this include studies of English dialects outside Yorkshire, e.g. the dialects of Northumberland, and Shakespeare's use of dialect. It also publishes an annual Summer Bulletin of dialect poetry.

In the early 1930s, the society recorded gramophone records of dialect speakers from Baildon, Cleveland, Cowling, Driffield and Sheffield. The recording from Cowling was provided by Lord Snowden of Ickornshaw.

Significant members have included Joseph Wright, Walter Skeat, Harold Orton, Stanley Ellis, J. D. A. Widdowson, K.M. Petyt, Graham Shorrocks, Frank Elgee, and Clive Upton.

Although Joseph Wright was involved in the Society's foundation, the Society's annual ''Transactions'' published one of the first critiques of his work in 1977. Peter Anderson, then the editor of the ''Transactions'', argued that Wright took much of his material for his work ''English Dialect Grammar'' without sufficient citation from the work of Alexander John Ellis, and that Wright did Ellis "a disservice" by criticising this same work.

Yorkshire dialect and accent in popular culture

Wilfred Pickles, a Yorkshireman born in Halifax, was selected by the BBC
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