Yorkshire dialect
The Yorkshire dialect is an English dialect of Northern England spoken in the English county of Yorkshire. The dialect has roots in Old English and is influenced by Old Norse. 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 regional dialects, and has been represented in classic works of literature such as Wuthering Heights, Nicholas Nickleby and The Secret Garden. Studies have shown that accents in the West Riding are well-liked among Britons and associated with common sense, loyalty, and reliability.
Geographic distribution
Yorkshire dialect has been widely studied. One of the earliest works was by William Stott Banks in 1865 on the dialect of Wakefield. Joseph Wright used an early form of phonetic notation in a description of the dialect of Windhill, near Bradford. Significant works since then 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 and the Survey of English Dialects in the 1950s and 1960s.Traditionally, there was not one dialect in Yorkshire but several. The Yorkshire Dialect Society draws a border roughly at the River Wharfe between two main zones. The area to the southwest of the river is more influenced by Mercian dialect whilst that to the northeast is more influenced by Northumbrian dialect. The distinction was first made by A. J. Ellis in On Early English Pronunciation. 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, Sheard and Rohrer mapped a border between the two areas.
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.
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.
Wilfred Pickles, a Yorkshireman born in Halifax, was selected by the BBC as an announcer for its North Regional radio service; he went on to be an occasional newsreader on the BBC Home Service during World War II. He was the first newsreader to speak in a regional accent rather than Received Pronunciation, "a deliberate attempt to make it more difficult for Nazis to impersonate BBC broadcasters", and caused some comment with his farewell catchphrase "... and to all in the North, good neet".
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 variant.
- Most words affected by the trap-bath split in South East England – the distinction between the sounds and – are not affected in Yorkshire. A much smaller number of words, however, such as can't and rather, are pronounced in a similar way to the South East. The long of southern English is widely disliked in the "bath"-type words.
- In parts of the West Riding, none, one, once, nothing, tongue, among 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, as well as exclamations and interjections such as hey and eh, 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.
- 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. It has developed only since 1990, yet it has now spread to Bradford. In the West Riding, there may be a split whereby a diphthong coexists in other words, especially where it precedes or where there is a W at the end of a word. The O's in some specific words are pronounced alternatively as simply, such as open, over, woke, and go.
- If a close vowel precedes, a schwa may be inserted. This gives for and for.
- When precedes in a stressed syllable, can become. For example, very can be pronounced.
- 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. 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. This seems to have developed as an intermediate form between the older form and the RP pronunciation.
- In Hull, Middlesbrough and much of the East Riding, the phoneme may become a monophthong before a voiced consonant. For example, five becomes , prize becomes . This does not occur before voiceless consonants, so "price" is.
- In some areas, especially in the southern half of Yorkshire, there is a tendency to pronounce the diphthong as a monophthong . This is characteristic of informal speech 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.
- * In the northern half of Yorkshire, the local pronunciation of these words is, but this is now less common than the RP in North 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.
- 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.
- Long vowel, in words like fleece or plea, is typically a diphthong.
- is often realised as a slightly lowered .
- 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 , leaves as
- 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 may have for .
- Some words that end -ight can still be heard in their dialectal forms. For example, night as and right as or, in some areas,. This can also be heard in Nova Scotia.
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 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, even when not in contracted negative form.
- A glottal stop may also be used to replace at the end of a syllable.
- In the Middlesbrough area, glottal reinforcement occurs for.
- In some areas, an alveolar tap is used after a labial, after a dental, and intervocalically.
- Th-fronting so that for .
- T-glottalisation: a more traditional pronunciation is to realise as in certain phrases, which leads to pronunciation spellings such as gerroff.
- Possible for.
- In Sheffield, cases of initial "th" ) become. This pronunciation has led to Sheffielders being given the nickname "dee dahs".
- Initial realised as before ). For example, clumsy becomes.
Rhoticity
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 speech in wma format, with annotations on phonology with X-SAMPA phonetic transcriptions, lexis and grammar.See also Wells, 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. This is most likely to be a glottal stop, although traditionally it was or .
- 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 , laik, roar, aye, nay, and all, anyroad and afore.
- 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. Us is invariably pronounced with a final rather than an.
- Use of the singular second-person pronoun thou and thee. This is a T form in the T–V distinction, and is largely confined to male, mostly older 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.
- While is often used in the sense of until 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 clause 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 clause, e.g. I've a sister lives there.
Contracted negatives
| Word | Primary Contraction | Secondary Contraction |
| isn't | ||
| wasn't | ||
| doesn't | ||
| didn't | ||
| couldn't | ||
| shouldn't | ||
| wouldn't | ||
| oughtn't | ||
| needn't | ||
| mightn't | ||
| mustn't | ||
| hasn't | ||
| haven't |
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 or Danish/Norwegian York is a term used by historians for the south of Northumbria 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.
Although Joseph Wright was involved in the Society's foundation, the Society's annual journal published an article in 1977 that argued that Wright took much of his material for his English Dialect Grammar without sufficient citation from the work of Alexander John Ellis, who Wright had previously criticised.
Yorkshire dialect and accent in popular culture
The director Ken Loach has set several of his films in South or West Yorkshire and has stated that he does not want actors to deviate from their natural accent. The relevant films by Loach include Kes, Days of Hope, The Price of Coal, The Gamekeeper, Looks and Smiles and The Navigators. Loach's films were used in a French dialectological analysis on changing speech patterns in South Yorkshire. Loach said in his contribution that the speech in his recently-released film The Navigators was less regionally-marked than in his early film Kes because of changing speech patterns in South Yorkshire, which the authors of the article interpreted as a move towards a more standard dialect of English.Dialect of the northern dales featured in the series All Creatures Great and Small.
A number of popular bands hail from Yorkshire and have distinctive Yorkshire accents. Joe Elliott and Rick Savage, vocalist and bassist of Def Leppard; Alex Turner, vocalist of the Arctic Monkeys; Jon McClure, of Reverend and The Makers; Jon Windle, of Little Man Tate; Jarvis Cocker, vocalist of Pulp; and Joe Carnall, of Milburn and Phil Oakey of The Human League are all known for their Sheffield accents, whilst The Cribs, who are from Netherton, sing in a Wakefield accent. The Kaiser Chiefs originate in Leeds, as does the Brett Domino Trio, the musical project of comedian Rod J. Madin. Graham Fellows, in his persona as John Shuttleworth, uses his Sheffield accent, though his first public prominence was as cockney Jilted John. Toddla T, a DJ on BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra, has a strong Sheffield accent and often uses the phrase "big up thysen". Similarly, grime crews such as Scumfam use a modern Sheffield accent, which still includes some dialect words.
Actor Sean Bean normally speaks with a Yorkshire accent in his acting roles, as does actor Matthew Lewis, famously known for playing Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter films.
Wallace of Wallace and Gromit, voiced by Peter Sallis, has his accent from Holme Valley of West Yorkshire, despite the character living in nearby Lancashire. Sallis has said that creator Nick Park wanted a Lancashire accent, but Sallis could only manage to do a Yorkshire one.
The late British Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes originated from Mytholmroyd, close to the border with Lancashire, and spent much of his childhood in Mexborough, South Yorkshire. His own readings of his work were noted for his "flinty" or "granite" voice and "distinctive accent" and some said that his Yorkshire accent affected the rhythm of his poetry.
The soap opera Emmerdale, formerly Emmerdale Farm, was noted for use of Broad Yorkshire but the storylines involving numerous incomers have diluted the dialect until it is hardly heard.
In the ITV Edwardian/interwar period drama Downton Abbey, set at a fictional country estate in North Yorkshire between Thirsk and Ripon, many of the servants and nearly all of the local villagers have Yorkshire accents. BBC One series Happy Valley and Last Tango in Halifax, both from creator Sally Wainwright of Huddersfield, also heavily feature Yorkshire accents.
In the HBO television adaptation of George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones, many of the characters from the North of Westeros speak with Yorkshire accents, matching the native dialect of Sean Bean, who plays Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark.
Several of the dwarves in the Peter Jackson film adaptation of The Hobbit, namely Thorin Oakenshield, Kíli and Fili, speak with Yorkshire accents.
The character of the Fat Controller in the Thomas and Friends TV series, as voiced by Michael Angelis, has a broad Yorkshire accent.
"On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at", a popular folk song, is sung in the Yorkshire dialect and accent and considered to be the unofficial anthem of Yorkshire.
Actress Jodie Whittaker keeps her native Yorkshire accent in her role as the Thirteenth Doctor in Doctor Who.
Books written in Yorkshire dialect
- by John Hartley
- by John Hartley
- Yorkshire Puddin' by John Hartley, 1876
- by John Hartley
- by Frederic William Moorman
- by Frederic William Moorman
- A Yorkshire Dialect Reciter; compiled by George H. Cowling, author of "A Yorkshire Tyke", "The Dialect of Hackness", &c. London: Folk Press Ltd,
- A Kind of Loving and Joby by Stan Barstow.
- Most of the dialogue in GB84 by David Peace
- A Kestrel for a Knave later turned into the film Kes
- The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë