East Midlands English
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
East Midlands English is a dialect traditionally spoken in those parts of Mercia lying East of Watling Street (the A5 London - Shrewsbury Road). Today this area is represented by the counties of the East Midlands of England, (Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland and Northamptonshire, see below).
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[edit] Origins
Like that of Yorkshire, the East Midlands dialect owes much of its grammar and vocabulary to Nordic influences, the region having been incorporated in the Norse controlled Danelaw in the late 9th century. For example, the East Midlands word scraight ('to cry') is thought to be derived from the Norse, skrike in modern Scandinavian, also meaning to cry.[1]
[edit] East Midlands Dialects in Literature
The romantic English novelist, and East Midlander, D. H. Lawrence who was from the Nottinghamshire town of Eastwood wrote in the dialect of the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Coalfield in several dialect poems as well as in his more famous works such as Lady Chatterley's Lover and Sons and Lovers. [2]
Though spoken less commonly today, the dialect of the East Midlands has been investigated in notable texts such as the affectionately titled Ey Up Mi Duck[3] series of books (and an LP) by Richard Scollins and John Titford. These books were originally intended as a study of Derbyshire Dialect, particularly the distinctive speech of Ilkeston and the Erewash valley, but later editions acknowledge similarities in vocabulary and grammar which unite the East Midlands dialects and broadened their appeal to the region as a whole.
"Ey Up" (often spelt ayup / eyup) is a greeting of uncertain origin used widely throughout the North Midlands and South Yorkshire, and "Mi Duck" is thought to be derived from a respectful Anglo Saxon form of address, "Duka" (Literally "Duke"), and is unrelated to waterfowl. [4] Non-natives of the East Midlands are often surprised to hear men greet each other as 'Mi Duck.' [5]
[edit] Dialect Words
In recent years, humorous texts such as Nottingham, As it is spoke[6] have combined phonetically spelt standard English words together in order to deliberately confuse non-natives to the region. For example:
- Aya gorra weeya?
- is the wife with you? (lit. "Have you got her with you?)
- It's black uvver Bill's mother's
- it looks like rain. (lit. "It's black over Bill's Mother's." qv.) - a common, if somewhat old fashioned, Midlands expression implying impending bad weather.)
- Thiz summat up wee im
- I think he may be ill. (lit. "There's something up with him.")
However, there are many words in use in the traditional East Midlands Dialect which do not appear in standard English. The short list below is by no means exhaustive. More comprehensive 'dictionaries' exist within texts such as Ey Up Mi Duck by Richards Scollins and John Titford.
- badly
- hungover/ill
- belt-job
- defunct coal-mining definition for an "easy" job such as sleeping whilst watching a conveyor belt
- bonny
- Overweight (in Leicester and Nottingham)
- (Not to be confused with the
- Scots word meaning 'beautiful')
- Clouts
- trousers (usually pronounced claarts)
- Croaker
- doctor
- Croggie
- an (illegal) crossbar ride, "two-up" on the crossbar of a man's bicycle
- cob
- a bread roll (bap), to throw
- Duck's necks
- bottle of lemonade
- jitty/jetty
- alleyway
- Larup/Larop
- To cover with (usually a thick substance)
- mardy
- grumpy, sulky
- mash
- to make a pot of tea
- nesh
- a weak person, or one who feels the cold
- paste
- to beat often used interchangeably with larrup
- piggle
- to pick at a scab or a skin irritation
- puddled/puddle-drunk
- intoxicated
- puther
- to pour out uncontrollably [7]
- pot
- a plaster cast
- rammel
- rubbish/waste
- scraight/scraitin'
- to cry/crying [8]
- snap
- lunch/food [9],
- snidered/snided/snied
- covered/infested, (DH Lawrence used the word 'Snied' in a description of an infestation of mice in Sons and Lovers.)[10],
- sucker
- Iced Lolly
- twitchel
- alleyway
- tabs
- ears
[edit] Grammar
Those who speak traditional regional dialects are not trying to speak Standard English and failing. East Midlands English follows a series of distinct grammatical rules. Some examples follow below.
[edit] Formal address
Up until the mid 20th century it was not uncommon to hear the use of informal forms of address, Thee and Thou, as compared to the more formal Yo or You. Use of the informal form of address is now uncommon in modern speech.
[edit] Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns differ from standard English as follows:
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Example "It eent theirn; it's ourn!" (It isn't [ain't] theirs; it's ours!)
[edit] Reflexive pronouns
Reflexive pronouns are characterised by the replacement of Self with 'Sen' (From Middle English seluen)
Y'usen - Yourself, Mesen - Myself, Thisens - Themselves/Yourselves, Ussens - Ourselves
Example "We s'll ay to do it ussens." (We shall have to do it ourselves)
[edit] Dialect Variations within the Political Region
Although Northamptonshire is located in the East Midlands, and has historically harboured a dialect comparable to other forms of East Midlands English [11], particularly among the older generation, the linguistic distinctiveness of Northamptonshire has significantly eroded. This is represented by the dialect of Kettering which is influenced by the dialects of western parts of East Anglia, the West Midlands, and the South as well as the 'Watford Gap Isogloss', the demarcation line between southern and northern English accents. In Kettering (north of the Watford Gap) the word 'glass' rhymes with 'mass' whereas in Northampton, only 14 miles further south but south of the Watford Gap, the pronunciation of 'glass' rhymes with 'farce'. Contrary to popular belief, the Watford in question is Watford village and not the town of Watford which borders the north of London.
Also of note is the anomalous dialect of Corbyite spoken around Corby in the north of Northamptonshire, which reflects the migration of large numbers of Scottish and Irish steelworkers to the town during the 20th Century. The dialect is often compared to Glaswegian.
Lincolnshire is, in a sense, separated from the remainder of the East Midlands. East of the Lincolnshire Wolds, in the southern part of the county, the Lincolnshire dialect is closely linked to The Fens and East Anglia, and, in the northern areas of the county, the local speech has characteristics in common with the speech of the East Riding of Yorkshire. This is largely due to the fact that the majority of the land area of Lincolnshire was surrounded by sea, the Humber Estuary, marshland, and the wolds; these geographical circumstances permitted little linguistic interference from the East Midlands dialects until the nineteenth century when canal and rail routes penetrated the eastern heartland of the county .
[edit] External links
[edit] Links to East Midlands Dialect in Literature
[edit] Counties in which East Midlands English is Spoken
- Derbyshire
- Leicestershire
- Lincolnshire
- Nottinghamshire
- Northamptonshire
- Rutland
- Staffordshire (Limited usage around Burton-upon-Trent)
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