James Wraith is on the council of the Yorkshire Dialect Society. Here he highlights the history of the West Riding Yorkshire dialect, its history, and how this impacted the origin of its words. All of this, of course, written in his local Sheffield variety of the dialect.
Naa then thee! Haa’s-ta doin? Bravely1? Naa that’s grand to hear. Ey up Aw’ve summat Aw’ve bin meeanin to talk to thee abaat wi Yorkshire Day comin up, an it’s t’history o uz dialect. Naa Aw knaw history can get fair stallin2 soa Aw’st3 hoap to mek it interestin-like, but Aw reckon it wants doin4 cos ther’s some fowk’s getten a queer5 noation at we speyk slang, an Aw wish to clear this up. Reight then, get thisen sattled an harken, tha can get back to wetchin t’tally in a bit…
[1Very well 2Boring, tiresome 3I shall 4It needs doing 5Strange, odd]
Anglo Saxon influence
To start off wi we mun6 goa all t’way back to t’Anglo-Saxons, them lads wi their fancy helmets an shields (reight bobby dazzlers) as started to come ower booatlooads on em sometime i t’fift century. Naa afoor7 thease lads come ower, ther wor popilations o fowk auready o’ t’island, British Celts, ancestors o today’s Cornish, Welsh an Bretons (them last-uns thowt they wor too fancy for t’rest an bugger’d off to Fronce). Though some history books’ll tell thee it wor a blooidbath, t’Anglo-Saxons mekkin t’Celts they fun into shish kebabs or summat, or else drivin them as they cun’t skewer to t’corners o t’island, t’transition wor probly a lot moor seemless nor8 fowk thinks.
Ovver time, t’Celts as come under this Germanic rule started to adopt t’Anglo-Saxons’ language, Owd English, t’ancestor o not just t’King’s English or aar lovely dialect, but ivvery traditional dialect spokken up an daan Britain, fra England an Saath an Eeastern Scotland, to even parts o Wales!
Naa t’Celts din’t leeav o lot o influence on Owd English an its descendants, on’y a handful o wurds here an theer. I dialect we’ve a couple as in’t fun9 i t’standard language but that’s abaat it:
A brat: a pinafore (Owd Welsh *‘brath’)
A brock: a badger (Owd Celtic *‘broccos’)
Therafter Owd English continnied to develop an modern West Ridin speych still hods onto a gret deeal o wurds fra youd time10 at’s fell aat o use i t’standard language. Here’s nobbut11 a few, but beer I mynd12 ther’s a vast moor13 an Aw’d end up fillin up a book wi haa mony ther is:
To sam: to pick (Owd English ‘samnian’)
To clam: to starve, to die of thirst (Owd English *‘clemman’)
A shippon: a cowhouse (Owd English ‘scypen’)
A neb: a nose, a beak (Owd English ‘nebb’)
To greet: to weep (Owd English ‘gretan’)
Lief, liefer: rather (Owd English ‘leof’, ‘leofre’)
Baat: without (Owd English ‘butan’)
[6Must 7Before 8Than 9That aren’t found 10From that time 11Just, only 12Bear in mind 13A great deal]
The Viking influence
Then sometime i t’nint century, a second set o Germanic fowk come in to stop abaat, t’Vikins, an By did they leeav a mark! T’Vikins hed bin ha’in a goa at t’island o Britain (an a fairish few other places an all) for quite a while bi this point, but it wor wi t’sammin together14 o t’Gret Heeathen Army, as a reight serious land claim wor med. This here cooalition’s efforts resulted i what we call today t’Danelaw an at-after a while t’Vikins started to sattle em in amang t’Owd English speykin fowk under their rule.
Naa Aw doan’t ha to tell thee, seein as Aw’m sure th’art15 a reight clivverclogs, as t’Vikins hed a gurt impact16 o’ t’growth o t’English language, as boath communities come into contact wi one another an liv’d together-like. But what Aw bet tha happen17 didn’t knaw wor haa much moor on a impact this hed on uz up here i t’West Ridin!
Does-ta see, them scholardly types we call linguists hes hed a pike18 at Vikin dialect wurds in areas wheer t’Vikins sattled to see whether ther wor a matchin up o t’Danelaw to lots o wurds as come throo19 t’Vikins, an By Gum it turns aat ther is a match up! We call this here area t’Gret Scandinavian Belt an West Ridin dialect’s ommost reight i t’heart on it! As a result, we’ve hunderds moor Norse wurds nor them posh-uns daan Saath – far too mony to list here – but for t’sek o interest here’s a toorthry20:
A stoop: a gatepost (Owd Norse ‘stolpe’)
A beck: a stream (Owd Norse ‘bekkr’)
A stee: a ladder, a stile (Owd Norse ‘stige’)
To addle: to earn (Owd Norse ‘ǫðla’)
To laik, to lek: to play, to be unemployed (Owd Norse ‘leikja’)
Ling: heather (Owd Norse ‘lyng’)
A lop: a flea (Owd Norse *‘hloppa’)
Gradely: great, grand, good-looking (Owd Norse ‘greiðligr’)
A carr: a bog (Owd Norse ‘kjarr’)
Gain: near, direct (Owd Norse ‘gegn’)
[14The gathering together 15You’re 16A great impact 17Perhaps 18A peek, a peep 19From 20A few, a two or three]
Norman invasion
Naa at-after all this come t’Normans, Frenchified Vikins as defeeated t’English at t’Battle o Hastins. This here situation wor a little different to t’one wi t’Vikins as raither nor livin in an amang t’loacals, t’Normans kept to theirsens21 as t’upper class. Chuse-haa22, they wor still a gurt soacial push to be moor like their rulers, an soa English speykers, naa said bi linguists to speyk Middle English, started to borro wurds fra t’rulin class, furst a middlin amaant23 fra t’Norman language sooin after t’Conquest, an then tons an tons later on fra mainstreeam Parisian French.
Naa Aw knaw haa we feel abaat t’French here i Yorkshire sometimes, iv ther’s one thing we dun’t like it’s stuck-up fowk, but even we did a fairish amaant o borroowin fra t’Frenchies. Though it is true as ovverall we tend to use fewer French wurds nor daan Saath, West Ridin dialect does have some wurds as even t’Southerners darn’t use! Naa happen tha feels as iv we shun’t but to me leeastways24, they’re just as much apart o t’history an mek-up o t’dialect as owt else an is desarvin o bein embraced an reconised. Wi-aat further ado, here’s some French wurds tha’ll mebbe mek use on i t’West Ridin:
To bray: to beat, to hit (Owd French ‘breier’)
A chamer: a bedroom (Anglo-Norman ‘chamber’)
A arran: a spider (Owd French ‘arraigne’)
A ratton: a rat (Anglo-Norman ‘ratoun’)
Seym: lard (Owd French ‘saim’)
To mell: to meddle (Anglo-Norman ‘meller’)
A peark: a perch (Anglo-Norman *‘perke’)
[21Themselves 22However 23A moderate amount 24At least]
Other influences to the West Riding dialect
Naa other influences hes come to West Ridin dialect ovver time, for example fra t’Low Countries:
To kike, to keyk, to keek: to peep, to stick out (Middle Dutch ‘kîken’)
To doit: to forget from old age (Middle Dutch ‘doten’)
Other wurds an sayins come fra wi-in t’dialect itsen, especially i sartain25 industries – sich as farmin, steelwark, cutlin26, weyvin an minin – on’y to spreyd aat into ivveryday spokken language:
Snap: lunch, snack
A piggin: a lading can
Band: string, a power belt (used in the expression ‘to keep t’band i t’nick’ meaning ‘to keep things ticking over’
Blackin: graphite dust
A dipper: a pyrometer
A goit: a sluice gate
Cauf-lick’d: stuck up (of hair, as if licked by a calf)
Pooer-aat: an extractor fan (literally ‘puller-out’)
Naa as Aw’ve tell’d thee abaat t’main historical influences at’s moast impoortant, Aw hoap tha’s come away fra all this feelin a fair bit brainier an happen praader o thi heritage! Wi haa dialect tends to be o’ t’daansloap27 naa-a-days, wi less an less fowk usin it, Aw reckon it’s best we remember an try to consarve some o thease owd wurds an t’dialect they belang to. Aw’m sure as wi a fair bit o elbo greeas28, especially gettin t’younger generations sich as thee an me in on it, we can all on uz come together an gie29 it new life!
[25Certain 26Knifemaking 27On the downslope 28Elbow grease 29Give]
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