Keeping local dialects alive.

[dodgy]

Anyone from Wirral here? There's a peculiarity in Neston, which is technically not in Wirral. Many years ago Lancastrians came in to manage the quarries there then stayed. Neston has a very unique accent compared with towns and villages just a few miles away. They say "urden" instead of how do you do, then. For instance.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I come from the Wirral - not a psh part of it - but kinda middle class

my wife's family are from a council estate north of Liverpool - proper Wooly back but only just

Her sister's daughter is quite broad accent wise and hangs around with people who swear all the time
if I swear when she is in the room she either screams or runs out with her hand over her ears - she cannot cope with her 'posh Uncle Mike' swearing - it is just far too weird for her!!!!


anyway - brief translation for any visitors

'our $name' - person called $name who is closely related - like 'our sarah'
The ASDA - ASDA - sometimes also The Tesco - Tesco
Home and Bargain - Home Bargains - it hasn;t been called that for about a million years but memory persists round here
Evertonion - minority group claiming to support a team that may or may not play football - currently being assessed as a mental condition
Soft Lad - person who can be a bit daft or silly - see Evertonian
Lolly Ice - correct name for an frozen sugary thing often bought from an icey
Icey - van that goes round selling Ice Cream - mostly - they also sell Lolly Ices and sometime "other things"
Ta'ra - good bye
Come 'ed - come on - if said aggressively from man to man be careful or leg it
Standing around like one of Lewis's - doing nothing


A full list can be found in the Liverpool Echo whenever the Manc based people they hire instead of journalists can't think of anything else to write - and they can find a Scouser to write it for them

Oh - and Manc - person from the Far East - or at least too far up the East Lancs



Other opinions are available

 

[Accy cyclist]

Going slightly off topic here,but i can't stand the New Zealand accent!🧐

"Niggative" and "Infiction" two words i've just heard in a news report from New Zealand. They certainly like to mess vowels up!🧐


Edit....Just heard "tists". Anyone guess what that means in English?🤔

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Going slightly off topic here,but i can't stand the New Zealand accent!🧐

"Niggative" and "Infiction" two words i've just heard in a news report from New Zealand. They certainly like to mess vowels up!🧐

At least they still write them down
some more treasonous ex colonies actually miss them out

Imagine!!!!!

 

[Ian H]

In this part of Devonshire (De'msher) the verb to be is declined thus: I'm, you'm, he'm (but 'er is), we'm, you'm, they'm.

 

[alicat]

When I was working as a solicitor, I once went to interview a witness in Kidderminster. I had been living outside Yorkshire for about 10 years. No sooner had I got in the door than he said 'you come from Leeds, you come from Crossgates'. That was spookily true. We chatted a little and it turned out that he had gone to the same Catholic primary school as my father and me. He was a little older than my father.

When I had got my witness statement, I asked him how he was able to place my accent so easily. He replied that it was my use of 'right' and the way that I had pronounced it. I had said something like 'Right, Mr x. If you remember, I've come to take a statement about y.'

Or, thinking about it he could simply have remembered someone from his childhood with an unusual spelling of a fairly ordinary surname.

 

[Julia9054]

I was brought up in Chorley, Lancashire. We could tell folk from Preston (posh, or thought they were) Blackburn, Bolton(Boltn), Wigan (Wiggin) all by slight variations in dialects.
I moved into Merseyside in 1984. Scousers still think I talk nice and broad Lancy, but when I go home they all think I talk like a scouser!!!

The Lancashire accent gets stronger the further east you go. I grew up in Preston (definitely not posh!) but got a scholarship to go to school in Lytham St Annes. Got teased horribly for sounding “common”.
Went to sixth form in Blackburn. Got teased horribly for being posh. Can’t win!
Some people, without trying, adapt their accents to who they are with. My sister and her husband have lived in Christchurch, New Zealand for 20 years. To me, she sounds kiwi. Her husband sounds like he’s never left the middle of Preston.
Me? Lived in Yorkshire since I was 17. Would describe my accent as generalised posh - ish Northern bird! I never met Harold Orton - he died in 1975. Would love to know if he would have been able unpick the Yorkshire from the Lancashire and detect my roots.

 

[AndreaJ]

I was born in Liverpool and my mum’s family are all scousers , dad’s family were from Manchester although I live in Shropshire now. My daughter is studying English language at A level and they were discussing local dialects, I hadn’t noticed until then that she uses more Liverpool /Northern dialects than Shropshire ones despite her having lived here all her life. It was interesting to see how much language children learn from family rather than school/friends.

 

[classic33]

There used to be a Geordie accent that was almost a separate language. Almost unintelligible to an outsider.

My forebears were all from farming stock. They had a language of counting animals that was reputed to be almost Viking in origin. Yan, tan, thether etc. I never picked it up but my sister still uses it - but then she's odd, on a good day!!!

Here you are....

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_Tan_Tethera

Similar in Gaelic, in the west of Ireland.

 

[Yellow Fang]

I very much approve of what you're trying to do, but I think it's doomed to failure. The problem is that kids go to university, learn to speak proper English, then, likely as not, move to another part of the country to get a job. What you need is a Lincolnshire Institution of Holding Callow Youth Until They're Mature Enough to Work in an Office and encourage your offspring to attend it.

 

[Beebo]

5 generations ago it would be unusual to ever travel more than 10 miles from your house.
Today we have global TV with accents from every part of the world.
It’s the unstoppable March of progress. Whether you like it or not.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I don’t think a number of your phrases are specific to Lincolnshire. They are just phrases not in common use in younger generations.

 

[swee'pea99]

Re-reading Cold Comfort Farm recently - published in 1932 - I was struck by the richness of dialect - this from deepest Sussex - a place I for one associate nowadays with stockbrokers and corporate lawyers. This less than a century ago:

Don't think you'd find much along those lines in Sussex these days...

 

[PK99]

My husband’s great uncle was Professor Harold Orton who was professor of English language at Leeds and undertook the survey of English dialects between 1950 and 1961. It was said that he could tell where a person grew up to within a few streets. He, of course, spoke like the queen!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey_of_English_Dialects

I grew up in semi-rural Lancashire (born 1955), in a village halfway between Chorley and Preston, and went o Grammar School in Preston.

Boys got on the bus from various points along the route.

I could easily tell if they came from: Chorley, Whittle, Clayton, Bamber Bridge , Walton-le-dale, Preston: A 9 mile stretch

In school, I could identify those from North toward the lake district, North East of Preston (into the Pennies) or South west into rural lancashire

@Julia9054
Just read your other post about Lancashire accent getting stronger to the east.
Agree but the local regional variations are still distinct.

Which bit of Preston were you dragged up in?

 

[Deleted member 23692]

I've got this 36" x 18" frame placed prominently on my wall.

I'm 200 miles way from where I grew up, and most of my current friends can't mek 'ed nor tail orit