Northern English
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This article does not cite any references or sources. (July 2007) |
Northern English is a group of dialects of the English language found in Northern England. It includes the North East England dialects, Cumbrian (with a Westmorland sub-set in South Lakeland and a limited sub-set around the Barrow-in-Furness area), the various Yorkshire dialects and Lancashire (increasingly but incorrectly referred to as 'Lanky').
Some words occurring in 'far' Northern accents (Lonning (a Lane) in West Cumbria, Thorpe (a clear area, originally in woodland)in East Yorkshire)and North Eastern Dialects reflect Viking influence - Possibly because the area was all north of the Danelaw boundary. Norwegian has had a greater impact on most northern dialects than Danish, but the East Riding of Yorkshire has been influenced more by Danish.[clarification needed]. Authoritative quantification is not readily available but estimates have suggested as many as 7% of West Cumbrian dialect words are original Norse or derived from Norse.
Northern English is one of the major groupings of English English dialects; other major groupings include East Anglian English, East and West Midlands English, West Country (Somerset, Devon, Cornwall/Cornish) and Southern English.
Varieties
Northern English contains:
- Cumbrian dialect
- Geordie (spoken in the Newcastle/Tyneside area which includes southern parts of Northumberland and northern parts of County Durham)
- the various Lancashire dialects and accents (see below)
- Mackem (spoken in Sunderland/Wearside)
- Mancunian (spoken in Manchester, Salford, various other areas of Greater Manchester, parts of Lancashire and eastern Cheshire).... Although the original Salfordian accent was essentially a blend of Mancunian and East Lancashire, an increasing Scouse-like 'nasal projection' seems to be emerging.
- Pitmatic (two variations; one spoken in the former mining communities of County Durham and the other in Northumberland)
- Scouse (spoken in the Liverpool/Merseyside area with variations along the North Wales coast.)
- Teesside (spoken in Middlesbrough/Stockton-on-Tees, and their surrounding areas.)
- the various Yorkshire dialects and accents (spoken in Yorkshire)
In some areas, it can be noticed that dialects and phrases can vary greatly within regions too. For example the Lancashire dialect has many sub-dialects and varies noticeably from West to East and even from town to town. Within as little as 5 miles there can be an identifiable change in accent. The Yorkshire Dialect Society has always separated West Riding dialect from that in the North and East ridings.
Common features of most Northern English accents
There are several accent features which are common to most of the accents of Northern England (Wells 1982, section 4.4).
- The foot–strut split is absent in Northern English, so that cut and put rhyme and are both pronounced with /ʊ/. This has led to Northern England being described "Oop North" /ʊp nɔːθ/ by some in the south of England. Some words with /ʊ/ in RP can have /uː/ – book is often pronounced /buːk/ in Northern accents, while some conservative accents also pronounce look as /luːk/.
- The accents of Northern England generally do not use an /ɑː/. so cast is pronounced [kast] rather than the [kɑːst] pronunciation of most southern accents. This pronunciation is found in the words that were affected by the trap–bath split.
- For many speakers, the remaining instances of RP /ɑː/ instead becomes /aː/: for example, in the words palm, cart, start, tomato.
- The vowel in dress, test, pet, etc. is slightly more open, transcribed by Wells as /ɛ/ rather than /e/.
- The "short a" vowel of cat, trap is normally pronounced [a] rather than the [æ] found in traditional Received Pronunciation and in many forms of American English.
- In most areas, the letter y on the end of words as in happy or city is pronounced [ɪ], like the i in bit, and not [i]. This was considered RP until the 1990s. The tenser [i] is found in the far north and in the Merseyside area.
- The Received Pronunciation phonemes /eɪ/ (as in face) and /əʊ/ (as in goat) are often pronounced as monophthongs (such as [eː] and [oː]), or as older diphthongs (such as /ɪə/ and /ʊə/). However, the quality of these vowels varies considerably across the region, and this is considered a greater indicator of a speaker's social class than the less stigmatised aspects listed above.
Further reading
- Katie Wales (2006). Northern English: A Social and Cultural History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-86107-1.
