Local Dialects

[Tsuyoiko]

We might have had a thread like this before, but if so it was years ago.

Do you speak any local dialects?

Although I mainly speak more or less standard British English, I also speak a dialect called Potteries Dialect, named because our city is famous for its pottery factories.

Potteries Dialect is the form of English closest to Anglo-Saxon. As well as having unique ways of pronouncing certain letters and words, we also have our own alternative words for certain things.

"oo" is pronounced long, with your lips in a kiss shape, so when we say "book", it doesn't rhyme with "luck" as it does in standard English. We pronounce all vowels in a hard way, in common with most people in the north of England, so "grass" has a short "a", not like in the south, where "grass" sounds more like "grars". We also have a peculiar way of pronouncing "it", which sounds like "eat"; this is the tell-tale sign for us that we're speaking to a fellow Stokie.

We use "thee" and "they" in place of "you" (singular and plural respectively). The "l" in words like "cold" is pronounced as a "w", so we would say "cowd", which sounds like "cow".

Where most British people will use "love" as a term of affection, we use "duck" almost universally. Shop assistants will call customers "duck", and it's what married people, family members and friends call each other.

Some of the alternative words we have are as follows:

sneap: upset or snub
slat: throw - most often to describe heavy rain, "slatting it down"
blart: cry
nesh: sensitive to cold
abide: tolerate - "I conner abide im" means "I can't tolerate him"
snapping: packed lunch
chommer: chew
deck it: stop, usually said in irritation
firk: probe or poke at
kecks: trousers or pants
lozzuck: laze
myther or werrit: worry
scrawm: gather money in a miserly fashion. Scrooge is a scrawmer
strug: stranger
yawp: shout

I use all these words regularly

My granddad spoke only Potteries Dialect, although he understood standard English and could have spoken it if he'd wanted to. Nowadays, it's only a few really old people who speak exclusively in dialect. Mostly it's just people like me who use some of the dialect words together with standard English.

I'm proud to speak such an ancient dialect, and I really hope it doesn't die out completely.

 

[Half-n-Half]

I come from an area in the US known as the Midland Dialect, considered to be the closest to standard American English. I would say most dialects in America aren't so much a difference in dialect but in accent, at least among the younger generation. There are, however, small pockets of odd dialects still around.

I have a very boring, uninteresting dialect and accent

"oo" is pronounced long, with your lips in a kiss shape, so when we say "book", it doesn't rhyme with "luck" as it does in standard English.

Those two words, at least in American English, don't rhyme at all

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I'm a bit of an "accent sponge"- i absorb accents very easily, to the extent where if i have a conversation with someone with say a strong Irish accent for a few hours, by the end of the conversation i'll be speaking with an Irish accent lol!
I live in England and i grew up in Wiltshire on a farm, spent most of my school years in Dorset and have lived most of my later teenage year & adult life in Somerset. I have been living in Hampshire for the last 6months and since moving here over (i kid you not!) 30 people have asked if i'm Canadian. I've never even been to Canada lol! I think a lot of people think i'm Canadian because my accent has become very mixed over the years and so sounds very unusual, but i would say overall its strongest influences is the Somerset accent. People i've met in Hampshire find my accent very funny as when i drink alcohol, the more i drink the stronger my Somerset accent becomes. Sometimes my accent & its influences varies on just a daily basis. There seems to be some words i always pronounce with a strong Somerset accent though (like farmer, tractor, cider, cheddar, combine harvester etc).

On the whole, when it comes to the words i use, its a great mixture. I grew up pretty well spoken but i hated coming off as posh in any way as i am not posh. During my teenage years i used a lot of slang and picked up lots of local words (can't think of any at the top of my head) & sayings. Over the last few years i have grown a huge love of reading and have come to love the more complex or old school words i previously shunned- i now take pleasure in my mixed accent & upbringing and allow it to mingle along & come out freely instead of trying to force it to be a certain way (which never worked).
In real life i'm a very open friendly person and find it very easy to get talking to new people and people find it easy to talk to me back (though for some people who know me online here this may come as a bit of a surprise, but i have many different personas online as i use different forums to express aspects of my personality/character. On some forums i am known as a very politocal strongly voiced person, others a kind, educated & helpful person, and others a very genki & friendly individual etc) ^_^v .

 

[Genesis]

I'm from central Texas and while it's not really a dialect it's more of an accent thing, we tend to speak with more of a drawl in our voices. But the accents differ even throughout Texas. East Texas is more "city like", they talk probably the closest to what most other states sound like and it gets more country as you go west. I moved east to go to school and even though I'm only 2.5 hrs away from my home town I get made fun of or get comments about my accent quite regularly here because it's an oddity up here. Also we tend to blend spanish (mexican spanish) in with our english since where I'm from the population is about 60 percent mexicans. Most people call what we talk "Tex-Mex" because it's a mix. Common phrases I get comments on are "fixina" (fixing to), "prolly" (probably), "hava goodun" (have a good one). We tend to run words together haha.

 

[Nuala]

Illinois has many distinct local dialects. The major dialect is considered to be "standard" American English. Walter Cronkite, Harry Reasoner, Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Brokaw, John Madden, and Casey Kasem all use "standard" American English, so you might be familiar with it. I guess it's the most unaccented forms of English in the world. We do have areas where dialects like Inland Northern American English, Yooper dialect, and Inland Northern American English are spoken as well. It's pretty interesting, isn't it?

And hilariously enough, terms like "fixina", "prolly", and "hava goodun" and others similar are also heavily used in Illinois. "Prolly" more so than the rest. We have a large population of European, Asian, South American, and African American ethnic groups here too, so you're going to hear a different dialect from time to time when traveling throughout the state. But "standard" American English is most common, it's what I use, but I dabble in the others from time to time to amuse myself when I'm bored.

 

[abdalrasyid]

@Tsuokiyo :

lozzuck: laze
myther or werrit: worry
scrawm: gather money in a miserly fashion. Scrooge is a scrawmer
strug: stranger
yawp: shout

Wow Tsu this is appear so different then a convent English language. The uniqueness of locality is good to be preserve and appreciate

We do have local language here, I speak Minangkabau language, Javanese language, and Batavia/Jakarta Accent. And Minangkabau and Javanese are different then Indonesian language, it is like learning a foreign Language. If I met some-one from west-sumatera, or he appear as a shopkeeper or something, and I speak with Minang Language, my friend from Java, North Sumatera, Bali, Kalimantan, and other, don't have any idea what I talking about. So it also apply with Javanese language, and there are hundreds more language like that here in Indonesia. But still if I speak Minang and Java language, I still sound a bit funny, because I still can't catch their accent yet even me myself are from Minangkabau.

 

[Tsuyoiko]

Thanks for your contributions, everyone. It seems that my dialect is quite extreme.

@abdalrasyid - that's cool to have so many languages. It sounds comparable to English and Welsh here - they are two completely different languages, in which the only similarities are in loan words - either words that Welsh has borrowed from English, or that both have borrowed from a third language, such as Latin or Greek. Their grammars are completely different.

Do you ever forget which language a particular word comes from? I remember an old friend who speaks Iban and Malay talking about a word his mother used to describe their cat, and he wasn't sure whether the word was Iban or Malay. I found that very strange, and wondered if it was common for people who are multi-lingual.

Also, are those languages all written in the roman alphabet?

 

[abdalrasyid]

The Indonesian national language is appear to be hybrid and blend language that many of the root are come from Melayu language (area within Sumatera, Malaysia and Kalimantan/Brunei), but there are also many region contributing Indonesian language, including Javanese, even Arab, Chinese and Dutch. Indonesian language are meant to be a language that can united hundreds different kingdom and tribe that have hundreds different local language within Indonesia.

THe funny things about Indonesia language is, take example, if you learn and able to speak Indonesian language fluently, and you decide to go to Kulon-progo region at Yogyakarta, there are some vilage or place that there are peoples can't fluently speak Indonesian language.

When I was at Himogiri for example, I meet an Oldman, the one that I tell you at "money can buy happiness" discussion. He can't speak Indonesian, and I can't speak ancient javanese language, named Jawa Kromo, or Java kromo. But he insist to speak and joking arround with me, and asking me a question. So both of us use body gesture to speak to each-other, mine use Indonesian and he use kromo Java, even both of us sometime have no idea what we were talking about, but the conversation still goes on and we having a good laugh together. Yeah not every Indonesian can speak Indonesian, especially the elder that far from the urban area.

Most of Sumatera are share common dialect root with Malaysia and Kalimantan. At North Sumatera there is Batak, they have their own Alphabeth. Javanese have their own Alphabeth. Minangkabau is strong at verbal culture. When Islam come to Indonesia, most of Indonesian use Arabic Alphabeth. And they still use it at below 1950 (even my gramma still wrote with Arabic Alphabeth). But after the Dutch settle a Kwek School at Bukit Tinggi, that is my hometown, then Surau and Pesantren-carrier of Arab Alphabeth (like Madrash) being change into regular school-Phoenician.

We start to use Phoenician Alphabeth from that time until now, and now most of Indonesian region use Phoenician, because it becoming the standart Alphabeth at regular school.
If we try to answer what is the root of Indonesian language? some of the popular answer will be Melayu. While the truth is, it's totaly hybrid language, that the structure are origin from many tribe and foreign nation

Thanks for your contributions, everyone. It seems that my dialect is quite extreme.
@abdalrasyid - that's cool to have so many languages. It sounds comparable to English and Welsh here - they are two completely different languages, in which the only similarities are in loan words - either words that Welsh has borrowed from English, or that both have borrowed from a third language, such as Latin or Greek. Their grammars are completely different.
Do you ever forget which language a particular word comes from? I remember an old friend who speaks Iban and Malay talking about a word his mother used to describe their cat, and he wasn't sure whether the word was Iban or Malay. I found that very strange, and wondered if it was common for people who are multi-lingual.
Also, are those languages all written in the roman alphabet?

 

[Hezam]

I speak Yemeni accent,Saudi,Egyptian,Syrian,Iraqi,Sudani,...Arabic in total.
Also im learning some Western Arabic acent like Libyan,Tunisian,Algerian,Morocco.

 

[zhucelun789]

When I was at Himogiri for example, I meet an Oldman, the one that I tell you at "money can buy happiness" discussion. He can't speak Indonesian, and I can't speak ancient javanese language, named Jawa Kromo, or Java kromo. But he insist to speak and joking arround with me, and asking me a question. So both of us use body gesture to speak to each-other, mine use Indonesian and he use kromo Java, even both of us sometime have no idea what we were talking about, but the conversation still goes on and we having a good laugh together. Yeah not every Indonesian can speak Indonesian, especially the elder that far from the urban area.

Most of Sumatera are share common dialect root with Malaysia and Kalimantan. At North Sumatera there is Batak, they have their own Alphabeth. Javanese have their own Alphabeth. Minangkabau is strong at verbal culture. When Islam come to Indonesia, most of Indonesian use Arabic Alphabeth. And they still use it at below 1950 (even my gramma still wrote with Arabic Alphabeth). But after the Dutch settle a Kwek School at Bukit Tinggi, that is my hometown, then Surau and Pesantren-carrier of Arab Alphabeth (like Madrash) being change into regular school-Phoenician.

 

[Kama]

In Warsaw we use standard Polish. Warsaw dialect is now mostly gone (because of the course of history of Warsaw and Poland - II World War and after the war) and considered rather a folklore than anything else. It was to a point that we - everybody Warsaw-born (when I was at secondary school) made fun of a teacher who spoked (pronunciated) Warsaw dialect, that was so unusual to us and just years later I found that was actually Warsaw dialect pronunciation (sic!).
Pronunciation aside, the words from Warsaw dialect still lingers somewhere in my (our) language - even without my knowledge. I can only find about it when speaking to my friends from other cities now living in Warsaw. But, there are still songs made and sang with Warsaw dialect. I don't know a lot of dialect words cause they were used on the other side of the river in Warsaw, and many of them are related to criminal language.
Well, the dialect should be reborn cause the Warsaw pride resurfaces again. I hope it is, really.

 

[Tsuyoiko]

Pronunciation aside, the words from Warsaw dialect still lingers somewhere in my (our) language - even without my knowledge. I can only find about it when speaking to my friends from other cities now living in Warsaw.

It's the same with Potteries Dialect. There are some words I use that I didn't realise were local until other people asked me what I was talking about!

Well, the dialect should be reborn cause the Warsaw pride resurfaces again. I hope it is, really.

I hope so too!

 

[Tsuyoiko]

One of my friends posted this on Facebook:



It's dialect for Me and My Lady. There's a cartoon in our local paper called that, which is written in dialect. And now there's a T-shirt

 

[abdalrasyid]

there was a time when I need to practice new york dialect for some purpose, and the situation gave me a very little time to practice. So I went to youtube, examining new yorker accent, then I happened to pass into this video



I found there were some new yorker, getting really mad with this vids. My question is, are really new york accent work like this? change a with the er?

 

[Kama]

Lately this after-II World War song got new (modern) version from the Projekt Warszawiak (Project Varsovian [i.e. a person from Warsaw]) which is written in Varsovian dialect. This is a proof of the pride thing resurfacing now. The song name "Nie masz cwaniaka nad Warszawiaka" can be translated as "There is no more sly person than Varsovian".

old version
new version with slightly changed text.
The whole CD with new version is on myspace, so more songs with dialect there

I'm a proud Varsovian so I had to share it

Btw, some people from the seaside felt the need to made a "response" - with Sopot (?) dialect and seaside cities locations and people.

 

[Trollhattan]

Potteries Dialect is the form of English closest to Anglo-Saxon.

Nowadays, it's only a few really old people who speak exclusively in dialect. Mostly it's just people like me who use some of the dialect words together with standard English.

I'm proud to speak such an ancient dialect, and I really hope it doesn't die out completely.

is Lowland Scots,another variant form that is closely related to Anglo-Saxon ? Are these 2 local ( Potteries Dialect & Lowland Scots ) dialects intelligible.

 

[Hezam]

I'm trying to learn British accent especially the old English,It sounds nice.

 

[RolandtheHeadless]

Hezam, there are many kind of British accents, even different accents from different parts of the city of London. (The same is true for New York City.)

My wife was interested in learning British English, before I met her. She really wanted to go to the UK. But she found a chance to go to the US, and jumped on it. Lucky me; otherwise, she might have met some Brit, which would have been a waste of a good woman. lol

 

[Tsuyoiko]

@Kama - thanks for sharing! It's good to see relatively young people taking an interest in dialect, as that's the best way to keep it alive.

is Lowland Scots,another variant form that is closely related to Anglo-Saxon ? Are these 2 local ( Potteries Dialect & Lowland Scots ) dialects intelligible.

I think Potteries Dialect is older, since it's close to Anglo-Saxon or Old English, whereas Scots is derived from early Middle English. Also, the two areas are geographically quite distant, the Potteries being in the midlands of England. I can't see many similarities in the words or pronunciation.

 

[clascoutx]

...duck=tuck=toca(nauatl/root)=to sow, to bury,=to-/our being/-ca=tocar(sp)=
touch(E). yes, very intimate term. the word, tochtli(N/8 Tonalamatl calendar)=
rabbit. toca(N) is a breeding word, especially for deer people of the Altai Mts.
from, Tochtli(N) we even get the word, t/th/ho(r)s/sh/chtli(letra)=horse, as
there were few words in the early days and we knew rabbit before we knew horse, but toca is also the word, toca/doca/doga/d(r)oga(sp)=drug, however,
on the Isle of Man, the Douglas, use the celtic word, droghad=bridge, why?
because, d(r)/tocatl/t/d(letra)=tocatl(N)=spider, and spider, like drugs, is
to(xi)c-atl and builds bridges. ah, tochtli(N/8)=root of, ocho(sp)=eight.

 

[zoomingjapan]

I live in the Kansai area of Japan where a pretty cool dialect is spoken!
It does sound a bit rude at times, but I really like it a lot!
Japan has a lot of interesting dialects! Some are so strong that even natives cannot understand them (e.g. Okinawa dialect)

 

[Wardie1993]

Aye, I speak Tyke, Yorkshire dialect, a northern form of British English

 

[MitsuKasuka]

I am from the Black country! Although, to be honest, I don't really have an accent at all! Many of my friends say that some of the time I sound American o.o But this is the accent from my area in a fun little song! Ahaa! This was actually quite famous in the West Midlands for a while!

[video=youtube;vrIqSlt9PXg]