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Northumberland dialect: Ian describes the

farmhouse he grew up in

0:34 / 9:26

This recording is an example of a Northumberland dialect.

Northumberland dialect
There are a number of features of Ian’s speech that are typical of traditional Northumberland dialect: listen first of all to
the vowel sound he uses in the words house, about, out, cows, shout, now, round, down and outside. This actually reflects a
much older pronunciation that was common both to Middle English and Middle High German, and is an illustration of the
Germanic origins of modern English. This vowel sound was until fairly recently common in broad dialect speech in much of
the northern half of Great Britain, but today it is mainly restricted to the far North East of England and parts of Scotland. He
also uses a vowel sound in words spelt with <al>, such as all, called, calfs, talking, walls, fall and sleepwalking that is
characteristic of dialect speakers in this part of the country. Finally, listen to the way he links the words with and to followed
by a word with an initial vowel by using a <v> sound in the statements you cannot keep it tidy now wiv all the lime coming off
the walls and a staircase at each end of the house tiv a, a separate upstairs room.

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Dialect vocabulary
Ian’s speech is also peppered with local words, such as gan (‘go’), stell (‘circular enclosure for sheep on high
moorland’), mebbies (‘perhaps’), lang (‘long’), byre (‘cow shed’), lassie (‘young girl’), laddie (‘boy’) and grandda (term of
endearment for ‘grandfather’) as well as regional dialect vocabulary that we hear over a much wider area in the north, such
as aye, grand and aught.

Negative constructions
An extremely subtle grammatical difference between dialects across the UK is the way in which negative constructions are
formulated. Listen to the way Ian uses a fully articulated not in the following statements: why, the tractor’ll not gan through a
lot of snow; the upstairs rooms are not connected; there’s not a back door; you cannot keep it tidy now and two upstairs
rooms that are not connected.

In more mainstream dialects of English the negative particle, rather than the verb, is more likely to be abbreviated, so we
hear won’t, can’t, aren’t and isn’t. The construction Ian prefers is, however, very common in spoken English in northern
England and in Scotland. Notice also the north-eastern dialect constructions I divn’t know when it was put into here and
there was a wall between and nae door which correspond to Standard English I don’t know and no door.

About this speaker

Ian Tait (b.1958/04/24; male; hill-farmer)

Title: Northumberland dialect: Ian describes the farmhouse he grew up in

Date: 1998

Duration: 9:26

Format: Sound recording

Language: English

Copyright: BBC

Usage Except as otherwise permitted by your national copyright laws this material may not be copied or distributed further.
terms

Held by British Library

Shelfmark: C900/11020

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