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The Basque dialect changes between valleys enough for the word for brother to mean sister in the next valley…
That's nothing. In Norfolk the words for sister and wife are interchangeable.
I grew up in East Lancs and 'Laiking' was in common use. My old Grandma (born 1885) used to use thee and thou etc and 'childer' for children' She would also say 'It wants 25 for three' (25 to 3) and '10 after 3'. You never hear things like, " Tha mon get thi sen home" these days, or " Stop tha laikin' about or I'll belt thee". More's the pity ...
mboy, of your OP this is the part that I find to be of most interest:
as I know that 25 miles either north or south of where I live, accents and dialect have changed so much as to be almost unrecognisable as the same language, and can be difficult to understand even for someone with a sharp ear if spoken with a heavy local bias!
What do you claim these accents/dialects have changed from and to? If you were to identify a specific region/locale either 25 miles north or 25 miles south from you so we may then focus on that particular dialect and history?
And the English expression for a common language is lingua franca, which translates literally as…
It apparently doesn’t mean ‘French’. From Wikipedia:
Huh, every day's a school day. I always assumed it had the same roots as franking a document and meant something like "approved."
English is only a communication tool. It used to be a precise instrument, rather like a sharp chisel wielded by craftsmen.
Now it’s a wobbly stick with a bit of foam rubber on the end being jabbed by everyone at anything.
Of course if you take that attitude into a legal process then best of luck stickboy.
I grew up in East Lancs and ‘Laiking’ was in common use. My old Grandma (born 1885) used to use thee and thou etc and ‘childer’ for children’ She would also say ‘It wants 25 for three’ (25 to 3) and ’10 after 3′. You never hear things like, ” Tha mon get thi sen home” these days, or ” Stop tha laikin’ about or I’ll belt thee”. More’s the pity …
You beat me to an almost identical post, only I not only grew up in East Lancs, I'm still here. Whereabouts were you?
Not come across childer or the time one, but the rest is totally my grandparents (and by association, me also, 40 years ago).
I think you might enjoy my Prabux & Imbux thread from a few years back. I'll shamelessly abuse my powers to reopen it if you like. (-:
Brilliant thread - lots of really interesting details coming out here.
Bravo STW.
For a clear concise explanation
It used to be a precise instrument, rather like a sharp chisel wielded by craftsmen.
It's all things to all men. One of the beauties of English is that it can provide for sonnets and build instructions alike. It's just as useful for "Perle, plesaunte to prynces paye To clanly clos in golde so clere" as it is for "slot tab A into hole B" That it keeps evolving is nature's way of letting you know that your time here is finite, and shouldn't you be worrying about more important things than how the young folk speak to each other.
That it keeps evolving is nature’s way of letting you know that your time here is finite, and shouldn’t you be worrying about more important things than how the young folk speak to each other.
Totally agree. The real language shit is just starting to drop however.
I don’t think the idea that because one spoke with a strong regional accent made one a bumpkin would’ve been one that folk in 14thC England would be familiar with, as everyone from the Magnates downward would’ve had strong regional accents.
hah!
It's funny how your memory can play tricks on you.
I knew I was right about this, because I remember reading about it in David Crystal's 'The Stories Of English' some 15 years back. So I've just been to dig it out and find the part about Chaucer and his use of regional dialects and how they are used to denote character/ status etc.
And it says the exact opposite of what I thought 😆
Chaucer did use regional dialects, but they don't denote anything in particular.
Indeed it goes on to say that the concept of a regional accent illustrating some kind of bumpkin / ignorant / criminal character didn't really become more common until the first half of the 16th C.
So, er, sorry for contributing my woeful misinformation there!
Growing up in Halesowen then Stourbridge gave me an accent thick enough to need a translator when I went to New York to stay with my Dad when I was thirteen.
I now hardly have an accent, which is sad. Even when I go back to the West Midlands, it’s rare you hear a proper thick Black Country accent.
I just wish I had recordings of my old Aunty Rene and her pals because I just can’t remember most of the dialect.
We moved to Kidderminster which has a terrible accent, and non of the sing song of the Brummie, especially when spoken by a soft toned woman.
The Queens English surely is the only bastard accent having no actual roots in anything, really dreadful. Shame on you and your wrong opinion.
in this instance quite specifically why people born and raised north of Birmingham often mix up “were” and “was”
That's not a uniquely Northern thing. You'll hear it in the East End of London and Essex.
My dad was a Yorkshireman of the "we was" persuasion which wound up my mum, a German who learned English in school. Needless to say my sister and I were brought up to speak proper!
Oh and seeing that Barnsley was mentioned back up there I can't resist posting The 'arse that Jack built a search for the 'ouse 'arse interface in Yorkshire and Derbyshire. It's a good listen.
I hae read yon buik Donald. "The Tale o the Wee Mowdie that wantit tae Ken wha keeched on his head"
It was Hamish the butcher's dug.
Local dialects are what makes the spoken English language interesting. Thinking about the variety of accents over a short distance (as the crow flies) around here in Cumbria. Even between Seascale and Maryport and up to Carlisle, the accent varies massively. The 'original' Cumbrian dialect is fantastic, and like others, runs the risk of being homogenised. I don't really care if I sound thick to anyone, and if someone told me such, I'd wallop 'em in the kleppets...
So MBoy.
Did that go according to plan?
I didn't ask for confirmation bias! I asked for those with more knowledge on the subject than myself to enlighten me. I have not been disappointed!
Still no definitive answer to my question of why my GF so specifically misuses was/were though... But I'll learn to live with it I guess.
Oh and seeing that Barnsley was mentioned back up there I can’t resist posting The ‘arse that Jack built a search for the ‘ouse ‘arse interface in Yorkshire and Derbyshire. It’s a good listen.
Working in the bike trade, I'm not totally unfamiliar with the concept of Arse Cream (though it is more usually referred to as chamois cream), but being asked if I wanted an Arse Cream as my friend who I was helping out for the day was sending his wife to the local corner shop to pick a few up as a treat threw me I must say! 🤷🏻♂️
What do you claim these accents/dialects have changed from and to? If you were to identify a specific region/locale either 25 miles north or 25 miles south from you so we may then focus on that particular dialect and history?
I should almost certainly have said that they do change, rather than have changed. Regardless... I live in Worcester, 20 miles north is Stourbridge, another 5 miles or so roughly north again is Wolverhampton. Go 25 miles south and you're in Gloucester. My ex GF was from Wollaston, her friends from only 3 miles up the road used to say she was posh as her accent was much softer than theirs, yet in Worcester, many of my peers struggled to understand her! I have a friend who is from deepest Kingswinford. He's a great bloke, but he has to moderate his colloquialisms somewhat for me consciously, otherwise we'd need a translator to converse effectively!
I grew up in the countryside between Worcester and Gloucester, I get called a country bumpkin by those from the city, and when I go back to the countryside they all say I speak with a city twang! I can't win! 🤦🏻
Brilliant thread – lots of really interesting details coming out here.
Bravo STW.
It has delivered far more than even I could have hoped! The few inevitable inverse snobs aside...
You also need to remember that language was spoken before it was written down and the people doing the writing often spoke / wrote latin so tried to make English fit Latin grammar rules or imposed Latin grammar rules into written English. So some of the grammar rules that grammar pendants love actually have nothing to do with English.
Fair point... Not one I had considered! 👍🏻
For such a small country, the range of accents is impressive!
I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if the UK had the most diverse range of accents and colloquialisms per square mile of any country in the world. Especially seeing as we supposedly all speak the same "English" language (parts of Wales aside), where in many other countries they have their own regional languages.
It’s mostly been said, but it speaks volumes that the OP buys-in to the idea that language can be ‘fixed’ in a ‘correct’ form. Said above: “You’re championing a particular way of speaking that is specific to a particular time and culture in the belief that it is correct”.
Language is oral. Trying to create a fixed ‘version’ is a social construct and a political one, perhaps with good intentions as the case with a requirement for the early broadcasters (BBC) ‘so everyone can understand’ or not so nice, to differentiate class and hence worth purely by birth-right and ‘education’, to impose class as a tool for superior-inferior notions.
You are making some quite strong assumptions (largely incorrect I might add) about me based upon my original post. You clearly haven't read any of my follow up posts either. But anyway...
As a 40yr old now, I haven't learnt English in any official capacity for almost 25 years now. I was schooled to believe that the English language was fairly rigid and standardised, and that it was spoken in a certain way. I didn't get significant exposure to people with different regional dialects perhaps until I went to University at 19, where I met my first serious GF who was studying for an English degree at Oxford Uni yet spoke with (to me) a broad Staffordshire accent and dialect which I found quite amusing. Quite the contrary to your assertions that I believe people to be inferior because of their accents, this highlighted to me how accent and language were in no way directly related to someones intelligence.
Next serious GF was an English student too for what it's worth... And the next one! 🤔
Learning is a continual process, I came here asking some quite specific questions expecting some useful posts, but not as many as have been written. I incorrectly assumed that the English language was once fairly rigid and structured, and has over time, become more and more regionalised, where it seems the opposite is in fact true, and generations of forcing a received curriculum through the schools has in fact began to impact and standardise what was previously an incredibly diverse language indeed. Living where I do, I guess the fact my spoken language never deviated particularly from the language I was being taught in school, has contributed to my assumptions. The concept of learning a language in school in order to pass exams, but the language you speak at home and with your friends being drastically different because you live in some far flung corner of the British Isles, isn't something that had crossed my mind before, but now it has it makes a lot of sense!
As an example we have a younger lad in the office who speaks in this way and says things like “arks” instead of “ask”. This pisses me off if I’m honest??
Grammar pedant mode back on... Yes, this boils my piss too I'm ashamed to admit!
Old before my time...? 🤔
I think ‘aks’ stems from American hip hop, which is quite popular in London I believe.
It's a musical influence for sure, seems to be more of a British Grime movement than an American Hip-Hop one to my ears. Though apparently, it's not a new phenomenon at all! 🤷🏻♂️
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/01/ask-vs-ax-and-evolution-english-language/
‘Sheesh, man needs a drink innit’
😂
Even I know that means they believe the subject is sexually frustrated! 😂
Bloody europeans coming over here influencing our culture, setting our language rules. At least on 1st Jan 2021 we will all be able to talk “proper english” without having to do what the EU says…
Bluddy immergrunts cummin ova ere n tellin us ow to speek proppally n all! 😉
Even the Queen’s English has changed in her lifetime – just listen to a recent speech of hers versus an older one.
I don't doubt it for a second. 👍🏻
If you fancy a challenge - the Peterhead accent is amazing.
I think we started our regionalized bastardization of English in the neighborhood of 1776, possibly earlier.
specifically misuses was/were
She isn't?
She just isn't speaking the same version of english as you?
Its a nice thing to have an identity. Go and tell her you're sorry for being a pendant.
OP, I didn't mean to accuse you as an individual of using language to differentiate class, I meant society as a whole does, through institutionalised things like our education system and media. But to be fair, you state(d) in your title and OP, that the English language has been 'bastardised' which has negative connotations. And you use the phrase 'misuse', which again implies you are correct and your GF is wrong. People are just trying to say flip your thought process. Which you do acknowledge. It's all good and very interesting. I personally recognise more dialect in Yorkshire (one side of parent's family; boyfriend and family) and Lancashire rather than where I grew up in North East Wales which has much more accent and just a few words 'bastardised' from Welsh (you get that in Liverpool too).
It's one thing to have a regional or class-based accent it's quite another to think that accents are synonymous with idiocy and inarticulacy. I had a gf at university who was studying history of art, dad was a diplomat, she from Cheltenham Ladies College, and despite that cut-glass accent proved the reverse can also be the case. It's amazing how deferential people to accent, manner and bearing even when they're claiming socialist beliefs plus you get supposedly socialists trying to dress up and speaking like the opposition, weird haircuts too.
Aside: Nickc I got a 1956 facsimile Kelmscott Press Complete Chaucer (Burne-Jones), ex-Brum University library and never been opened and less than a tenner I think. Keep your eyes open, there are bargains to be had.
Growing up in Halesowen then Stourbridge gave me an accent thick enough to need a translator when I went to New York to stay with my Dad when I was thirteen.
I now hardly have an accent, which is sad. Even when I go back to the West Midlands, it’s rare you hear a proper thick Black Country accent.
I just wish I had recordings of my old Aunty Rene and her pals because I just can’t remember most of the dialect.
We moved to Kidderminster which has a terrible accent, and non of the sing song of the Brummie, especially when spoken by a soft toned woman.
The Queens English surely is the only bastard accent having no actual roots in anything, really dreadful. Shame on you and your wrong opinion.
I always remember, if my memory is not too befuddled, Sue Lawley interviewing Jasper Carrot (I think) on Wogan when they both went full Dudley...was priceless at the time and I cannot find it on Youtube mores the pity!
I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if the UK had the most diverse range of accents and colloquialisms per square mile of any country in the world.
Don't count on it. This regional language thing we have here in the UK is entirely common across Europe and probably the world. Read up about the languages of Switzerland for an example. The topography plays a part here - local regions are harder to travel to and from due to mountains; but also the government. Switzerland is a collection of small communes with a loose federal government, so the communes have more autonomy. In France, the government has always been highly centralised, so they tried to stamp an official French on the whole country (and all their colonies too). But there were still just as many regional languages across the modern territory just as there were here.
Especially seeing as we supposedly all speak the same “English” language (parts of Wales aside), where in many other countries they have their own regional languages.
It's not just English and Welsh. It's English, Welsh, Scots, and Gaelic, and that's just the extant ones never mind the ones we know about that have fallen out of use. And how long before we start including Indian languages or Arabic etc as British?
Here's a non-exhaustive list compiled from Wikipedia. The list of non-native languages stops at 19 so there are probably many more than exceed the number of speakers of the native ones.
English 59,824,194
Scots 1,566,132
Welsh 1,123,500
Polish 546,000
Punjabi 273,000
Urdu 269,000
Bengali 221,000
Gujurati 213,000
Arabic 159,000
French 147,000
Chinese 141,000
Portugese 133,000
BSL 125,000
Spanish 120,000
Tamil 101,000
Turkish 99,000
Irish 95,000
Italian 92,000
Angloromani 90,000
Somali 86,000
Lithuanian 85,000
German 77,000
Persian 76,000
Phillipine languages 70,000
Romanian 68,000
Scottish gaelic 65,674
Shelta 30,000
Moving to Scotland has been interesting - watching Trainspotting quite a lot beforehand helped. As a German speaker, there are grammatical nuances to "Scottish" that make me think there's a stronger influence from Germanics.
Not really related to ze Chermans, my daughter (5) says "Look what I done!". It irks me slightly ("Look what I did!" or "Look what I've done!") but it's a Scottish (maybe more regional) thing I was already aware of. However, a rather well-to-do in-law was visiting from the deep South and was bumping her gums about saying "I done" and snapped at me when I said it's a regional thing. SO now I'm absolutely fine with it.
Having said that, my Essex cousins also say "done" instead of "did", so not just Scottish.
my daughter (5) says “Look what I done!”
It's really common IME. Was the norm in Herefordshire growing up, and seems to be the same here in Cardiff now.
My kids for some reason have decided that the past tense of 'pick' is 'puck' as in 'I puck this pencil off the floor'. I don't think it's a dialect thing though it's just them.
Also where's @SaxonRider on this thread?
You never hear things like, ” Tha mon get thi sen home” these days, or ” Stop tha laikin’ about or I’ll belt thee”.
You're drinking in the wrong pubs then.
@molgrips - my dad (Cumbrian farmer) had some odd past tenses.
"It snew yesterday" rather than "it snowed yesterday". "The river flew over there" rather than "The river used to flow over there"
Keep your eyes open, there are bargains to be had.
OMG yes there are. Would love to see that copy of that Kelmscott Press edition. I'm often nosing around when the Uni library up here sells off duplicates or damaged stock, they often have no idea of the value of some books!