Keeping local dialects alive.

[Drago]

Dialect is doomed. Including 'English'. The future will speak American. If it doesn't speak Mandarin.

I"LL be dead in the cold cold ground before I speak American. You hear me Dude? I'll never reach out to them.

 

[Fnaar]

Dialect = the words and phrases you use.
Accent = how you pronounce things.

I teach the analysis of accent and dialect, amongst my many other skills

 

[Mo1959]

What I find amazing is the difference over comparatively short distances. i.e. Up here the accents in Perth and Dundee are so different yet they are only 22 miles apart.

 

[Dave7]

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.

Really. I never knew a couple of those points.
Can I ask, serious question........
Why is Neston not part of the Wirral?
I am from the Wirral (Seacombe then New Brighton) . Now living in Warrington I enjoy taking the bike over to ride New Brighton to Parkgate.
It takes me past those quarries......I find them very strange.

 

[MontyVeda]

A couple of my Dad's siblings moved from Lancaster to Accrington when they married, so we visited there a lot as a child. Their kids had very different accents to ours, but still definitely Lancastrian.

In my late teens, I did a training course in Blackburn and the Blackburn accent was distinctly different to the Accrington one, despite only being a few miles apart. Another guy on the course was from Darwin and his accent differed from the Blackburn one, but there's literally just a hill between the two places. Accrington accents differ significantly from Burnley and the Rossendale areas, but there's only a handful of miles between them.

But saying that... these days the accents might all sound the same to me. I used to flit a lot between Rossendale, Blackburn, Accrington and Lancaster when my ears were tuned in, so to speak.

 

[nickyboy]

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?

I went to school in Lancaster. Those from Lancaster and N had same accent. But those S like Galgate, Garstang had your classic rhotic Central Lancashire accent. We used to tease them terribly

Rhotic is where the "r" is heavily pronounced: To parrrk the carrr. Only Central Lancashire and W Country retain this essentially rural accent

Coming from somewhere influenced by Norse immigrants (my Surname is Scando) we used a lot of Norse words like clarty, beck etc. Not sure where ganzy (a jumper) came from, maybe Norse too?

 

[MontyVeda]

I went to school in Lancaster. Those from Lancaster and N had same accent. But those S like Galgate, Garstang had your classic rhotic Central Lancashire accent. We used to tease them terribly

Rhotic is where the "r" is heavily pronounced: To parrrk the carrr. Only Central Lancashire and W Country retain this essentially rural accent

Coming from somewhere influenced by Norse immigrants (my Surname is Scando) we used a lot of Norse words like clarty, beck etc. Not sure where ganzy (a jumper) came from, maybe Norse too?

you're right about the accent being pretty much the same north of Garstang... i can't see hear any difference between Lancaster, Kirkby Lonsdale, Arnside... even Barrow accents, yet they're miles apart compared to the East Lancashire towns in which I could notice a difference.

I've not heard 'ganzy' before.

 

[Edwardoka]

you're right about the accent being pretty much the same north of Garstang... i can't see hear any difference between Lancaster, Kirkby Lonsdale, Arnside... even Barrow accents, yet they're miles apart compared to the East Lancashire towns in which I could notice a difference.

I've not heard 'ganzy' before.

Went to school with a guy from Barrow-in-Furness. Poor sod, he got endlessly teased about his accent.

On a forum ride with erstwhile members of this fine parish, starting in Carlisle, heading east and up over the border to Newcastleton before heading back via Langholm, the difference in accent was stark. Encountering people who live 2 miles from each other, and it was as if they were talking different languages.

I lived in the upper Irvine valley (aka Loudoun) for a few years, about 7 miles from Kilmarnock (which, to my ear, has an accent about 95% the same as Glaswegian), but the valley accent completely threw me.

The most obvious indicator is how they pronounce the numbers 7 and 11. "Seevin" and "eleevin". Nowhere else on the planet does this, afaik.

 

[pawl]

A up usury attract someone’s attention.There’s more runny noses than straw hats about today Describes the weather today.

 

[byegad]

Dialect is doomed. Including 'English'. The future will speak American. If it doesn't speak Mandarin.

Yes, with few exceptions, I think you're right. Towns and regions with a very distinct dialect may hang on a while, I'm thinking Geordie, Glaswegian, and Welsh English will be the last to go. At Bikerite, run in normal years at Berwick and Wooler, one of the guys who often led rides was Broad Geordie, my mate from 'darn souff' would listen to him then say to me....'Translation???'
Coming from further south than Tyneside but close enough to have worked with Geordies, and for a short time on Tyneside, I could understand, and so translate. But I find the broader Glaswegian accent impenetrable most of the time.
With more mobility, one of my sons has worked all around the country, the other all around the world on contracts, a levelling off of dialect is really happening, by a form of 'natural selection'.

 

[Electric_Andy]

Accents are wonderful, I wish they could be kept alive but sadly too many younger people try to immitate either American or new-London (i.e. not cockney). These young maids are very funny

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Dialect = the words and phrases you use.
Accent = how you pronounce things.

I teach the analysis of accent and dialect, amongst my many other skills

Dealicked - How you eat your food
ackscent - How your food smells

 

[Drago]

Although my Pa put down his roots in Kent as a young man, my family on the paternal side is Cornish and my Grandad did actually speak the language himself.

As for me, im a bit of a charlatan - I know some Shetlandic patois, but when I go home my accent gives me away now and a I get a bit of a ribbing. Fortunately, it's good natured. Not like Orkney where they start speaking Orcadian when an outsider or a ferry louper is about.

So, yeah, I know some, and a few basic gaelic phrases. Down at the oyher end of the UK I don't know any Cornish of my own though

 

[Ian H]

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?

My parents were from Preston. My father had a similar story about the local differences of pronounciation. When they moved to London they seem to have worked at losing their accents until there was just a slight indication of northern-ness.

 

[dodgy]

Can I ask, serious question........
Why is Neston not part of the Wirral?

Though Neston sits on the peninsula known as The Wirral Peninsula, it is not in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. So geographically it's on Wirral, but not in the political boundary sense 🤷‍♂️
The border of MB of Wirral is just south of Heswall on the A540, Neston is in Cheshire.