The
Dorset dialect
is the traditional dialect spoken in
Dorset
, a county in the
West Country
of England. Stemming from
Old West Saxon
, it is preserved in the isolated
Blackmore Vale
, despite it somewhat falling into disuse throughout the earlier part of the 20th century, when the arrival of the railways brought the customs and language of other parts of the country and in particular, London.
[1]
[2]
The rural dialect is still spoken in some villages however and is kept alive in the poems of
William Barnes
and Robert Young.
[1]
[3]
Origins and distribution
[
edit
]
Dorset (or
archaically
, Dorsetshire) is a
county
in
South West England
on the
English Channel
coast. It borders
Devon
to the west,
Somerset
to the north-west,
Wiltshire
to the north-east, and
Hampshire
to the east. The Dorset dialect is derivative of the Wessex dialect which is spoken, with regional variations, in Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset and Devon.
It was mainly spoken in the
Blackmore Vale
in North Dorset, not so prevalent in the south of the county and less so in the south-east, which was historically in
Hampshire
prior to
local government re-organisation
in 1974.
[1]
The Dorset dialect stems from
Saxon
with heavy Norse influence.
[1]
[2]
The Saxon invaders that landed in Dorset and
Hampshire
towards the end of the 6th century, hailed from what is now the south of
Denmark
and the Saxon islands of
Heligoland
, Busen and
Nordstrand
. The dialect of the Saxons who settled in what became
Wessex
was very different from that of Saxons who settled in the east and south-east of England, being heavily influenced by their Danish neighbours.
The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
records that
Jutes
occupied the area before the Saxons arrived and there are a number of old Norse words entrenched in the Dorset language, 'dwell' for example.
[2]
Phonology
[
edit
]
Dorset is a medium-sized county in the South West of England which has a distinct accent and dialect. Some of the distinct features of the accent include:
H-dropping
,
glottalization
,
rhoticity
and accentuated vowel sounds.
Consonants
[
edit
]
A prominent feature in the accent is the use of a
t-glottalization
, commonly used when it is in the last syllable of a multi-syllable word.
The
sound is pronounced
[d]
when it precedes an
and sometimes on other occasions.
The voiceless
[
θ
]
in words such as
think
is replaced with the voiced
[
ð
]
sound as in
the
.
The voiced
[ð]
also replaces the 'double d', so
ladder
becomes
la(th)er
.
The letters
⟨s⟩
and
⟨f⟩
, if the first or last letter of a word, are pronounced as
[z]
and
[v]
respectively.
However, words that are not of
Germanic
origin or have been adopted from other languages retain their original sound;
family
,
figure
,
factory
,
scene
,
sabbath
for example, are not pronounced
vamily
,
vigure
,
vactory
,
zene
and
zabbath
.
The
becomes a
[b]
if it appears before an
sound so
eleven
sounds like 'elebn'.
The 'z' and the 'v' in Dorset are used to distinguish words which, in standard English, sound the same:
sea
and
see
,
son
and
sun
,
foul
and
fowl
become
sea
and
zee
,
son
and
zun
, and
foul
and
vowl
for example.
The liquid consonants
and
are treated differently in the Dorset dialect. When 'r' and 'l' come together, a 'd' or 'e' sound is put between them, so
curl
and
twirl
become curel and twirel or as often, curdl and twirdl.
Although the accent has some
rhoticity
, meaning the letter
⟨r⟩
in words is pronounced, so for example, "hard" is pronounced
and not
; the 'r' is omitted when it comes before some open and closed palate letters.
[
vague
]
Therefore words like
burst
,
first
,
force
and
verse
, are pronounced
bu'st
,
vu'st
,
fwo'ss
and
ve'ss
.
Other consonants are left out when they immediately precede a hard
[
vague
]
consonant in the following word:
bit of cheese
becomes
bit o' cheese
but
bit of an apple
often remains
bit ov an apple
.
This is not always the case though. Sometimes the labiodental fricative is also elided along with following sounds. For example, "all of it" is often spoken as "all o't" and "all of 'em" becomes "all o'm".
Similarly "let us" becomes "le's" and "better than that" becomes "better 'n 'at".
The
sound is also often transposed. Words such as
clasp
and
crisp
, becoming
claps
and
crips
in the dialect. Other examples of this type of the pronunciation include
ax
for
ask
, and the use of the word
wopsy
for a wasp.
[13]
When
starts a word, it is sometimes given an
sound. Examples of this include,
eet
for
yet
, and
eesterday
for
yesterday
.
The letter
⟨h⟩
is often dropped from words, so "hello" becomes "ello" but is also added where none would be in standard English. This usually occurs when the
Friesic
equivalent root word begins with an aspirated
[k]
. So the words "kwing", meaning quick, and "kring", meaning bend, from which the English words "wing" and "ring" are derived, are voiced as "hwing" and "hring" respectively
[?]
.
Vowels
[
edit
]
The
/i/
sound in some words, such as
bean
,
clean
,
lean
and
mead
, is voiced as a
[i?]
,
but this is not always the case;
bead
,
meat
,
read
keep the monophthong but use the short
[?]
sound. The words
head
and
lead
, pronounced
and
in standard English, also use this
[?]
sound.
Words in the
FACE
lexical set are generally spoken with the
[j?]
diphthong,
such as in
bake
,
cake
,
late
and
lane
. The standard English
in words such as
beg
,
leg
,
peg
, are given the short
[a]
.
So
egg
thus becomes
agg
which gives rise to the Dorset dialect word for egg collecting,
aggy
.
In a few words where
⟨a⟩
precedes
⟨r⟩
, as in
arm
,
charm
and
garden
, the vowel sound is pronounced as
[i?]
or
[jaː]
.
The short
sound in words such as
dust
,
crust
and
rut
is usually pronounced in the Dorset dialect as an
[?:u]
diphthong to make
dowst
,
crowst
and
rowt
.
Vowels sounds are sometimes preceded by a
[w]
sound, particularly the
[???]
sound in words such as boil, spoil and point, and the English long
[o??]
.
[2]
Barnes' book,
Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect
, contains the poem
Woak were Good Enough Woonce
which begins:
Ees; now mahogany’s the goo,
An’ good wold English woak won’t do.
I wish vo’k always mid auvord
Hot meals upon a woaken bwoard,
As good as think that took my cup
An’ trencher all my growen up.
[2]
Grammar
[
edit
]
Adjectives
[
edit
]
Adjectives in the dialect often end 'en', more so than in standard English which still retains wooden to describe something made of wood but would not use 'leatheren' to describe something made of leather. A paper bag in Dorset would be a bag to put paper in, as opposed to a paperen bag, a bag made of paper.
A woaken bwoard, in the Barnes' poem above, is a board made from oak. Some nouns when pluralised, also end in 'en' instead of the more usual 's' or 'es'. Cheese, house and place for example become cheesen, housen and pleacen.
Other unconventional plurals in the dialect include words ending 'st' such as coast, post and fist. Normally pluralised with the addition of an 's', instead take 'es' to make coastes, postes and vistes.
Nouns
[
edit
]
There are two different classes of noun in the Dorset dialect, and each has its own personal pronoun. Things that have no fixed shape or form, such as sand, water, dust etc, more or less follow the rules of standard English, in that they take the pronoun "it".
However things with a given shape such as a tree or a brick use the personal pronoun, "he".
Referring to a felled tree, someone from Dorset might say, "I chopped 'e down" but when talking about a diminishing stream, "It's a-drying up".
The objective class of he, in this case is "en", thus "I chopped 'e down" but "'E felled en".
Instead of the usual two, the Dorset dialect has four demonstrative pronouns. In addition to "this" and "that" which are used for the nouns without fixed form, there is also "thease" and "thic" respectively. Thus, "Teake thease fork and pitch that hay" and "'Old thik can while I pour this paint in".
These demonstrative nouns can help remove ambiguity, for when a Dorset man says 'that stone' he is talking about a load of broken stone but if he says 'thik stone', he is talking about a particular stone. He will say, "Pick it up" when referring to the former but "Pick en up" when talking about the latter.
The use and formation of pronouns differ from standard English. When emphatic pronouns are used obliquely, for example, the nominative rather than the objective form is employed, thus
"Give the gun to I"
but unemphatically,
"Give me the gun"
. 'Self' is inflected in common with other nouns, when used in conjunction with personal pronouns; in the same way one would say 'his book' or 'their book', the Dorset speech uses hisself and theirselves, not himself and themselves.
When dialect speakers discuss a quantity or a count, the units are given before tens; 'four and twenty' for example, not 'twenty-four'.
Verbs
[
edit
]
Many verbs in the dialect are conjugated in an unorthodox fashion, noticeably 'to be', which goes: I be, thou bist, you be, we be, they be, and not; I am, you are, we are, they are. 'Is' is sometimes used however for he, she and it and in the past tense, 'were' is used for all the personal pronouns except the now largely archaic, but still used, 'thou', which uses 'werst'. 'Was' is not used.
In the perfect tense, verbs are often preceded by an 'a'; I've a-been, I had a-been, I shall have a-been, for example.
There is no distinction between the auxiliary verbs 'may' and 'might', instead 'mid' is used in both cases. When auxiliary verbs end in 'd' or 's', 'en' is added at the end to express the negative. 'Could not', 'should not', 'might not', 'must not', become 'coulden', 'shoulden', 'midden' and 'mussen'. Although the last two examples 'might' and 'must' end with 't', the Dorset equivalents are sounded with 'd' and 's' respectively.
Verbs in the past-tense have both an
aorist
and an
imperfect
tense form which indicates whether the action is ongoing or repeated. To say "The kids
stole
the apples from the tree", for example, means it occurred once, but to say "The kids
did steal
the apples from the tree" means it is recurrent event.
Verbs in the infinitive mode or those used in conjunction with an auxiliary verb, often have 'y' attached to the end, but only when the verb is absolute. One might ask "Can ye sewy?" but never "Will you sewy a patch on?"
Some verbs, which are irregular in mainstream English, are treated as regular in the Dorset dialect, and vice-versa. For example: Blew, built and caught are blowed, builded and catched, whereas scrape becomes scrope.
When forming the perfect participle, a letter 'a' at the beginning of the verb acts as an
augment
. Thus, "He have alost his watch" or "She have abroke the vase".
Coupled with the accentuated pronunciation of the vowels this makes for a smooth, flowing dialect by diluting the hard consonants in the language.
Punning
[
edit
]
Pronunciation
|
English
|
Dorset
|
English
|
Dorset
|
|
English
|
Dorset
|
English
|
Dorset
|
|
Ale
|
Eal
|
Ail
|
Ail
|
|
Board
|
Bwoard
|
Bored
|
Bor'd
|
|
Foul
|
Foul
|
Fowl
|
Vowl
|
|
Hole
|
Hole
|
Whole
|
Hwol
|
|
Mare
|
Meare
|
Mayor
|
May-or
|
|
Pale
|
Peale
|
Pail
|
Pail
|
|
Sale
|
Zeale
|
Sail
|
Sail
|
|
Son
|
Son
|
Sun
|
Zun
|
Puns
,
humour
which exploits the similar sounds of two different words, rarely work in the Dorset dialect. Many like sounding words in standard English are not pronounced the same in Dorset. For example, the classic pun,
"The people told the sexton and the sexton toll'd the bell"
, would sound as,
"The people twold the sex'on and the sex'on tolled the bell"
.
Dialect words beginning with 's' are spoken with a 'z' if they are Germanic in origin, but words that entered the language later, are not. 'Sun' is 'zun' but 'son' keeps the 's' sound. 'Scene' is the same but 'seen' is 'zeen'.
The letter 'f', if the first or last of a word is pronounced as a 'v' but again, only if the word is derived from the original Saxon. The verb 'fall' and 'fall' meaning autumn, are 'vall' and 'fall' respectively, and one would immediately know what is meant by, "This chicken is foul" because fowl is pronounced 'vowl'.
Words and phrases
[
edit
]
Dorset is home to some distinctive words and phrases.
Some phrases are alternative versions of common English idioms, such as,
Don't teach yer grandma to spin
equivalent to standard English, 'Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs', and
Zet the fox to keep the geese
similar to 'Putting the fox in charge of the henhouse', but others are peculiar to Dorset.
All the goo
, meaning 'all the fashion', was how Barnes described the then new fad for
mahogany
furniture, in his poem
Woak Was Good Enough Woonce
and
That'll happen next Niver'stide
, which refers to something that will never happen.
To hold wi' the hare and run wi' the hounds
is another typical Dorset saying and refers to hedging one's bets or trying to cover all the bases.
Someone from Dorset might say,
I do live too near a wood to be frightened by an owl
, to indicate that they know enough about something, not to be worried by it.
There are many words to refer to 'a bite to eat', it is said that a Dorset man has eight meals a day;
dewbit
,
breakfast
,
nuncheon
,
cruncheon
,
luncheon
,
nammet
,
crammet
and
supper
.
[13]
Many 'dialect' words are
contractions
:
Bumbye
and
bimeby
are short for 'by-and-by',
didden
for 'didn't'
and
gramfer
and
grammer
are for 'grandfather' and 'grandmother' respectively.
The word 'like' is often used as a
qualifier
for an adjective and is attached to the end of the sentence. To say, "He's ill, like" means he is 'rather' ill.
In literature
[
edit
]
William Barnes
was born in the Bagber in 1801. He wrote three volumes poetry in the Dorset dialect, the first,
Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect
was published in 1844.
[44]
Barnes hated what he called 'foreign' words and avoided the use of them in his poetry, preferring instead to use the Saxon language. Where there was no Saxon equivalent for modern terms, Barnes would retronymically concoct words and phrases, such as 'push wainling' for perambulator.
Barnes had studied
Celtic literature
and often used a repetition of consonantal sounds known as
cynghanedd
.
This is particularly noticeable in the poem, "My Orcha'd in Linden Lea".
Barnes also produced works about the phonology, grammar and vocabulary of the Dorset dialect:
"A Grammar and Glossary of the Dorset Dialect"
, published in 1863, and a much expanded version,
"A Glossary of the Dorset Dialect with Grammar of its Word-shapening and Wording"
, in 1886.
Another poet who wrote in the local dialect was Robert Young whose work includes,
"Rabin Hill's Visit to the Railway: What he Zeed and Done, and What he Zed About It"
, published in two parts in 1864, and
"Rabin Hill's Excursion to Western-Super-Mare to see the Opening of the New Peir"
, published in 1867.
[48]
Thomas Hardy, the renowned Dorset novelist, contributed Dorset dialect words to Joseph Wright’s
"
English Dialect Dictionary
"
and the
"
Oxford English Dictionary
"
. Hardy also had his poetry published but used a mixture of Dorset dialect and standard English.
[2]
Instead of writing in the Dorset dialect, like Barnes and Young, Hardy used it only in his characters' dialogue.
J. K. Rowling
used the Dorset dialect word for a
bumblebee
, dumbledore, for
one of the characters
in her
Harry Potter
books, whom she saw as bumbling about his study, humming to himself.
[13]
Musician and Dorset native
PJ Harvey
composed her book-length narrative poem
Orlam
in the Dorset dialect,
[50]
and later used it in her album
I Inside the Old Year Dying
.
[51]
Decline
[
edit
]
Preserved in the isolated Blackmore Vale, use of the dialect began to decline from the mid-nineteenth century when it was exposed to other English variations. The arrival of the railways around this time brought an influx of tourists to Dorset,
[1]
while
land enclosure
and the repeal of the
Corn Laws
, caused mass unemployment in the mainly rural county, forcing farmers to seek work in other parts of the country.
[2]
Attempts to standardise English began as early as the 16th century and by the mid-nineteenth century had also had a profound effect on local dialects, particularly in the south-west. Dialect was actively discouraged in schools at this time and the introduction of compulsory education for young children hastened its decline.
[2]
Thomas Hardy noted in 1883 that,
"Having attended the National School they [the children] would mix the printed tongue as taught therein with the unwritten, dying, Wessex English they had learnt of their parents, the result of this transitional state of affairs
being a composite language without rule or harmony".
[2]
It has also been suggested by Jason Sullock in his 2012 book,
"Oo do ee think ee are?"
, that West Country dialects are a source of some derision, leading many local speakers to water them down or abandon them all together.
[52]
The same point is made in Alan Chedzoy's,
"The People's Poet: William Barnes of Dorset"
.
However the Dorset dialect is still spoken in some villages. It also features in the
Scrumpy and Western
music of Dorset bands like
The Yetties
, Who's Afeard and The Skimmity Hitchers, and is kept alive in the literature of
Thomas Hardy
,
William Barnes
and Robert Young.
[1]
[54]
See also
[
edit
]
Citations
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- Barnes, William (1863),
A Grammar and Glossary of the Dorset Dialect
, Berlin: A. Asher and Co.
- Burton, T. L. (2013),
The Sound of William Barnes's Dialect Poems: 1. Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect, first collection (1844)
, North Terrace: University of Adelaide Press,
doi
:
10.20851/barnes-vol-1
,
ISBN
978-1-922064-49-3
- Chedzoy, Alan (2011), "9",
The People's Poet: William Barnes of Dorset
, Stroud, Glos.: The History Press,
ISBN
978-0-7524-7240-9
- Hilliam, David (2010),
The Little Book of Dorset
, Stroud, Glos.: The History Press,
ISBN
978-0-7524-5704-8
- Newton, Gill (2014),
Dorset Dialect
, Sheffield: Bradwell Books,
ISBN
978-1-910551-01-1
- Salmon, Arthur L. (1910),
Dorset
, Cambridge: University Press
- Wakelin, Martyn Francis (1986),
Varieties of English Around the World (Volume 5) ? The South West of England
, Amsterdam: John Benjamins,
ISBN
9789027247131
- Wilson, Keith (2010),
A Companion to Thomas Hardy
, Oxford: John Wiley and Sons,
ISBN
978-1-4443-2422-8
|
---|
Europe
| |
---|
Americas
| |
---|
Oceania
| |
---|
Africa
| |
---|
Asia
|
|
---|
Related
| |
---|