Cumbrian dialect
Cumbrian dialect or Cumberland dialect is a local Northern [England English|dialect of Northern England] in decline, spoken in Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire North of the Sands. Some parts of Cumbria have a more North-East English sound to them. Whilst clearly spoken with a Northern English accent, the Cumbrian dialect shares much vocabulary with Scots. A Cumbrian Dictionary of Dialect, Tradition and Folklore by William Rollinson exists, as well as a more contemporary and lighthearted Cumbrian Dictionary and Phrase Book.
History of the dialect
Northumbrian origin
As with other English dialects north of the Humber–Lune Line and the closely related Scots language, Cumbrian is descended from Northern Middle English and in turn Northumbrian Old English. Old English was introduced to Cumbria from Northumbria, where it was initially spoken alongside the native Cumbric language.Celtic influence
Despite the modern county being created only in 1974 from the counties of Cumberland, Westmorland and north Lancashire and parts of Yorkshire, Cumbria is an ancient division. Before the arrival of the Romans, the area was the home of the Carvetii tribe, which was later assimilated to the larger Brigantes tribe. These people would have spoken Brythonic, which developed into Old Welsh, but around the 5th century AD, when Cumbria was the centre of the kingdom of Rheged, the language spoken in northern England and southern Scotland from Lancashire and Yorkshire to Strathclyde had developed into a dialect of Brythonic known as Cumbric. Remnants of Brythonic and Cumbric are most often seen in place names, in elements such as caer 'fort' as in Carlisle, pen 'hill' as in Penrith, glinn 'valley' and redïn 'ferns, bracken' as in Glenridding, and craig 'crag, rock' as in High Crag.The most well known Celtic element in Cumbrian dialect is the sheep counting numerals which are still used in various forms by shepherds throughout the area, and apparently for knitting. The word 'Yan', for example, is prevalent throughout Cumbria and is still often used, especially by non-speakers of 'received pronunciation' and children, e.g. "That yan owr there," or "Can I have yan of those?"
The Northern subject rule may be attributable to Celtic Influence.
Before the 8th century AD Cumbria was annexed to English Northumbria and Old English began to be spoken in parts, although evidence suggests Cumbric survived in central regions in some form until the 11th century.
Norse influence
A far stronger influence on the modern dialect was Old Norse, spoken by Norse and/or Norse-Gael settlers who probably arrived on the coasts of Cumbria in the 10th century via Ireland and the Isle of Man. Many Cumbrian place names in or near coastal areas are of Norse origin, including Ulverston from Ulfrs tun, Kendal from Kent dalr and Elterwater from eltr vatn. Many of the traditional dialect words are also remnants of Norse influence, including beck, laik, lowp and glisky.Once Cumbrians had assimilated to speaking Northumbrian English, there were few further influences on the dialect. In the Middle Ages, much of Cumbria frequently swapped hands between England and Scotland but this had little effect on the language used. In the nineteenth century miners from Cornwall and Wales began relocating to Cumbria to take advantage of the work offered by new iron ore, copper and wadd mines but whilst they seem to have affected some local accents they don't seem to have contributed much to the vocabulary.
The earliest recordings of the dialect were in a book published by Agnes Wheeler in 1790. The Westmoreland dialect in three familiar dialogues, in which an attempt is made to illustrate the provincial idiom. There were four editions of the book. Her work was later used in Specimens of the Westmorland Dialect published by the Revd Thomas Clarke in 1887.
One of the lasting characteristics still found in the local dialect of Cumbria today is definite article reduction. Unlike the Lancashire dialect, where 'the' is abbreviated to 'th', in Cumbrian the sound is harder and in sentences sounds as if it is attached to the previous word, for example "int" instead of "in the" "ont" instead of "on the".
Accent and pronunciation
Cumbria is a large area with several relatively isolated districts, so there is quite a large variation in accent, especially between north and south or the coastal towns. There are some uniform features that should be taken into account when pronouncing dialect words.Vowels
| RP English | Cumbrian |
| as in 'bad' | |
| as in 'bard' | |
| as in 'house' | |
| as in 'bay' | in the North-East, and elsewhere |
| as in 'bear' | |
| as in 'bide' | , |
| as in 'boat' | |
| as in 'bud' | |
| as in 'boo' | , or |
When certain vowels are followed by, an epenthetic schwa is often pronounced between them, creating two distinct syllables:
- 'feel' >
- 'fool' >
- 'fail' >
- 'file' >
Consonants
Most consonants are pronounced as they are in other parts of the English speaking world. A few exceptions follow:and have a tendency to be dropped or unreleased in the coda. This can sometimes occur in the onset as well in words such as finger.
is realised in various ways throughout the county. When William Barrow Kendall wrote his Furness Wordbook in 1867, he wrote that 'should never be dropped', suggesting the practice had already become conspicuous. It seems the elision of both and began in the industrial towns and slowly spread out. In the south, it is now very common.
in the word final position may be dropped or realised as : woo ''wool ; pow pole.
is realised as following consonants and in word-initial position but is often elided in the coda, unless a following word begins with a vowel: ross ; gimmer ; gimmer hogg.
is traditionally always pronounced as a voiceless alveolar plosive, although in many places it has been replaced by the glottal stop now common throughout Britain.
may be consonantal as in yam home. As the adjectival or adverbial suffix -y it may be or as in clarty . Medially and, in some cases, finally it is as in Thorfinsty .
Finally, in some parts of the county, there is a tendency to palatalize the consonant cluster in word-initial and medial position, thereby rendering it as something more closely approaching . As a result, some speakers pronounce clarty'' as, "clean" as, and "likely" and "lightly" may be indistinguishable.
Stress
Stress is usually placed on the initial syllable: en-GB "acorn".Unstressed initial vowels are usually fully realised, whilst those in final syllables are usually reduced to schwa.
Dialect words
General words
- aye yes
- thee's / thou's / thine yours
- thee / thou you
- yous / thous you
- yat gate
- us, es me
- our, mine
- where’s t’... where is the...
- deùin doing
- divn't don't
- hoo'doo How are you doing?
- canna can't
- cannae can't
- deù do
- frae from
- yon that
- reet Right
- areet All right?
- be reet It'll be all right or “it’d be right” when referring to something somewhat negative
- nèa No
- yonder there
- owt aught; anything
- nowt naught; nothing
- bevvie drink
- eh? what/ isn't it?
- yan/yā One
Adjectives
- clarty messy, muddy
- kaylied intoxicated
- kystie squeamish or fussy
- lāl small
- oal old. "T'oal fella" dad, old man
- ladgeful embarrassing or unfashionable
- slape slippery or smooth as in slape back collie, a border collie with short wiry hair
- yon used when indicating a place or object that is usually in sight but far away. abbreviation of yonder.
Adverbs
- barrie good
- geet/'gurt very
- gey very
- ower/ovver over/enough
- sec/sic such
- vanna/vanya' almost, nearly.
Nouns
- attercop spider
- bab'e/bairn baby
- bait packed meal that is carried to work
- bait bag bag in which to carry bait
- bar pound
- biddies fleas or head lice or old people "old biddies"
- bog toilet
- britches trousers
- byat boat
- beùts boots
- cack/kack faeces
- tyeble or teàble table
- clout/cluwt punch or hit "Aa’s gan clout thou yan" ; also clout means a cloth
- crack/craic gossip "’ow marra, get some better crack"
- cur dog sheepdog - collie
- ceàk cake
- den toilet
- doilem idiot
- dookers swimming trunks
- fratch argument or squabble
- feàce face
- ginnel a narrow passage
- jinnyspinner a daddy long legs
- kecks trousers/pants or underpants
- keppards ears
- ket/kets sweets
- kebbie a stick
- lewer money
- lugs ears
- mebby maybe
- mockin or kack faeces / turd "I need to have a mockin"
- mowdy or mowdywarp a mole
- peeve drink
- push iron or push bike bicycle
- scran food
- scrow a mess
- shillies small stones or gravel
- skemmy or skem beer
- snig small eel
- steàn stone
- watter water
- wuk work, as in: Aa’s gān te wuk
- yam home, as in: Aa’s gān yam
- yat gate
- heùk hook
Verbs
- beal cry
- bowk retch
- bray beat
- chess chase
- chor steal
- chunder vomit
- clarten messing about
- clout/cluwt hit "I’ll clout ye yan"
- deek look
- doss Idle or skive. To mess about and avoid work
- fettle to fix or mend.
- fistle to fidget
- gander look
- gan going to somewhere
- gā go
- gān going
- git go
- hoik to pick at or gouge out
- hoy throw
- laik play
- lait look for
- liggin lying down
- lob throw
- lowp jump
- nash run away
- radged broken
- ratch to search for something
- scop to throw
- scower look at
- shag sexual intercourse
- skit make fun of
- smowk smoking
- sow sexual intercourse
- twat hit someone
- twine to whine or complain
- whisht one word command to be quiet
- wukin working
- yit yet
- yuk to throw
People
- bairden/bairn/barn child
- boyo brother/male friend
- buwler/bewer girl/woman/girlfriend
- cus or cuz friend
- gammerstang awkward person
- mot woman/girl/girlfriend
- offcomer a non-native in Cumberland
- potter gypsy
- gadgey man
- charva man/friend
- marra friend
- t'oal fella father
- t'oal lass mother
- our lass wife/girlfriend
- laddo male of unknown name
- lasso female of unknown name
- jam eater used in Whitehaven to describe someone from Workington, and vice versa.
Farming terms
- boose a division in a shuppon
- byre cow shed
- cop the bank of earth on which a hedge grows
- dyke raised bank, often topped with a hedge. Many small roads are flanked by dykes
- fodder gang passage for feeding cattle
- kack crap/feces/excrement
- ky cows
- liggin' kessin when an animal is lying on its back and can't get up
- lonnin country lane
- stoop a gate post
- yakka farmer
- yat gate
- yow sheep
Weather
- hossing raining heavily
- glisky when the sky is really bright so you can't see properly
- mizzlin misty drizzly rain
- syling pouring rain
- gey windy 'appen very windy
- hoyin it doon teeming it down with rain
- yukken it doon
- warm warm
Places
- Barra Barrow
- Cockamuth Cockermouth
- Jam Land, Whitehaven or Workington
- Pereth Penrith
- Kendul Kendal
- Kezik, Kesik Keswick Norse 'cheese' and -vik 'place'
- Langtoon Longtown
- Merrypoort Maryport
- Mire-Us or My-Rus Mirehouse
- Sanneth Sandwith
- Sloth Silloth
- Spatry / Speeatry Aspatria
- Trepenah, Trappena Torpenhow
- Wukington, Wukinton, Wukintun, Wukiton, Wukitn, Wuki'n, Wucki'n Workington
Phrases
- assa marra used by Cumbrians to refer to the Cumbrian dialect
- nivver ivver ‘ave Aa sin owt like it never ever have I seen anything like it
- Aa ‘ope tha's gānna put 'at in yer pocket I hope you're going to put that in your pocket
- Aa’s gān yam I'm going home
- ’ave ye? Have you?
- an what? and what?
- Aa ‘eard yer fatthers wur in't bad fettle I heard your father was in a bad way or not very well
- wher’s thoo off te where are you going
- wh'ista*who ar ye? Who are you?
- whure ye frae? Where are you from?
- hoos't gān? How is it going?
- gān then provoke fight
- what ye deùin? What are you doing?
- where ye off ta? Where are you off to?
- Ahreet, mate. All right, mate?
- cought a bug illness
- mint/class/necta Excellent
- lāl lad's in bother that young man is always in trouble
- Tha wants for te git thasel a pint o 'strangba You really ought to be drinking strongbow
- Whoa's boddy Who is that
- Hoo'ista How are you
- Sum reet tidy cluwt oot on tuwn like There are some nice looking girls out
- hasta iver deek't a cuddy loup a 5 bar yat have you ever seen a donkey jump a 5 bar gate
- out t'road not in the way
- shy bairns/barns get nowt shy children get nothing; if you don't ask, you will not receive
Cumbrian numbers
The Cumbrian numbers, often called 'sheep counting numerals' because of their use by shepherds to this very day, show clear signs that they may well have their origins in Cumbric. The table below shows the variation of the numbers throughout Cumbria, as well as the relevant cognate in Welsh, Cornish and Breton, which are the three geographically closest British languages to Cumbric, for comparison.| Keswick | Westmorland | Eskdale | Millom | High Furness | Welsh | Cornish | Breton | |
| 1 | yan | yan | yaena | aina | yan | un | onan/unn | unan/un |
| 2 | tyan | tyan | taena | peina | taen | dau/dwy | dew/diw | daou/div |
| 3 | tethera | tetherie | teddera | para | tedderte | tri/tair | tri/teyr | tri/teir |
| 4 | methera | peddera | meddera | pedera | medderte | pedwar/pedair | peswar/peder | pevar/peder |
| 5 | peen | pip | pimp | pimp | pimp | pump | pymp | pemp |
| 6 | sethera | teezie | hofa | ithy | haata | chwe | whegh | c'hwec'h |
| 7 | lethera | mithy | lofa | mithy | slaata | saith | seyth | seizh |
| 8 | hovera | katra | seckera | owera | lowera | wyth | eth | eizh |
| 9 | dovera | hornie | leckera | lowera | dowera | naw | naw | nav |
| 10 | dick | dick | dec | dig | dick | deg | dek | dek |
| 15 | bumfit | bumfit | bumfit | bumfit | mimph | pymtheg | pymthek | pemzek |
| 20 | giggot | - | - | - | - | ugain | ugens | ugent |
NB: when these numerals were used for counting sheep, repeatedly, the shepherd would count to fifteen or twenty and then move a small stone from one of his pockets to the other before beginning again, thus keeping score. Numbers eleven, twelve etc. would have been 'yandick, tyandick', while sixteen and seventeen would have been 'yan-bumfit, tyan-bumfit' etc.
Although yan is still widely used, wan is starting to creep into some sociolects of the area.
Survey of English Dialects sites
There were several villages in Cumbria that were used during the Survey of English Dialects to minutely detail localised dialects. At the time, Cumbria did not exist as a unit of local government; there were 12 sites within modern Cumbria spread across four different counties:- Longtown
- Abbey Town
- Brigham
- Threlkeld
- Hunsonby
- Great Strickland
- Patterdale
- Soulby
- Staveley-in-Kendal
- Coniston
- Cartmel
- Dent
Cumbrian poetry
There were several among the well-educated in the 18th century who used dialect in their poetry. One of the earliest was the Rev. Josiah Relph, whose imitations of Theocritan Pastorals self-consciously introduce the demotic for local colour. Although written about 1735, they were not published until after the author's death in A Miscellany of Poems, followed by two further editions in 1797 and 1805. The Rev. Robert Nelson followed him in the same tradition with A choice collection of poems in Cumberland dialect. Ewan Clark, a contemporary of Nelson's, also wrote a handful of dialect imitations that were included in his Miscellaneous Poems. Female members of the gentry writing in dialect at this time included Susanna Blamire and her companion Catherine Gilpin. Miss Blamire had written songs in Scots that were set to music by Joseph Haydn. Her work in Cumbrian dialect was less well known and remained uncollected until the publication of The Muse of Cumberland in 1842. This was followed by Songs and Poems, edited by Sidney Gilpin in 1866, in which Miss Gilpin's work also appeared.In the 19th century appeared a few poems in dialect in the Miscellaneous Poems of John Stagg. Known as 'the Cumbrian Minstrel', he too wrote in Scots and these poems appeared in the new editions of his poems published from Wigton in 1807 and 1808. What seems to have lifted use of Cumbrian dialect from a passing curiosity to a demonstration of regional pride in the hands of labouring class poets was the vogue of Robert Burns, among whose disciples the calico worker Robert Anderson counted himself. His Ballads in the Cumberland Dialect were published from Carlisle in 1805 and were reprinted in several different formats over the following decades. Some of these publications also incorporated the work of his precursors and a few other contemporaries, such as Ewan Clark and Mark Lonsdale. One such collection was Ballads in the Cumberland dialect, chiefly by R. Anderson, and a third from Carlisle in 1823.
A more ambitious anthology of dialect verse, Dialogues, poems, songs, and ballads, by various writers, in the Westmoreland and Cumberland dialects, followed from London in 1839. This contained work by all the poets mentioned already, with the addition of some songs by John Rayson that were later to be included in his Miscellaneous Poems and Ballads. Another anthology of regional writing, Sidney Gilpin's The Songs and Ballads of Cumberland, collects together work in both standard English and dialect by all the poets mentioned so far, as well as Border Ballads, poems by William Wordsworth and family, and other verse of regional interest. Some later poets include John Sewart and Gwordie Greenup, who published short collections in prose and verse during the 1860s and 1870s. A more recent anthology, Oor mak o' toak: an anthology of Lakeland dialect poems, 1747-1946, was published from Carlisle in 1946 by the Lakeland Dialect Society.