LL-L: "English" LOWLANDS-L, 01.FEB.2000 (03) [E]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 01.FEB.2000 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk]
Subject: LL-L: "English"

> From: Pat Reynolds [pat at caerlas.demon.co.uk]
> Subject: LL-L: "English" LOWLANDS-L, 31.JAN.2000 (05) [E]
>
> day/Poverty, poverty knock!/Gaffer's too skinny to pay", or one of the
> songs about Eynuch  "O'd Eynuch bay fergot,/Nor niver con be" (Old Enoch
> isn't forgotten, nor never can be).  This last exemplifies another
> characteristic of the dialect: negatives that sound like positives!

I was astounded at the idea of a dialect where people simply dropped the
enclitic negative - then I realised that this happens in my dialect of Scots
too! We say "ca" for "canna" and "deh" for "dinna", though only when
speaking in a lowish register. This feature of Scots dialects has been
discussed on Lowlands-L before and seems very widespread, but it never
dawned on me how confusing this could be until I saw it in another dialect.

> From: bri [bri at globalnet.co.uk]
> Subject: LL-L: "English" LOWLANDS-L, 31.JAN.2000 (05) [E]

> I've worked as a teacher on the edges of the Black Country since 1973,
> in Wednesbury, which is about 8 miles north-west of Birmingham City
> Centre and is adjacent to Dudley and West Bromwich. A local joke has it

The mention of Dudley has jogged my memory - this _is_ the narrator's home
town in the programme. After 1 1/2 series I completely failed to remember
this afterwards!

> This is definitely Black Country talk. Its opposite  is 'we b'ay'
> ('we're not', as in 'we (b)ain't')).
>
> Also:
>
> 'We cor' = 'we can't',
>
> 'we d'ay' = 'we didn't'

Yes, now I understand what was meant by "ca" (that's the way the subtitler
spelt it). It'll be interesting to watch out for other dropped negatives in
future, or whether the others would be considered too confusing for national
television.

Thanks also to John Feather - I'd no idea such strong dialect was still to
be found in English cities outside of London and Newcastle!

Ron - according to Chambers 21st Century Dictionary it's called the Black
Country due to the amount of smoke and grime produced by the industrial
revolution. Looks positively green to me these days, though!

Sandy
http://scotstext.org
http://www.fleimin.demon.co.uk

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