LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.08.21 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: simon <simon at putitinabin.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.08.20 (04) [E]

I come from Southampton (not far from Portsmouth) where the local accent
doesn't use the usual southern pronunciations: 'barth' for bath or 'glarss'
instead of glass etc but something more like 'baath' and 'glaass' ie a
longer 'a'. It's always struck me that this was a little more like the
American pronunciation of the letter 'a' than other English accents. Just a
thought.

[Simon Quinlan]

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From: John Duckworth <jcduckworth2003 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Language Varieties


Dan Prohaska said:

"My family's from north Manchester origin. My granddad grew up as a
Lancashire dialect speaker and I still remember hearing sentences from
him such as "wur asta bin?" "where have you been?" And his using "tha"s and
"thi"s, as well as "thisen" (and not thisel)."

Curious that you mention the form _thisen_ as being North Mancunian; I
really did think that it never occurred in Lancashire (or indeed in modern
Greater Manchester).

Prestonians too would say (and some aged in their 50s perhaps can still be
heard saying) _wur asta bin ?_ for 'where have you been?' I often used to
hear 'where?' pronounced as _weer ?_ The two forms seemed interchangeable,
but I wonder whether there was something of a generation difference, with
older people saying _weer ?_

As far as I can tell, during my grandmother's generation the old pronoun
_oo_ (< _hoo_ ) for 'she' died out in the speech of the town of Preston at
least. She would quote sentences her own mother had said verbatim, using
_oo_, while my grandmother herself would invariably use _she_ (usually
pronounced with the short vowel [shi] ) in her own speech variety.

This reminds me of a curious thing that people used to say. I think it was
considered impolite to refer to one's mother or an elderly member of the
family as 'she' ; if a child did so, they would ask him,' Who's _she_, the
cat's mother?' I never quite understood what they meant by this, and when
they said this they would always pronounce _she_ with a long vowel (they
were obviously referring to a she-cat); I wonder if this might have been an
echo of the protests of the older generation when they heard the younger
ones using the pronoun _she_ instead of the more traditional _oo_ ?

Dan also asked:

"Have you got any ideas on dialect literature or linguistic material
concerning the Lancashire dialects? Maybe you could
point me to some."

I used to have quite a lot of books on Lancashire dialect, and literature in
the dialect, but I think they were all left in some exotic location or other
that I was living in. I will rack my brains and my notes and see what I can
come up for you.

Dan also said:

 "I'd also be very interested in a description of your own dialect: specific
vocabulary and idioms, grammatical forms such as the paradigm of 'to be' and
'to have' and the other modal auxiliary verbs, plural of nouns when they
differ from standard English etc. "

I have no objection, and I could give this a try, but I can't really call
itmy dialect as I have hardly even retained a norhern accent, yet alone
dialect! I spent most of my childhood abroad, though that did mean that I
was more aware of the dialect whenever I did return to Preston.

No time like the present, so here is the Verb 'to be' in Prestonian.

Singular
First Person :                ah'm [ am ]
Second Person :            thas [©£az]; older th'art [©£a:rt]
Third Person :    Masc. : his [iz]
Third Person :    Fem.    shiz [shiz] (older: (h)oos [u:z] )
Third Person     Neut.     its [its]
Plural
First Person :                wer / wur [wər]
Second Person :           yer [jər]
Third Person :               ther [©£ər]

Note that the older form _th'art_ (<thou art) was pronounced with an open
back unrounded vowel, as in 'Standard' English _art_ [I can't seem to
reproduce the IPA symbol to represent this.] I have also heard the initial
consonant of the word pronounced unvoiced [¥èa:rt].

When the above forms are inverted to make a question (like English _ am I
?_, and so on), they change somewhat.

Sing. 1st Pers.      am ah ? [am a]
         2nd Pers.     arta ?    [a:rtə ]
         3rd Pers.m.  is (h)e ? [izi ]
         3rd Pers. f.   is she ? [iz shi]
         3rd Pers.n.   is it ?    [iz i'] (with glottal sop.)
Plur.  1st Pers.      are we ?[a:r wi]
         2nd Pers.     are ye ? [a:r jə ]
         3rd Pers.      are they ? [a:r ©£i ]

Examples: am ah thi wife or not? [am a ©£i waif ər no' ] - 'Am I your wife
or not?' { Note the apostrophe represents a light glottal stop.}

How arta, Jim ? [ ew a:rtə , dzhim ]- 'ow are you, Jim?'
{A likely answer to this would have been: _Fair to middlin'_ [f©ªr tə
midlin], meaning roughly 'not so bad'. _middlin_ would have meant
''average".}

Is he right in th'ed?[iz i rejt in'¥èed ] or [iz i rejt in'¥èi:əd] - 'Is he
right in the head?' 'Is he quite sane?'

Is she thi sister? [iz shi ©£i sistər] - 'Is she your sister?' (Older _is oo
this sister?_ [iz u: ©£i sistər ]).

Are we gooin or not? [a:r wi gu:in ər no' ] - 'Are we going or not?'

Are ye awe famish'd ? [a:r jə o:w famisht ] _ 'Are you all hungry?' (i.e.
famished).

Are they frae Lancashire? [a:r ©£i fre: lankishər} - 'Are they from
Lancashire?'

DEMONSTRATIVES

_this_,  [©£is ] as in Standard English denotes a near object.

_ that _ : [©£a' ], with glottal stop (or [©£at] before a vowel) denotes a
very far object.

_yon_ : [jon] (pronounced as in 'yonder', which can occasionally replace
_yon_ for extra emphasis) roughly denotes an object that is within sight,
and is reachable without too much effort.

E.g. _yon babbie's skrikin agien_ [jon babiz skraikin agi:ə n] - 'That
baby's crying again.'

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Well, I have things to do tomorrow morning, so I need a little shut-eye;
hopefully I well give you a few more details soon.

John Duckworth
Preston, UK

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From: John Duckworth <jcduckworth2003 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Language Varieties


Greetings, Lowlanders!

Continuing with my compliance with Dan Prohaska's request, here are some
more grammatical notes on the dialect of Preston, Lancashire.

The Definite Article.

The use of the Definite Article in the dialects of both Lancashire and
Yorkshire is immediately noticeable. Though the dialect proper has largely
died out these days, the use of the article still foften follows the rules
of the old dialect in the speech of Lancashire dialect speakers.

'Foreigners' (even from London !) often perceive there to be no Definite
Article at all before many words, and they parody the dialect / accent,
using such sentences as _there's trouble at mill_. In reality though the
Definite Article has been reduced to (an often very light) glottal stop, and
this sentence would be pronounced [©£ərz trubl ət 'mil] or [©£ərz trubl ə'
'mil].I think it is perhaps true to say that native Lancastrians would
perceive this glottal stop as a [t], and it may well have originaly been
[t], but for many years now it has been a glottal stop.

Before Consonants the Definite Article is a glottal stop (which I represent
by an apostrophe ['] ):

Examples: on' right of him [on 'rejt əvim] - 'to the right of him'
'tay's cowd ['teiz kəud] - 'the tea's cold'.
'fella jus wen' n' 'it 'im ['fela jus wen' n itim] - 'the man just went and
hit him'.

Before Vowels the Definite Article becomes [¥è ], generally written in
dialect literature as _th'_.
Examples: th'apple's in' tother room [¥èaplz in 'tu©£ər ru:əm] - 'the
apple's in the other room'. { [ru:m] is the more modern pronunciation.]
tha should larn th'art o' keepin tha gob  shut! [©£a shud la:rn ¥è a:rt ə
ki:pin ©£a gob shut] -'you should learn the art of keeping your mouth shut.'

Initial _h-_ is never pronounced, but there was often a sense that it
existed (just as modern French distinguishes between aspirated and
non-aspirated h-, and changes the article accordingly).As a result, the
article before silent (h-) plus a vowel sometimes becomes a glottal stop,
and sometimes just [¥è ]. There doesn't seem to be any rule about this, and
maybe it depended on a persons degree of literacy and awareness that the
word was written with initial _h-_.

Eg. _in 'olidays_ [in 'olideiz] or _in th'olidays_ [in ¥èolideiz] - 'in the
holidays'.

up th'ill [up ¥èil] 'up the hill', was much commoner than _up 'il_ [up 'il],
maybe to avoid confusion with _up'ill_ [upil], 'uphill'.

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Maybe I will write a little more later.

John Duckworth
Preston, UK

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From: John Duckworth <jcduckworth2003 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Phonology (or language varieties?)


Ron asked:

"In the British soap opera "Coronation Street," the character Janice
(former wife of Les) says "care" as though written "cur," "bear" as
though written "bur," "stare" as though written "stir," etc.  What sort of a
dialect is that?"

May I ask you, Ron, how you would phonetically describe the [r]-sound in
these words? I remember trying to describe this sound a few weeks ago but
without much success. When I make the sound myself it seems to be retroflex,
but there is no contact between the tongue and the roof of the mouth. It
reminds me somewhat of the curious [r]-sound that appears in Northern
Chinese dialects in the word _shi_ for example ('to be'). Could we say that
Janice is using a retroflex approximant, perhaps? It si certainly quite
distinct from the retroflex r's of the Indian languages.

John Duckworth
Preston, UK


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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties

N ice to hear from you, Simon.  Welcome!

John, As for r-coloring, there's the IPA character ˞ (Code 025E, SAMPA `) an
d ligatures like ɚ (Code 025A) and ɝ (Hex Code 025D).

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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