Name the dialect
Can you work out what dialect of English this is, and what it means? Can you also name the transcription system used here?
Clue: the transcription system was invented during the 1880s.
13 Responses to “Name the dialect”
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Josh on 15 Oct 2006 at 5:03 pm #
I’m not familiar with the transcription system, but from what I can decipher it “sounds” like Southern American English. I’m probably wrong though- because sometimes it “sounds” Scottish.
Joseph Staleknight on 15 Oct 2006 at 11:50 pm #
The italics are stress, right?
Chase B. on 16 Oct 2006 at 4:49 am #
Middle English?
Simon on 16 Oct 2006 at 2:20 pm #
Joseph - I think the italics are stress.
Chase B. & Josh - it’s not Middle English or a form of English spoken in the southern USA, but rather a dialect spoken in the north of England.
Josh on 16 Oct 2006 at 8:21 pm #
Ack, I know nothing about England. I’ll say it’s “Lanky”- just because I have a friend in Blackpool that has a really trippy accent.
Josh on 16 Oct 2006 at 8:26 pm #
I’m also curious as to why this system isn’t featured on the site.
Evans Knight on 16 Oct 2006 at 10:01 pm #
is it Geordie?
Chase B. on 17 Oct 2006 at 12:48 am #
Is it some kind of ‘traveller’ or to be un-PC gypsy dialect?
Evans Knight on 17 Oct 2006 at 1:28 am #
now I’m just throwing things out there, but…liverpudlian?
Paul on 17 Oct 2006 at 10:50 am #
As a native speaker of “a dialect spoken in the north of England”, I can say I’m completely stumped. It might be the odd transcription system, but I can’t resolve a good number of those words into anything meaningful. The long ‘aa’ sounds, the diphthongs, and the t’ make me think Yorkshire, rather than anything from the north-east, as does the intro, which I’m pretty sure is meant to represent ‘E wor, i.e. He was. But that’s all guesswork.
Simon on 17 Oct 2006 at 11:43 am #
And the answer is … Yorkshire dialect - Paul got it. Not sure which part of Yorkshire it comes from though.
Here’s a version of the sentence in standard English: “He was whining away, says she, for all the world like a sick child, or a little girl in a fret”
The transcription system is called Dialectal Paleotype and was developed by Alexander J. Ellis (1814-1890), a phonetician, philologist and music theorist, who undertook a major survey of (mainly) rural dialects in Britain in the 1880s.
Minstrel Ayreon on 17 Oct 2006 at 3:43 pm #
Dagnabbit, I was going to say Yorkshire! Too many James Herriot books for me… ;-)
Anyway, do you happen to have a link to how this system works? Now I’ve got to see it!
Simon on 17 Oct 2006 at 4:28 pm #
Minstrel - unfortunately there appears to be no information about this transcription system online, but I have some details in one of my books (The World’s Writing Systems, by Daniels & Bright), which I’ll add to Omniglot.