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.
October 15th, 2006 in
Language, Quiz questions
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.
The italics are stress, right?
Middle English?
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.
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.
I’m also curious as to why this system isn’t featured on the site.
is it Geordie?
Is it some kind of ‘traveller’ or to be un-PC gypsy dialect?
now I’m just throwing things out there, but…liverpudlian?
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.
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.
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!
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.