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The West Country dialects or West Country accents are generic terms applied to any of several English dialects or accents used by much of the indigenous population of the southwestern part of England, the area popularly known as the West Country. This is the region stretching from Cornwall, and Devon, into Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire. The northern and eastern boundaries of the area are hard to define. The city of Bristol has its own local dialect which is also distinctly West Country in tone. Immigration to the towns from other regions means that the dialects are now only commonly encountered in rural areas.

In the neighbouring counties of Berkshire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, it was possible to encounter comparable accents and, indeed, distinct local dialects until perhaps the 1960s. Although natives of such locations, especially in western parts, can still have West Country influences in their speech, this is less than in the true West Country counties. The increased mobility and urbanisation of the population have meant that local Berkshire, Hampshire and Isle of Wight dialects (as opposed to accents) are today essentially extinct.

Strong West Country accents can still be difficult for speakers of Standard English to understand. Although popularly considered to be only accents, academically the regional variations are considered to be dialect forms. These are dialects of English and should not be confused with Cornish, which is a Celtic language related to Welsh, and more closely to Breton.

In literature

In literary terms, most of the usage has been in either poetry or dialogue, to add "local colour". It has rarely been used for serious prose in recent times, but was used much more extensively in the 19th century.

Early period

  • Beowulf appears to have been written in Late West Saxon (c. between 700–1000 AD).
  • Judith, a poem written in the Middle Ages, is from this region.

19th Century

20th century

History and origins

Until the 19th century, the West Country and its dialects were largely protected from outside influences, due to its relative geographical isolation. The West Country dialects derive not from a corrupted form of modern English, but reflect the historical origins of the English language and its historical pronunciation, in particular Late West Saxon, which formed one of the earliest English language standards.

The dialects have their origins in the expansion of Anglo-Saxon into the west of modern-day England, where the kingdom of Wessex (West-Saxons) was founded. From Wessex, Anglo-Saxon spread into the Celtic regions of Dumnonia. Penetration of the English language into Cornwall took centuries more; during the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549, which centred on Devon and Cornwall, many of the Cornish objected to the Prayer Book on the basis that many Cornish could not speak English. The last monoglot Cornish speaker is believed to have been Chesten Marchant, who died in 1676 at Gwithian (Dolly Pentreath was bilingual). In recent years, the traffic has reversed, with the revived "Modern Cornish" variety reclaiming many Celtic words from the local dialect into its lexicon.

It is thought that the various local dialects may reflect the territories of various Saxon clans (who had their own dialects of Saxon), and that the progress of their occupation explains the greater dominance of a more Germanic accent in the earlier and more heavily occupied eastern parts of the region, while the slower and lower density Saxon infiltration into Devon enabled more of a Celtic accent to be retained.

As Lt-Col. J.A. Garton observed in 1971 *, traditional Somerset English has a venerable and respectable origin, and is not a mere "debasement" of Standard English:

"The dialect is not, as some people suppose, English spoken in a slovenly and ignorant way. It is the remains of a language - the court language of King Alfred. Many words, thought to be wrongly pronounced by the countryman, are actually correct, and it is the accepted pronunciation which is wrong. English pronounces W-A-R-M worm, and W-O-R-M wyrm; in the dialect W-A-R-M is pronounced as it is spelt, Anglo-Saxon W-E-A-R-M. The Anglo-Saxon for worm is W-Y-R-M. Polite English pronounces W-A-S-P wosp; the Anglo-Saxon word is W-O-P-S and a Somerset man still says WOPSE. The verb To Be is used in the old form, I be, Thee bist, He be, We be, Thee 'rt, They be. 'Had I known I wouldn't have gone', is 'If I'd a-know'd I 'ooden never a-went'; 'A' is the old way of denoting the past tense, and went is from the verb to wend (Anglo-Saxon wendan)."

In some cases, many of these forms are closer to Standard German than Standard British English is, e.g.

Standard GermanSomersetStandard British English
Ich binI be/A beI am
Du bistThee bistYou are (archaic "Thou beest")
Er istHe beHe is

The use of male (rather than neutral) gender with nouns, and sometimes female, also parallels German, which unlike English retains grammatical genders. The pronunciation of "s" as "z" is also similar to German.

In more recent times, West Country dialects have been treated with some derision, which has led many local speakers to abandon them or water them down. In particular it is British comedy which has brought them to the fore outside their native regions, and paradoxically groups such as The Wurzels, a comic North Somerset/Bristol band from whom the term Scrumpy and Western music originated, have both popularised and made fun of them simultaneously. In an unusual regional breakout, the Wurzels' song Combine Harvester reached the top of the UK charts in 1976, where it did absolutely nothing to dispel the "simple farmer" stereotype of Somerset folk. It and all their songs are sung entirely in a local version of the dialect, which is somewhat exaggerated and distorted.

Celtic language influence

As previously stated, Brythonic languages have had a long-term influence on the West Country dialects. There is evidence of some minor Irish settlement in the coastal areas, especially Somerset, but the colonies here were not as successful as in Scotland, or even north-west England.

The Cornish dialect, or Anglo-Cornish (to avoid confusion with the Cornish language), has the most substantial Celtic language influence, because many western parts were non-English speaking, even into the early modern period. In places such as Mousehole, Newlyn and St Ives, fragments of Cornish survived in English even into the 20th century, e.g. some numerals (esp. for counting fish) and the Lord's Prayer were noted by WD Watson in 1925, Edwin Norris collected the Creed in 1860, and JH Nankivel also recorded numerals in 1865. The dialect of West Penwith is particularly distinctive, especially in terms of grammar. This is most likely due to the late decay of the Cornish language in this area.

In other areas, Celtic vocabulary is less common, but it is notable that "coombe", cognate with Welsh cwm is common in placenames east of the Tamar, especially Devon. Some examples of Brythonic words surviving in Devon dialect include:

  • Blooth - A blossom (Welsh blodyn)
  • Goco - A bluebell
  • Jonnick - Pleasant, agreeable

Characteristics

The characteristic features of the accent of the region include:

  • A slower, drawling manner of speech, with lengthened vowel sounds (this is less pronounced among the Cornish and Bristolians, who actually speak quite rapidly).
  • The initial "s" is pronounced as "z".
  • "r"s are pronounced far more prominently than in Standard English, in a Rhotic fashion
  • An initial "f" may become pronounced "v", as in varmer Joe
  • In the Bristol area, a terminal "a" (realised as *, c.f. Albert as "Awbert", cinema as "cinemaw") is often perceived to be followed by an intrusive "l". Hence the old joke about the three Bristolian sisters Evil, Idle and Normal — i.e., Eva, Ida, and Norma. Also the name "Bristol" itself (originally Bridgestowe, variously spelt).

In various districts there are also distinct grammatical and syntactical differences in the dialect:

  • The second person singular thee (or ye in parts of Devon) and thou forms used, thee often contracted to ee.
  • Bist may be used instead of are e.g. ow bist? = "how are you?" This is the form adopted as standard in German.
  • Use of male (rather than neutral) gender with nouns; put he over there = put it over there.
  • An a prefix may be used to denote the past tense; a-went = gone.
  • Use of they rather than them or those; they shoes be mine = those shoes are mine. This is also used in Lowland Scots, except that in Scots they are two different words, thae (from Anglo-Saxon ðà) the plural form of that and they (from Anglo-Saxon þà) the plural form of he, she and it.
  • Am used exclusively in the present tense, usually contracted to 'm; you'm = you am = you are.
  • In other areas, be may be used exclusively in the present tense, often in the present continuous; Where you be going to? = Where are you going?
  • Using "Where's * to?", often with "it" replaced by "he" (pronounced "ee"), so "Where's he to?". This is something you can still hear a lot, unlike many of the other charecteristics. You may even hear "Where ee be to?" but less likely. This former usage is common to Newfoundland English, where many of the island's modern-day descendants originated from the West Country (particularly Bristol and Dorset) as a result of the 17th-19th century migratory fishery.
  • Use of the past participle "writ" (pronounced reaht) in lieu of "wrote", as in "I writ about eaht larhts in moiy buuk" or "I wrote about it lots in my book"
  • Use of elongated "uh" sound for "oo" as in "buuk", which leads to the accusations of ignorance and stupidity as others may find this 'backwards drawl' amusing. This is similar to the perception of Southern American English by those in the United States.

West Country accents also share certain characteristics with the accents of other isolated rural areas, for example those in parts of East Anglia. There is a popular prejudice that stereotypes speakers as unsophisticated and even backward, due possibly to the deliberate and lengthened nature of the accent. This can work to the West Country speaker's advantage, however: recent studies of how trustworthy Britons find their fellows based on their regional accents put the West Country accent high up, under southern Scottish English but a long way above Cockney and Scouse. Presumably this is premised upon the perception that farmers are people of the soil, and hence more honest compared to city dwellers, or that slow speech means slow thought, hence more incapable of guile.

The West Country accent is probably most identified in American English as "pirate speech" — cartoon-like "Ooh arr, me 'earties! Sploice the mainbrace!" talk is very similar. This may be a result of the strong seafaring and fisherman tradition of the West Country, both legal and outlaw. Edward Teach (Blackbeard) was a native of Bristol, and privateer and English hero Francis Drake hailed from Tavistock in Devon.

Additional selected vocabulary

Some of these terms are obsolete, but some are in current use.

  • "Allernbatch" (Devon) — old sore
  • "Benny" (Bristol) — to lose your temper
  • "Blad" (Bristol) — idiot
  • "Blether" (Dorset) — bleat (also used in Lowland Scots)
  • "Crowst" (Cornwall) — a picnic lunch, crib
  • "Cuzzel" (Cornwall) — soft
  • "Dap" (Somerset) — a plimsoll shoe
  • "Doattie" (Devon) — nod off
  • "Dreckly" — Directly, often used to mean "I'll do it soon" for example "I'll do it dreckly"
  • " Emmet" (Cornwall) — tourist or visitor (derogatory)
  • "Gockey" (Cornwall) — idiot
  • "Grockle" (Devon, Dorset and Somerset) — tourist or visitor (derogatory)
  • "Hinkypunk" — Will o' the wisp
  • "Janner" (Devon, esp Plymouth) — a term with various meanings, normally associated with Devon, and so called Chav culture.
  • "Keendle teening" (Cornwall) — candle lighting
  • "Kimberlin" (Portland) — someone from Weymouth
  • "Love", "My Love", "Luvver" — terms of endearment. Even used by heterosexual men to one another.
  • "Maggoty" (Dorset) — fanciful
  • "Mang" (Devon) — to mix
  • "Ooh Arr" (Devon) — multiple meanings. Popularised by the Wurzels, this phrase has become stereotypical, and is used often to mock speakers of West Country dialects.
  • "Piggy widden" (Cornwall) — phrase used to calm babies
  • "Pummy" (Dorset) — Apple pumace from the cider-wring (either from "pumace" or French "pomme" meaning apple)
  • "Snags" (Dorset) — sloes, word is used in other English dialects to refer to thorns.
  • "Somewhen" (Isle of Wight, Wiltshire) — At some time (still very commonly used)
  • "Zat" (Devon) — soft

See also

External links

British English | Languages of the United Kingdom

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "West Country dialects".

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