| Cheshire Dialect | |
|---|---|
| Native to | England |
| Region | Cheshire |
| Ethnicity | English |
Early forms | |
| Dialects | Cheshire |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
 Location of Cheshire within England | |
| Coordinates:53°10′N2°35′W / 53.167°N 2.583°W /53.167; -2.583 | |
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TheCheshire dialect is aNorthern English dialect spoken in the county ofCheshire inNorth West England. It has similarities with the dialects of the surrounding counties ofMerseyside,Greater Manchester,Staffordshire,Shropshire, andDerbyshire.[1][vague]
The dialect has existed for centuries and is distinct from what becamestandard British English. The works of the 14th century poets, includingSir Gawain and the Green Knight, the religious poemSt. Erkenwald, and other works of theGawain poet, are written in this dialect.[2][3] Cheshire authorAlan Garner states "Of course [the Cheshire dialect] has changed, as all living language changes, since the time of theGawain poet. But when I read sections of the poem aloud to my father, he knew, and used, more than 90% of the vocabulary; and the phonetics of the vowels have scarcely changed."[4]
Early references include English proverbs and dialect words collected byJohn Ray in the 17th century, and a glossary of Cheshire words compiled byRoger Wilbraham in 1817 and expanded in 1826.[1][5] These sources were expanded byEgerton Leigh in a glossary published posthumously in 1877, which was an attempt to preserve a way of speech that was already under threat from "emigration, railways, and the blending of shires."[1][6] Leigh notes that some words collected by Ray had already disappeared.[1] Later reference works include Thomas Darlington'sFolk-speech of South Cheshire (1887) and Peter Wright'sThe Cheshire Chatter (1979).
Cheshire dialect contains some words that are distinct from standard English, such as "shippen" for cow shed.[7] According to Leigh, most unique Cheshire words derive fromAnglo-Saxon; "shippen" is fromscypen.[1][7] Other words derive from transposition, for example, "waps" for "wasp" and "neam" for "name".[1] TheBritish Library Sound Archive contains recordings of the dialect from various parts of the county.[8] A number of authors have written in Cheshire dialect, including poetry byH. V. Lucas (Homage to Cheshire; 1939–60) andRowland Egerton-Warburton (Hunting Songs; 1877), and prose byBeatrice Tunstall.[citation needed]
Like most dialects inNorthern England and theMidlands, Cheshire English lacks both thetrap-bath andfoot-strut splits. Words with the bath vowel like castle or past are pronounced with [a] instead of [ɑː][9] while words with the strut vowel such as cut, up and lunch are pronounced with [ʊ] instead of [ʌ] like in most ofSouthern England.[10]H-dropping is another feature which occurs in Cheshire English, in which the [h] sound is usually omitted from most words,[11] whileNG-coalescence is also absent, with the ng in words like sing or thing being pronounced as [ŋɡ] instead of just [ŋ] like in most English dialects.[12] Some areas in the north-west of Cheshire such asRuncorn orEllesmere Port share phonological similarities withMerseyside English,[13] with features such as [k] being fricatised into [x], along with the dental fricatives [θ] and [ð] being realised as dental stops [t̪] and [d̪], being present in some cases.[14]
