This includes the counties ofDerbyshire,Leicestershire,Lincolnshire,Nottinghamshire,Rutland andNorthamptonshire. Dialects of the northern parts of the East Midlands usually share similarities with Northern English dialects while dialects of the southern parts have similarities with Southern England and parts of the west have some similarities with the West Midlands. Relative to other English dialects, there have been relatively few studies of East Midlands English.
The Five Boroughs of the East Midlands distinct from the Kingdom of Mercia in the early 10th century[1]
The Eastern English Midlands were incorporated in the Norse-controlledDanelaw in the late 9th century byIvar the Boneless. With their conquest, the county towns of the East Midlands counties were converted into fortified, Viking city-states, known as theFive Boroughs of the Danelaw. The region's dialect owes much of its grammar and vocabulary to the Nordic influences of its conquerors. For example, the East Midlands verbto scraight ('to cry') is thought to be derived from the Norse,skrike in modern Scandinavian, also meaning to cry.[2]
The East Midlands dialect ofMiddle English which extended over a much larger area, as far south as Middlesex, is the precursor of modern English spoken today,[3] which has descended from the early modern English of the early 16th century.
The novelist and East MidlanderD. H. Lawrence was from the Nottinghamshire town ofEastwood and wrote in the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Coalfield dialects in several poems as well as in his more famous works such asLady Chatterley's Lover andSons and Lovers.[4]
Though spoken less commonly today, the dialect of the East Midlands has been investigated in texts such as theEy Up Mi Duck[5] series of books (and an LP) byRichard Scollins andJohn Titford. These books were originally intended as a study of Derbyshire Dialect, particularly the distinctive speech ofIlkeston and theErewash valley, but later editions acknowledge similarities in vocabulary and grammar which unite the East Midlands dialects and broadened their appeal to the region as a whole.
"Ey up" (often spelt ayup / eyup) is a greeting thought to be of Old Norse origin (se upp) used widely throughout theEast Midlands,North Midlands,North Staffordshire andYorkshire, and "m' duck" is thought to be derived from a respectfulAnglo Saxon form of address, "Duka" (literally "duke"), and is unrelated to waterfowl.[6][n 2] Non-natives of the East Midlands and North Staffordshire are often surprised to hear men greet each other as "m' duck".
Those who speak traditionalregional dialects are not trying unsuccessfully to speakStandard English. East Midlands English follows a series of distinct grammatical rules. Some examples follow below.
Until the mid-20th century, it was not uncommon to hear the use of informal forms of address,thee andthou, as compared to the more formalyou. Use of the informal form of address is now uncommon in modern speech.
Humorous texts, such asNottingham As it is Spoke, have used their phonetically spelled words to deliberately confuse non-natives of the region.[9]
Alrate yooth?
Are you alright young man? Here,⟨alrate⟩ is a spelling designed to convey the phonological specification in the traditional dialect of⟨right⟩, which is/riːt/, and a slight diphthonging of/iː/.
Avya gorra wi'ya?
Is the wife with you? (lit. "Have you got her with you?) The pronunciation/wɪjə/ with weak formWITH is alleged to be more common in Nottingham and the South East Midlands; pronunciations withth-fronting inWITH are alleged to be more common elsewhere. TH-fronting became a potential feature of the accents of the region in around 1960.[10] The humorous spellings are designed to indicate H-dropping, the ’'Northern T-to-R rule'’ and/wi/, the non-Standard weakform of⟨with⟩, which is common to many dialects in England.
'Int any onya any onya?
Here is an example of Belper, Derbyshire dialect when asking a group of people if any of them have any matches with which to light a pipe. Hasn’t any of you, got any [matches] on you?
It's looking' a bit black ower Bill's movver's
It looks like rain. (lit. "It's looking a bit black over Bill's Mother's.") – a common, if somewhat old-fashioned, Midlands expression implying impending bad weather. The spelling⟨ower⟩ chosen to indicate the phonological specification in the traditional dialect of⟨over⟩:/ɒvɚ/. The identity of Bill or where his mother's house was located is open to question, although it is possibly derived from German emperorWilhelm II.[11]
Awont gooin t’worra!
I wasn't going to, was I!⟨Awont⟩ ,⟨gunta⟩ and⟨worra⟩ are blend words designed to convey the phonological specification in the traditional dialect of⟨I wasn't⟩,⟨going to⟩ and⟨was I⟩.
A farnd im in cut
I found him in the Canal, (lit. "I found him in the cut). Using the traditional and local word⟨Cut⟩ for Canal. Canals were originally referred to as "Cuts" because during the industrial revolution canals or highways for transportation of goods were literally "cut" into the landscape and allowed to fill with water.
Thez summat up wi’im
I think he may be ill. (lit. "There's something up with him."). The spellings here chosen to indicate the ‘'Northern'’ feature that/eə/ is a monophthong, the non-Standard English word/ˈsʌmət/, which is historically found in many dialects across England (cf. its use by the London boatmen Gaffer and Riderhood in Our Mutual Friend and by the farmhands in Far from the Madding Crowd), the weakform of⟨with⟩ previously mentioned and H-dropping.
Yer norrayin no tuffees!
You're not having any sweets! (should not be taken to mean 'toffees' alone as in East Midlands dialect' "tuffees" can mean all types of sweets). Humorous spellings here were chosen to indicate theNorthern T-to-R rule and the phonological specification in the traditional dialect of⟨have⟩, which is/eɪ/.
However, there are many words in use in the traditional East Midlands Dialect which do not appear in standard English. The short list below is by no means exhaustive. More comprehensive glossaries exist within texts such asEy Up Mi Duck by Richard Scollins and John Titford.
naught/nəʊt/
nothing (homographic with/nɔːt/ the digit cypher,0, and the (now only literary) naught/nɔːt/ of General English;/nəʊt/ is a traditional dialect phonological specification and/nɔːt/ is the regular development in General English).
aught/əʊt/
anything (homographic with the now literary General English/ɔːt/)
alleyway. Typically (but not exclusively) alleyways providing access to the rear of terraced housing. Can also mean a path between gardens (E.g. allotments)
larup/larop
to cover with (usually a thick substance)
mardy (or etymological marredy)
grumpy, sulky (i.e. "She's a mardy one!")
mash
to make a pot of tea (i.e. "I'll go n’mash tea.")
piggle
to pick at a scab, spot or a skin irritation (i.e. "Stop piggling that scab!")
puddled/puddle-drunk
intoxicated or stupid
puther
to pour out uncontrollably[13] usually of smoke, steam or dust
There are also word forms that occur in Standard English but which have additional meanings in some of the varieties considered here.
bonny
In many dialects, this has the sense of 'looking well' often referring to a healthy plumpness.[15][16] In Derby, Leicester and Nottingham, there still also exists a transferred sense of plump, robust, stout or overweight derived from this sense.Cf. Samuel Johnson's comment that ‘'It seems to be used in general conversation forplump’’ as cited in NED Bonny 2 b as (J.).
(There is a yet older sense now only commonly used inScots, Northern & some Midland dialects meaning 'beautiful' generally rather than of individuals having a pleasingembonpoint specifically.)[17]
fast
stuck, caught (i.e. "Who's got a finger fast?")
tuffees
sweets, confectionery
badly
hungover/ill
croaker
doctor
croggie
an (illegal) crossbar ride, "two-up" on the crossbar of a bicycle
ice cream (common in Leicestershire) seeHokey cokey
pot
a plaster cast
sucker
iced lolly
tabs
ears, also called lugholes
yack
to yank
cos
can you
The greeting 'now then' (as 'Nah theen') is still in use in Lincolnshire and North-East Derbyshire, used where other people might say "Hello".[citation needed] 'Nen mate' can also be heard instead of "now then mate".
People from Leicester are known in the popular holiday resortSkegness as "Chits", due to their expression for "how much is it?" when asking the price of goods in shops.[18]
East Midlands accents generally lack thetrap–bath split, so thatcast is pronounced[kast] rather than the[kɑːst] pronunciation associated with most southern accents. The Northampton accent has lengthening[kaːst].
Most accents in the East Midlands lack thefoot–strut split, with words containing/ʌ/ likestrut orbut being pronounced with[ʊ], without any distinction betweenputt andput.
The PRICE vowel has a very far back starting-point, and can be realised as[ɑɪ].[19]
Yod-dropping, as in East Anglia, can be found in some areas[where?], for examplenew as/nuː/, sounding like "noo".
H-dropping is common, in which[h] is usually omitted from most words,[20] whileNG-coalescence is present in most of the East Midlands except in Derbyshire where[ŋ] is pronounced as[ŋɡ].[21]
In Lincolnshire, sounds like theu vowel of words likestrut being realised as[ʊ] may be even shorter than in the North.
InLeicester, words with short vowels such asup andlast have a northern pronunciation, whereas words with vowels such asdown androad sound rather more like a south-eastern accent. The vowel sound at the end of words likeborder (and the name of the city) is also a distinctive feature.[22]
Lincolnshire also has a marked north–south split in terms of accent. The north shares many features with Yorkshire, such as the opena sound in "car" and "park" or the replacement oftake,make, andsake withtek,mek, andsek.[23] The south of Lincolnshire is close to Received Pronunciation, although it still has a short Northern a in words such asbath.
Mixing of the wordswas andwere when the other is used in Standard English.
InNorthamptonshire, crossed by the north–southisogloss, residents of the north of the county have an accent similar to that ofLeicestershire and those in the south an accent similar to ruralOxfordshire.
The town ofCorby in northernNorthamptonshire has an accent with some originally Scottish features, apparently due to immigration of Scottish steelworkers.[24] It is common in Corby for the GOAT set of words to be pronounced with/oː/. This pronunciation is used across Scotland and most of Northern England, but Corby is alone in the Midlands in using it.[25]
Northamptonshire is in theEast Midlands region defined in the late 20th century, and has historically harboured its owndialect comparable to other forms of East Midlands English,[13] particularly among the older generation. However, more recently its linguistic distinctiveness has significantly eroded due to influences from the western parts ofEast Anglia, theWest Midlands, and the South as well as the 'Watford Gapisogloss', the demarcation line between southern and northern English accents.
The Danelaw split the present county into a Viking north and a Saxon south. This is quite plainly heard, with people in the south speaking more like people from Oxfordshire or Cambridgeshire and people in the north sounding more like people from Leicestershire.[citation needed]
Also of note is the anomalous dialect of Corbyite spoken aroundCorby,Kettering, andMarket Harborough in the north ofNorthamptonshire and the south east ofLeicestershire, which reflects the migration of large numbers of Scottish and Irish steelworkers to the town during the 20th century. The dialect is often compared toGlaswegian.[citation needed]
Derbyshire, unlike other counties in the East Midlands, has many different accents and dialects within its boundaries. This is in part due to its borders taking in areas that are naturally "cut off" from the rest of the county by topographical borders such as that of thePeak District, as well as areas that are of considerable distance from the city ofDerby and its diaspora, therefore being too far away to be of any influence both linguistically and culturally. This means that dialects in other parts of Derbyshire have more influence from neighbouring counties and cities, especially with the northern parts of the county lying in close proximity to bothNorth West England andYorkshire.
The city of Derby, as well as boroughs in the vicinity of the city such asAmber Valley andErewash, share a common Derby dialect, which sounds largely similar to other East Midlands cities and counties. In addition, the town ofBurton upon Trent, inStaffordshire, has an accent that is more identifiable as an East Midlands accent. This is largely due to the town's location near the borders with Derbyshire and Leicestershire, as well as theA38 providing commuter links to and from the East Midlands.
The dialect ofCoalville in Leicestershire is said to resemble that of Derby because many of the Coalville miners came from there. Coalville's name is still almost exclusive pronounced as "Co-ville" by its inhabitants. Neighbouring pit villages such as Whitwick ("Whittick") share the Coalville inflection as a result of the same huge influx of Derbyshire miners.
Lincolnshire has long been an economically relatively homogeneous, less industrial more heavily agricultural county and is in part naturally separated by theRiver Trent divorcing its largest market town, Gainsborough, Torksey and the City ofLincoln fromNottinghamshire. East of theLincolnshire Wolds, in the southern part of the county, the Lincolnshire dialect is closely linked toThe Fens andEast Anglia whereEast Anglian English is spoken, and, in the northern areas of the county, the local speech has characteristics in common with the speech of theEast Riding of Yorkshire. This is largely due to the fact that the majority of the land area of Lincolnshire was surrounded by sea, theHumber, marshland, and the Wolds; these geographical circumstances permitted little linguistic interference from the East Midlands dialects until the nineteenth century when canal and rail routes penetrated the eastern heartland of the country.
There has been relatively little dialect research in Nottinghamshire; theSurvey of English Dialects looked at only four sites. One dialect monograph was by Jeremy Storr on the mining village of Selston in 1977.[26]
The children's writerHelen Cresswell came from Nottingham, lived inEakring and some of her characters featured on television during the 1970s and 1980s, such asLizzie Dripping andPolly Flint, have distinct East Midlands accents, otherwise rarely heard in national broadcast media at the time.[citation needed]
Dennis Skinner, a Labour MP for 49 years, spoke in Derbyshire dialect[27][28] and said that he would not alter this for the sake of a political career.[29]
The character 'Sylvie' in the Disney+ Marvel series 'Loki', played by Sophia Di Martino, has an East Midlands accent: "Di Martino's desire to represent underserved people led her to use her natural Nottingham accent on 'Loki'.[30]
^ There are also other suggestions for the origin of the term 'duck': one being attributed to a group of young children who would congregate in the River Derwent in the Morledge area of Derby in the early 19th century, a time when the flow of the river was much slower. People who watched them sometimes remarked that they could "swim like ducks", an observationJoseph Masters once remarked in his memoirs. The children soon greeted each other with 'Ey up, my duck', calling themselves the 'Derby ducks' not long thereafter.[7] This story has to be scrutinized against the wordduck having been a term of endearment since at least the 1580s.[8]
^Hughes, Trudgill & Watts ed.,English accents and dialects: an introduction to social and regional varieties of English in the British Isles, chapter on Leicester's speech, Hodder Arnold, 2005
^Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (2002).The Phonetics of Dutch and English (5 ed.).Leiden/Boston:Brill Publishers. pp. 290–302.
^Stoddart, Jana; Upton, Clive; Widdowson, J.D.A. (1999). "Sheffield dialect in the 1990s: revisiting the concept of NORMs".Urban Voices. London: Arnold. p. 74.
Evans, Arthur Benoni (1881)Leicestershire Words, Phrases and Sayings; ed. bySebastian Evans. London: Trübner for the English Dialect Society
Wright, Joseph (ed.) (1898–1905)The English Dialect Dictionary. 6 vols. Oxford University Press ("appendices include dialect words grouped by region")
Skeat, W. W. (ed.) (1874) "Derbyshire lead mining terms", by T. Houghton; 1681 ... "Derbyshire mining terms", by J. Mawe; 1802 [with other texts]. London: N. Trübner for the English Dialect Society
Mander, James (1824)The Derbyshire Miners' Glossary. Bakewell : Printed at the Minerva Press, for the author by G. Nall (High Peak and Wirksworth districts)
Pegge, Samuel (1896)Two Collections of Derbicisms; ed. byW. W. Skeat & T. Hallam. London: for the English Dialect Society by H. Frowde, Oxford University Press
Braber, N. (2014). 'The concept of identity in the East Midlands'. English Today 30: 3–10.
