One lexical feature distinguishing Pitmatic from otherNorthumbrian dialects, such asGeordie andMackem, is its use of theminingjargon prevalent in localcollieries. For example, inTyneside andNorthumberland,Cuddy is a nickname forSt. Cuthbert, while in Alnwick Pitmatic, acuddy is apit pony.[3] According to theBritish Library's lead curator of spoken English, writing in 2019, "Locals insist there are significant differences between Geordie and several other local dialects, such as Pitmatic and Mackem. Pitmatic is the dialect of the former mining areas in County Durham and around Ashington to the north of Newcastle upon Tyne, while Mackem is used locally to refer to the dialect of the city of Sunderland and the surrounding urban area of Wearside".[4]
Traditionally, the dialect used theNorthumbrian burr, wherein /r/ is realised as[ʁ].[5] This is now very rare.[6]: 40 As a result of the burr, the traditional dialect undergoes theNurse-north merger in words likeforst 'first' andbord 'bird', which came about as a result ofburr modification.[citation needed]
While Pitmatic was spoken by miners throughout theGreat Northern Coalfield — fromAshington in Northumberland toFishburn in County Durham — sources describe its particular use in the Durham collieries.[2][7][8][9] Pitmatic is distinct from the traditional agricultural speech of the Wear and Tees valleys in County Durham, which is classified as part of the 'West Northern' dialect group.[10]
According to Bill Griffiths, the emergence of Pitmatic in County Durham is closely tied to the historical spread of heavy industry southward from the lower Tyne, beginning in the northern and western parts of County Durham and subsequently extending into the eastern districts. As industrialisation progressed, the speech of Tyneside, associated with the 'North Northern' dialect group, functioned as asuperstrate, particularly among mobile industrial workers and in urbanised mining communities. This Tyneside superstrate came into contact with the older County Durhamsubstrate, resulting in a series ofcontact varieties.[11]
Although he did not use the term "Pitmatic",Alexander J. Ellis's seminal survey of English dialects in the late nineteenth century included the language of "Pitmen",[10]: 637–641 focusing on the region "between riversTyne andWansbeck" and drawing on informants fromHumshaugh,Earsdon, andBackworth.[10]: 674 Dialect words in Northumberland and Tyneside, including many specific to the coal-mining industry, were collected byOliver Heslop and published in two volumes in 1892 and 1894 respectively.[12]
A dictionary of East Durham Pitmatic spoken inHetton-le-Hole, compiled by Rev. Francis M. T. Palgrave, was published in 1896[13] and reprinted in 1997.[14] The heritage society of nearbyHoughton-le-Spring produced a list of words and phrases in 2017 collected over the preceding five years.[15]Harold Orton compiled acorpus (dataset) of dialect forms for 35 locations in Northumberland and northern Durham, known as theOrton Corpus.[16][17]
Pit Talk in County Durham, an illustrated, 90-page pamphlet byDave Douglass, a local miner, was published in 1973.[18] In 2007,Bill Griffiths produced a dictionary of Pitmatic where each entry includes information on a word'setymology;[19] it was well reviewed.[20] In an earlier work,[21]Griffiths cited a newspaper of 1873 for the first recorded mention of the term "pitmatical".[2]
^"The New Electorate".The Times. No. 31531. 21 August 1885. p. 4, col. 6. (At theOakenshaw pit in County Durham): "[A]fter a few minutes delay in the overman's cabin, thronged with men talking an unintelligible language known, I was informed, as Pitmatic, we took our places".
^Priestly, J. B. (1934)."Chapter Ten: To East Durham and the Tees".English Journey. New York:Harper & Brothers. pp. 265–266.OCLC69655102 – via Internet Archive.The local miners have a curious lingo [...] which they call 'pitmatik.' It is [...] a dialect within a dialect, for it is only used by the pitmen when they are talking among themselves. The women do not talk it. When the pitmen are exchanging stories of colliery life, [...] they do it in 'pitmatik,' which is Scandinavian in origin, far nearer to the Norse than the ordinary Durham dialect.
^Palgrave, Rev. Francis Milnes Temple; Ridley, David (foreword) (1997) [1896].Hetton-le-Hole Pitmatic Talk 100 Years Ago: a Dialect Dictionary of 1896.Gateshead: Johnstone-Carr.ISBN978-0-953-14020-6.OCLC41358108.
^Wainwright, Martin (30 July 2007)."Lost language of Pitmatic gets its lexicon".The Guardian. Retrieved22 August 2021.His new book reveals an exceptionally rich combination of borrowings from Old Norse, Dutch and a score of other languages, with inventive usages dreamed up by the miners themselves.
Wales, Katie (2006). "Chapter 4: Northern English after the Industrial Revolution (1750–1950)".Northern English: A Social and Cultural History.Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. pp. 115–159.ISBN978-0-521-86107-6.OCLC271787609. Describes thesocioeconomic roots and cultural context of northern dialects of English, with Pitmatic mentioned on pages 124-125.
