Dialect Hunt Aims To Update Prized English Language Archive

An anonymous reader shares a report: Was you or were you having your tea, dinner or supper last night? Before it, were you feeling clammish, clemmed, starving, hungry, leary or just plain clempt? Are you still whanging in Yorkshire? Haining in Somerset? Hocksing in Cambridgeshire? Hoying in Durham? Pegging in Cheshire? Pelting in Northamptonshire? Yarking in Leicestershire? Or do you throw now? How do you pronounce scone? Researchers from the University of Leeds are interested in answers to all such questions as they embark on a heritage project to help explore and preserve England's dialects. Details have been announced of how the university plans to use its prized archive of English life and language that was gathered by Leeds University fieldworkers in the 1950s and 1960s. The results remain the most famous and complete survey of dialects in England. The university said it was making its extensive library of English dialects accessible to the public through the launch of The Great Big Dialect Hunt. It said researchers would be searching for "new phrases and expressions to bring the archive into the 21st century and preserve today's language for future generations."

British English

[ShanghaiBill]

English was a perfectly good language until the British ruined it.

I'm glad you asked

[93 Escort Wagon]

"Are you still whanging in Yorkshire?"

Well, I don't like to brag, but...

Re:

[Tim the Gecko]

There's a place called Wetwang [wikipedia.org] in Yorkshire. The late lamented Richard Whiteley was honorary mayor.

Re:

[hey!]

Also known as "Nindalf" in Sindarin.

Yorkshire Placenames

[Roger W Moore]

...as well as Penistone [wikipedia.org], Crackpot [wikipedia.org] in Swaledale and Booze [wikipedia.org] just next door in Arkengarthdale to name but a few. Although the best Yorkshire booze is Old Peculier [theakstons.co.uk] which you can find in Hawes [wikipedia.org].

Make it international

[Catvid-22]

It said researchers would be searching for "new phrases and expressions to bring the archive into the 21st century and preserve today's language for future generations."

And not just American. There are more Asians and Africans writing or speaking some form of English than there are Eliza Doolittles [archive.org] in England or the rest of the British Isles.

Re:

[hey!]

America has the largest English speaking population. It is also the most numerous.

As prof Higgins said ...

[psergiu]

Higgins:
Look at her, a prisoner of the gutter,
Condemned by every syllable she utters.
By right she should be taken out and hung,
For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue.

Eliza:
Aaoooww!

Higgins:
Aaoooww!
Heavens, what a noise!
This is what the British population,
Calls an elementary education.

Pickering:
Come, sir, I think you picked a poor example.

Higgins:
Did I?
Hear them down in Soho square,
Dropping "h's" everywhere.
Speaking English anyway they like.
You sir, did you go to school?

Man:
Wadaya tike me for, a fool?

Higgins:
No one taught him 'take' instead of 'tike'!

Hear a Yorkshireman, or worse,
Hear a Cornishman converse,
I'd rather hear a choir singing flat.
Chickens cackling in a barn,
Just like this one here.

Eliza:
Garn!

Higgins:
I ask you, sir, what sort of word is that?

It's "Aaoooww" and "Garn" that keep her in her place.
Not her wretched clothes and dirty face.

Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
This verbal class distinction, by now,
Should be antique.
If you spoke as she does, sir,
Instead of the way you do,
Why, you might be selling flowers, too!

Pickering:
I beg your pardon!

Higgins:
An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him.
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him.
One common language I'm afraid we'll never get,
Oh, why can't the English learn to set a good example to people whose
English is painful to your ears?
The Scots and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely disappears.

In America, they haven't used it for years!

Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
Norwegians learn Norwegian,
the Greeks are taught their Greek.
In France every Frenchman knows his language from "A" to "Zed"

The French never care what they do, actually, as long as they pronounce it properly.

Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning,
The Hebrews learn it backwards,
which is absolutely frightening.
But use proper English and you're regarded as a freak.

Why can't the English,
Why can't the English,
Learn To Speak?

"Pegging in Cheshire"

[devslash0]

...sounds kink.

Four question survey.

[Mal-2]

What are your local slang terms for eating?
What are your local slang terms for drinking?
What are your local slang terms for fighting?
What are your local slang terms for stealing?
What are your local slang terms for fucking?

That should cover about 90% of all the "interesting" variants worthy of documentation.

Re:

[OrSpace]

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