Introduction

English is now the quintessential lingua franca. It is used in trade, diplomatic and
academic contexts, as well as on the internet, where much of the communication takes
place nowadays. Thus, English is the language associated to technology and progress,
but despite its status or maybe because of it this type of English still lacks something
that probably will never attain. It lacks the charm of the English spoken in small villages
far away from the tumult of the big cities. One of those regions which still preserves the
essence of the English language and resists the influence of evolution is the historic
county of Yorkshire, in the north of England.
Two are the reasons why I chose to focus on the Yorkshire dialect. First, the richness of
its peculiar pronunciation and grammar and its connection with early English and other
North Germanic languages should be appealing to any scholar interested in the history
of language. Second, after becoming familiar with some accents from the south and the
midlands of England, I was interested in increasing my knowledge of northern England
accent, to which the Yorkshire accent belongs, in order to have a broader understanding
of such a phenomenon as the evolution of the diverse English speech.
Objectives
Due to the great number of singular characteristics of Yorkshire accent, this paper is
intended to be only a compilation of the main phonetic, lexical and grammar features
that make it so strange even to English native speakers. Therefore, the present work has
been conducted by way of an overview or a brief approach to the different speech
patterns found in Yorkshire County and their relation to early English.
Methodology
In this paper, I will delve into the main varieties of Yorkshire accent to observe how the

passing of time has differentiated it from the standard British English. I have availed
myself of books such as John Wells Accents of English to learn about the northern
accent in contrast to other British accents, and webpages like Genuki.org.uk to learn
about the historical, cultural and linguistic aspects of such a region as Yorkshire. I
contrasted my data with a northern speaker who lives in Northumbrian, which also
helped me have a more tangible idea of what the Yorkshire accent really sounds like.
The Yorkshire language

As we can deduce from the picture above, the Yorkshire accent belongs to the northern
accent, but, as usually happens with language, such a vast area is not homogeneous in
terms of speech patterns. The Yorkshire speech is usually divided in two groups: North
& East, and West & South, being the former group a little more conservative than the
latter. Before moving on to the different linguistic particularities of the Yorkshire dialect
that mark it off from the standard British accent in terms of pronunciation, grammar and
vocabulary, I shall describe the origins of Yorkshire accent briefly. Judging by the
elements that constitute the Yorkshire speech, the origin of the Yorkshire dialect can be
found in Scandinavia. We can trace the first significant incursions back in the 866 by the
hand of Ethelred. From that moment on, a few incursions by Vikings caused havoc in
northern England. Upon Ethelreds death, the Danes had conquered Northumbria and

the northern area of England, as proved by the names given to certain regions of
England. In relation to their influence on the English language, one could write a long
list of words of Scandinavian origin. However, the proportion of words other than Norse
in the pure dialect of East Yorkshire is rather small. Furthermore, despite the deep
impression that religion made on Northumbria and its surroundings, todays Yorkshire
dialect does not quite stand out for the number of ecclesiastical terms in comparison to
the number of them in other parts of Britain.
Pronunciation
The Yorkshire accent differs from RP in several aspects, most of which make it sound
more conservative than RP and southern accents. The first linguistic feature that I will
look at is rhoticity. From the 15 th to the 17th century, the postvocalic /r/ started to be
weakened and dropped in certain cases, but it was in the 19 th century when London and
its surroundings became non-rhotic. Great part of Yorkshire shares this feature, although
the areas bordering with Lancashire and Northumbrian are considered rhotic. Therefore,
People living in certain areas along the Pennines such as Swaledale, Lonsdale and
Ribblesdale would pronounce farmer with a coloured vowel: []. The rhotic accent
characteristic of Scottish accent extends to some extent down to Northumberland and
the northern areas of Yorkshire as well. Thus, the /r/ sound is dropped postvocally but
still retained in final position, so RP [fa:m] becomes [fa:m] in those northern accents.
Another consonant sound that is characteristic of the northern areas of England is the
velar plosive after nasals. The final sound in words like sing or ring is represented
by [] in most varieties of English nowadays. However, the /n/ and /g/ sound do not merge in
Northern accents, as they did not before about 1600, which cause northern speakers to
pronounce four sounds in ring [r g]. Likewise, singer is pronounced [s g ] and

rhymes perfectly with finger [f g ], which would be unacceptable in RP English

[s ] / [f g ].
Moving on to vowels, we can find several differences between Yorkshire accent and RP,
because of the conservative character of the former. In this section, I will analyse the
five most noticeable features of Yorkshire speech concerning vowel pronunciation.
First of all, Yorkshire speakers, as many northern ones, are not familiar with the FOOTSTRUT split. This split, which is present in most English-speaking areas, took place
during the Middle English period. The pattern that we can see in northern accent, and
therefore in that from Yorkshire, consists of a coincidence between the vowel sounds in
the pair foot and strut and the like because north England resisted the change that
took place about 300 years ago. Thus, Yorkshire speakers pronounce both words with a
short U sound [], which makes putt sound like put or cud like could.
The second main characteristic concerning vowels in Yorkshire accent is the use of a
Flat a in words that are expected to have a Broad a in RP. The split took place in the
18th century, when the /ae/ sound was gradually made longer before voiceless fricatives
[f,t,s] by the London people. As a result, nowadays we have two different sounds in
words such as fast [fa:st] / [faest] depending on the accent.
Speakers from Yorkshire pronounce words such as staff, class and last with a similar
vowel sound to American speakers, that is, /ae/ (American) /a/ (Yorkshire), while
speakers from the south of England, the West Indies and the southern hemisphere would
generally pronounce them with a broad a sound /a:/.
A stressable schwa sound // is part of the vowel system in the north of England, which
tends to appear in words like Nurse. Thus, words like curse are generally pronounced

[ks] in original Yorkshire dialects. This stressed schwa also appears where [e] is
expected, as in [rd] or [vr].
The use of long mid vowels is another feature that characterizes northern conservatism.
Whereas in RP words like face or goat are pronounced [fes] and [gt], Yorkshire
speakers still pronounce them with long monophthongs as they used to be in an earlier
English, so we have [f:s] and [g:t] in this northern region. There is some variation for
the RP diphthong [e], since it can have several realizations depending on the word.
Thus, we get [ge:m] or [g:m] for game, [stt] for straight, and [mk] for make. The
phoneme [] appears in many linguistic contexts in this accent, as we can see in the
pronunciation of words such as near and fear in east Yorkshire, which would be
pronounced [ne] and [fe] respectively. Even more noticeable is the realization of the
// phoneme at the end of words like city and many. While most English speakers
would pronounce them with // or /i/, we may hear [ct] and [men] for city and many if
we are in Yorkshire.
It is also worth pointing out the pronunciation of the word now in Yorkshire accent, as
it is another instance of a retention of an old form of a word. Therefore, now is
pronounced [nu:], as it used to be pronounced in Scandinavian regions. The same
applies to home and again, which are pronounced almost the same as their Danish
counterparts: him and gin respectively.
Finally, the Yorky word owt, which means anything, is pronounced with a sound
that turns out to be very hard to imitate by English speakers from other areas. As an
approximation, we could say that the pronunciation would be between [at] and [t].

Grammar
The Yorkshire dialect grammar differs from English grammar in so many points that it
would be impossible to deal with them all here, which is why I can do nothing but give
a brief outline of some of its most salient grammar particularities.
The definite article the is merged with the noun next to it to the extent that English
speakers from the rest of UK cannot usually understand what is being said, since this
phenomenon may cause a word to mean a completely different thing. Thus, tbairn = the
child or train = the rain.
With reference to personal pronouns, the list in Yorkshire dialect goes like this:

Personal pronoun
Ah
Tha/thoo
e - Shoo/sher
Wer/wi
Yer
Thet/ther

Possessive
Mi/ma
Thi/thy
is - er
Wer/oor
Yer
ther

Possessive pronoun
mine
thine
is - ers
Ahrs /oors
yours
theirs

The present tense of the verb to be is not I am, but I is in Yorkshire dialect.
Furthermore, the is form is used with all the pronouns except for we and you
(plural).
The future tense can be formed by adding will, shall,, bahn, in the West, or off
ti in Northern and Eastern Yorkshire. The conservativism of Yorkshire dialect can be
clearly seen in the formation of the part participle, as en seems to be the preferable
ending: Bid bad bidden ; cut cut cutten ; put put putten.

The comparative and superlative forms of many adjectives are formed by adding er
and est, regardless the number of syllables. For example: This is the most awkward
thing Ive ever seen becomes This is the awkwardest thing Ive ever seen.
Vocabulary
In this section, I will try to cover the main lexicon used in the Yorkshire dialect that
differs from that used in the rest of the English speaking areas. Much of the vocabulary
of the undiluted east-Yorkshire dialect comes from old English. Therefore, we can still
find words such as funden (found), bleike (pale), reke (smoke) and settle (seat) in the
dialect with the same or similar meaning to those in the medieval age.
The main interjections are:
Aa! = oh!;

Aw! = Oh!;

Noo! = well!;

Ger awaa! or ger awaa wi ya! = pooh!;

Si/ha, lo' tha, lo' ya, leeaks ta! = look!; Well-owivver! = indeed!

Whisht, whisht wiya! = hush !

Preposition also differ from the Standard British English usage as follows:
Aboon = above;

Afoor = before;

Fra (ued before a consonant) = from;

Amang = among;

Again = Against;

Frev (used before a vowel) = from

Inti, intil, intul = into

Ower-anenst = over against

Ahint = behind

Nearhand = near

Ower = over

Wi/wiv = With

There are a few particular usages of prepositions in Yorkshire accent. First, the
preposition with is used instead of by in the sense of through, for example: I will
send it with carrier. It is also used in the expressions by myself, by yourself: He
lives with himself. Second, the preposition at is used in lieu of on before days: See
you at Friday. Finally, of is used in the expression for a long while, which
becomes of a long while in Yorkshire dialect

In East Yorkshire, era means from and til means to, but they are not common at all in
Western and southern dialects. However, it seems characteristic of Yorkshire dialect the
use of while in the sense of until, which may give rise to some weird situations if
that meaning of while is not known by everyone involved in a conversation.
The old northern dialect employed gate in the sense of way as a suffix, and it is still
used in the north of Yorkshire. Thus, neea-gates and onny-gates mean no way and
anyway respectively.
Finally, it is worth mentioning some common expressions that Yorkshire people would
express differently. In this respect, we can find that its impossible becomes there
isnt such a thing; remind me of it becomes think me on about it and since I can
remember becomes since I can tell.
Conclusions
It has been impossible to capture all the linguistic characteristics of the Yorkshire accent
in this paper, but I believe it fulfills its two main objectives. First, I learned about
-northern speech patterns with which I was not familiar before. Moreover, my
knowledge of phonetics has improved through the analysis of the sounds used by Tyke
native speakers. Second, this paper outlines the Yorkshire speech in order that students
can have a straightforward initial approach to the accent from Yorkshire.
Bibliography
- Genuki organization. UK & Ireland genealogy. http://www.genuki.org.uk/index.html.
Retrieved January 17, 2015, from
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/Misc/Books/FolkTalk/Chapter2.html
- Rawling. B. The Yorkshire dialect. Yorkshiredialect.com. Retrieved January 17, 2015,
from http://www.yorkshiredialect.com/grammar.htm.

- Wells, J.C. (1982). Accents of English 1. An introduction. Britain. Cambridge

university press.
- Wells, J.C. (1982). Accents of English 2. The British isles. Britain. Cambridge
university press.