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It's mostly been said, but it speaks volumes that the OP buys-in to the idea that language can be 'fixed' in a 'correct' form. Said above: "You’re championing a particular way of speaking that is specific to a particular time and culture in the belief that it is correct".
Language is oral. Trying to create a fixed 'version' is a social construct and a political one, perhaps with good intentions as the case with a requirement for the early broadcasters (BBC) 'so everyone can understand' or not so nice, to differentiate class and hence worth purely by birth-right and 'education', to impose class as a tool for superior-inferior notions.
I do understand the desire to teach an accepted version of British English to a certain level for professional and official interactions. But spoken language is completely different. Someone said it up-thread that we inherently know to use different language/dialect/structure in different settings. Dialects derive from the fact the working class didn't move around much, even with the invent of the bicycle people may have only travelled 10-15 miles from their home over their lifetimes through to the 1950's. Michael Palin said it in his overview piece the other day - people like him were the first to travel outside their district, because of education opportunities opening up with the 1950's Labour Government. During insular periods, regional dialects intensify, with mixing during periods of big social change, dialects homogenise.
Consider the opposite - Welsh was not formally written down until 1300's. It is generally accepted that there are formally two dialects (of course there were many more), North and South Welsh. A massively historical thing related to kingdoms and invasions. But when the education boards were set up in the south, South Welsh became the 'correct' dialect in examination. My Welsh speaking friends had to re-learn some vocabulary and much grammar in order to pass the Welsh exams. They were not happy about it, rightly so really, because the North Welsh version would not have been 'incorrect' just not 'approved'. It speaks of control of cultures and far more. Discounting dialect as 'wrong' - and allowing or subduing changing language use - is about political rule. Also see 'standard Chinese'.
"This, backed up with light entertainment is how we stereotype regional accents with peculiarities, humour and unintelligence whereas they are fascinating evidence of human migration, settlement, technological and cultural change." where is the like button! Said far better than I could.
Well I'm from Worcester, and grew up in Whitley Bay, so I'm buggered basically...
My mum is from Stratford upon Avon and the entire in-law family consider her to be the poshest person they know and swear blind she is broad Brummie...go figure!
I rather enjoy accents and variations in dialect. Well except for those toffee-nosed twits speaking the so called Queen's English with Received Pronunciation haha 😉
"Ten while two" is definitely a Yorkshire pattern, possibly just West Yorkshire. I grew up in South Cumbria and never heard it until I moved to near Skipton. Most worrying at traffic lights when someone tells you to "wait while green"!
@alanf - "laiking" is derived from old Norse, the same route as "lek" in modern Nordic languages - fartlek = speed play. I worked for a while with a Norwegian, he'd moved over here and was living around York. He noted that looking at a map of the area he might as well have been in Norway as pretty well all the place names used Nordic terms: names ending in "ber", "by", etc.
Chaucer was the first to write in English vernacular
nah, Wycliffe's Vulgate Bible was early 1380's and Gawain the Greene Knight and Pearl could have been as early as the 1370s (but more likely the 1380's) Chaucer was perhaps the most well known to us, but folk were writing in English before/alongside him.
and the people doing the writing often spoke / wrote Latin so tried to make English fit Latin grammar rules or imposed Latin grammar rules into written English
No, the folk who were writing in 'vulgar' English understood that the rules for it's grammar were different to Latin (and courtly/legal French) so understood they needed to change, it's one of the reasons it was so long in the making. The "Glosses" that helped folk understand and interpret the bible were some of the first things written into middle English, and probably influenced Chaucher and the unknown poet of The Pearl, and Gawain.
Edit: Interestingly (or not...) some of the first early English books in the 14thC were how to teach young gentlemen how to speak French. Indicating that for many (posh) folk, English (rather than Latin of French) was their first language, and that they 1. could read and write in English, and that 2. French however, was still considered to be essential
Edit 2: There's much muttering in legal circles in the 14thC about how the first thing one has to do with a new clerk is to teach him French, and much piss taking by French diplomats and businessmen about how "regional" and "provincially" the English speak French. proving that this argument is as old as time.
Not sure if I'm on the correct path with this but im fine with the traditional language variants around the country but what I'm not keen on is the current trend of inner city (mainly London) "yoof" dialect that seems to be the new norm with younger folk. As an example we have a younger lad in the office who speaks in this way and says things like "arks" instead of "ask". This pisses me off if I'm honest??
My 19 year old son is a little guilty of dropping into this way of speaking much to my chagrin.
I’m not keen on is the current trend of inner city (mainly London) “yoof” dialect that seems to be the new norm with younger folk. As an example we have a younger lad in the office who speaks in this way and says things like “arks” instead of “ask”. This pisses me off if I’m honest??
Thus was it ever so, the inevitable shift into old fogeyness. It irritates me too, but then I'm fascinated as to what 'standard' spoken English will be in another 20 years. I fully expect to be shouting at the tellybox*, telling my wife that I can't understand a bloody word of what that presenter is saying.
*I'm there already, language from the cathode ray generation...
Dialects are fascinating. I grew up in Leicestershire but my mum is from the potteries so we have always used those bits. Moved to Sheffield for uni- not a huge difference. Started work in barnsley 12 miles up the M1. OMG! I can’t understand a word.
10 while 2 is just the tip of the iceberg. “How did you hurt your ankle?” “I went o’er causey edge...”
best ever was “I got hit wi a boyit in’t heeyid”- “a bullet?” - “ no, a booyit”- pointing at his foot/fooyit...
Gerroveryersen
As an example we have a younger lad in the office who speaks in this way and says things like “arks” instead of “ask”. This pisses me off if I’m honest??
You're old. You're supposed to be pissed off with young people. They're lazy and their music isn't even music.
The OP seems to assume that there was one English language that was created and then other people started doing it 'wrongly'. This is the opposite of what happened - there were many dialects and influences all over the country, and different languages from different roots, and the idea of 'standard' English only arose at some point probably in the 18th century with the dominance of a London-based high society. But then again, that's when we started importing loads of French words, so perhaps that's not even correct 🙂
A lot of the "rules" of English (e.g. not ending a sentence with a preposition) that self-professed grammar Nazis like to bring up actually come from a style guide published I think early 19th century (?) - they are only guidelines, but they were pushed so hard people think they are rules. They aren't, and there aren't any actual rules. So the grammar Nazis are in fact deliciously wrong 🙂
"It is exactly this kind of errant pedantry up with which I will not put."
I resent this idea that regional and class-specific accents are in some way inadequate but this is inadvertently reinforced by the wannabe adopters of inarticulacy in mock cockney or S. London Caribbean. I got sent to speech therapy whilst at junior school because of my docklands accent which the posh teacher couldn't comprehend whereas my father could quote Shakespeare and Marx in perfect Wapping English. The therapist couldn't find a problem and I ended up going a bit further in education than that particular teacher.
A lot of the “rules” of English (e.g. not ending a sentence with a preposition) that self-professed grammar Nazis like to bring up actually come from a style guide published I think early 19th century (?) – they are only guidelines, but they were pushed so hard people think they are rules. They aren’t, and there aren’t any actual rules. So the grammar Nazis are in fact deliciously wrong
The classic example is split infinitives (To boldly go). Put in place simply because you can't have one in Latin.
nah, Wycliffe’s Vulgate Bible was early 1380’s and Gawain the Greene Knight and Pearl could have been as early as the 1370s (but more likely the 1380’s) Chaucer was perhaps the most well known to us, but folk were writing in English before/alongside him.
IIRC Chaucer was (one of?) the first to use vernacular English to make a particular point - he gave one of his characters a regional dialect/accent to suggest a provincial/bumpkin kind of outlook.
On the OP's original point, language is of course oral first and written second. Not long before Chaucer, Britain was full of competing powers and languages, and there was no one 'correct' version. (Scholars now can have a good guess as to where a manuscript was written by analysing the 'accent' it was written in).
The idea that there were 'rules' of grammar that must be followed wasn't really common until much later (17th Century I think?) when people started codifying them by writing them down in books. And they were (and still are!) argued over for quite a while.
So yeah. We have been slowly converging on one common dialect for the UK. But the idea that some versions were more 'educated' or 'higher class' did start pretty early.
According to the locals round here, since moving from Bristol to Torquay some twenty years ago, I pretty much still sound like a farmer, albeit I may now call people bey.
Gurt lush innit me babber. 😉
So some of the grammar rules that grammar pendants love
Look up histories of places on the East coast like Hornsea and Skipsea and the sea in the name is reference to inland lake not the sea, which is I believe Norse. Also lots of words a supposed to have originated from Scandi languages.
As a kid, if were going out playing we would say “are you laiking out” which is possibly from old Norse origins.
I think in modern German it's 'see' pronounced like 'say', all the lakes in Bavaria have this suffix e.g. Königssee (King's Lake)
Lek is modern Swedish for 'play'.
In reference to a time period he’ll say “10 while 12.”
My American wife used to say 'ten of twelve' and I wasn't actually sure if this meant 'ten to' or 'ten past'.
Welsh was not formally written down until 1300’s. It is generally accepted that there are formally two dialects (of course there were many more), North and South Welsh. A massively historical thing related to kingdoms and invasions. But when the education boards were set up in the south, South Welsh became the ‘correct’ dialect in examination.
This is exactly what happened in England and especially Scotland. It's also entirely normal in Switzerland and no-one apparently thinks twice that the language they have to use in education is different to that which they speak in daily and work life.
I have read that Welsh has changed less than English since mediaeval times because literacy was more widespread amongst the common population, however I cannot find a link to that. Wikipedia says that Middle Welsh (C12th-C14th) is reasonable intelligible to a modern speaker, however I can't make a lot of sense out of Chaucer from the similar period. Mostly it seems (reading modern and original side-by-side) because of the vocabulary rather than the structure.
One more observation - I knew about the Academie Francais attempting to control the French language, but I did not know until recently that the Dutch have a formal language authority as well. However they keep revising and changing things, so that what people of my age learned in school is now technically incorrect! You have to keep reading the annual updates to stay abreast of changes, like some sort of industrial standards. Who's going to do that after they've left school?! Pedants like the OP I assume 🙂
he gave one of his characters a regional dialect/accent to suggest a provincial/bumpkin
The Prioress has a nasally tone, which Chaucer uses as part of her fakery of upper class, and pilgrims like the Dartmouth Sailor have strong accents words like "Hende" for clever/artful (Nicolas in the Miller's tale) are words that were common but now lost, but I don't think the idea that because one spoke with a strong regional accent made one a bumpkin would've been one that folk in 14thC England would be familiar with, as everyone from the Magnates downward would've had strong regional accents. They're much more familiar with the idea that what one did indicated your social status
Edit: Although it's not the 14thC but one of the things that made people wary of Edward II was not only that he was overly keen on a select number of male courtiers, but that he liked doing socially "lower class" things like ditching and hedging, and rowing which made the other Barons and Earls and so on v uncomfortable. It was those distinctions of class that were important in the medieval world.
Britain was full of competing powers and languages
Not really. Most folk spoke English, the nobs and nobility (and lawyers) spoke/used French, and the church and medics spoke and used Latin fo'shure....But the language of power in the medieval world was most certainly French
As an example we have a younger lad in the office who speaks in this way and says things like “arks” instead of “ask”. This pisses me off if I’m honest??
If Grangehill 40 years ago taught me anything other than Just Say No it’s that this is common in London.
So MBoy.
Did that go according to plan?
It was all academic come the Webolution. You’ll be too busy polling for impressions to care much about whether a newt is an eft or an effet. Don’t be gaking at the clavy as the fire of language sputters and fades into commercial spam.
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But the language of power in the medieval world was most certainly French
And the English expression for a common language is lingua franca, which translates literally as...
grum
I associate what you’re talking about with Essex, and no one here (s Cumbria) really talks like that, even the people with strong regional accents.
Which bit?
I'm learning Scottish Gaelic and have pronunciation arguments with my native speaking wife. That's because formalised/taught Gaelic is based on the Skye dialect and she is from Lewis.
I think 'aks' stems from American hip hop, which is quite popular in London I believe.
Other than that, the majority of bastardization seems to be in either the provincial areas of the country or areas that would be considered working class. You may find some correlation between increased mis-use of the language with areas of lower wealth & living standards.
I think ‘aks’ stems from American hip hop, which is quite popular in London I believe.
Kids in my primary school used to say that, 40 years ago. I think it's another one of those things that no-one bothers to train out any more - either that or it's an affectation, an inverse aspiration with regards to education. This has been popular for decades.
And the English expression for a common language is lingua franca, which translates literally as…
It apparently doesn't mean 'French'. From Wikipedia:
The term lingua franca derives from Mediterranean Lingua Franca, the pidgin language that people around the Levant and the eastern Mediterranean Sea used as the main language of commerce and diplomacy from late medieval times..
In Lingua Franca (the specific language), lingua means a language, as in Italian, and franca is related to phrankoi in Greek and faranji in Arabic as well as the equivalent Italian and Portuguese. In all three cases, the literal sense is "Frankish", leading to the direct translation: "language of the Franks". During the late Byzantine Empire, "Franks" was a term that applied to all Western Europeans.
I heard a belter a while back at a shopping center in Castleford. 3 yoots behind me in the socially distanced que (Nike store obvs).
'Sheesh, man needs a drink innit'
The ensuing conversation led me to believe that the person speaking was thirsty & needed refreshment. In some ways actually I admire the effort taken to come up with such a completely alternative way of expressing oneself, even if for the most part it's totally nonsensical.
Often due to the influence of invading/raiding scandiwegians
The closer you get to the North Sea coast, the more Viking/Dane/Angle influences
I love the way my m-I-l says “I would have went…” instead of “I would have gone…” (Whitley Bay)
You also need to remember that language was spoken before it was written down and the people doing the writing often spoke / wrote latin so tried to make English fit Latin grammar rules or imposed Latin grammar rules into written English. So some of the grammar rules that grammar pendants love actually have nothing to do with English.
Bloody europeans coming over here influencing our culture, setting our language rules. At least on 1st Jan 2021 we will all be able to talk "proper english" without having to do what the EU says...
We used laikin’ in Cumbria as @whitestone says comes from lek and survives (just) as larking. Also used lowpin’ which I suppose is now leaping. My nana (west Cumbria) used mowdiwaff to talk about moles in the garden, which comes from moldvarp surely? No Scandi ancestry in the family, at least not in two or three hundred years, so must’ve been a hangover from the Vikings. She used to say where yer goan till? - the preposition til is Swedish is it not?
There was not much Norman penetration (lol) into that part of the world afaiaw
Louping? Common enough usage in my circles. That's Central Scotland and now the Highlands.
https://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/lowping_vbl_n
The Queen’s bastardisation of traditional British English and English English?
Most people in Britain speak with a regional accent or dialect. However, about 2% of Britons speak with an accent called Received Pronunciation (also called "the Queen's English", "Oxford English" and "BBC English"), that is essentially region-less.
The major divisions are normally classified as English English (or English as spoken in England, which encompasses Southern English dialects, West Country dialects, East and West Midlands English dialects and Northern English dialects), Ulster English in Northern Ireland, Welsh English (not to be confused with the Welsh language), and Scottish English (not to be confused with the Scots language or Scottish Gaelic language). The various British dialects also differ in the words that they have borrowed from other languages. Around the middle of the 15th century, there were points where within the 5 major dialects there were almost 500 ways to spell the word though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_English
lowpin - common scottish word
till - commonly used in NE scotland
Mowdie?
Cumbrian and Northumbrian English have a lot in common with Scots English. Scots English came into being when the Kigdom of Northumbria reached well into the Lothians so there would likely have been a continuum back then.
Even the Queen's English has changed in her lifetime - just listen to a recent speech of hers versus an older one.
The other point about speaking to the context is valid. I speak differently at work than when with friends for example, and will use different words or pronunciations with different groups. As an example two place names near here are Louth and Saltfleetby. WIth non-Lincolnshire folk they would be pronounced as 'Lowth' and 'Salt-Fleet-Bee'. In LIncolnshire it would be Low-uth, and either Salt-fleet-bye, or (for the really local) Sollerby.
I love the variety of accents and dialects in English 😋 Did anyone see the Brian Johnson Meets Dave Grohl thing on Sky Arts? Both speaking the same language but you could see that Dave Grohl was having to work to understand Brian Johnson sometimes- "wey aye bonny lad man, that's magic" was a good one 😆
Do you think that those who speak in a dialect can understand the gist of another dialect more easily than someone who has only ever spoken RP English? Say someone from the Scottish Borders talking to someone from Cornwall for example?
The Basque dialect changes between valleys enough for the word for brother to mean sister in the next valley... Names of days and months change too, not just slightly but completely. Grammatical changes too, Standard basque doesn’t use gendered nouns like in Spanish, but the village I work in has a dialect with gendered pronouns depending on to whom you’re speaking.
I’d recommend checking out Our Magnificent Bastard tongue by John McWhorter. Great book on the roots of English as a language and the influences that different groups and nationalities have had on regional dialects,
The Basque dialect changes between valleys enough for the word for brother to mean sister in the next valley…
That's nothing. In Norfolk the words for sister and wife are interchangeable.
I grew up in East Lancs and 'Laiking' was in common use. My old Grandma (born 1885) used to use thee and thou etc and 'childer' for children' She would also say 'It wants 25 for three' (25 to 3) and '10 after 3'. You never hear things like, " Tha mon get thi sen home" these days, or " Stop tha laikin' about or I'll belt thee". More's the pity ...
mboy, of your OP this is the part that I find to be of most interest:
as I know that 25 miles either north or south of where I live, accents and dialect have changed so much as to be almost unrecognisable as the same language, and can be difficult to understand even for someone with a sharp ear if spoken with a heavy local bias!
What do you claim these accents/dialects have changed from and to? If you were to identify a specific region/locale either 25 miles north or 25 miles south from you so we may then focus on that particular dialect and history?
And the English expression for a common language is lingua franca, which translates literally as…
It apparently doesn’t mean ‘French’. From Wikipedia:
Huh, every day's a school day. I always assumed it had the same roots as franking a document and meant something like "approved."
English is only a communication tool. It used to be a precise instrument, rather like a sharp chisel wielded by craftsmen.
Now it’s a wobbly stick with a bit of foam rubber on the end being jabbed by everyone at anything.
Of course if you take that attitude into a legal process then best of luck stickboy.
I grew up in East Lancs and ‘Laiking’ was in common use. My old Grandma (born 1885) used to use thee and thou etc and ‘childer’ for children’ She would also say ‘It wants 25 for three’ (25 to 3) and ’10 after 3′. You never hear things like, ” Tha mon get thi sen home” these days, or ” Stop tha laikin’ about or I’ll belt thee”. More’s the pity …
You beat me to an almost identical post, only I not only grew up in East Lancs, I'm still here. Whereabouts were you?
Not come across childer or the time one, but the rest is totally my grandparents (and by association, me also, 40 years ago).
I think you might enjoy my Prabux & Imbux thread from a few years back. I'll shamelessly abuse my powers to reopen it if you like. (-:
Brilliant thread - lots of really interesting details coming out here.
Bravo STW.
For a clear concise explanation
It used to be a precise instrument, rather like a sharp chisel wielded by craftsmen.
It's all things to all men. One of the beauties of English is that it can provide for sonnets and build instructions alike. It's just as useful for "Perle, plesaunte to prynces paye To clanly clos in golde so clere" as it is for "slot tab A into hole B" That it keeps evolving is nature's way of letting you know that your time here is finite, and shouldn't you be worrying about more important things than how the young folk speak to each other.
That it keeps evolving is nature’s way of letting you know that your time here is finite, and shouldn’t you be worrying about more important things than how the young folk speak to each other.
Totally agree. The real language shit is just starting to drop however.