Geordie
Template:Short description Template:About Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox language Geordie (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell), sometimes known in linguistics as Tyneside English or Newcastle English, is an English dialect and accent spoken in the Tyneside area of North East England. <ref name="Brockett131" /><ref name="gra1" /><ref name="hott"/><ref name=ene>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=qualityOfHeart>Template:Cite web</ref> It developed as a variety of the old Northumbrian dialect and became especially connected with the city of Newcastle upon Tyne.<ref name =ene/><ref name=qualityOfHeart/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Geordie is also a nickname for a resident of this same region,<ref name="oxf1">Template:Cite web</ref> though there are different definitions of what constitutes a Geordie, and not everyone from the North East identifies as such.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Furthermore, a Geordie can mean a supporter of the football club Newcastle United.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Geordie Schooner glass was traditionally used to serve Newcastle Brown Ale.<ref name=schooner2016>Template:Cite news</ref>
The Geordie dialect and identity are primarily associated with a working-class background.<ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:RsTemplate:Sps</ref> It is often considered not intelligible to many other native English speakers.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A 2008 newspaper survey found the Geordie accent to be perceived as the "most attractive in England" among the British public.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
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History
[edit]Like all English dialects, the Geordie dialect traces back to the Old English spoken by Anglo-Saxon settlers, initially employed by the ancient Brythons who fought Pictish invaders after the end of Roman rule in Britain in the 5th century.<ref name=ene /> The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who arrived became ascendant politically and culturally over the native British through subsequent migration from tribal homelands along the North Sea coast of mainland Europe. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that emerged in the Dark Ages spoke largely mutually intelligible varieties of what is now called Old English, each varying somewhat in phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon. In Northern England and the Scottish borders, then dominated by the kingdom of Northumbria, there developed a distinct Northumbrian Old English dialect, which preceded modern Geordie. The linguistic conservatism of Geordie means that poems by the Anglo-Saxon scholar the Venerable Bede can be translated more successfully into Geordie than into standard modern English.<ref name="VenBede">Template:Cite web</ref>
The British Library points out that the Norse, who primarily lived south of the River Tees, affected the language in Yorkshire but not in regions to the north. This source adds that "the border skirmishes that broke out sporadically during the Middle Ages meant the River Tweed established itself as a significant northern barrier against Scottish influence". Today, many who speak the Geordie dialect use words such as gan ('go' – modern Dutch Template:Lang) and bairn ('child' – modern Danish Template:Lang), which "can still trace their roots right back to the Angles".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Geographical coverage
[edit]People
[edit]When referring to the people, as opposed to the dialect, dictionary definitions of a Geordie typically refer to a native or inhabitant of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, or its environs,<ref name="env1">Template:Cite web</ref> an area that encompasses North Tyneside, Newcastle, South Tyneside and Gateshead.<ref name="Jr1">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="BlaydonRaces">Template:Cite web</ref> This area has a combined population of around 700,000, based on 2011 census-data.
The term itself, according to Brockett, originated from all the North East coal mines.<ref name="Brockett131" /> The catchment area for the term "Geordie" can include Northumberland and County Durham<ref name="gra1" /><ref name="hott" /> or be confined to an area as small as the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and the metropolitan boroughs of Tyneside.<ref name="oxf1" />
Scott Dobson, the author of the book Larn Yersel Geordie, once stated that his grandmother, who was brought up in Byker, thought the miners were the true Geordies.<ref name="ene" /> There is a theory the name comes from the Northumberland and Durham coal mines. Poems and songs written in this area in 1876 (according to the OED), speak of the "Geordie".<ref name="qualityOfHeart" />
Dialect
[edit]Academics refer to the Geordie dialect as "Tyneside English".<ref>Template:Harvcoltxt</ref><ref>Template:Harvcoltxt</ref><ref>Template:Harvcoltxt</ref><ref>Template:Harvcoltxt</ref>
According to the British Library, "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".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Etymology
[edit]A number of rival theories explain how the term Geordie came about, though all accept that it derives from a familiar diminutive form of the name George,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> "a very common name among the pitmen"<ref name="Brockett131">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Brockett187">Template:Cite book</ref> (coal miners) in North East England; indeed, it was once the most popular name for eldest sons in the region.Template:Citation needed
One account traces the name to the times of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715. The Jacobites declared that the natives of Newcastle were staunch supporters of the Hanoverian kings, whose first representative George I reigned (1714–1727) at the time of the 1715 rebellion. Newcastle contrasted with rural Northumberland, which largely supported the Jacobite cause. In this case, the term "Geordie" may have derived from the popular anti-Hanoverian song "Cam Ye O'er Frae France?",<ref>Recorded by the folk group Steeleye Span on their album Parcel of Rogues, 1973.</ref> which calls the first Hanoverian king "Geordie Whelps", a play on "George the Guelph".
Another explanation for the name is that local miners in the northeast of England used Geordie safety lamps, designed by George Stephenson, known locally as "Geordie the engine-wright",<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> in 1815<ref name="Smiles 1859 120">Template:Cite book</ref> rather than the competing Davy lamps, designed about the same time by Humphry Davy and used in other mining communities. Using the chronological order of two John Trotter Brockett books, Geordie was given to North East pitmen; later he acknowledges that the pitmen also christened their Stephenson lamp Geordie.<ref name="Brockett131" /><ref name="Brockett187" />
Linguist Katie Wales<ref name="Wales">Template:Cite book</ref> also dates the term earlier than does the current Oxford English Dictionary; she observes that Geordy (or Geordie) was a common name given to coal-mine pitmen in ballads and songs of the region, noting that such usage turns up as early as 1793. It occurs in the titles of two songs by songwriter Joe Wilson: "Geordy, Haud the Bairn" and "Keep your Feet Still, Geordie". Citing such examples as the song "Geordy Black", written by Rowland Harrison of Gateshead, she contends that, as a consequence of popular culture, the miner and the keelman had become icons of the region in the 19th century, and "Geordie" was a label that "affectionately and proudly reflected this," replacing the earlier ballad emblem, the figure of Bob Crankie.
In the English Dialect Dictionary of 1900, Joseph Wright gave as his fourth definition of "Geordie": A man from Tyneside; a miner; a north-country collier vessel, quoting two sources from Northumberland, one from East Durham and one from Australia. The source from Durham stated: "In South Tyneside even, this name was applied to the Lower Tyneside men."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Newcastle publisher Frank Graham's Geordie Dictionary states:
In Graham's many years of research, the earliest record he found of the term's use dated to 1823 by local comedian Billy Purvis. Purvis had set up a booth at the Newcastle Races on the Town Moor. In an angry tirade against a rival showman, who had hired a young pitman called Tom Johnson to dress as a clown, Billy cried out to the clown:
(Rough translation: "Oh man, who but a fool would have sold off his furniture and left his wife? Now, you're a fair downright fool, not an artificial fool like Billy Purvis! You're a real Geordie! Go on, man, and hide yourself! Go on and get your picks [axes] again. You may do for the city, but never for the west end of our town!")
John Camden Hotten wrote in 1869: "Geordie, general term in Northumberland and Durham for a pitman, or coal-miner. Origin not known; the term has been in use more than a century."<ref name="hott">Template:Cite book</ref> Using Hotten<ref name="hott" /> as a chronological reference, Geordie has been documented for at least Template:Age years as a term related to Northumberland and County Durham.
The name Bad-weather Geordy applied to cockle sellers:
Travel writer Scott Dobson used the term "Geordieland" in a 1973 guidebook to refer collectively to Northumberland and Durham.<ref name="gra1">Template:Cite book</ref>
Linguistic surveys
[edit]The Survey of English Dialects included Earsdon and Heddon-on-the-Wall in its fieldwork, administering more than 1,000 questions to local informants.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The Linguistic Survey of Scotland included Cumberland and Northumberland (using historic boundaries) in its scope, collecting words through postal questionnaires.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Tyneside sites included Cullercoats, Earsdon, Forest Hall, Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, Wallsend-on-Tyne and Whitley Bay.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Phonology
[edit]Template:IPA notice The phonemic notation used in this article is based on the set of symbols used by Template:Harvcoltxt. Other scholars may use different transcriptions. Watt and Allen stated that there were approximately 800,000 people in the early 2000s who spoke this form of British English.<ref>Tyneside English</ref><ref>Tyneside English, Dominic Watt and William Allen</ref>
Tyneside English (TE) is spoken in Newcastle upon Tyne, a city of around 260,000 inhabitants in the far north of England, and in the conurbation stretching east and south of Newcastle along the valley of the River Tyne as far as the North Sea. The total population of this conurbation, which also subsumes Gateshead, Jarrow, North and South Shields, Whitley Bay, and Tynemouth, exceeds 800,000.
Consonants
[edit]Geordie consonants generally follow those of Received Pronunciation, with these unique characteristics as follows:
- Template:IPA appearing in an unstressed final syllable of a word (such as in reading) is pronounced as Template:IPA (thus, reading is Template:IPA).
- The Geordie accent does not use the glottal stop in a usual fashion. It is characterised by a unique type of glottal stops. Template:IPA can all be pronounced simultaneously with a glottal stop after them in Geordie, both at the end of a syllable and sometimes before a weak vowel.Template:Sfnp
- T-glottalisation, in which Template:IPA is realised by Template:IPA before a syllabic nasal (e.g., button as Template:IPA), in absolute final position (get as Template:IPA), and whenever the Template:IPA is intervocalic so long as the latter vowel is not stressed (pity as Template:IPA).
- Glottaling in Geordie is known as 'pre-glottalisation', which is "an occlusion at the appropriate place of articulation and 'glottalisation', usually manifested as a short period of laryngealised voice before and/or after and often also during the stop gap".Template:Sfnp This type of glottal is unique to Tyneside English.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- Other voiceless stops, Template:IPA, are glottally reinforced in medial position, and preaspirated in final position.Template:Sfnp
- The dialect is non-rhotic like most other dialects of England, with Template:IPA being realised most commonly as an alveolar approximant Template:IPAblink, although a labiodental realisation Template:IPAblink is additionally growing in prevalence among younger females. (This variant is also possible, albeit rarer, in the speech of older males.) Traditionally, intrusive R was not present in Geordie, with speakers instead glottalising between boundaries; however, it is present in newer varieties of the dialect.Template:Sfnp
- Yod-coalescence in both stressed and unstressed syllables (so that dew becomes Template:IPA).
- Template:IPA is traditionally clear in all contexts, meaning the velarised allophone is absent. However, modern accents may periodically use Template:IPA in syllable final positions, sometimes it may even be vocalised (as in bottle Template:IPA).Template:Sfnp
Vowels
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- Length
- For some speakers, vowel length alternates with vowel quality in a very similar way to the Scottish vowel length rule.Template:Sfnp
- Vowel length is phonemic for many speakers of Geordie, meaning that length is often the one and only phonetic difference between Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2 (Template:IPA and Template:IPA) or between Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2 (Template:IPA and Template:IPA).Template:Sfnp If older or traditional dialect forms are considered, Template:Sc2 (Template:IPA) also has a phonemic long counterpart Template:IPA, which is mostly used in Template:Sc2 words spelled with Template:Angbr, making minimal pairs such as tack Template:IPA vs. talk Template:IPA (less broad Geordie pronunciation: Template:IPA). Another Template:IPAblink appears as an allophone of Template:IPA before final voiced consonants in words such as lad Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
- Phonetic quality and phonemic incidence
- Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2, Template:IPA, are typically somewhat closer than in other varieties in morphologically closed syllables; Template:IPA is also less prone to fronting than in other varieties of BrE and its quality is rather close to the cardinal Template:IPAblink. However, younger women tend to use a central Template:IPAblink instead.Template:Sfnp In morphologically open syllables, Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2 are realised as closing diphthongs Template:IPA. This creates minimal pairs such as freeze Template:IPA vs. frees Template:IPA and bruise Template:IPA (hereafter transcribed with Template:Angbr IPA for the sake of simplicity) vs. brews Template:IPA.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
- The Template:Sc2 vowel is tense Template:IPAblink and is best analysed as belonging to the Template:IPA phoneme.Template:Sfnp
- As with other Northern English varieties, Geordie lacks the [[Foot–strut split|Template:Sc2–Template:Sc2 split]], so that words like cut, up and luck have the same Template:IPA phoneme as put, sugar and butcher. The typical phonetic realisation is unrounded Template:IPAblink, but it may be hypercorrected to Template:IPAblink among middle-class (especially female) speakers.Template:Sfnp
- The long close-mid vowels Template:IPA, in Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2, may be realised as monophthongs Template:IPA in open syllables or as opening diphthongs Template:IPA in closed syllables. Alternatively, Template:IPA can be a closing diphthong Template:IPA and Template:IPA can be centralised to Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp The opening diphthongs are recessive, as younger speakers reject them in favour of the monophthongal Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
- Other, now archaic, realisations of Template:IPA include Template:IPAblink in snow Template:IPA and Template:IPA in soldiers Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
- Many female speakers merge Template:Sc2 Template:IPA with Template:Sc2 Template:IPA, but the exact phonetic quality of the merged vowel is uncertain.Template:Sfnp
- Template:Sc2, Template:IPA, may be phonetically Template:IPAblink or a higher, unrounded vowel Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp An RP-like vowel Template:IPAblink is also possible.Template:Sfnp
- In older broadest Geordie, Template:Sc2 merges with Template:Sc2 Template:IPA to Template:IPAblink under the influence of a uvular Template:IPAblink that once followed it (when Geordie was still a rhotic dialect).Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp The fact that the original Template:IPA vowel is never hypercorrected to Template:IPAblink or Template:IPAblink suggests that either this merger was never categorical, or that speakers are unusually successful in sorting those vowels out again.Template:Sfnp
- The schwa Template:IPA is often rather open (Template:IPAblink). It also tends to be longer in duration than the preceding stressed vowel, even if that vowel is phonologically long. Therefore, words such as water and meter are pronounced Template:IPA and Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp This feature is shared with the very conservative (Upper Crust) variety of Received Pronunciation.Template:Sfnp
- Words such as voices and ended have Template:IPA in the second syllable (so Template:IPA), rather than the Template:IPA of RP. That does not mean that Geordie has undergone the weak vowel merger because Template:IPA can still be found in some unstressed syllables in place of the more usual Template:IPA. An example of that is the second syllable of seven Template:IPA, but it can also be pronounced with a simple schwa Template:IPA instead. Certain weak forms also have Template:IPA instead of Template:IPA; these include at Template:IPA (homophonous with strong it), of Template:IPA (nearly homophonous with if), as Template:IPA (homophonous with strong is), can Template:IPA and us Template:IPA (again, homophonous with strong is).Template:Sfnp
- As in other Northern English dialects, the Template:Sc2 vowel is short Template:IPA in Geordie, thus there is no London-style trap–bath split. There are a small number of exceptions to this rule; for instance, half,Template:Sfnp master, plaster and sometimes also disaster are pronounced with the Template:Sc2 vowel Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
- Some speakers unround Template:Sc2, Template:IPA, to Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp Regardless of the rounding, the difference in backness between Template:IPA and Template:IPA is very pronounced, a feature which Geordie shares with RP and some northern and midland cities such as Stoke-on-Trent and Derby, but not with the accents of the middle north.Template:Sfnp
- Older traditional Geordie does not always adhere to the same distributional patterns of vowels found in standard varieties of English. Examples of that include the words no and stone, which may be pronounced Template:IPA and Template:IPA, so with vowels that are best analysed as belonging to the Template:IPA and Template:IPA phonemes.Template:Sfnp
| Endpoint | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Template:Small | Template:Small | Template:Small | ||
| Start point | Template:Small | Template:IPA | Template:IPA | Template:IPA |
| Template:Small | Template:IPA | Template:IPA | ||
- Diphthongs
- The second elements of Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2, Template:IPA, are commonly as open as the typical Geordie realisation of Template:IPA (Template:IPAblink).Template:Sfnp
- The first element of Template:Sc2, Template:IPA, varies between Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Traditionally, this whole vowel was a high monophthong Template:IPAblink (with town being pronounced close to RP toon) and this pronunciation can still be heard, as can a narrower diphthong Template:IPA (with town being pronounced close to RP tone).Template:Sfnp
- Template:Sc2 is Template:IPA, but Geordie speakers generally use a less common allophone for certain environments in accordance with the Scottish vowel length rule, Template:IPA, which has a longer, lower, and more back onset than the main allophone. Thus Template:IPA is used in words such as knife Template:IPA, whereas Template:IPA is used in knives Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp For simplicity, both of them are written with Template:Angbr IPA in this article.
Vocabulary
[edit]The Geordie dialect shares similarities with other Northern English dialects, as well as with the Scots language (See Rowe 2007, 2009).
Dorfy, real name Dorothy Samuelson-Sandvid, was a noted Geordie dialect writer.<ref name=Dorphy>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In her column for the South Shields Gazette, Samuelson-Sandvid attests many samples of Geordie language usage, such as the nouns bairn ("child")<ref name=Drflkb2>Template:Cite web</ref> and clarts ("mud");<ref name=Drfhrswrd8/> the adjectives canny ("pleasant")<ref name=Drfhrswrd3>Template:Cite webTemplate:Dead link</ref> and clag ("sticky");<ref name=Drfhrswrd8>Template:Cite webTemplate:Dead link</ref> and the imperative verb phrase howay ("hurry up!"; "come on!")<ref name=Drfhrswrd4/>
Howay is broadly comparable to the invocation "Come on!" or the French "Allez-y!" ("Go on!"). Examples of common use include Howay man!, meaning "come on" or "hurry up", Howay the lads! as a term of encouragement for a sports team for example (the players' tunnel at St James' Park has this phrase just above the entrance to the pitch), or Ho'way!? (with stress on the second syllable) expressing incredulity or disbelief.<ref name=Dorphydialog/> The literal opposite of this phrase is haddaway ("go away"); although not as common as howay, it is perhaps most commonly used in the phrase "Haddaway an' shite" (Tom Hadaway, Figure 5.2 Haddaway an' shite; 'Cursing like sleet blackening the buds, raging at the monk of Jarrow scribbling his morality and judgement into a book.').<ref name=hadaway>Template:Cite book</ref>
Another word, divvie or divvy ("idiot"), seems to come from the Co-op dividend,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> or from the two Davy lamps (the more explosive Scotch Davy<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> used in 1850, commission disapproved of its use in 1886 (inventor not known, nicknamed Scotch Davy probably given by miners after the Davy lamp was made perhaps by north east miners who used the Stephenson Lamp<ref name="Smiles 1859 120"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>), and the later better designed Davy designed by Humphry Davy also called the Divvy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>) As in a north east miner saying 'Marra, ye keep way from me if ye usin a divvy.' It seems the word divvie then translated to daft lad/lass. Perhaps coming from the fact one would be seen as foolish going down a mine with a Scotch Divvy when there are safer lamps available, like the Geordie, or the Davy.
The Geordie word netty,<ref name=Grah87>Template:Cite book</ref> meaning a toilet and place of need and necessity for relief<ref name="Grah87"/><ref name=Griff579>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=Neddy23>Template:Cite book</ref> or bathroom,<ref name=Grah87/><ref name=Griff579/><ref name=Neddy23/> has an uncertain origin.<ref name=Netty123>Template:Cite web</ref> However, some have theorised that it may come from slang used by Roman soldiers on Hadrian's Wall,<ref name=Netty897/> which may have later become gabinetti in the Romance language Italian<ref name=Netty897/> (such as in the Westoe Netty, the subject of a famous painting from Bob Olley<ref name=Netty897>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=Netty898>Template:Cite news</ref>). However, gabbinetto is the Modern Italian diminutive of gabbia, which actually derives from the Latin cavea ("hollow", "cavity", "enclosure"), the root of the loanwords that became the Modern English cave,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> cage,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and gaol.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Thus, another explanation would be that it comes from a Modern Italian form of the word gabinetti,<ref name=Netty123/> though only a relatively small number of Italians have migrated to the North of England, mostly during the 19th century.<ref name=angit>Template:Cite web</ref>
Some etymologists connect the word netty to the Modern English word needy. John Trotter Brockett, writing in 1829 in his A glossary of north country words...,<ref name="Neddy23"/> claims that the etymon of netty (and its related form neddy) is the Modern English needy<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and need.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Bill Griffiths, in A Dictionary of North East Dialect, points to the earlier form, the Old English níd; he writes: "MS locates a possible early ex. "Robert Hovyngham sall make... at the other end of his house a knyttyng" York 1419, in which case the root could be OE níd 'necessary'".<ref name=Griff579/> Another related word, nessy is thought (by Griffiths) to derive from the Modern English "necessary".<ref name=Griff579/>
A poem called "Yam" narrated by author Douglas Kew demonstrates the usage of a number of Geordie words.<ref>Template:Cite video</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
References
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