Pitmatic

PitmaticTemplate:Sndoriginally 'pitmatical'<ref name =Chronicle1873 />Template:Sndis a group of traditional Northern English dialects spoken in rural areas of the Great Northern Coalfield in England.

One lexical feature distinguishing Pitmatic from other Northumbrian dialects, such as Geordie and Mackem, is its use of the mining jargon prevalent in local collieries. For example, in Tyneside and Northumberland, Cuddy is a nickname for St. Cuthbert, while in Alnwick Pitmatic, a cuddy is a pit pony.<ref>Sadgrove, Michael (3 July 2005). Mining for Wisdom (sermon). The Ordination of Deacons. Durham Cathedral. Archived from the original on 23 May 2014. Retrieved 26 June 2024.</ref> According to the British 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".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Traditionally, the dialect used the Northumbrian burr, wherein /r/ is realised as Template:IPA.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> This is now very rare.<ref name=UrbanNEen>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp As a result of the burr, the traditional dialect undergoes the Nurse-north merger in words like forst 'first' and bord 'bird', which came about as a result of burr modification.Template:Citation needed

Dialectology

While Pitmatic was spoken by miners throughout the Great Northern Coalfield Template:Emdash from Ashington in Northumberland to Fishburn in County Durham Template:Emdash sources describe its particular use in the Durham collieries.<ref name =Chronicle1873 /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref name=EllisV5 />

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 a superstrate, particularly among mobile industrial workers and in urbanised mining communities. This Tyneside superstrate came into contact with the older County Durham substrate, resulting in a series of contact varieties.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Dictionaries and compilations

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",<ref name=EllisV5>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Rp focusing on the region "between rivers Tyne and Wansbeck" and drawing on informants from Humshaugh, Earsdon, and Backworth.<ref name=EllisV5 />Template:Rp Dialect words in Northumberland and Tyneside, including many specific to the coal-mining industry, were collected by Oliver Heslop and published in two volumes in 1892 and 1894 respectively.<ref>Template:Cite book Volume I (A to F) (1892). Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & co. for the English Dialect SocietyTemplate:Sndvia Internet Archive. Volume II (G to Z) (1894). Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press for the English Dialect SocietyTemplate:Sndvia Internet Archive.</ref>

A dictionary of East Durham Pitmatic spoken in Hetton-le-Hole, compiled by Rev. Francis M. T. Palgrave, was published in 1896<ref name=Palgrave>Template:Cite book Via The Salamanca Corpus Digital Archive of English Dialect Texts</ref> and reprinted in 1997.<ref name=PalgraveReprint>Template:Cite book</ref> The heritage society of nearby Houghton-le-Spring produced a list of words and phrases in 2017 collected over the preceding five years.<ref name=NotMackems>Template:Cite web</ref> Harold Orton compiled a corpus (dataset) of dialect forms for 35 locations in Northumberland and northern Durham, known as the Orton Corpus.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book Vol. 10 of Studia Anglistica Norvegica, Template:ISSN.</ref>

Pit Talk in County Durham, an illustrated, 90-page pamphlet by Dave Douglass, a local miner, was published in 1973.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2007, Bill Griffiths produced a dictionary of Pitmatic where each entry includes information on a word's etymology;<ref name=Griffiths2007>Template:Cite book</ref> it was well reviewed.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In an earlier work,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Griffiths cited a newspaper of 1873 for the first recorded mention of the term "pitmatical".<ref name =Chronicle1873>Template:Cite news</ref>

Vocabulary

Pitmatic words and expressions include: Template:Columns-list

* from Houghton-le-Spring Heritage Society (2017)<ref name=NotMackems />
Template:Sup from Griffiths (2007)<ref name=Griffiths2007 />

Culture

In 2000, Melvyn Bragg presented a programme about Pitmatic on BBC Radio 4 as part of a series on English regional dialects.<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref>

Pitmatic is heard in parts of the second episode of Ken Loach's 1975 series Days of Hope,<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref> which was filmed around Esh Winning in Durham; the cast included local actor Alun Armstrong.

The poet, singer-songwriter and entertainer Tommy Armstrong worked mainly in Pitmatic and Geordie.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> British comedian Bobby Thompson, popular across North East England, was famous for his Pitmatic accent.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Related forms of English

Other Northern English dialects include:

• Cumbrian and Northumbrian dialects
  • Geordie (spoken in Tyneside); see also Geordie dialect words
  • Mackem (spoken in Wearside)
  • Smoggie (spoken in Teesside)
• Yorkshire and Lancashire dialects
  • Scouse (spoken in Merseyside)
  • Mancunian (Spoken in Manchester)

See also

• Template:Annotated link
• Template:Annotated link

Further reading

• Template:Cite book Describes the socioeconomic roots and cultural context of northern dialects of English, with Pitmatic mentioned on pages 124-125.

External links

• Den Cutt's list of "Old Words & Phrases, Commonly Known as Pitmatic", from County Durham
• Fred Wade's Pitmatic word list, from South Moor, and Georgie McBurnie's "Pitman's Glossary", from Washington, hosted by the Durham & Tyneside Dialect Group
• "Yam", a poem in Pitmatic read by its author, Douglas KewTemplate:Sndvia YouTube
• "Jowl, Jowl and Listen": film of miners from the Durham and Northumberland coalfields talking in dialect about their work and livesTemplate:Sndvia Vimeo