The Pocket Yorkshire English

ISBN: 9781786751874

Published: 2025-01-14

The dialects of English still spoken in Yorkshire, known collectively as Broad Yorkshire, Tyke or Yorkie, are both colourful and instantly recognisable. This handy beginner's guide to 'how to speak Yorkshire' will have you giving Sean Bean or Jodie Whittaker a run for their money in no time. First, you have to drop your Hs, from 'has' and 'her' for example - 'as and 'er. Then, the Ts need to go, from 'that' and 'cat' for example, to be replaced with a slight H sound, the so-called glottal stop - tha' and ca' - while 'the' becomes simply t'. A famous example (which no one ever actually says) is 't'in't in't tin, meaning 'it isn't in the tin'. In a similar way 'with' becomes 'wi'. Accents may differ throughout the Dales, but Ts and Hs are dropped throughout Yorkshire. And don't bother with the G in any -ing ending. Gs at the end of words count for nothin'. The 'ay' sound in a word, like 'day', becomes 'ee', as do some i sounds - 'right', for example, becomes 'reet'. So, in Yorkshire,...