Ossi Ihalainen Btrwick upoaiwud SOmUcs Map 5.1 English dialect districts, 1887 (redrawn from Ellis' map in his On Early English Pronunciation, 1889) 2 3 6 The dialects of England since 1776 Line 5: the tbeeth line. The northern limit of the use of the standard form of the and the hiss (th), i.e. [6], in conjunction with suspended (t v ) as the definite article, till the returns to the north of line 7. Line 6: the s. hoose line. The southern limit of the pronunciation of the word house as [hu:s]. The hoose line is also the northern limit of the [haus] pronunciation of house. Line 7: the northern tee line. The northern limit of the suspended (t v ) for the definite article. Line 8: the southern sum line in northern England or the southern limit of the unrounding in words like some. Here the direction is 'travelling from Scotland into England'. Line 9: the northern soom line. The northern limit of any variety of the [sum] pronunciation (which may be mixed with unrounded pro- nunciations), 'on proceeding from the Midland counties to Scotland'. Line 10: the limit between 'L [Lowland] Scotch and N [Northern] English speech'. The linguistic border is 'not precisely coincident with the political boundary of England and Scotland': for instance, ' Berwick-on-Tweed and its Liberties, extending 2 to 4 miles into Bw. [Berwickshire], are linguistically part of England', whereas parts of Cumberland and Northumberland are assigned to Scotland (Ellis 1889: 21). Where the linguistic boundary should run seems to have been a controversial question. In this matter, Ellis' views differed from those of Murray and Bonaparte (see Glauser 1974: 49-55 for a discussion). This suggests that the linguistic situation around the border was rather complex, with spill-overs into the neighbour's territory. Since Ellis' day the political border seems to have become linguistically more important, with northern England becoming linguistically more sharply dif- ferentiated from Scotland. 5.6.2 Ellis' divisions On the basis of the ten transverse lines, Ellis divides the dialects of Great Britain into six principal divisions, which are further divided into forty- two districts. The districts are further divided into varieties. The 2 37 Ossi Ihalainen divisions and districts, but not the subdivisions, are indicated on a map attached to Part V of Ellis' On Early English Pronunciation (1889). The divisions and districts are the following: I The southern division: districts 1—12 II The western division: districts 13 and 14 III The eastern division: districts 15—19 IV The midland division: districts 20-9 V The northern division: districts 30—2 VI The lowland division: districts 33-42 The main divisions and the districts in England and Wales are shown in map 5.1 from On Early English Pronunciation, Part V. Districts 1 to 3 of division I represent the ' Celtic Southern', that is Welsh, English, and division VI English as spoken in the Lowlands of Scotland. These will not be discussed here. In addition to the' transverse lines' that are used to differentiate between the principal divisions, Ellis lists a number of other characteristics that he found within each division. Some of these will be discussed below. The following chart summarises the criteria used to differentiate between the divisions, that is, the main dialect areas. Ellis 1889 South West East Mid North Reverted r yes (uncertain) no no no soom no no no yes. yes* /' no no no no yes* /'and <*' [6] no no no yes* no hoose no no no no yes The asterisk (*) indicates that the feature characterises much of the area but not necessarily all of it. Thus much of the north-west of England does not have the /' realisation of the definite article, and there is a small area in Northumberland where some is sum rather than soom. Further differences between the general north and Northumberland include such lexical oppositions as summat vs something, thou vsje, seet vs sight, slape vs slippy 'slippery', nor vs than, wool vs ool 'wool'. The '/' in connection with th'' realisation of the definite article does not occur in the east or the south midlands. Perhaps the most surprising anomaly here is that, besides the fact that these areas are geographically separated from each other, there is nothing to separate Ellis' west from his east. Both are 'straight no' 238 The dialects of England since 1776 dialects. On a lower level of abstraction, of course, the differences are striking. Problems like these pinpoint the difficulty of finding classi- ficatory criteria that support our judgements about linguistic areas, are general enough to cover large areas and yet have considerable discriminatory power. That a small number of criteria do not identify areas that are mutually exclusive simply shows something about dialect areas in general and should not give us concern. For instance, Ellis' soom and sum areas overlap in the east midlands (as they still do) to form a mixed area, a transition zone (Chambers & Trudgill 1980: ch. 8). Ellis admits he is not quite happy with the reverted r line in the west. He says that it exists in his district 13 (the southern part of the western division), but adds that it is 'generally inconspicuous and often uncertain, so that it would not be possible to correct line 3' (1889: 176). The north Herefordshire sample immediately following this passage shows that reverted and non-reverted realisations of /r/ alternate. The SED reports r-retroflexion in almost the whole of Ellis' western division (LAE map Phil 'arm'). The distinction between the south and the west division is further justified by the observation that some important southern and south- western (i.e.'Wessex') characteristics (such as the retraction of the r- sound or the retention of ME at) are non-existent or weakened at best in Ellis' western division (D 13 and D 14). There is, of course, a lot to connect the southern part of Ellis' western division to at least the mid southern variety — both have finite be and periphrastic do, for instance — but Ellis' observations about the western division fractures in such words as they, road, write and doubt and their connection to standard English rather than any indigenous English dialect support his view that underlying much of the western division English is some type of' Book English' rather than a ' pure' dialect. The main characteristics of Ellis' main divisions will be briefly discussed next. The southern division The defining characteristic is the 'reverted' or 'retracted' r. Southern districts 1—3 are called ' the Celtic Southern'. Since this variety occurs on what Ellis calls 'Celtic territory' - that is, in parts of Ireland and Wales - it will not be discussed here. Although he still seems to use this label in its historical sense, Ellis is aware that the south is linguistically less unified than it used to be. The Ossi Ihalainen reverted r still prevails over the southern division, ' but the older main characters, as shewn in D 4, all of which were probably characteristic of the whole division, fade out gradually to the e. of D 4, and become complicated with other characters to the w.' (Ellis 1889: 23). To Ellis, then, the mid southern variety of southern English, which occupies ' the principal seat of the Wessex tribe' (Ellis 1889: 36), is a paradigmatic, historically pure representative southern variety of English. LINGUISTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MID SOUTHERN (I.E. 'WESSEX') VARIETY D 4 Linguistic features of the mid southern variety of southern English include 'reverted' or 'retracted' r, voicing of initial /s/ and /f/, the realisation of thr- as dr-, the use of /ai/ in words like hay and may and the centralisation of the first element in the diphthongs /au/ and /ai/. (The first element is said to be Bell's vowel number 22.) The main grammatical characteristics are: finite be {I be 'I am'), prefixed participial forms (a-done 'done'), periphrastic do (I do go 'I go'), pronoun exchange (Her told I' She told me'), dn for 'him' and ' it', he' it' (as in, Where's the knife ? He's in the kitchen - where you left uri), utch ' I'. A point of historical significance about this list is that the older south- western «-less participial forms, as in i-do 'done' and i-go have been replaced by an «-ful form. 16 Ellis' western division (districts 13 and 14) Ellis characterises the western division type of English as basically Southern English with Welsh influence (D 13), giving in the west the impression of being 'book English spoken by foreigners or a mixture of S. and M. (D 14), where Southern forms are much used'. The western division is bounded by the reverted r line and the sum line; that is, this variety does not retroflex the / sound and has sum rather than soom. The samples included show that Ellis' western dialects are rhotic, but the r is not exclusively the retracted or reverted variety of Southern English. As was pointed out above, Ellis nevertheless felt that there was not enough evidence to make it possible to correct line 3 in the west. The western division covers portions of Monmouthshire, Here- fordshire, Shropshire in England, and of Breconshire, Radnorshire and Montgomeryshire in Wales. Hereford is divided: South-Eastern Here- 240 The dialects of England since 1776 ford belongs to D 4 (the mid southern), and the west of Hereford English becomes more like Welsh English. The western division ' represents on the east comparatively late, and on the west very modern invasions of the English language on the Welsh' (1889: 175). Ellis finds D 13 an 'imperfect dialect' with a considerable amount of Welsh influence: 'In D 13 the groundwork is S. English, which has been altered by Celts in a different way from D 10, 11" (i.e., Cornwall, Devon, West Somerset). PHONOLOGICAL FEATURES OF DISTRICT13 Among the phonological characteristics of D 13 Ellis mentions the 'fine (6)' for [A] (' fine (6)' is a central, schwa-type vowel) and the diphthongs /ai/ and /au/, which have a 'fine (6)' as their first element. (For a phonetic interpretation of Ellis' (6), see Eustace (1969)). Furthermore, Ellis finds the use of [ai] for Middle English ai, a south-western characteristic, 'uncertain', and initial % and v (i.e. voicing of initial fricatives) almost extinct; dr- for thr- (as in three) is lost. In other words, some of the strongest south-western characteristics are doubtful here. As a regional idiosyncrasy Ellis mentions the form /a9/ 'with'. This may seem like an irrelevant detail at first sight, but it is worth noting that with is usually realised as w? in the south-west. The samples show forms like I be, /jsnt/ ' isn't' and her's' she is'. Ellis finds Welsh intonation 'influential' in parts of the western division. For instance, Monmouthshire English is described as 'book English with Welsh intonation and Herefordshire or Gloucestershire tendencies' (1889:183). Pitch movements in Welsh-influenced English, as in the pronunciation of the word likely, are likened to pitch movements in Norwegian. These intonational features are noticeable even today; they create a strange impression of West Country grammar being spoken with the ' wrong' accent. The samples illustrating the varieties of English spoken in District 13 actually suggest to the reader clear grammatical affinities to south- western English. But this aspect of the data is not elaborated on by Ellis. DISTRICT14OF THE WESTERN DIVISION According to Ellis, the reverted r is totally absent. Unlike in D 13, where this feature was 'uncertain', 'Southern' /ai/ (i.e., /ai/ for Middle English ai) in words like day does occur in D 14. The SED data on Middle English ai, published in AES maps 119 to 130, shows that this 241 Ossi Ihalainen pattern still obtains. What is interesting here is that D 13 separates D 14 from the larger /ai/-pronouncing area to the south of the western division. It is possible, then, that D 14 is a residue of an earlier larger area cut off from it by some later developments. As in D 13, /ai/ and /au/ have the 'fine (6)' as their first element. On the other hand, features like the plural present indicative -en {We bin 'We are', We do-en ' We do') and negations of the type bina ' aren't' clearly point to the Midlands and thus distinguish D 14 from D 13. The eastern division (districts 15—19) The eastern division covers the whole or greater part of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Huntingdon- shire, Middlesex, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Rutland, Suffolk and the London metropolitan area. According to Ellis, eastern division English has ' a closer resemblance to received speech than in any other division' (p. 188). The pronunciation in this area is not quite uniform, but the differences are' so slight that it has been found extremely difficult to obtain satisfactory information'. This is basically a non-retroflex, sum- area, but in the north there is a mixed sum/soom region. This mixture seems to have persisted to our days, as can be seen from Chambers & Trudgill (1980: 129-137). Cockney, which is described as eastern and east metropolitan in origin, is treated as part of district 17 ('South Eastern'), but its independent status is recognised by Ellis' division of the south-eastern varieties into 'Metropolitan English' or 'London Town Speech' and 'Rural Speech'. District 19 is East Anglia, one of the areas that, as we have seen, had attracted the attention of early writers on English dialects. Ellis points out that Norfolk and Suffolk English are widely known for their intonation, but regrets that there is no way of describing these characteristics. Another salient point is the so-called 'French (y), of which every one speaks' (p. 260). This is the sound in words such as moon. He concludes that the Norfolk sound is of recent origin and different from the Lancashire moon vowel. Ellis' symbol for the East Anglian moon vowel is a lower-case upright y with the subscript v This is defined as ' a modification of Fr[ench] u in a direction not precisely ascertained' (1889: 87*). The sound is apparently often fractured by beginning with the mouth too open. Ellis concludes his discussion of the moon vowel by stating that' the exact analysis of this curious sound is still to be made'. Dialect writers represent this sound by ew, as in tew, 242 The dialects of England since 1776 or by u as in mune. More recent transcriptions of East Anglian English show a centralised vowel, which may be diphthongised (Kokeritz 1938/9: 41-8; Lodge 1984: 110-20). Kokeritz, however, finds that in Suffolk English the moon vowel shows a great deal of variation and that it is often diphthongised, as in [jeu] 'you'. Other East Anglian characteristics referred to by Ellis are the following: words like name have a monophthong /e:/ (at least in Norfolk) and words like boat (i.e. words with an original OE a:) have /o:/. The ride and bouse vowels show considerable variation. IF and v are commutable, but Ellis believes only the use of w for v to be indigenous, whereas v for w is a hyperurbanism resulting from an attempt to speak received English. East Anglian English has a 'euphonic r', that is, an r sound in contexts like draw-r-ing 'drawing'. It is one of the few local dialects that do not drop aitches. (For the subsequent spread of h- deletion to East Anglia, see Trudgill (1974,1983: 76-7, 1990: 50).) Considering how common the glottal stop is in this area today, it is somewhat significant that Ellis makes no mention of it. If this is not inattention, the development of the glottal stop in this area must have been recent and very rapid. A distinctive grammatical characteristic is the use of uninflected third person singular forms like He know it. Interesting from the viewpoint of the development of dialect areas is Ellis' observation that, although positive forms of finite be, as in I be tired did not occur, negative forms did. This shows that the present finite be area was much larger in Ellis' day. It also shows that the retreat of finite be was gradual, with certain contexts retaining older forms longer than others. There are similar observations by Ellis from the east midlands, where finite be is obsolete today. The samples given by Ellis also show traces of the a- participial prefix. But these appear to be exceptional and the prefix was apparently being more and more confined to the south-west. The midland division (districts 20-9; west midland 22, 25, 28) The midland division, which is bounded on the south by the northern sum line (line 1) and on the north by the northern theeth line (line 5), covers all Cheshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Not- tinghamshire, Staffordshire, the north of Worcestershire and most of Warwickshire, south and mid Lancashire, the north-east of Shropshire. It also extends into Wales, covering 'all detached or English Fl. [i.e. Flint], a small part of main, or Welsh FL, and of Dn. [i.e. Denbigh]'. 2 43 Ossi Ihalainen Dialectally the midland division falls into two distinct and apparently unrelated sections, an eastern comprising D 20 (Lincolnshire) and a western comprising the rest (p. 290). Ellis points out that the midland area is not homogeneous and one cannot look for' any one pervading character', but it must be' defined by negatives': it does not have southern, western, eastern or northern characteristics. The linguistic points that Ellis regards as particularly significant include short u, a for [u:], the diphthongisation of [i:], which according to Ellis is 'the first step in the change of [i:] to [ai], and the development of OE u\ (standard English [au]), which in some part of the west midlands has undergone a further development to a mon- ophthongal [a:]. Ellis finds r, when not before a vowel, totally vocalised in D 20, although he admits that this sound caused great difficulty even to phoneticians, and reliable information from lay assistants (who could not always keep spelling and pronunciation apart) was hard to get. Finally, Ellis found that in the midland division h was universally dropped. Grammatical forms of interest are the definite article, the present indicative plural marker -en, the form for I am, hoo and shoo for she. The definite article has four forms, [&9, 5, 9] and suspended (t v ) in D 21- D 27, but there is much variation in their use. The plural marker, as in you know-en' you know', is universal in D 21, D 22, D 25 and D 26. In D 23 it occurs in a few contracted forms {Anyo ?' Have you ?' Dunyo ?' Do you'?). In D 24 it is only found at the borders of D 22 on the west and D 26 on the south. In D 27 it seems to be practically lost, but Ellis feels this is a recent development. In D 28 it is 'plentiful'. In D 29 it chiefly exists in contracted forms, and ' more in the west than east, but even in Leicestershire there are traces of it'. The form I am separates the midland division from the northern division, which has I is. Invariant be, as in I be 'I am', is seldom used, and most frequently in the negative I ben't; it is confined to the parts of the southern midlands which border on the south division. The pronoun hoo 'she' is prevalent in D 21, D 22, D 25 and D 26, although here also her may be used for she. The form shoo occurs in district 24. The above features can still be found in various degrees in the SED material. The present indicative marker -en shows an area that is basically the area given by Ellis. Thus the SED shows that with true verbs (SED VIII.5.1. 'They go to church', IV.6.2 'They keep hens') the stronghold of the -en suffix is Cheshire, northern Staffordshire and west Derbyshire, although it occurs in the adjoining parts of Lancashire, Yorkshire and 244 The dialects of England since 1776 Shropshire. The use of -en with true verbs like go and say appears to be confined to the north-west midlands. But the -en suffix with be, as in they bin, I bin, is centred further south on Shropshire. The northern division (districts 30—2) The northern division is bounded on the south by the northern theeth line (transverse line 5) and on the north by line 10. The area covers the entire North and East Ridings with some of the West Riding of Yorkshire, northern Lancashire, most of Cumberland and North- umberland, all Westmorland and Durham. Much of this is characterised by the following features. ME u: is retained, as in o't wrang house /ot ran u:s/ 'of the wrong house' (1889: 520). With the exception of the area north of line 7, the definite article is the suspended (t v ). I is is the regular form for I am in most of the northern division. Words like nose and moon have [iu] or [ia]. 'The letter r occasions considerable difficulty', but Ellis concludes that in the east post-vocalic r 'practically disappears' and even in the west 'its power is very small'. R is retained post-vocalically in Northumberland, where it is realised as a uvular sound (as opposed to the more usual 'gently trilled' r of northern English). This is the ' Northumbrian' burr, first commented on by Daniel Defoe in his Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain (1724-6). It is perhaps of some interest that Ellis believes the uvular r to be ' rather a defective utterance than a distinctive dialectal pronunciation' (p. 495). The distribution of post-vocalic r that emerges from the SED material is surprisingly similar to Ellis' description (see e.g. LAE map Phil 'arm'). Of historical interest is Ellis' observation that 'the guttural (kh) [i.e. the voiceless velar fricative] has practically vanished from the N.' However, on passing the Scottish-English border, both the guttural (kh) and r become 'strong'. Finally, Ellis feels that parts of 'north Cumberland' and 'north Humberland' belong to Scotland linguistically. Ellis' view of the geography of the Scottish—English linguistic border differs from those of Murray and Bonaparte. 5.6.3 Realisation of Ellis' test sentence ' You see now (that) I'm right' in the main divisions As an illustration of some of the differences revealed by Ellis' evidence, I list realisations of 'You see now (that) I'm right', which is part of the dialect test. The phonetic exegesis applied to Ellis' palaeotype is that of 245 [...]... in the previous century The idea that the type of English that could provide a standard is of a southern type and spoken by the 'educated' and 'polite' goes at least as far back as Puttenham (see p 252 ), who added that the English of 'Northern-men whether they be noble men or gentlemen, or of their best clarkes' is less elegant than southern English ( 158 9: Book 3, chapter 4) A clear indication of the. .. used as the southern boundary of the linguistic north is the /larj/ pronunciation of long The south, the area south of the River Humber, is further divided into the central and southern dialect areas Southern dialects as against central dialects have [x] in bat in the east and are r-pronouncing in the west An additional feature that distinguishes between these two varieties is the pronunciation of the. .. What emerges from these developments is the conservativeness of the north, the south-west and the west midlands as opposed to the innovativeness of the south-east 5. 8 .5 The importance of London and the south-east Although standard English, especially standard English pronunciation or RP, can be argued to be a social rather than regional variety, its linguistic roots are in southern English This was... these words is now the general pronunciation of the polite and learned world and every correct ear would be disgusted at giving the a in these words the sound of the a in father' He assigns the a in fast the value of a in fat Jones (1909: 18), who identifies the short vowel in past as northern, nevertheless points out that the short sound is also heard in southern English Jones calls these pronunciations... midlands and the east midlands The line that separates the north from the rest of the country is the Humber—Ribble line based on the pronunciations of the words cows, goose, loaf, coal, eat, ground, blind and wrong Typical pronunciations of these north of the Humber are [ku:z], [gias], [liafj, [kual], [iat], [grund], [blind], [rag] The south-west is seen, rather vaguely, as the area west of Watling Street,... the latter half of the nineteenth century and had virtually become obsolete by 1900 Another important recession takes place in the midlands, where one of the most important Middle English midland characteristics, the plural present indicative suffix -en, retreats to the north-western corner of the 261 Ossi Ihalainen west midlands The conservativeness of this area is also shown by the retention of the. .. been 'accepted' up to the twentieth century Ellis' remarks on the pronunciation of r suggest a situation that Gimson and Eustace were able to document as late as 19 65 They recorded the speech of Miss Flora Russell (the niece of the ninth Duke of Bedford), whose speech they regard as a ' good example of a certain kind of Victorian English' (Eustace 1969: 34) The transcription of Miss Russell's speech... interpreted as major dividers The blank, unbounded areas indicate lexical closeness to standard English There is a clear-cut blank in the Home Counties One is reminded of Puttenham's statement that the 'best' type of English was ' the vsual speach of the Court, and that of London and the shires lying about London within lx myles, and not much above' [The Arte of English Poesie, 158 9) Viereck's analysis would... most English people are very well aware of and which they use informally to divide "southerners" from "northerners'" (1990: 76) These two dialect markers, as opposed to the northern failure to round Old English a:, are of relatively recent origin and they show the modern trend for innovations to spread from the south-east In words like past and dance the original short sound shows signs of lengthening... [s], as in thee 's know 'you know' Therefore, it is likely that the [Si: d3 zi:] realisation of' thee dost see' in the Somerset sample above is an instance of assimilation Ellis also has doubts about the precise phonetics of the diphthong of the Montacute now However, this is a particularly problematic region from the viewpoint of/ au/ I have also heard diphthongs with fronted first elements of different . hoose line. The southern limit of the pronunciation of the word house as [hu:s]. The hoose line is also the northern limit of the [haus] pronunciation of house. Line 7: the northern tee . basically those of the Middle English period. These are the north, the south-west, the west midlands and the east midlands. The line that separates the north from the rest of the country is the Humber—Ribble. line. The northern limit of the suspended (t v ) for the definite article. Line 8: the southern sum line in northern England or the southern limit of the unrounding in words like some. Here the