 "The Yorkshire dialect refers to the Northern English language varieties spoken in England's historic county of Yorkshire. Those varieties are often referred to as Broad Yorkshire or Tyke. The dialect has roots in older languages such as Old English and Old Norse; it should not be confused with modern slang."
This blogger lives in what was once termed the East Riding of Yorkshire, in England. For a time it became North Humberside. In general this title was poorly received and ultimately we returned to being known as Yorkshire. The changes of course cost fortune upon fortune. Letter headed note-paper, street signs and maps were just a few of the items which needed changing a more than once. Still it would seem that we are now securely back as Yorkshire, at least for the time being. Most of the locals in my city will agree that our accents are dreadful. You can always tell a person is from our city, for example when they appear on TV, by the flat tone of their voice. We seem to be taught from a young age to use slang words and seem incapable of pronouncing vowels. The Yorkshire dialect seems to have passed us by but it is still alive and well in the more rural parts of Yorkshire and some smaller towns and cities but only just. Having said that Leeds is a larger city and yet they have a distinct dialect. For example, a Leeds person may say reet grand instead of rather nice. As children we would visit a distant relative who lived near to Skipton in the Yorkshire Dales. She lived in a small village which had a small population. This population though had strange names, such as Moses Thackery, knew each others business and in general spoke in Yorkshire dialect. My female relative originated in my home town and so she did not speak in dialect. However her husband born and bred in the countryside may as well have come from the planet Mars. We could not understand a word he said. Compiling the list below, though, which is a taster of Yorkshire dialect, has made me realise that I do use at least a few words that are strictly speaking Yorkshire Dialect. Researching online I came across one site which is dedicated to maintaining Yorkshire dialect. It has a wealth of poetry and song, and samples can be downloaded to listen to. Even the names of the authors were intriguing. So here are a few words of Yorkshire Dialect with translations;
http://www.yorkshiredialectsociety.org.uk/ http://www.yorkshire-dialect.org/dictionary.htm
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