The dialects of England

by Peter Trudgill

Do you know any nice lasses, maidens, wenches or mawthers, or are they all just plain girls to you? Do your shoes include pumps, daps, plimsolls, gollies and sandshoes, or do you settle for ordinary trainers instead? If you think Geordies would do better to speak like BBC announcers, if you think the Queen's English is the only English there is, then this book is not for you. "The Dialects of England" celebrates the rich variety of the regional and social dialects of Engish in all its forms, ancient and modern. It covers Zummerzet and Scouse, Cockney and Cumberland, Brummie and Berkshire, Nottingham and Norfolk. It deplores the trend towards linguistic uniformity urged on us by the self-appointed guardians of the purity of the English language. English dialects are the result of 1500 years of linguistic and cultural development. Written in non-technical language, this book outlines their history and their geography. It describes the diversity of vocabulary, accent, grammar and literature to be found among the dialects of England.

Genres: Nonfiction, Linguistics, Language

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[E Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant dissection of English dialects past, present and future. Found the conclusion a touching rallying cry for diversity against the rising tide of supposedly "proper" vocabulary and pronunciation.

[Joseph Leake · Rating 4 out of 5]

An overall very effective and informative overview/introduction. It's aimed at a general audience, so the treatment of the subject is necessarily somewhat cursory -- cursory, but not inaccurate. (This is especially true where diachronic developments are concerned, which aren't really the focus of the book in any case.) Only occasionally are there passages that I would describe as genuinely slipshod.

I learned a lot. It's a great overview. The prose is not lively, but if one wants the nitty-gritty details about the pronunciation, grammar, and regional distinctions of English dialects -- the precise fundamentals as opposed to perhaps better-written, but fuzzy and impressionistic personal reflections -- then the shortcomings of the prose are readily forgiveable.

Some of my favourite tidbits:

-- the clarification over when "intrusive r" does and does not occur (e.g., "That's a good idea" vs. "the idear is good")
-- that where Standard English has "this book" (near) and "that book" (far), some dialects add yet a third distinction (remote), e g. "yon book"
-- archaic retentions such as cassn't? ("can't you?") from canst thou not? and ast? ("have you?") from, you guessed it, hast thou?
-- dialect words that have no equivalent whatsoever in Standard English: like bracking, "the chipping of eggshells when hatching begins"

And a lot else besides.

(One note of warning: if you know IPA transcription, then you absolutely want the second edition, as the first only contains "orthographic" phonetic representations, which I found to be rather foggy. The second edition wisely incorporates both. )

[Nacho Iribarnegaray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este libro es EL BIEN y obra de consulta forever para dialectos ingleses. Trudgill, te lanzaría mis ropas interiores.

[Gogo]

good book