The Untold Story of East-Midlands English Accents
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- Опубліковано 1 лип 2024
- Most videos about the accents of England tend to miss out the East Midlands. I know mine did! So I've done some research about what makes East Midlands speech stand out from neighbouring regions. I look at the phonetics of the accents, focussing on Derby and Nottingham in particular. I found some fun features that could lead to some interesting misunderstandings and met Ivar the Boneless on the way. That didn't end well for Ivar.
Mustn’t forget that a bread roll is always a “cob”!
We may lose our dialects but we’ll always have 20 words for bread roll.
Absolutely! One of my colleagues insists that it stands for "Circle of Bread" 😂
At least we ain't the melts who have two types of Sausage rolls
Sausage rolls
And sausage bread rolls
I call the soft ones baps and the crusty ones cobs.😁
Forgive my Yank ignorance, but any relation to 'cobbers'?
Once again you’ve nailed it.
To local ears there is some variation even within a few miles. In Notts the ee ending becomes eh. It makes it easy to spot Forest fans when they refer to Derbeh. Move 30 mins drive south and you get Lestoh instead of Leicester. Further north to Alfreton and Mansfield and you can really hear the proximity to Yorkshire.
I’m fascinated by the transition between accents and the border areas. A good example is Middlesbrough where the Yorkshire and Newcastle accents combine to make another unique accent.
Yes, I love that about many parts of the UK.
Or how about Essex: there is a thin strip along the south of the county (5-10 miles thick) bordering on the Thames where "estuary" English is spoken and also quite a lot of MLE. Go north of that strip however and it is mostly RP. At least from my experience as a native. That may also depend on age however...young people tend more to MLE due to influences of entertainment/media. Their parents might speak RP
@@bretton_woods I’m from Basildon, so I know what you mean. There wasn’t any MLE in my day of course.
not to mention the worksop accent is so different to the nottingham accent too
And then the Chesterfield/Bolsover accent where I'm from is somewhere between Derby and Sheffield, but still very much with the Midlands "face" and not the Yorkshire way of saying it..(I forgot the linguistic term...). People from Chesterfield - due to their proximity to the border are very loyal to their Derbyshire-ness as opposed to Yorkshire!
Everyone forgets us in the East Midlands. Thanks for doing a follow up video!
Just commented on the lack of E. Midlands in the round England video, then saw this one! It's incredible how faithful your accent is to the real thing! Seriously amazing, hats off!
I"ve been in New Zealand since I was ten but my parents are both from Lincoln so I enjoyed this. They also enjoyed it thoroughly when I showed it to them.
Enjoyed the video. I'm a geordie who had moved down to teach in Leicestershire. Whilst the children in school had no problem with my accent, the parents complained they could not understand me. I had no problem understanding the children but an ex-miner did stop to talk to me and for an hour I hardly understood a word he said.
I think the pronunciation of the letter ‘U’ is a real giveaway feature of an East Midlands accent…. It’s much deeper than other accents…
That’s true
Like when they say stupid as STYOOOPID. 🥹😂
It makes a few of our swear words extra beefy
Mardy, nesh and twitchel are common words from my Nottm upbringing i've not heard elsewhere. In dramas supposedly set in Nottm the actors sometimes speak with a Yorkshire accent that is very different to our ears. Sue Pollard, in Hi di Hi, had a classic, if slightly exaggerated Nottm accent!!
Yes actors cannot get the accent right at all, so as you say they just do Yorkshire or Lancs ha.
In a reply to your comment, "mardy" is used in north Derbyshire too (Chesterfield). Nesh and twitchel not so much.
We have mardy and nesh in Stoke too.
Mardy is used in Sheffield too. See Arctic Monkeys song Mardy Bum.
A lot of these pronunciations are the same or very similar to how people speak in the part of Yorkshire where I live, its near the border with Nottinghamshire though so probably a transitional area. People sound more like how he's speaking than they do, say, Leeds. Pronouncing roundabout as rahndabaht and right as rate and saying yoursen (although this often becomes thisen which I suppose is more Yorkshire).
Twitchel is also evidently a Melbourne expression, as there is a complex of 'twitchels' to the north of the town centre. My bit of the family moved north to Belper, where the expression is 'jitty'.
Fascinating - in Tasmania, it’s clear our accent is a hodgepodge of different English dialects. Our “castle” and “bath” ended up being southern, but our “l” > “w” is the most prominent in the nation (we say “biuwd a house”). Older Tasmanians still refer to older women as “old duck”.
Hi James. That’s interesting. Thanks for that.
As an east midlander, I find this really cool
From a British point of view, nearly all Australian accents sound pretty similar to each other, even though that probably isn't how Australians themselves see it. I try to hear the differences myself because I'm interested in that sort of thing, but it's difficult.
Same with milk. Becomes miwlk to a few people. I've found myself saying build and milk this way in fast speech - NSWman here.
@@peterrjg6843 yes the only people that actually pronounce the “l” around here are Queenslanders
I was today years old when I found out that "mashed" isn't used throughout the country.
Loved this video! Just a personal anecdote. As a child our family moved from West to East Midlands (near Dudley to Derby) and our first Sunday in Church the familiar hymn of Walk In The Light was sung and the local pronunciation of "Walk in the Laaaaat" cracked us all up and made us laugh in a pretty stressful time.
I bet the locals aughed at Dudl-eye as well!
🤢Why would anyone move Derby instead of Notts? Hope you had fun commuting into Notts every weekend to escape the boredom.
Ey up, it’s my accent! Except where I live isn’t technically the East Midlands.
I live in Burton on Trent in Staffordshire, which technically means it’s the West Midlands, but just across the River Trent is South Derbyshire which is regionally considered the East Midlands. We are so much closer to the likes of Derby and Nottingham than Birmingham that we have an East Midlands accent in a West Midlands town.
So many videos on English or UK accents skip over the East Midlands accent, probably because it shares quite a few things in common with neighbouring accents that are more famous or noteworthy.
So I’m glad you decided to do a full video on it.
Good to see a fellow Burtonian on UA-cam, first I’ve seen! Our accent is definitely more east than west, perhaps it follows the river, but I never felt Burton was part of either, just its own place, with its own subtle accent variations. Sadly, its rare to hear the real old Burton accent nowadays. The best word was busses, pronounced buzzez. The best speaker was Norman, the landlord at the Thomas Sykes pub, who was very softly spoken and called you duck all the time.
As a young adult raised in Lincolnshire, it's sad that there is a softening of our accent.
My mum and dad were from Sussex, so I am trying my hardest to pick up even more of the accent to keep it alive.
Keep up the good work!
I lived in the East Midlands for a while.
One of the guys at golf asked me "are you goowin Skeggeh". I looked quizzically at my brother who translated for me. Are you going on the trip to Skegness?
My other brother says "we're gooin Aldeh".
The word "to" gets left out of sentences by the locals.
Ah ya gooin dahn shops?
The Leicester accent is fascinating and very distinct. It has some similarities with Salford/Manchester. City is pronounced cit-eh, finger is pronounced fing-oh. The northern part of the east midlands is more like south yorkshire to me. Even Sheffield has a slight north midlands twinge with poynt for pint.
In Retford, in N.Notts and close to Derbys/Lincs/S.Yorks, I do not really notice accents (one parent was from Leicester). I do notice some broad Yorkshire when spoken around here, but working in Sheffield, I never noticed anything to catch my ear.
Yep and Northampton has a whole range of accents, Corby Scot’s, Kettring and Wellingborough all different to me
Yeah, I knew a guy from Leicester, and some of his pronunciation reminded me of mancunian (tong instead of tounge, chippeh instead of chippy, nuthin instead of nothing).
I'm from Leicester & I can't stand the leicester accent. If you want to see dust bins talking, go to Leicester. Treat yourself to a lovely day out along narborough road.
@@lc5176 also from Leicester and we'd be better off without racists and xenophobes in the city
Thank you for this, Dave. I've been living in Chesterfield for 30 years - an accent that Sheffielders describe as sounding like Nottingham, and people from Nottingham describe as sounding like Sheffield. I'm so glad you mentioned the house/arse confusion because I have actually experienced that. Visiting the local recycling centre I saw two blokes chatting, and as I passed them, one of them said "They 'aven't done much, 'ave they, to yer dad's arse?"
Hi Dave, these videos are fascinating and I'm massively impressed by your mastery of the accents.
I live about 5 miles from the area in Derbyshire where loads of people say "me duck" but here in Staffordshire nobody does. Those few miles make all the difference. Also, the accent in Burton-on-Trent is probably more similar to a Derby accent even though officially it's in the West Midlands / Staffordshire.
I love those parts of the country where accents change every few miles.
What fantastic timing. I just watched the general one and, although very excited, was hoping he'd covered my neck of the woods.
Thanks for a really interesting video. I only caught your channel recently via your exploration of England's accents which was brilliant. I used to work with people who lived in various parts of the East Midlands and a lot of the things you discussed were familiar to me. One thing which stuck in my mind was how the Mansfield accent treated the word 'about' as 'abaht'. The 'me ducks' was instantly recognisable. Thank you again.
I think Leicester is worth closer scrutiny too. There are some very interesting features to investigate! Great content Dave.
Thanks Richard. I hope to get round to Leicester some day.
@DaveHuxtableLanguages thanks for linking this video. Although there are some similarities, Leicestershire accents (there are several) are quite different to the Derby and Notts accents you described, as are Lincolnshire and Northants, so a deep dive could be interesting.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages "Couldn't" can sound very rude in a Leicester accent.
@@mdwellington I think there’s a subtle difference.
Top lad! So glad you got round to this, and I'm utterly flabbergasted to learn that you're American! This makes your performances even more impressive.
You did a great job of this video!
Loved it.
We often get overlooked in the East Midlands so it’s a breath of fresh air seeing someone go to all this effort to get it right. So from a proud East Midlander. Cheers mi duck.
If yer ever rahnd my way yer shud pop in fer a mash.
From Darley Dale in Derbyshire. My late gran could speak the old dialect, or "old Derbyshire" as she called it. As another commenter mentioned, one of the few words that survive is "mardy" - which I had no idea was a dialect word until I moved up North!
Darley Dale, Brigg, Thorp Arch & Hull. Advert from the 80's, maybe sofa showrooms?
Very informative video Dave, thank you. I especially like how you give historical context to the accents.
Glad you enjoyed it
My mum's from Leicester but she moved down to London for university and ended up settling down south of the river, she's lost most of her accent after being down south for so long but there are still a couple of Leicesterisms she never let go of... It's funny whenever we've travelled back up that way to see family her accent comes right back within a matter of hours, especially when she's talking to her brother/my uncle who has the broadest Leicester accent I've ever heard
Funny how that happens.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguagesfunnily enough, despite currently living in Mexico for almost 10 years my accent is pretty much unchanged (a mongrel mix of Estuary, MLE, Cockney and some stray Leicester-isms from my mum) and in some respects may have even become more pronounced. I do work for an American company though so I make an effort to tone down the MLE and Cockney bits when I'm on the clock and lean more into a mild RP
My daughter's (English) accent is really interesting and unique, it's a strange mix of Estuary, General American and Norteño that sounds like nothing I've ever heard before, pero su español es puro norteño! I imagine as she gets older she'll pick up more of my accent when speaking English, though we do live quite close to the border so American English is much more common here than in the south of Mexico where Cambridge is the educational standard
Speaking of educational standards, my wife is a high school English teacher here and she definitely has a norteño accent when speaking English so that certainly has a bit of an impact on my daughter's accent
My wife has been told by coworker's that she's been picking up a lot of my accent and expressions though
One of my proudest moments was when we were in the car and another driver aggressively cut my wife off, prompting my wife to shout "OI! YOU ABSOLUTE F*CKING MUG!"
My heart was absolutely beaming with joy at that moment 😂
Fantastic to see someone has FINALLY done a proper breakdown of the east midlands accents - we're always forgotten in these discussions.
I'm from Nottingham so hope you may find a bit of insight/feedback interesting. Of course, I'm no expert so can only talk from experience:
- I've found we're heavy on glottal stops and dropped h's here
- Your focus here is on a very strong variation of the accent which you tend to see more in older people and people who are further out north of the counties/on more countryside accents
- A defining Nottingham sound which I don't think you mentioned is that the -y's on the end of words (happy) turn into "eh" - "happeh" (or actually, 'appeh)
- There's something about our o's that I'm still trying to pin down, you might find it interesting to study how Vicky McClure talks as I think she's a prime example of what I know as a more realistic Nottingham accent. You'll notice that we kind of round the o sound (o as in home)
- I definitely think that towards Mansfield direction, the accent begins to move much more "Yorkshire"-ish and shares a lot with Chesterfield and Derbyshire which in turn points towards a Sheffield accent.
- I still don't know what people from Leicester sound like
I've noticed the thing about O's too. In your example--home--it sounds to me like ho-wum. It sounds to me like a W-sound and crept into the pronunciation. I'm from Suffolk originally but my wife's born and bred Nottingham. She'll often say ho-wum (home), plee-as (please), bee-ans (beans) and Boo-wuts (Boots). I'll tease her about it occasionally but I can't really talk - I sound like a cockney!
Agreed about the o sound. Our friend from Bulwell pronounces the word 'cold' as 'code' whereas us Spireites say 'keawd'. In Sheffield its 'cooorld'. Completely different and we're 10 miles away.
@@wendykirkland Absolutely - although I do find that THAT o sound varies across Nottingham. I was more angling for 'o' as in 'spoke'
Thanks for your videos. I started watching a lot snooker a few years ago, a ran into a lot of English accents that you don’t normally hear in the US. The players and announcers speak with middle-class accents from places like Leicester, Glasgow, Bristol, etc., and your videos are helping me sort it all out.
Quite a lot of them speak with working-class accents as well. I wouldn't describe Ronnie O'Sullivan's accent as middle-class, for instance.
I live in Nuneaton and was brought up in Coventry, and it is noticeable that there is some invisible border between the accents of eastern West Midlands, particularly the Birmingham accent and the East Midlands accent.
I also thought you might have made mention of the melody of the speech because the Birmingham accent has a particular form that rises at the end of each sentence.
Your videos are very informative and entertaining. Thank you.
I know a couple of people from Nuneaton and it seems their accent is completely different from anything else in the surrounding area. It hasn't got the West Midlands twang or inflection, nor does it sound like a Leicester accent, more like an accent from much further north, to my east Northamptonshire ears.
Superb! I'm so pleased that you have done a video on the East Midlands. I'm originally from Manchester but I count myself as a Midlander now, on the whole, because I've lived here since almost 50 years. Before that I'd lived in London, Gloucester, Farnham in Surrey and Kilmarnock in Scotland - so I've learned a few accents on the way. You have a superb ear for the accents I have to say... excellent!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Literally just watched the video from 2 years ago waiting to get the the midlands! Was very happy to see a new upload less than a week ago thank you for revisiting this. Loved both of your videos and very impressive recognition. I've always thought of 'Are you mashed m'duck' as meaning drunk though :D but definitely used to say mash my tea. Got/put a brew on is what I've normally heard around Chesterfield area.
Oh my, I had seriously only just seen the 2 year old video ("A Tour of The Accents of England") moments ago and when it got to the end I was shouting at my screen saying "Where's Nottingham? Where's the East Midlands?!", but thankfully it auto-linked to this one. Yay!
I will say that the the -y (ee) ending being -eh wasn't mentioned, and I think that's one key part at least to the Nottingham accent like "Sorreh, loov!" or "He's got a poorleh tummeh." or my favourite that I overheard a father berating his ~9 year old son at Ikea with: "Are you a bab(eh)?!" which I now use all the time.
Glad it got to you in time. Some people have had to wait two years. I'm sorry not to have picked up the -eh thing. That sounds fun.
I had the same experience. I've only just come across the tour of British accents video. Regional variations in speech and dialect is something that has always fascinated me so I found this really interesting and the seamless merging from one accent to the other is very clever.
I too was all set to comment that East Midlands had been missed but then spotted it coming up as the next video on the feed.
The 'eh' thing mentioned above is definitely a big deal. I really don't like my name being shortened to Debbie and one of the main reasons is because I don't want to be Debbeh frum Cosbeh.
I have lived near Barnsley for 35 years now and people still tell me I'm Southerner! (whereas I've met many people from the actual South who think Leicester is Northern.) I always describe myself as a Northern-orientated Midlander.
I was interested that similarities I have noticed between East Midlands and Yorkshire are explained by the Viking influence you mentioned.
Finally, I've always been intrigued as to why my mum says bath, path and glass etc with a short a but master and plaster with an 'ar' sound. It sounds, from your video that this is not unusual?
Thanks for some really fascinating insights. I will be looking out for more.
Ah yerra baebeh?
So nice to actually see a dive into the East Midlands accent! Nobody really seems to know what that is and I often find myself having to describe it my accent as "generic English". I grew up in a Nottinghamshire town that bordered Leicestershire and Derbyshire. So really in the middle of the East Midlands!
I think for me stand out dialect words are "summat", "nowt", "mardy", "jitty".
I tend to think that we in the east mids drop a lot of connecting words. Bit like with the Yorkshire accent. "Give me a piece of cake" becomes "Gizzus piece a cake", "have you got a pen?" becomes "gorra pen?" "he's up to something" becomes "eehs up ter summat". "there's nothing on the TV" becomes "there's nowt on telly" "she's in a strop" becomes "she's gorra case of the mards".
Subtle but distinct!
As I mentioned above, mardy is also used in the West Midlands in areas that aren't a huge distance from the East Midlands. But I suppose that's what you'd expect. I'm talking about the area near Burton-on-Trent and Tamworth.
Got be Long Eatn then
@@daveabbott haha yes!
@@WhiteWinds Born in Sawley and went to school in Draycott and Wilsthorpe lol
@@daveabbott ahh Wilsthorpe! Changed a lot now since I was there!
Another brilliant video, could you possibly do something about Lincoln/Lincolnshire one day? This one was excellent but definitely Derby/Nottingham-centric and would love to hear your thoughts on Lincoln's accent
Agree.
Yes, please do Lincoln (uphill and downhill) and the wonderful diphthongs of Lincolnshire, for example when talking about potatoes (ave yer set yer tee-a-tees, mee-a-tee?) etc.
Farmer Winks accent is a great resources for Fens/Spalding area too.
Literally were about to leave a comment about this on the other video!
Love your videos.. thanks for your research! ❤
Hi. Im glad that I found this video my duck. I saw the one on regional accents and, like a few others it seems, I was shouting at the computer " What about the East Midlands". I was intending to message asking that question when I found this video. Having been born and raised in Measham, Lecisetershire and now living in Australia, I make a point of hardening my accent when it suits me (To confuse the Aussies), I love the East Midlands accent and it is always slightly annoying when my region is forgotten when it comes to talking about England. Thanks for putting it right now. Alan
I grew up in Derby and I can honestly say you’ve caught the local accent perfectly !
To be honest it’s nearer to a Nottingham or more north east of the county in my opinion, but it is certainly East Midlands. We’ll done and thank you for sharing it with us.
The Lincolnshire accent changes from a Yorkshire sounding one around the Humber to the unique fen accent in the south east.
I’m so happy you did this. It’s u fortunate the vocabulary is largely disappearing in more recent generations but the accent is still doing strong. I’m from a small town near Skegness and I smooth out the MOUTH vowel all the time unless there’s no coda or no word after it eg now is a diphthong on its own, but in the phrase now you’re talking it’s a long very front monophthong. PRICE smoothing usually occurs before voiced cosas but it can occur in some unstressed words to like I or ice in ice cream. Also another thing I’ve noticed, for me at least, the START, PRICE and COT vowels all start basically the same as [ɔ] or a bit lower. I could be hearing things but it makes sense since the NORTH or THOUGHT vowel is pronounced very high. Great video yet again!
Thank you! You seem to know your way around the vocal tract so I really appreciate your comments and local knowledge.
well done You have nailed it again !!!! I'm from Nottingham
Big up ya sen - smashing job on this
Brilliant, great fun to listen to and very informative Dave, well done. Less-toh (Leicester)!
Loved the video! I'm from Corby and studied in Leicester, and this felt like I was sent back home! The one thing that stood out to me was in Corby, you could find the rhotic r (which I have taken away with me, not helped since moving to the West Country) after the mass migration of Scots from the Glasgow region in the 1930s.
Thanks for confirming a theory I've had for years. I grew up in Hinckley where the accent is similar to Leicester and even Derby and Nottingham (30 miles away), family in Nuneaton (4 miles away) sounded like Brummies to us. We are seperated by the Watling St/A5 which was the boundary of Danelaw. I wonder if there are similar distinct differences further along either side of the A5 ?
Typical Hinckley phrases I remember are "shin'tin" ---she isn't in, "shiz atum" - she's at home, and "slet a ger lavy" - I shall have to go to the lavatory.
That would be fascinating to investigate. I love how you get pairs of place names like Shipton and Skipton that illustrate the Norse influence or lack of it.
Thank you for another excellent and fascinating video. I grew up in Sheffield and many of the words you mention were used there. 'Sen', 'causie' (or 'causie-edge'), 'mashing tea' and 'mardy' were all very common. Duck was also used as a term of endearment, although 'love' was more common. I remember as a child hearing 'love' used between anyone, including between adult men; hearing two very masculine steel workers or miners say, 'Ey up love!' to each other was really very special! We used to have long debates about what one should call the passageway between terraced houses that led to the back gardens. In our family, it was a 'jennel', but there were strong opinions in favour of other terms.
I was born in Chesterfield and brought up in Bolsover. I also spent several years in Sheffield just recently. There is definitely a lot of overlap with Sheffield and Derbyshire in the words you mentioned, and yes in Bolsover everyone said "duck" but I noticed it was "love" in Sheffield! I love the local accents and it makes me homesick. I live in Belfast now :(
I went to school about 5 miles away from where I live and the dinner ladies would always say "me duck". But here no-one uses that word in that way. So 5 miles makes a huge difference.
Thanks, Dave duck. You did a reet good job on the accent. I enjoyed it and will watch some more.
Awesome, thank you!
I saw your previous video and felt a bit left out being from the East Midlands. I live in London now and people don’t know whether I’m northern or southern! A few people have said already that words ending in ‘ee’ or ‘y’ are pronounced as ‘eh’ and sometimes as ‘ih’. For example, ‘my’ is pronounce ‘mih’ where I’m from but ‘me’ is ‘meh’. Enjoyed the video. Have a good day! 😊
I'm from a small village called Shirebrook in Derbyshire, bordering Nottinghamshire. I'll try give a few examples that I think might be relatively specific to this area.
The way people say "right" is quite distinctly "Rate" spoken like "Eight" so an example is "You alright duck? / Your-rate duck?".
"Give" is "Gi" or "Gis" examples being "Give me the screws / Gis us them screws." "Give over / Gi over / Gi Orr"
"Ah" is very often used to vocalize a yes to something. "Yes that house on the left / Ah that ahse on left."
We don't get "rate" in Leicester, I could be wrong but I think you've got to go as far north as Nottingham before it starts appearing.
I live in Mansfield and the accent here seems to differ from Shirebrook, Chesterfield, Worksop and Nottingham. Even though they are all close by.
I live in Warsop, which borders Shirebrook for those that don't know, and even we have a slightly different accent (or dialect?) to you. However, like you, we also say 'duck', NEVER miduck! Ahm rate aren't ah duck?
Fascinating how accents change over such small areas.
Yes, as a Nottingham person now in Derby for ten years too, I corroborate all of those!
Like one week after I complained this popped up, thanks so much. Seems things have changed a bit since I was a lad in Derbyshire in the 70's
I live in Essex but I have been visiting Lincolnshire quite regularly during the past four years. I think I have quite a good ear for accents, but the Lincolnshire one quite often stumps me. In the North it sounds more like ‘Yorkshire’, but in the South of the county it sounds softer and more like a Cambridgeshire one. Furthermore, a lot of people from Yorkshire and the other parts of the Midlands tend to visit the seaside towns for breaks and holidays, so that confuses me even more 🤷🏼♂️
Hahaha, I JUST saw the video from 2 years ago, got definitely not mardy at all (as a east-midlander), then saw that the video I was looking for was uploaded 5 days ago! - cheers Dave!
Hi, really enjoyed your video as someone who has lived in Birmingham for 20 years and went to Leicester for university for 4 years the Midlands is close to my heart! I would be really interested to hear your take on black country accents and "yam yams". I've worked in both Dudley and Wednesbury and have actually needed a family member to translate and I live literally 7 miles away. It would be really interesting if you could explain why the thicker sounding black country accents almost sound like old English. Great channel looking forward to the thorough breakdown of the mess that is the West Midlands ;)
I saw this video moments after watching the first accent's of britain video that you did. Being from the middle east (of England) i was glad to see the representation. I've not heard many of the pronunciations mentioned here, but thats propably just because I don't get out much.
Really enjoyed that. Nicely done.
Glad to hear it!
I grew up in a village in between Kettering, Market Harborough and Corby. The accents in these three places are different, even if they’re only 5 miles away from each other. Thus the complex difficulties of the East Midlands, not helped by the lack of Universities and research.
It’s really sad if it’s not being researched.
Well, Corby is special, anyway, what with their Scottish influx. I have to admit, though, that we always spoke a posher version of everything in Rutland, so some of the things mentioned in the video are not something most of our contacts used, but which I definitely knew from a bunch of older locals. The region certainly influenced my pronunciation quite a bit, as I have the short "grass" and "glass", but I still do not say "sin-g-er".
Crossing the county line from Kettering to market Harborough is a literal "barth" to "bath" journey.
I grew up in Stanwick and the east Northants dialect seems to be a blend of cockney, east anglian and Midlands.
Live in Rowell now (can't be far from your origins) and a 5 minute drive up the a6 to 'arbruh is like entering a different country!
@@lukemclellan2141 Nah, mate. I’m from Essex.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages I thought I was replying to the op 😞 sorry for the confusion. That's the second time it's happened today.
Must be user error.
I've lived in Northampton since age 8 , but been around a bit all over. There are big differences in quite small distances in this area.
great video and channel, keep 'em coming please :)
Great stuff. Readers may want to check out the old Kevin Coyne song 'Ey Up Me Duck' from 1979. Kevin was from Derby, and the song explores some local themes.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Hi Dave, my mum bought me a book you might like if you haven't seen it already. First published in 1976 its called Ey up mi duck by Richard Scollins and John Titford. It looks at the dialect of Derbyshire and the East Midlands and even looks at the Erewash Valley which is rather specific! We had a right laugh going through it!
I'm from Ilson and can vouch for rhe accuracy of those books (my 6th form English teacher helped wirh the research dor them).
I was brought up in Langley Mill and my wife in Swadlincote. If I speak to anyone from the Heanor area for more than a couple of minutes she can’t understand me - a distance of only 30 miles. Around the Swadlincote area, duck gives way to surrey, a form of sirrah, and is used in exactly the same way. I’d never use twitchel but jitty for a back alley.
As an East Midlands native now in Oxfordshire exile, it madey heart leap to hear you say "Nottin'ham".
Love your vids - very illuminating. lived in th E. Midlands for nearly 20 years and could never pin down what made the accents difference below 't'Umber Bridge !! Until naa !!
I love your passion for languages
Thank you!
I’m in Lincoln, and that felt like I was in the pub, well done duck
I've lived around the East Midlands for most of my life (less a quick sojourn to Wales, which is its own aural experience). Having spent so long in Corby, that's worth its own video for sure! Kettering also becomes either Ke'rin or Ketch-rin depending on where they're from in the area
Really enjoyed this video and I think you’ve done a great job of it.
I’m from Leicester and I’ve worked all around the East Midlands. I think definitely Leicester is distinct from Nottingham, and North Notts and North Derbyshire starts to get quite Yorkshire. Northampton is completely southern. In Leicester we don’t use a lot of the slang words you mentioned. Mardy and m’duck are definitely used a lot but sen isn’t something I’ve heard outside of Notts.
Living in Liverpool these days, I like the fact they’ve firmly kept their accent is actually getting stronger, and i slightly bristle at occasionally hearing people from back home or in Manchester sounding more and more southern English and/or American. But that’s just me being a mardy arse.
Great details. Thanks for sharing.
Interesting. I live in Northampton and have done all my life. I feel like it's a strange place in terms of accents because of how centralised it is geographically - we get a lot of everything! I find Cockney/MC Cockney to be really prevalent in certain areas here, which is probably to do with a lot of Londoners from the 'Boomer' generations moving up here in a bid to 'escape' city life.
My nan was an avid user of 'Ayup, me duck!', which I always thought was brought about by the Danes/Dane Law, at least the 'Ayup' part. She was brought up in a village area here called 'Kingsthorpe', which is distinctly Danish influenced in name and was a small frontier settlement of the 'Five Boroughs'. Though, you don't really hear much of the dialect spoken by us younger generations here - Millennials/Zoomers.
I’m from Northampton originally, I don’t think it falls into this category at all.
@@craighobbs3708 What category are we talking about?
Great again . East Midlands is massive . I am not from there but on the Shropshire welsh border and can tell a different accent from a couple of miles away .
Hi, love your vids, utterly fascinating.
The way you use an accent when describing that accent makes understanding that accent much easier.
But where do you come from, what is you original accent.
Also, you have the potential for a really interesting series.
If you looked in detail at the accents of different regions in the UK I am so sure we'd all be
watching!
Really enjoyed. Originally from Warwickshire so familiar with these but can never do the accents myself.
I spent my formative years in the 1950's and 60's living near Nottingham and it was great to hear again the accent and the usage of 'causie' and 'youth'. My parents despised the local accent so I had to be very careful when being interrogated by suspicious classmates as to what I called my mother - it had to be 'Mam' and not 'Mummy'! Thank you for bringing memories back. Since the 1970's I've lived in the West Midlands close to the Black Country and I was amazed at the noticeable changes of accent between communities less than a mile or two apart. At one time I could reliably distinguish between residents of, for example, Brierley Hill, Gornall, Old Hill, etc. So there's a challenge for you - "The Untold Story of Black Country Accents" !
Yes, there’s a whole lot left to explore.
Youth becomes Yoth in parts as in: "Ey up, yoth." I think that means: "Good morrow, young sir."
Absolutely loved this video. My mates from Grimsby areas always take the mick when I say house. So funny to hear the joke on here 😂. I'm from Alfreton (or Often as the locals call it).
I’ve lived in the East Midlands for my whole life thus far. I’m from Hinckley, which is just south of Leicester, and have also lived in Nottingham for uni. In my experience most of the dialect words are dying out and would be more commonly observed in the older generations. The only dialect words I’d use commonly in natural speech would be jitty (alleyway) and mardy (which I didn’t even realise was a dialect word for years).
Features I would note about my own accent are the excessive use of glottal stops, the almost non pronunciation of many words (eg “are you going to the shops” becomes something like “you goin’a’shops” - the vowel sound between going and shops is a barely pronounced I’m not sure about what sound it should be called), and the dropping of a lot of other letters (most notably h, but often something like the second t in twenty but not like a glottal stop (more like twenny as if it were never there in the first place)). I’d also use were instead of was a lot. Words like I’ve or I’d have a sound more like an “ah” than an “I”. One really weird one is the way I’d sometimes pronounce “don’t” more like “dun’ with a u-ish sound far back and a glottal stop at the end - similar with “wouldn’t, couldn’t , shouldn’t etc and the d is almost missing.
I’m from Leicester, I was born their 60 years ago, we said mardy, along with frit and yit, both of which mean frightened. Buffet and ballet were pronounced buffy and bally respectively. In general I didn’t hear any real dialect when growing up, but apparently I did have an obvious accent when I first moved to Cambridge at age 21, which went after a few years. My cousins from Denby Dale in Yorkshire sounded very very different to us. They’d say “What’s tha on wi”, “Gi oer” and “Daft ap’orth” for example, quite different.
same in Nuneaton we say "Duwn't, Wuwn't , ent, guw, etc
I once called a Londoner mardy thinking it was a common word, he didn't know what it meant.
Interesting. Mardy isn't just an East Midlands word incidentally. A lot of people use it round here in Staffordshire, although this isn't far from the Derbyshire/Leicestershire border.
Funny you mention, Jitty .We called ours a "Jetty", but others called similar little paths Jitty. There is even a street in the Market place called The Jetty. Must all be the same origin.
Brilliant! Not sure duck is just informal language. I’ve encountered it in retail settings.
Hi Nicole. Glad you like it. That’s true. Thinking about it, retail in the UK is pretty informal. It isn’t shocking to be called love or dear, which wouldn’t happen in the US for example.
I live in Australia now, but I'm originally from North Yorkshire, where it's common to call everyone "love" informally, whatever gender. I've been caught out a few times calling random people here "love"and copping some weird reactions.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages The only place I've encountered this outside UK was in Colombia, where it seems ok to ask a waitress 'que tienas, amor?' or thank a shopkeeper with 'gracias, mi amor'. Nothing quite so bizarre as the Leeds variant though, where burly men call each other 'love' without any eyebrows being raised.
As a child, Duck sounded like something a pensioner would say, but by my 20s I’d started using it myself, feeling self conscious when I realised what I’d said.
Yes it's used ubiquitously as a friendly and colloquial address, eyup and ta (thanks) duck are the standard addresses.
Thanks for the informative video
A good person to look up for the Lincolnshire accent is a local celeb called Farmer Wink. There's a lot of Lincolnshire specific stuff such as "water" being pronounced "watter", any form of "there" having a distinct "y" in the middle. Like "sen" you mentioned in the video, there's also "yon" meaning over there - "yon tree". It's a great accent, sadly dying out a little though, and mostly only around in farming communities now.
Another excellent video.
Super happy you've covered the East Midlands dialects, can I recommend the book Ey Up Mi Duck!: Dialect of Derbyshire and the East Midlands by Mr Richard Scollins and Mr John Titford
Yes I've got this book! Highly recommended.
I'm from Nottingham. I speak 7 languages well. I'm also brushing up on my German and learning Romanian. Your videos are really interesting.
Glad you like them!
Funny to see myself included in your video and a lot of what I spoke of on my video, interesting watch tek care mi duck
So cool that you saw it. Thank you so much!
Thanks so much for doing this It’s spot on 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
with the use of duck, in my experience growing up and living here in Nottingham, in the centre and south of Nottingham its ayup duck, ayup mi’duck is from further west. thank you for sharing your research of my area, fascinating 😊
I sent this to my italian friend who watched Peakey blinders !
Thank you!
Thanks for mentioning "sen". It really is the hallmark of the way people speak round our end. Though I often consciously avoid it when I'm around outsiders as I don't think they'll understand it.
Fantastic video!
Glad you liked it!
Excellent stuff - I really wish this video had been around a few months back when I was editing my podcast about 1988 kids serial Moondial, as that had some SHOCKING attempts at the Grantham accent in it (they sound more like Dorset, with lots of rolling Rs). I ended up excerpting the video by the "mardy" woman.
I reckon "me duck" is quite a Nottingham-specific greeting - in the Grantham area, they tend to say "mate", pronounced with a heavy dipthong.
I don't live there anymore, but my way back into the Grantham accent is to ask someone if they're human. "Scuse me, mate, are you ooman?"
Dave brilliant video, can share with my wife and children so they can understand me a little better😉
East Midland accents stretch all the way down to North Bucks, the older folk (born before the London and Glaswegian influence of the mass migration into Milton Keynes) in Newport Pagnell sounded more East Midlands than from South East England. Newport was one of the boarder territories where the Danelaw and Saxon England traded (hence the use of port in the name) I guess it was this bilingual merging between Dane and Saxon that gave North Bucks a distinctly unsouth eastern accent.
Alright me duck was still a common greeting in the shops in Newport Pagnell in the mid-1980s, unfortunately, most of the people with a deep North Bucks accent are now dying out and the new Milton Keynesish accent is becoming dominant.
Wonderful, thank you.
Really good, I come from Coventry who are on the border with this and I didn't realise how many East Midlands words and sounds we use contrasting with Birmingham /dialect etc. Interesting that you would use `Me duck' in Leicester but not Coventry.
Wonderful! I’m from Coventry (WM) but now live in Melbourne (EM). 35 miles as the crow flies but so different linguistically. One of the first things I noticed about the accent up here was it had a strangely more welcoming tone than the WM one which can sound quite accusatory at times. The eey oop duck is usually given with a slightly surprised tone which sort of enhances the greeter’s pleasure at seeing you. The other single word I noticed was “else” as in “anything else?” It acquires a t so it sounds like “anything elts?” Two others I love is saying “It’s bin suh code, I’m all bardled up! Nesh me!”
Interesting!
I'm glad that Melbourne has been so welcoming, as that's the roots of both maternal and paternal sides of my family (North Street and St. Bride's Farm, Stanton-by-Bridge), our bit of it ending up in Belper. Mum was ten years old when Coventry was bombed and remembered clearly the red skies that night away to the south.
I grew up in Long Eaton but did a graduate apprenticeship with GEC Telecomms in Coventry. At lunch time in my first placement in GEC someone said he was going to the canteen to get a 'batch'. I expected them to return with a tray of something but he just had a 'cob'!!
I have a 20 year old recording of my 90 year old Grandfather talking about his life in a broad Lincolnshire accent. His great grandchildren can barely understand a word.
Ice, house and arse all sound totally different to me, although there is a small subtle difference between ice and House. I have a North Notts accent bordering on Derbyshire / Ilkeston as I grew up in a place called Giltbrook. A Nottingham city accent is totally different from mine. Great video, loved it mi duck, i felt at home listening to you
I grew up in Stoke where people it’s common for people to say buzz instead of bus. Interestingly I didn’t hear mesen, theesen etc until I moved South Yorkshire, especially in the rural areas between Rotherham and Barnsley
Of course you already covered most of the rest of the country in your previous video, but I like how this video went into a bit more depth (I mean, it ha to if you were going to make a whole video out of it!)
So that gets me wondering, any chance of more videos like this going more in depth on specific British accents?
Splendid, thanks for this. "Ay-up, serry" and "Nah then yo'uth" are two forms of address I've come across from Nottingham. One favourite of mine is "Anyonya anyonya" which translates to "Does anyone have any cigarettes on them?" Regards.
Good job, I think I was the last person to ask if you'd do it, and you were good to your word. Farmer Wink who they have on the BBC local radio and once on the Jeremy Vine show, has a good example of a strong East Midlands accent, that is dying out, so I think you'd enjoy listening to him, there's various snippets of him on the radio and telly, on UA-cam. I've no doubt someone already mentioned it, but Jim Broadbent is from Lincolnshire.
Thanks for the suggesting. I’ll check out Farmer Wink.
Coming from Northampton and growing up in it from 1961 ... me duck and then a wholesale of accents descending when they built the Eastern Districts for the London overspill ..... we had a few accents.
I only subscribed to this channel today and found it both fascinating and very clever. Since I moved to near Lincoln 15 years ago, I have noticed more and more young people are starting to sound a little more south-eastern. It could be because so many people from London and and south east have moved up here as London accents are common in Lincoln and surrounding areas. Also the rapid growth of the university, which does have a disproportionate number of students with southern accents could be another. Possibly there is another reason, if so I'd be interested to hear why.
I believe that Peterborough has become an outpost of the Southeast that differs markedly from East Anglian further East and East Midlands to its West. I could imagine that many of the Southern Lincolnshire people get most of their influence from the nearest "city" (Peterborough kind of is, despite my misgivings).
Yes I've noticed that everywhere I go. I can't help feeling a little depressed by it.
Television is homogenizing accents around the world. In Italy, everyone is sounding Milanese because that's where the television stations are. Sicilian (another language entirely) has been almost entirely lost to the younger generation, who all speak Italian now. The Neapolitans, who are very proud of their language and culture, are holding on, but use Neapolitan mainly with family, or in telling jokes. The good news is that everyone can understand each other. The bad news is that very beautiful dialects are being lost. As an American I notice that the Irish and even the English are sounding more American in the last few years. This is probably due to the influence of the internet. The Irish have to take Irish in school, but almost no one speaks it anymore. All the Gaelic languages are disappearing.
@@Ned-Ryerson The traditional Peterborough accent still exists but is much less distinct than it was - generally only the little old boys* and little old gels who will drop into it. Obviously there has been huge influxes of people since the late 1970s and so that has diluted the accent a great deal. You really need to go just outside Peterborough to places like Whittlesey (about 5 miles) and you will hear something a bit more traditional - although Whittlesey always had a much stronger accent and was more East Anglian (or Fennish as we say).
* In the Fennish dialect little old boys are old men, "old boys" are any male who isn't old. Similar "old gel" could be quite a young girl, and only "little old gel" is an old lady.
I'm from South Lincs (although I now live in Peterboough), and certainly when I was growing up in the 70s there was a distinct difference between South Lincs towns and villages and Peterborough. There was also a distinct difference between Whittlesey and Peterborough too, and Yaxley and Peterborough (which are much closer to each other than places like Spalding or even Crowland). I would think most people in South Lincs would have seen Spalding or Boston as the big town. I think that changed when Queensgate opened in 1982. The main new town bits of Peterborough were built in the late 70s / early 80s. I grew up in Crowland but honestly we saw ourselves as much closer to the other Lincs towns than Peterborough - secondary school for me was Spalding, cubs/scouts went camping in South Lincs, we played football against other South Lincs village teams etc.
The very first thing I noticed about the Nottingham accent after moving here was how 'house' sounded like 'arse'.