The Northeast is famous for our distinctive dialects and ways of speaking. But where did the dialects come from? And what might the future of the dialects be? The subject of how a dialect develops, is naturally a very complex matter, but this series of articles hopes to answer those questions – and a few more things besides.
Parts 1 and 2 looked the origins of our regional dialects in Anglo-Saxon and Viking times and at developments during the Middles Ages. This part will look at the effects of mass immigration into the Northeast during the Industrial Revolution and the development of new working practices.
The Yukon of the North: Dialects
The Northeast was arguably the first industrial region in the world, leading to what it is becoming, what David Byrne at Durham University called the Yukon of the North’. People flooded into the Northeast attracted by work, firstly in the coal mines and later also in the accompanying heavy industries, of iron and steel, ship building, railways and engineering. As the Northeast became a place where some of the highest wages in the world could be earned, so those coming in brought their own dialects and languages. All these would mix with the old Northumbrian/Northern English to build what we traditionally see as the dialects of our region.
One example of someone in the Northeast, can be seen in the case of the great County Durham mining artist from Spennymoor, Norman Cornish. His family background is typical of many in the county and indeed on Tyneside and in Southeast Northumberland as well. As could be guessed from his surname, Norman had family roots in Cornwall and indeed many Cornish tin miners moved to the Northeast in the 1830’s as the price of tin collapsed and the prospect of doing similar work in the Northeast became attractive. Other parts of Norman’s family roots were in Scotland, Sligo in Ireland and Lancashire in Northern England.
Rural to Urban Migration and Dialects
It was in the mid-18th century that the Industrial Revolution in the Northeast began, as the region became the arguably the first industrialised region in the world, as the coal industry developed rapidly.
Consequently, there was a large migration from rural areas, as better paid jobs in mining and some of the new associated industries, became more attractive than continuing to work as farm labourers. Naturally people from the borders and rural Northumberland and Durham brought their way of speaking with them.
Going Dutch
In the early days of the development of Tyneside and other parts of the Northeast as major industrial centres, the Netherlands was a major maritime and trading nation. There was a considerable trade between the Northeast and Holland, and it has been argued that one of the consequences of this was that some Dutch words entered our dialect.
Indeed, it has been argued that while it is often difficult to be certain of exact word origins if you go back far enough, it might be that this link to Dutch may be why Northeast industrial speech is set slightly apart.
The Scots and Their Dialect
Another group who came to the new modern industrial citadel of Tyneside and Wearside were the Scots, who were particularly known for the fact that they made up as many as 50% of the Keelmen on the River Tyne as the coal trade with London really exploded in the 18th century. Like other groups, the Scots on Tyneside also brought their way of speaking with them.
Griffiths has noted that the influence of Scots was also influential in the developing intellectual life of Newcastle, as the second half of the 18th century wore on. This is perhaps unsurprising, given the influence of Scots-born Presbyterian preacher James Murray and fellow Radical Thomas Spence, who although born by the banks of the Tyne, came from a Scottish family.
Griffiths has argued that: “A North Easterner well enough placed to attend university would likely choose Edinburgh rather than Oxford or Cambridge. Political sensibilities tended to be linked. In reaction to the ‘unreformed’ Corporation (City Council) in Newcastle and the dominance of an unreformed Parliament in London, the tone of popular politics veered to the radical, embracing republicanism and democracy, and more aligned to feeling in Scotland than in London. Booklets of songs published on Tyneside in the 1800s and 1810s contain both reformist and anti-French texts, plus a fair proportion of Scottish songs and imitations of Burns’ work.”
The Irish and Their Dialect
Although there had been Irish born migrants living in places like Newcastle before the 1840’s, the dreadful Potato Famine in that dark decade meant that large numbers of Irish, many of them Irish speakers from the west of the country, came into the Northeast, as job opportunities in mining, shipbuilding, iron and steel manufacture, engineering and associated trades came up.
Some influence on the Tyneside accent is quite possible, but not always easy to trace. Just as it is not so easy to trace Irish words coming into the dialect.
It has been argued that the influence of Irish speakers upon the dialect was not as great as might have been expected. One theory for this was that the Irish tended not to be involved in higher status work and didn’t have the status that the Scots had had earlier due to their preponderance in the numbers of Keelmen.
Perhaps the most pertinent reason, however, was simply that the Irish didn’t arrive in really large numbers until after the gamine in the 1840’s and by then much of the new ‘industrial’ dialect had become settled.
Pitmatic: Dialects
The growth of industry on the Great Northern coalfield, and the development of new mining techniques, also meant that a whole distinct language became established on the coalfield, with the name of Pitmatic, including many mining terms that were not used anywhere else in the world.
It has been noted by Bill Griffiths that a rural influence was at play in the early development of Pitmatic, as Dalesmen came into the coalfield from places like Tynedale and Redesdale towards the Scottish border. They naturally brought with them, “their particular customs and their language – retaining many features of the Old English of the Anglo-Saxons and the Old Norse of the Vikings. This speech contrasted notably with the more educated, metropolitan manners and English of the citizens of Newcastle.”
Despite this, Pitmatic would go on to play a major role in the development of the way we speak in the Northeast. To quote Griffiths again: “When Scott Dobson set about popularising ‘Geordie’ in the 1970’s, it was the phrasing of pitmen he took as his central value, and his writing was more about the pit villages than Tyneside itself.”
Summing Up Part 3
The 18th and 19th centuries were times of huge change in the Northeast and large numbers of people coming into the area naturally had an effect upon the dialect that was spoken. The Northeast was a melting pot of different people, and this was naturally reflected in the dialect that developed. Much of it understandably came from the rural areas around the coalfield, when people moved out of Pennine and Border dales attracted by better wages as work agricultural work and land slowly became scarcer in their home areas.
The Scots also contributed a considerable amount, although it can also be said that there were already similarities between the Northumbrian dialect of the early 18th century and Scots, with many vowel sounds being the same or similar. The Irish also came in large numbers later in the Industrial revolution, especially after the terrible Irish potato Famine of the 1840’s, but they seemed to have left a smaller mark on the dialect of the Northeast than the Scots.
Finally. it is important to be clear that there was not one homogeneous dialect across the Northeast during the second half of the 19th century, any more than there is now. Pitmatic developed on the coalfield, with a number of variations. But included words that came both from the rural background of many of the people living there and also from the industrial work which they undertook.
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