Introduction
Location in the North East
Location in the U.K.
TeesSpeak:An Urban Dialect
words: alley to bleb
words : bogie to butterloggy
words:-cack-handed to clammin
words:-Clarry to dut
words:-eariewig to get
words:-Geordie to knackin'
words: lace- -mozz
words: mell- -mozz
words:nab to parmo
words: parkin to rully
words:sackless to Stee-as
words: steelie to tungie
words:village to youse
Regional Stereotypes
Gravel Voiced Gadgies
Nowt by Gob
East Cleveland
East Cleveland Dialect
East Cleveland Dialect 2
Teessiders' Origins
Smoggy
Norman Connections
Discussion Page
Northern Dialect Societies
From both ends of the Tees
Local History Sources
On Not Being a Geordie
Then and Now
Familiar Places with Strange Sounding Names
BBC VOICES PROJECT Listen to Teessiders
On Being Canny
Middlesbrough's Language & Identity
The Iron Miners
Links for Lower Tees Dialect Group
Guestbook
Mail Form
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Rural Cleveland Dialect and Tees-side Dialect
There are some features to listen for when distinguishing Rural Cleveland from Urban Teesside. Cleveland, like the rest of Yorkshire , often substitutes what the linguists call a glottal stop for the definite article'the'. This is usually written t'. e.g. in t' garden. This never happens in Teesside speech. However to my ear, the 'giveaway' of East Cleveland speech is a feature which it shares with east coast Yorkshire dialects all the way down to Hull. The ‘r’, on the ends of words like ‘weather', is sounded. weatheR. The Teesside pronunciation is ‘weathuh’ (unless it is followed by a vowel, of course.) I have worked with some teacher colleagues from East Cleveland who have been 'educated' some way from their natural way of speaking but still retain that slight trill of the final 'r'.
There are words used in Rural Cleveland' not often heard in Teesside. ‘While’ is used in the sense of ‘until’ or ‘at the time of’ ‘ ‘Ah’ll be stayin while Friday’. ‘capp’d’ means to be pleased‘ ‘”Ah were fair capp’d’ wi’ it” ‘Right’ is used to mean ‘very’ ‘She were right poorly’ ‘Dowly’ is ‘out of sorts , depressed. ‘middlin’ means reasonably all right. ‘How are ye feelin?’ ‘middlin’ Occasionally some of these such as ‘while’ ‘ middlin’ ‘right’ ‘capp’d’ can be heard in the speech of people who mainly speak Teesside ,living where Teesside and Rural Cleveland meet but not in the main urban area.
One feature of traditional Cleveland speech is the double vowel in words like wee-ant (won’t) dee-ant (don’t) where Teesside has a monophthong -oh-. The fishing village Staithes is Stee-as in Cleveland speech although this version of the name is also used by many South Teesside speakers.
Amongst farming families you will still hear dialect words unknown in urban Teesside, most of which seem to be of Scandinavian origin. A.lye is a scythe.plotheris very wet mud especially if including animal manure.migis the liquid flowing from a manure heap. Agripeis strictly a three pronged farming fork but I've heard it used of an ordinary garden fork. A depression in a field is called a . ‘slack hole’. whinney-bush is a gorze bush. A. recklin is the runt of a pig litter. A . ‘yow’ is a ewe. The . 'skitters' is diarrhoea especially in a young animal whose digestive system is unused to the spring grass.
Older Cleveland speakers will still use ‘thoo’ (thou) , still say blinnd (blind), neet (night), yan (one ) and yance (once.). No doubt the farmer who sold his Middlesbrough farm to provide land for the new town in 1829 spoke like this or very similarly but now in Teesside it is almost a foreign language.
When I lived in Glaisdale, near Whitby ,a visiting Teesside friend was at once entranced and baffled by the late night ‘crack’ in the local pub claiming he hardly understood a word.
If we look at Peter Trudgill’s (1) modern dialect categorisation , the lower Tees Valley is placed in the North East whereas Cleveland is recognised as a variety of what he has named ‘Lower North’, a large area including Cumbria, North Lancashire,Yorkshire and Humberside
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Coffee or Coffih?
One keyword identifier of most of the Lower North is the pronunciation of the final vowel in words like ‘coffee’ 'empty' 'city' etc Rural Cleveland, like most of Yorkshire , says coffih. Teesside, like the rest of the North East says coffee.
There is still a rich vocabulary in rural Cleveland Dialect. Fortunately there is a good collection of poetry available both traditional and contemporary.
A Cleveland Anthology edited by W Cowley is available through the publications section of the Yorkshire Dialect Society
Cleveland is well represented on a Yorkshire Dialect Poems Yorkshire Poetry website (Look out for John Castillo, Florence Tweddell, Richard Blakeborough)
Some of my favourite contemporary poems are written by Alan Stanforth. Alan is not strictly a Clevelander being born and bred in Pickering, but it is still North Yorkshire. Look out for his book 'Strangers in Thirsty Places' published from 96 Nelson St. Scarborough)
references
1. The Dialects of England:edition 2 Peter Trudgill: Blackwell 1998 isbn 0-631-21815-7
Strongly Recommended Reading
The Yorkshire Dictionary of Dialect,Tradition and Folklore: Arnold Kellett:Smith Settle Ltd., 1994 isbn 1-85825-016-1 Also available from the Publications Section of the Yorkshire Dialect Society
The East Riding (i.e. East Yorkshire) has strong links with traditional Cleveland speech. See East Riding Dialect Dictionary :Norman Stockton: Horsley & Dawson, Printers & Stationers.Driffield Tel 01377 253171
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