Archives Dialect Dialect verse Etymologies Middle English Old English Old Norse

Research

Resources

Sounds and Symbols

This page is still under construction and more links will be added as I come across them. In the meantime, anyone wishing recommend a useful link can either e-mail or write to me at the The College of York St John (full address on home page).

The notion behind the selection of the following links is to build on the material and information provided within this website. As can be seen, not all the chosen links relate directly to dialect per se but are considered to be useful on the grounds that they say more about specific items mentioned within these pages. For example, reference is made to sites which provide more information about Old English and Middle English.

One consideration in the selection of the links was whether or not the relevant site contained sound files. Such sites are identified below by the symbol (S) after the title. It should be noted some of the sound files take a while to download so please be patient.

 

Archives

Collect Britain - English Accents and Dialects (S)

This is an excellent website for sound recordings. It includes material from both the SED (Survey of English Dialects) and the Millennium Memory Bank archive. Efforts have been made to match the respective extracts according to geographical location (thus facilitating identification of linguistic change in the intervening years).

http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/collections/dialects/

 

The Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture

This archive, the basis of which is the late Harold Orton's work on English dialects and the research and teaching activities of the Institute of Dialect and Folk Life Studies, is a comprehensive multi-media collection of research material relating to dialect and folk life.

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/english/activities/lavc/

 

The Mitchell Collection

"Dr W.R. Mitchell has donated to the J.B. Priestley Library a collection of books and archives. The material reflects his career with "The Dalesman", and his lifelong interest in the history and natural history of the Dales region and the life and work of its inhabitants."

Includes many "Dalesman" and other publications about or featuring dialect and audiocassettes of interviews with elderly Dalesfolk

http://www.brad.ac.uk/library/special/mitchell.php

 

National Centre of English Cultural Tradition

"Archives include student projects, dissertations, newspaper cuttings, written reports, magazines, xeroxed articles, pamphlets, ephemera, original monographs, photographs, slides, audiotapes and video tapes. NATCECT's unique library, special collections and recordings are available to students and researchers by arrangement."

http://www.shef.ac.uk/natcect/

 

The Waddington-Feather Collection

"The Rev. John Waddington-Feather's ... published works include novels, poetry, drama and academic papers. He has given the J.B. Priestley Library a collection of books and journals about Yorkshire and Yorkshire dialects, and an archive collection of papers relating to his works and to authors published by Feather Books, particularly the Glyn family."

http://www.brad.ac.uk/library/special/wadd.php

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Dialect

Northern English Dialects

"The Northern English Dialects, like Lancashire, Yorkshire, Westmoreland and Geordie are older forms of English. They have great similarities between them and can be compared to Scots English and Old & Middle English."

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~anderton/dialect.html

 

Pitmatic

This site is still under construction and to date contains the following: introduction, dialect words and literature, newsletters, a publications archive, and links

http://www.pitmatic.co.uk/

 

TeesSpeak: Dialect of the Lower Tees Valley in the North East of England

This is a recently constructed site which contains material relating to a linguistic survey conducted during 2002. The site contains, inter alia, the following information: Location of the Tees Valley; TeesSpeak an Urban Dialect; Word Lists; Recommended Reading and a Newsletter.

http://www.communigate.co.uk/ne/teesspeak/index.phtml

 

The Normandy / Yorkshire linguistic connection

"What springs to mind when we think of Normandy ? Holidays in a landscape of orchards, hedgerows and contented brown and white cows ? Cider, Calvados, seafood and creamy cuisine ? The birthplace of a certain Duke William, the victor at Hastings in 1066, and the home of the Bayeux Tapestry? ....... But would we be likely to think immediately of Yorkshire dialects ?" (Barrie Markham Rhodes and Arnaud Le Fèvre , 2000)

http://www.viking.no/e/heritage/nor_yor.htm

 

Yorkshire Dialect Society

"Information, publications and forthcoming events."

http://www.ydsociety.org.uk

 

Yorkshire dialect words of old Norse origin

"The influence of Viking language on the regional speech varieties of northern and eastern England is well documented. It is not surprising, therefore, that numerous 'Viking' lexical items are to be found in the traditional dialects of places such as Yorkshire and this page presents many of these." (Barrie Markham Rhodes, 2000)

http://www.viking.no/e/england/e-yorkshire_words.htm

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Dialect verse

The Home of Original Yorkshire Dialect Verse

"This site is here to encourage this creative talent from the White Rose County. If you have any original Yorkshire Dialect Verse you would like to contribute then please e-mail me the text, and if you haven't published here before please also include a profile of yourself and if you have one attach a photo." Kevin R. Wilde

http://www.yorkshire-dialect.org

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Etymologies

Yorkshire words of Norse origin

Here Barrie Markham. Rhodes provides an alphabetical list of Yorkshire dialect words of Norse origin

http://www.viking.no/e/england/e-yorkshire_norse.htm

 

Old Norse Words in the Norman Dialect

From The Vikings in Normandy by Arnaud Le Fèvre, this page provides a list of Norman words of Norse origin together with the English translations.

http://www.viking.no/e/france/norman_on_words.htm

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Middle English

The Great Vowel Shift (S)

See and hear how the great vowel shift works - (NB downloading a little slow - allow sufficient time).

http://facweb.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/seehear.htm

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Old English

The Old English Pages (S)

An encyclopedic compendium of resources for the study of Old English and Anglo-Saxon England (Part of the On-line Reference Book [ORB] for Medieval Studies).

http://www.georgetown.edu/cball/oe/old_english.html

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Old Norse

M a l · v i k i n g a

This site is in effect a course on Runic Swedish which was the language spoken in Sweden around 1000 years ago. It contains, among other things, details of the grammar, words, runes and pronunciation.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/1327/index.html

 

Old Norse for Beginners (S)

Created by Haukur Thorgeirsson and Óskar Guthlaugsson, this is a free online beginners course for students of Old Norse. Although still under construction it should be useful for those who are just starting to learn the language.

http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/

 

The Language of the Vikings

This site, which aims to teach "the language of the viking age and medieval scandinavians" is still under construction. To date it contains some grammar and a word list.

http://hem.passagen.se/peter9/gram/index.html

 

The spoken word of old Norse (S)

Examples of Viking text spoken in modern Icelandic provided by University of Cambridge Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic

http://www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/Resource/ONword.htm

 

The Viking Linguistic Heritage in England (S)

A comprehensive site which contains, among other things, English words of Scandinavian etymology and Viking place-names in both England and the Danelaw (see also Yorkshire dialect words of old Norse origin and The Normandy / Yorkshire linguistic connection mentioned in the Dialect section above).

http://www.viking.no/e/england/e-viking_english.htm

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Research

The following provide details of dialect research currently being undertaken:

University of Leeds (School of English)

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/pages/staffindex.php?file=upto

 

University of Newcastle

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/necte/

 

University of Sheffield (National Centre for English Cultural Tradition)

http://www.shef.ac.uk/english/natcect/research.html

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Resources

Online Language and Linguistic Resources

This is an excellent site run by Dr Dominic Watt of the University of Aberdeen. It contains a host of useful links in such categories as: General; Reference; Organisations; Resources (freeware, etc.); Phonetics; Scots Language and Literature; Historical Linguistics; Sociolinguistics and Corpora

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/langling/resources/index.htm

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Sounds and Symbols

International Phonetic Alphabet (S)

This site is by the phonetician Peter Ladefoged and contains, inter alia, sounds of the International Phonetic Alphabet and the sounds of vowels and consonants (including those from other parts of the world).

http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/vowels/contents.htm

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