The Untold Story of East-Midlands English Accents
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- Опубликовано: 28 май 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
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!
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?
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. 🥹😂
Everyone forgets us in the East Midlands. Thanks for doing a follow up video!
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'.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
I was today years old when I found out that "mashed" isn't used throughout the country.
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!
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.
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.
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'
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?
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.
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.
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 😂
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?
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?"
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.
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.
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!
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!
The Lincolnshire accent changes from a Yorkshire sounding one around the Humber to the unique fen accent in the south east.
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 🤷🏼♂️
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?
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.
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.
Hi Dave, these videos are fascinating and I'm massively impressed by your mastery of the accents.
Literally were about to leave a comment about this on the other video!
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.
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.
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.
What fantastic timing. I just watched the general one and, although very excited, was hoping he'd covered my neck of the woods.
Love your videos.. thanks for your research! ❤
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.
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
Brilliant, great fun to listen to and very informative Dave, well done. Less-toh (Leicester)!
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! 😊
Very informative video Dave, thank you. I especially like how you give historical context to the accents.
Glad you enjoyed it
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.
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.
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.
great video and channel, keep 'em coming please :)
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.
Big up ya sen - smashing job on this
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 ;)
well done You have nailed it again !!!! I'm from Nottingham
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!
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.
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, Dave duck. You did a reet good job on the accent. I enjoyed it and will watch some more.
Awesome, thank you!
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 !!
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.
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."
The very first thing I noticed about the Nottingham accent after moving here was how 'house' sounded like 'arse'.
Really enjoyed. Originally from Warwickshire so familiar with these but can never do the accents myself.
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.
I was brought up on the Notts Derby border, Somercotes, and remember distinctly that rural Derbyshire had a different accent to us, by having the typical exaggerated NG in singing a song. They also said look rhyming with spook which was alien to us. "Us" for was pronounced ooz in Somercotes and was multifunctional.
So if your sweets were confiscated then..
"Miss took uz tuffies off uz"
Could mean "my sweets off me" or "our sweets off us".
"Pots" meant plates and bowl, ie crockery.
Ah ya reet yoth? Was the typical greeting. Nowt was pronounced naht. Being told off was "gerrin shah-tud at". Nearby Aftreton was Oftun. And loads more I've forgotten or have been lost. I hope someone made a recording of these accents in time.
Interesting vid. East Mids is definitely a collection of accents, not just one. Leicester, for example, is a different story altogether.
Definitely a collection of accents, as is often the case in may parts of the country. Thanks for these examples.
Tuffies is a proper good one from around here yea
@@ascorbic123 is roggy (haircut) and grid (bicycle) still used?
Something else of note around the Alfreton/Somercotes/Ripley areas is the extra syllable in some words. For example, windows becomes "windowas".
Very interesting that mention of a different accent in rural Derbyshire. Sixty odd years ago I attended grammar school in Matlock and when we went to play cricket against Swanwick Hall near Somercotes we could hardly understand what members of their team were talking about. Later in life I actually taught at Swanwick Hall and found the differences in accent had lessened. Now in the Matlock area 'aye up me duck' seems to have taken over from my boyhood 'na then luv.'
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!
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!
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.
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.
Thanks for the informative video
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.
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
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).
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.
Also have a look at the differences in accents between Notts and Derby counties - they are huge.
One day.
I'm from a town called Rushden, on the border of Northants & Beds. Our 'native' accent/dialect, which shares characteristics with East Anglia and Cockney, has almost been completely lost in one generation. My parents/grandparents pronounce 'house, town, trousers' like 'hews, tewn, trewsers.' But at school I remember us being told to 'Speak properly!' which was quite confusing. I've heard a lot of the younger generation below me (I'm 35) speak full MLE, which is interesting. Listen to Northampton rapper Slowthai speak -not a trace of South East Midlands.
ent, kent, shent, en enna gunna 😀
Really enjoyed that. Nicely done.
Glad to hear 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?"
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.
Wonderful, thank you.
Not Bad! I’m from Market Harborough and our Upper School’s catchment area was large and included pupils from many of surrounding villages - and their were many variations on the accent with big differences between those coming from near Leicester like Great Glen, and those on the Northants border like Farndon. Both sets of grandparents came from Leicester too - and that accent is quite different from Harborough too. But we all say Mardy, croggy for riding on a cross bar - or a backie on a bike - and entry for the alley up the side of your house, okey pokey for ice-cream - cob for a bread roll etc etc… funny how Leicester folks would also sometimes say gorra for got to - which is rather like a scouse accent!
Fascinating.
As an East Midlands native now in Oxfordshire exile, it madey heart leap to hear you say "Nottin'ham".
I commented this on your “A tour of the accents of England” Video:
*’you missed out the east midlands entirely. i’m curious why that is. I’m from the east midlands - the north of the east midlands, near the border of [southern] yorkshire. More specifically, i’m from Nottinghamshire. A large town called Mansfield. It’s inbetween Nottingham (it’s to the north of nottingham, in the north of the county) and Sheffield. We are also near Derby, Chesterfield, Doncaster and not too far from lincoln and leeds. My particular town (mansfield) sits very near the border of nottinghamshire and derbyshire (derbyshire is to the west). So much so, that one town in derbyshire - shirebrook - has a nottinghamshire postcode (or something like that as i’ve been told). Nottinghamshire borders Yorkshire (southern yorkshire if you’re going by subdivisions) and Mansfield is near the top of the county, meaning towns and cities in yorkshire are only about a 40 minutes drive, and 15 miles away.*
*I’m a bit sad you missed out this area and region, and would be very interested to seeing a video on it. There’s lots of different accents in a 20 mile radius of my town (mansfield). We have a notts/derby accent, and some people’s accents are ever so slightly yorkshire here too because of the region and proximity. both doncaster and sheffield are about 10-15 miles from me (and both are about five miles from each other, yet both have not too dissimilar but definitely distinguishable and different accents. Just north of both of those towns is barnsley, which also has a different accent/dialect to sheffield and doncaster.*
*South and South-west of me are nottingham and derby respectively, and both accents are similar (and the people and the way they talk feel very ‘familiar’ and ‘the same as me’ to me), yet there’s some slight differences there too. There’s also variation between how people talk in these places like in my town. Some sound a bit more southern, some have stronger accents, some have more guttural, yorkshire accents etc… So I find my region (the east midlands) and my particular area (north east-midlands and southern yorkshire) fascinating and really interesting.*
*I obviously love my area and my people and where I come from, and have a lot of reverence for the people who come from the same sort of area that I do. What I find fascinating is the variety, variation and diversity of accent and dialect in such a small area and radius (from northampton and leicestershire to south yorkshire - a distance of what must be less than a 100 miles. The similarities and differences are so intriguing and interesting to me, and perhaps to you to?*
*I’d love you to look into this and do a dive into it! Thank you for the otherwise fantastic video!’*
I commented this before I got recommended this video lol. But obviously there were many outraged and likeminded east-midlanders like me haha. Anyways, I hope you still read it as it will probably be an interesting read for you, and will give you a topic to focus on and content to make should you want to. Regardless of if you choose to made a video on this or not (i’m not expecting or demanding that you do, just that it’s an idea), I’d love your feedback and thoughts anyway. Cheers for your great videos.
South Derbyshire, bordering towards Leicestershire had a very extreme accent. If you were caught using it you were told: 'Don't talk broad!' Terms of greeting (male) was 'Ayup Surry' The origin of Surry is supposed by some scholars to have evolved from Sirrah (sir). Local dialect words include 'Sleck' for very small pieces of coal and phrases like 'Ayza Deez' (he is on the day shift) Ayz Neets (he is on the night shift) and the wonderful 'Ay nayled oner bager neels an gorra neel in iz nay.' (He Knelt on a bag of nails and a nail punctured his knee.'
Seconding this. My parents are from that area and it's a fascinating little enclave with a language all its own. My Dad was born and bred in Burton-on-Trent and used to have trouble sometimes understanding my Mum's elderly aunts and uncles from South Derbyshire. Burton is about 5 minutes away from there. They have that hissen/yoursen/theirsens thing, but they also have cunna/wunna/shunna and anna/canna/shanna for couldn't/wouldn't/shouldn't and aren't/can't/shan't, which you don't mention. A line I used to hear a lot from children was, "Eh wanna may, ah anna dun ote!" (It wasn't me, I haven't done anything!") Going is gooing, as well. "Ah anna gooin!" (I'm not going/I don't want to go!) The missing final L is there, but hospital is really extreme: ospikoo. And the word 'the' often gets missed out completely - you 'go ospikoo' if you're injured. 'Surry' is interesting above -= I never had any idea where that was from, I just know that everyone said 'surry ah' for 'Ah, I see what you mean'. 'Ah' is used a LOT. It means yes, but you can say ah! (I see!) and ah? (is that so?) and ah... (I don't know about that...) The part about the Danelaw and the reason behind the difference between East and West Midlands accents was fascinating. (Just one thing - you missed the 'g' out of the word 'background' on the title on the screen.)
"Ey up" actually means "look up" in both Yorkshire dialect and Swedish "Sey upp" it's a word of old East Norse origin, but almost everyone in Yorkshire thinks it means "Hello"
@@lecturesfromleeds614 Yes, in South Derbyshire I'd say it was used as 'hello' but definitely has that meaning of 'look'. As well as being used as a greeting it'd also be used as a way of telling someone to watch out, be careful, get out of the way, or to get people to look - "Ey up, what's this?" So I think as a greeting it's probably a way of getting the other person to look and see you? Or an expression like, "Why, look who it is!" My Dad would often say things to me like, "Ey up, mind out, watch yourself!" if there was something dangerous about.
@@toriar A lot of those Broad South Derbyshire features you mentioned are used in Broad North Staffordshire in and around Stoke-on-Trent. 'Me-sen' is used a lot in the area I grew up, 'cunna/wunna/shunna' also. "Eh wanna may, ah anna dun ote!" - that made me laugh a lot cause it's so familiar; 'ospikoo' remember this one growing up too, but it's more like 'ospikul'. There are some differences from East Midlands dialects though, like how we say 'look/book/cook' to rhyme with 'Luke' and instead of 'me or m' duck' it's just 'duck', so just goes 'ay up duck!' as a greeting. We also have this saying as an example of Broad North Staffordshire. It goes like this, see if you can figure it out:
''cost kick a bo agen a wo, yed it en bost it?'
@@abandonstrings Hey, my parents are from round there and not me, don't forget, so I'm not a native speaker! I had a hell of a time when we first moved there. Hmm. All I can get is that the last bit is 'and broken it'. If it was London, I'd say bo was ball and wo was wall. Are the Ls dropped as much as in London? (Still think it's hilarious that Adele of all people was picked to do the theme tune for Skyfall...) I only ever noticed it with 'ospickoo'. So is it 'kick a ball against a wall'?
Dave brilliant video, can share with my wife and children so they can understand me a little better😉
I love your passion for languages
Thank you!
Superb video mi duck
Excellent every time!
Wow, thanks!
Thanks so much for doing this It’s spot on 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
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 .
They also have owt and nowt as Yorkshire but with the boat vowel not the bough vowel
Interesting. Thanks for letting me know.
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
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.
Gitty ( jit-eh ) would be a common bit of slang associated with the area too. meaning alley / alleyway. More so in the south east-mids as ginnel tends to blend down from further north (yorkshire)
My gran lived in Kettering and she always used the word Duck and Ducky. Never heard it anywhere else.Even my father did not use it.
Excellent video. You nailed the accent.
Here is a Nottingham joke.
A bloke teks his cat to the vet and once inside he lays the box on the vet's table and says ' I want ya to do summut wijit? I don't want it having no babies'
The vet replies, 'Ahh I see sir, is it a tom?'
The owner answers 'Noooooo, his 'ere, in the box''
Good one!
Fantastic video!
Glad you liked it!
I sent this to my italian friend who watched Peakey blinders !
Thank you!
Very good thankyou. You didn't really touch on Northamptonshire which is quite different, but still "East Midlands" and for a county that once bordered nine other counties it has influences from all around. Many dialect words are common with Lincs, Leics Notts etc - "me duck" and "mardy" for example, but pronunciation is quite different. . Kettering is said to be the most northerly town in N'shire that uses the long "a" as in bath and grass, but it's said with a "flat and wide" sort of pronunciation, but definitely not the northern short "a". We also say "scone" as opposed to "scon" (but not in a posh way). I lived in Kettering all of my formative years, but I still can't do the accent if asked!! Generally it sounds lazy. "ent" (isn't) "kent" (can't) "wunt" (won't) "shunt" (shouldn't). "Town" and "down" sound more like "tain" and "dain" than "tahn" and "dahn" hence "are yu gooin' dain tain?". Good luck with that one!
Thanks for all that info, Graham. Northamptonshire sounds interesting. Further research is clearly needed. One day I'd love to travel the world asking people how they say stuff.
Lazy is exactly how I explain it to people too! We're trying to say as much as possible with the fewest amount of syllables 😂
Kettering born, Stanwick raised and living in Rothwell now. Lived abroad for a few years and noone could understand a word until I turned it down a notch.
How do you pronounce couldn’t?
@@CosmicGorilla I know what you're up to...
@@lukemclellan2141 😂
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 RUclips. I've no doubt someone already mentioned it, but Jim Broadbent is from Lincolnshire.
Thanks for the suggesting. I’ll check out Farmer Wink.