Regional variation of pronunciation in the south-west of England

p> So some conclusions about the kinds of social phenomena that influence change through contact with other dialects can be made: a) dialects differ from region through the isolation of groups of speakers; b) dialects change through contact with other dialects; c) the upper classes reinforce Standard English and RP through education.

9. Dialects of England: Traditional and Modern.

After the retirement of the Romans from the island the invading immigrants were the Jutes, Saxons, Danes and Angles. The Jutes seized Kent,
The Isle of Wight and a part of the mainland; the Saxons had all those parts that have now the suffix ‘sex’, as Essex, Sussex, Middlesex, and
Wessex; and the Angles took possession of that tract of the north that has the present terminations ‘land’, ‘shire’ and ‘folk’, as Suffolk, Yorkshire,
Northumberland. These last afterwards gave the name to the whole island.

Dialects are not to be considered corruption of a language, but as varieties less favoured than the principal tongue of the country. Of the various dialects, it must be borne in mind that the northern countries retain many words now obsolete in current English: these words are of the genuine Teutonic stock. The pronunciation may seem rough and harsh, but is the same as that used by the forefathers; consequently it must not be considered barbarous. The other countries of England differ from the vernacular by a depraved pronunciation.

Awareness of regional variation in England is evident from the fourteenth century, seen in the observation of such writers as
Higden/Trevisa or William Caxton and in the literary presentation of the characters in Chaucer’s “Reeve’s Tale” or the Wakefield “Second Shepherd’s
Play”. Many of the writers on spelling and grammar in the 16th and 17th centuries made comments about regional variation, and some (such as
Alexander Gil) were highly systematic in their observants, though the material is often obscured by a fog of personal prejudices.

The picture which emerges from the kind of dialect information obtained by the Survey of English Dialects relates historically to the dialect divisions recognized in Old and Middle English.

The classification of modern dialects presents serious difficulties as their boundaries are rather vague and the language standard more and more invades the spread area of the dialectal speech. One of the most serious attempts at such classification was made by A. Ellis. His classification more or less exactly reflects the dialectal map of modern Great Britain and it was taken as the basis by many dialectologists.

The map below displays thirteen traditional dialect areas (it excludes the western tip of Cornwall and most of Wales, which were not English speaking until the 18th century). A major division is drawn between the
North and everywhere else, broadly following the boundary between the Anglo-
Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia, and a Secondary division is found between much of the Midlands and areas further south. A hierarchal representation of the dialect relationship is shown below. (№8, p.324).

Relatively few people in England now speak a dialect of the kind represented above. Although some forms will still be encountered in real life, they are more often found in literary representations of dialect speech and in dialect humour books. The disappearance of such pronunciations, and their associated lexicon and grammar, is sometimes described as “English dialects dying out”. The reality is that they are more than compensated for by the growth of a range of comparatively new dialect forms, chiefly associated with the urban areas of the country. If the distinguishing features of these dialects are used as the basis of classification, a very different-looking dialect map emerges with 16 major divisions.

Part II. Background of the Cornish language.

The southwestern areas of England include Devonshire, Somersetshire,
Cornwall, Wiltshire and Dosertshire. But first of all I’d like to draw your attention to the Cornish language as it doesn’t exist now.

The History of Cornish.

1. Who are the Cornish?

The Cornish are a Celtic people, in ancient times the Westernmost kingdom of the Dumnonii, the people who inhabited all of Cornwall, Devon and West Somerset.

The Cornish are probably the same people who have lived in Cornwall since the introduction of farming around 3000 B.C.. The start of farming in
Cornwall may also indicate the start of what some scholars now term ‘proto
Indo-European’, from whence the Celtic languages along with the Italic and other related groups of languages began evolving.

2. What is a Celtic Language?

Around 2000 B.C., the group of languages now called Celtic languages started to split away from the other members of the Indo-European group of languages. By 1200 B.C. Celtic civilisation, a heroic culture with its own laws and religion is first known. It is from this period that the first king lists and legends are believed to come.

3. How is Cornish Related to other Celtic Languages?

Between 1500 B.C. and the first encounters with the Romans (around 350
B.C.), the Celtic languages are believed to split into two distinct groups, the ‘p’ and ‘q’ Celtic branches. Cornish, Welsh and Breton (to which
Cornish is most closely related) are the three remaining ‘p’ Celtic languages. Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx being the ‘q’ Celtic tongues.

4. The Decline of Cornish.

Cornish developed pretty much naturally into a modern European language until the 17th century, after which it came under pressure by the encroachment of English. Factors involved in its decline included the introduction of the English prayer book, the rapid introduction of English as a language of commerce and most particularly the negative stigma associated with what was considered by Cornish people themselves as the language of the poor.

5. The Rebirth of Cornish.

Cornish died out as a native language in the late 19th century, with the last Cornish speaker believed to have lived in Penwith. By this time however, Cornish was being revived by Henry Jenner, planting the seeds for the current state of the language and it is supposed that the last native speaker was the fishwoman Dolly Pentreath.

6. Standard Cornish.

Standard Cornish was developed from Jenner’s work by a team under the leadership of Morton Nance, culminating in the first full set of grammars, dictionaries and periodicals. Standard Cornish (Unified) is again being developed through UCR (Unified Cornish Revised), and incorporates most features of Cornish, including allowing for Eastern and Western forms of pronunciation and colloquial and literary forms of Cornish.

7. Who uses Cornish Today?

Today Cornish typically appeals to all age groups and to those either who have an empathy with Cornwall, who have Cornish roots or perhaps have moved to Cornwall from elsewhere. One of the great successes of Cornish today is ifs wide appeal. After a break in native speakers for nearly one hundred years, Cornwall now has many children who now have Cornish as a native language along side English, and many more who are fluent in the language.

8. Government Recognition for Cornish.

Cornish is the only modern Celtic language that receives no significant support from government, despite the growing numbers learning
Cornish, and the immense good will towards it from ordinary Cornish people and from elsewhere.

This contrasts strongly with the favourable stand taken by the Manx government towards Manx for example, as evidenced by Manx primary school places being made generally available.

Recently, the UK government scrapped the Cornish GCSE. Lack of Cornish language facilities and support is no longer just a language issue, but is rapidly becoming a civil rights and political issue too. Despite the growing support of councillors in Cornwall, some key individuals in County
Hall continue to make clear their hostility to the language. e.g. of the Cornish language:

“Pyw yw an Gernowyon?

Pobel Geltek yw an bobel a Gernow . Yn osow hendasek, an wtas
Gorfewenna yn Wtas Dumnonii, neb a dregas yn Kernow, Dewnans ha Gwtas an
Haf.

Y hyltyr bos del An Gernowyon a wrug trega yn Kernow hedro an dallath gonys tyr adro 3000 K.C.. An dallath gonys tyr yn Kernow a vo dallath an os
‘proto Yndo-Europek’, dres an tavajow Keltek ha tavajow Ytaiek dallath dhe dhysplegya.”

Part III. Peculiarities of South-Western Dialects.

3. Grammar.

3.1 Nouns.

The definite article.

- There isn’t the definite article before “same”: ’Tis same’s I always told ’ee”.

- The of-phrase “the… of” is of ten used instead of the possessive pronoun (e.g. “the head of him “instead of” his head”)

The plural form of a noun.

- In many cases -s (es) can be added for several times: e.g. steps [’steps?z] (South Som.)

- in some cases [n] is heard at the end of the word: e.g. keys [ki:n] (Wil.) cows [kain] (Dev.) bottles [botln] (South-W. Dev.) primroses [pr?mr zn] (Dev.)

- but sometimes [s] is heard in the words ended with “-n” e.g. oxen [ ksnz] (Western Som.) rushes [r?ksnz] (Dev.)

- some nouns have the same form in the singular and in the plural: e.g. chicken - chickens [t??k] (Som.) pipe - pipes [pa?p] (Som.)

- sometimes the plural form of the noun is used insted of the singular form: a house [auzn] (Southern Wil.)

3.2 Gender.

The full characteristic of Gender in South-Western English I’d like to base on the part of the article by Paddock. Paddock uses the historical lebel “Wessex” to describe the countries of South-Western England.

3.2.1 Gender making in Wessex-type English.

“It is usually claimed that English nouns lost their grammatical gender during the historical period called Middle English, roughly 1100-
1500. But this claim needs some qualification. What actually happened during the Middle English period was that more overt gender marking of
English nouns gave way to more covert marking. As in Lyons (1968:281-8), the term ‘gender’ is used here to refer to morphosyntactic classes of nouns. It is true that the loss of adjective concord in Middle English made gender marking less overt; but Modern English still retains some determiner concord which allows us to classify nouns (Christophersen and Sandved
1969). In addition, Modern English (ModE), like Old English (OE) and Middle
English (ME), possesses pronominal distinctions which enable us to classify nouns.

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Regional variation of pronunciation in the south-west of England

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