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Yorkshire English is a variation of British English spoken by the people of the Yorkshire counties in England. Why learn Yorkshire English? The population of Yorkshire, at almost 5 million people, is greater than that of Scotland, Wales or Ireland. Many famous people have come from yorkshire amongst them writers such as the Bronte sisters, Ted Hughes and JB Priestley, actors such as Sean Bean, Brian Blessed, Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Stewart, Judi Dench and Ben Kingsley, bands and musicans such as the Kaiser Chiefs, the Arctic Monkeys, Jarvis Cocker and John Barry, not to mention the odd villain such as Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper and of course Guy Falkes.

Vocabulary8/12/2007

Yorkshire English, in addition to the standard use of the words "anything" and "nothing" also has wide use of the contractions "owt" and "nowt"

Example 1
Standard English
"Have you done anything today?"
Yorkshire English
"Have you done owt today?"

Negative endings. In standard English negative phrases such as "does not" and "would not" can be contracted using an apostrophe to "doesn't" and "wouldn't" respectively. In yorkshire English a further contraction is made and these words become "dunt" and "wunt"

Example 1
Standard English
"I haven't seen anything of John for weeks, he hasn't been out for ages. Ever since his mum said he couldn't, he doesn't"
Yorkshire English
"I ant seen owt of John for weeks, he ant been out for ages. Ever since his mam* said he cunt, he dunt."

*mam is a common yorkshire variant of mum (or mom if you are American/Canadian)

Post Comment

proper yorkshire17/12/2007
actually it would be "ever since is mam" not his, i say this speakin as a proper yorkshire bloke, not some poser pretending like e's from yorkshire
Posted by Yorkshire Andy

also17/12/2007
also it wouldnt be "have you done owt today" it would just be "done owt tday
Posted by Yorkshire Andy

Untitled Comment18/12/2007
awsum rite gud idea, i say 'u guna do owt then' at uni and every1 just stares at me lol. and the way i say coke....is more like coak...being from 'ull. lol xx
Posted by amberjemstone

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