The Cambridge History of the English Language Volume 5 Part 5 potx

Ossi Ihalainen

Btrwick upoaiwud

SOmUcs

Map 5.1 English dialect districts, 1887 (redrawn from Ellis' map in his On

Early English Pronunciation, 1889)

23 6

The dialects of England since 1776

Line 5: the tbeeth line. The northern limit of the use of the standard form

of the and the hiss (th), i.e. [6], in conjunction with suspended (tv

) as the

definite article, till the returns to the north of line 7.

Line 6: the s. hoose line. The southern limit of the pronunciation of the

word house as [hu:s]. The hoose line is also the northern limit of the [haus]

pronunciation of house.

Line 7: the northern tee line. The northern limit of the suspended (tv

) for

the definite article.

Line 8: the southern sum line in northern England or the southern limit

of the unrounding in words like some. Here the direction is 'travelling

from Scotland into England'.

Line 9: the northern soom line. The northern limit of any variety of the

[sum] pronunciation (which may be mixed with unrounded pro￾nunciations), 'on proceeding from the Midland counties to Scotland'.

Line 10: the limit between 'L [Lowland] Scotch and N [Northern]

English speech'. The linguistic border is 'not precisely coincident with

the political boundary of England and Scotland': for instance,

' Berwick-on-Tweed and its Liberties, extending 2 to 4 miles into

Bw. [Berwickshire], are linguistically part of England', whereas parts of

Cumberland and Northumberland are assigned to Scotland (Ellis 1889:

21). Where the linguistic boundary should run seems to have been a

controversial question. In this matter, Ellis' views differed from those of

Murray and Bonaparte (see Glauser 1974: 49-55 for a discussion). This

suggests that the linguistic situation around the border was rather

complex, with spill-overs into the neighbour's territory. Since Ellis' day

the political border seems to have become linguistically more important,

with northern England becoming linguistically more sharply dif￾ferentiated from Scotland.

5.6.2 Ellis' divisions

On the basis of the ten transverse lines, Ellis divides the dialects of Great

Britain into six principal divisions, which are further divided into forty￾two districts. The districts are further divided into varieties. The

2

37

Ossi Ihalainen

divisions and districts, but not the subdivisions, are indicated on a map

attached to Part V of Ellis' On Early English Pronunciation (1889). The

divisions and districts are the following:

I The southern division: districts 1—12

II The western division: districts 13 and 14

III The eastern division: districts 15—19

IV The midland division: districts 20-9

V The northern division: districts 30—2

VI The lowland division: districts 33-42

The main divisions and the districts in England and Wales are shown in

map 5.1 from On Early English Pronunciation, Part V. Districts 1 to 3 of

division I represent the ' Celtic Southern', that is Welsh, English, and

division VI English as spoken in the Lowlands of Scotland. These will

not be discussed here. In addition to the' transverse lines' that are used to

differentiate between the principal divisions, Ellis lists a number of other

characteristics that he found within each division. Some of these will be

discussed below. The following chart summarises the criteria used to

differentiate between the divisions, that is, the main dialect areas.

Ellis

1889

South

West

East

Mid

North

Reverted

r

yes

(uncertain)

no

no

no

soom

no

no

no

yes.

yes*

/'

no

no

no

no

yes*

/'and

<*' [6]

no

no

no

yes*

no

hoose

no

no

no

no

yes

The asterisk (*) indicates that the feature characterises much of the area

but not necessarily all of it. Thus much of the north-west of England

does not have the /' realisation of the definite article, and there is a small

area in Northumberland where some is sum rather than soom. Further

differences between the general north and Northumberland include such

lexical oppositions as summat vs something, thou vsje, seet vs sight, slape vs

slippy 'slippery', nor vs than, wool vs ool 'wool'. The '/' in connection

with th'' realisation of the definite article does not occur in the east or the

south midlands.

Perhaps the most surprising anomaly here is that, besides the fact that

these areas are geographically separated from each other, there is

nothing to separate Ellis' west from his east. Both are 'straight no'

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The dialects of England since 1776

dialects. On a lower level of abstraction, of course, the differences are

striking. Problems like these pinpoint the difficulty of finding classi￾ficatory criteria that support our judgements about linguistic areas,

are general enough to cover large areas and yet have considerable

discriminatory power.

That a small number of criteria do not identify areas that are mutually

exclusive simply shows something about dialect areas in general and

should not give us concern. For instance, Ellis' soom and sum areas

overlap in the east midlands (as they still do) to form a mixed area, a

transition zone (Chambers & Trudgill 1980: ch. 8).

Ellis admits he is not quite happy with the reverted r line in the west.

He says that it exists in his district 13 (the southern part of the western

division), but adds that it is 'generally inconspicuous and often

uncertain, so that it would not be possible to correct line 3' (1889: 176).

The north Herefordshire sample immediately following this passage

shows that reverted and non-reverted realisations of /r/ alternate. The

SED reports r-retroflexion in almost the whole of Ellis' western

division (LAE map Phil 'arm').

The distinction between the south and the west division is further

justified by the observation that some important southern and south￾western (i.e.'Wessex') characteristics (such as the retraction of the r￾sound or the retention of ME at) are non-existent or weakened at best in

Ellis' western division (D 13 and D 14). There is, of course, a lot to

connect the southern part of Ellis' western division to at least the mid

southern variety — both have finite be and periphrastic do, for instance —

but Ellis' observations about the western division fractures in such

words as they, road, write and doubt and their connection to standard

English rather than any indigenous English dialect support his view that

underlying much of the western division English is some type of' Book

English' rather than a ' pure' dialect. The main characteristics of Ellis'

main divisions will be briefly discussed next.

The southern division

The defining characteristic is the 'reverted' or 'retracted' r. Southern

districts 1—3 are called ' the Celtic Southern'. Since this variety occurs on

what Ellis calls 'Celtic territory' - that is, in parts of Ireland and Wales

- it will not be discussed here.

Although he still seems to use this label in its historical sense, Ellis is

aware that the south is linguistically less unified than it used to be. The

Ossi Ihalainen

reverted r still prevails over the southern division, ' but the older main

characters, as shewn in D 4, all of which were probably characteristic of

the whole division, fade out gradually to the e. of D 4, and become

complicated with other characters to the w.' (Ellis 1889: 23). To Ellis,

then, the mid southern variety of southern English, which occupies ' the

principal seat of the Wessex tribe' (Ellis 1889: 36), is a paradigmatic,

historically pure representative southern variety of English.

LINGUISTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MID SOUTHERN

(I.E. 'WESSEX') VARIETY D 4

Linguistic features of the mid southern variety of southern English

include 'reverted' or 'retracted' r, voicing of initial /s/ and /f/, the

realisation of thr- as dr-, the use of /ai/ in words like hay and may and the

centralisation of the first element in the diphthongs /au/ and /ai/. (The

first element is said to be Bell's vowel number 22.)

The main grammatical characteristics are: finite be {I be 'I am'),

prefixed participial forms (a-done 'done'), periphrastic do (I do go 'I go'),

pronoun exchange (Her told I' She told me'), dn for 'him' and ' it', he' it'

(as in, Where's the knife ? He's in the kitchen - where you left uri), utch ' I'. A

point of historical significance about this list is that the older south￾western «-less participial forms, as in i-do 'done' and i-go have been

replaced by an «-ful form.16

Ellis' western division (districts 13 and 14)

Ellis characterises the western division type of English as basically

Southern English with Welsh influence (D 13), giving in the west the

impression of being 'book English spoken by foreigners or a mixture of

S. and M. (D 14), where Southern forms are much used'.

The western division is bounded by the reverted r line and the sum

line; that is, this variety does not retroflex the /--sound and has sum rather

than soom.

The samples included show that Ellis' western dialects are rhotic,

but the r is not exclusively the retracted or reverted variety of Southern

English. As was pointed out above, Ellis nevertheless felt that there was

not enough evidence to make it possible to correct line 3 in the west.

The western division covers portions of Monmouthshire, Here￾fordshire, Shropshire in England, and of Breconshire, Radnorshire and

Montgomeryshire in Wales. Hereford is divided: South-Eastern Here￾240

The dialects of England since 1776

ford belongs to D 4 (the mid southern), and the west of Hereford

English becomes more like Welsh English. The western division

' represents on the east comparatively late, and on the west very modern

invasions of the English language on the Welsh' (1889: 175).

Ellis finds D 13 an 'imperfect dialect' with a considerable amount of

Welsh influence: 'In D 13 the groundwork is S. English, which has been

altered by Celts in a different way from D 10, 11" (i.e., Cornwall,

Devon, West Somerset).

PHONOLOGICAL FEATURES OF DISTRICT13

Among the phonological characteristics of D 13 Ellis mentions the 'fine

(6)' for [A] (' fine (6)' is a central, schwa-type vowel) and the diphthongs

/ai/ and /au/, which have a 'fine (6)' as their first element. (For a

phonetic interpretation of Ellis' (6), see Eustace (1969)). Furthermore,

Ellis finds the use of [ai] for Middle English ai, a south-western

characteristic, 'uncertain', and initial % and v (i.e. voicing of initial

fricatives) almost extinct; dr- for thr- (as in three) is lost. In other words,

some of the strongest south-western characteristics are doubtful here.

As a regional idiosyncrasy Ellis mentions the form /a9/ 'with'. This

may seem like an irrelevant detail at first sight, but it is worth noting that

with is usually realised as w? in the south-west. The samples show

forms like I be, /jsnt/ ' isn't' and her's' she is'.

Ellis finds Welsh intonation 'influential' in parts of the western

division. For instance, Monmouthshire English is described as 'book

English with Welsh intonation and Herefordshire or Gloucestershire

tendencies' (1889:183). Pitch movements in Welsh-influenced English,

as in the pronunciation of the word likely, are likened to pitch

movements in Norwegian. These intonational features are noticeable

even today; they create a strange impression of West Country grammar

being spoken with the ' wrong' accent.

The samples illustrating the varieties of English spoken in District

13 actually suggest to the reader clear grammatical affinities to south￾western English. But this aspect of the data is not elaborated on by Ellis.

DISTRICT14OF THE WESTERN DIVISION

According to Ellis, the reverted r is totally absent. Unlike in D 13, where

this feature was 'uncertain', 'Southern' /ai/ (i.e., /ai/ for Middle

English ai) in words like day does occur in D 14. The SED data on

Middle English ai, published in AES maps 119 to 130, shows that this

241