Talk:Cumbrian dialect

Constalitisation
An anonymous user edited several articles, including this one, with the claim that constalitisation is a term for Southern Hemisphere. I'm skeptical because generally dialects develop unique words for common, everyday things. To me, it doesn't have the ring of truth that people in northern England would use this term for the Southern Hemisphere.

I could be wrong though; maybe there's an interesting story behind it.

-- Wmahan. 05:44, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the phrase "constalitisation" originated in a series of fairy tales or myths, about a heroic figure who journeys into that region - see the article on lancashire —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.131.244 (talk • contribs) 05:17, 10 May 2006
 * According to the edit history of Lancashire, you added the word to that page, as well as others. It seems a little disingenuous to point to your own edit as evidence. Do you have any other source to back up your claim? -- Wmahan. 21:35, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Dialect words
Surely the noun or verb wolf as in eating is not unique to the Cumbrian dialect and is part of everyday English also I dont think twinning should be inlcxuding on the list either as being a Cumbrian word. I won't remove them though till someone else agrees or disagrees with me --Penrithguy 21:11, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Surely the whole point of "dialect" does not neccesarily mean unique, but just well used. After two years in Sheffield and six in Winchester I rarely heard the term twining, Cumbrians use it a lot, hence it is dialect. Should we exclude any regions dialect words because they spread, or have more than one source. If that is the case then cockney rhyming slang should be completely removed immediately. I don't actually think this, but my point is that one cannot exclude words from a dialect because they have more than one origin. Correct blatant inaccuracies, yes, but don't nitpick, both Cumbria and Northumberland use Marra, it's still valid dialect to both areas...


 * Wolf is not unique to Cumbrin, example of Mackem: "Eee man, he wolfed that down did'nee". Gazh 09:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

"Wolf" can be heard as far away from Cumbria as Wakefield, but it might have started off in Cumbria and moved a bit. Words do move around. I was amused to learn that the very Yorkshire gip for vomit has moved onto Manchester. Epa101 11:16, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

More words
Hear are some more words, Some are realy obvious but can anyone comment on some of the others?

Bait    for lunch, packed lunch or any general food.

Byre    Cowshed used for Milking (Ah thurt shippon wus yarksha marra!)

Grockle Mole, Tourist

Cubbye  Move to one side, get out of the way.

Blithering Annoying, being a pain in the neck (see below for example)

Blair   Not Tony or Cherrie but (Onomatopoeic) the noise made by a wanten heifer (not Eric) to announce to any Bull within about 6 miles that she is in season. "Eee Marra, I wus wokken up by that blitherin heifer blaring at 6am this marnin"

Ratch   Go through as if looking for something, usually when you shouldn't be or in a frantic manner, "I caught him  ratching thought my drawers", "the dog was ratching in the undergrowth"

Bogart  Any unseen creature making scary ratching noises in Hedgerows etc at night. Territorial spirit manifesting as half badger half fox (occurs in different forms throughout the north).

Were these just school words or are they part of the dialect I never heard them used after leaving school in Carlisle (I later lived in West Cumbria?)

Mott     Girl (as refered to by boys)

Skeg     Money

Skegless Out of control, Having lost ones marbles.

--Glass90land 19:39, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

The knars You Know

80.41.212.26 17:55, 29 July 2007 (UTC) Mush mouth

also why have lots of words been removed when they are cumbrian dialect? are we not allowed to have too many or something? the user was scottish so i fail to see how they could have as much experience in our dialect as those of us living in cumbria

Raj +
My take on raj- or radge

This relates not only to people (mad), but to objects and ideas; United were raj today, them toffees were raj, thats a fookin raj plan yer daf c*

Eh?

CHAV?
Council House And Violent? What an absurd piece of [folk etymology]! Cumbrian dialect, especially in the Carlisle region, has a number of borrowings from Romany on account of the large settled Romany population in the area. 'Charva' is a genuine Romany word, meaning boy. The shortening of the long 'a' sound to a short 'a' is quite regular in many Northern English dialects. 'Charva' > 'chavva' > 'chav'.

Would it be better if this were an article for Lakeland dialect?
In terms of regional dialect societies, there is a Lakeland Dialect Society that covers most of Cumbria whilst the bits that used to be in Lancashire are covered by the Lancashire Dialect Society. Would it better if this article were altered slightly so that it was just for Lakeland dialact and all bits that refer to the Barrow area be moved to the Lancashire article?

I am not from that part of the world, and hope that this suggestion does not offend anyone. I don't know many people from that area neither, but those from Barrow whom I know could be classifed as "Lancastrian" in terms of speech. I just made this suggestion so that it could fit in nicely with how dialect enthusiasts divide up the country. Epa101 21:13, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

http://lakelanddialectsociety.org/join_us.htm here's a link to it

To me it seems that the article is mainly west cumbrian dialect, from workington area on the coast to around keswick. I rarely hear any of the terms listed in the north of cumbria around carlisle, mind you, i could be wrong

Lakeland? is a pencil brand surely
I think Cumbrian is good enough, Wukintern being a good exaple of a non-Lakeland town, and Carlisle has only Talkin Tarn for a lake! So Cumbrian is my dialect, not lakelandesse. Ta marra.

Sunderland in Cumbria?
So how does my Wearside accent end up with all these Cumbrian phrases and words? Almost all are in use here too.

Only genuine dialect words please
I have removed some words from the list which are not peculiarities of the dialect, but just represent phonetic changes consistent with those discussed earlier in the article e.g wuk (work) and mek (make)

'Ey oop' belongs to Coronation Street, not Cumberland

Many of the words which are classed as 'dialect' are not specific to Cumberland but across the whole of northern England and southern Scotland, for example Recke'd is nothing more than 'wrecked', our lass wife/girlfriend is used across the north, cus or cuz for cousin is common across most of England, twat hit someone ("I twatted him in the face") is common across the north and now across most of England and the British Isles, skit make fun of is common across the north and across most of England - in fact in the case of most of these words there is nothing particular to Cumberland other than they are not part of standard written English (but occur in speach in most areas). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.104.164.93 (talk) 01:11, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * There are still a few in there that are really just Cumbrian pronunciations rather than Cumbrian words. And I think "bift/bifter" for a cannabis joint, while commonly used in Cumbria, is hardly a Cumbrian peculiarity... 87.112.235.65 (talk) 19:58, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It is not possible to separate out words that are exclusively Cumbrian, but the Scots claim to have a separate language, even though most of their "special words" are common in Cumbrian and Northumbrian, or even just Middle English. Coronation Street cannot claim exclusive rights to 'Ey oop' -- it was used throughout Northern England, including Cumbria and Yorkshire, long before the programme.    D b f i r s   07:00, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Cure, sure, etc.
Someone tagged the line about these words for a citation, although I am not sure what it refers to. It could refer to either that this sound is also found in parts of Yorks and Lancs, or that it was once widespread in the country. After looking on the Cambridge Dictionary website, I am not sure whether cue-er is not still the official pronounciation. I am not an expert with linguistics, but it seems that cure is not supposed to rhyme with shore in Standard English:

Cure http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=18997&dict=CALD Shore http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=73041&dict=CALD

The way that many southerners prounce "cure" rhymes with "shore". Perhaps, just for once, it is they who are further from the Standard. Epa101 22:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Article OK
I cannot see any reason why this article is calssified for clean-up Chasnor15 (talk) 07:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

drift in accent
Could this be explained? Does it mean that the dialect is changing with time, influenced by neighbouring dialects, or that the dialect has sub-dialects which resemble sub-dialects of nearby areas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.140.57.113 (talk) 15:33, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

'Cumbric' Numerals
I've removed the column of 'Cumbric' Numerals from the section on Cumbrian Sheep Counting Numerals as they are purely ficitonal.Psammead (talk) 11:55, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

As in any county, there is a gradual drift in accent towards its neighbours.
Is there evidence for this? If all accents drift towards others, why are there any distinctions in accent? How do accents arise if the trend is to standardisation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.103.145 (talk) 16:52, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Regional accents developed when there was much less communication between regions. People on the border of a county would regularly hear the accents of those just over the border, so there is no fixed line, just a gradual change in accent.  (Borders change, too!).  Radio, TV, travel and education all contribute towards standardisation, but there are always people who like to retain the accent they heard when young.  Very many people "code-switch" between accents depending on whom they are communicating with.    D b f i r s   21:40, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Cumbrian dialect. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20060906131648/http://www.dokeswick.com:80/crackaphone to http://www.dokeswick.com/crackaphone/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 21:18, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Foundrel??
My Gran who was born in Alston but spent most of her life in Kirkoswald and Penrith used to say foundrel rather than funeral I'm not sure if this is a dialect word or was just her way of saying the word. Penrithguy (talk) 19:11, 20 January 2018 (UTC)