Talk:English language in Southern England

Sussex Dialect
Why does the Sussex Dialect page previously at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sussex_dialect redirect to this page, which is inferior in content? Adecastick (talk) 11:46, 22 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I second this. The previous page had a lot more information, was full of citations, and provided much more information, especially on the unique grammatical features of the dialect and its literary history. I can't understand why it's been replaced with this page. Antonine (talk) 20:20, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Update: Having done a bit of digging, it looks like an individual user went on a one-person edit crusade to delete the individual articles for dialects in southern England and replace them all with redirects to higher level summary articles like this one. I've now reverted those deletions but, in fairness, many of the articles have quality issues which could do with addressing. That being said, the same is true of this article itself. Antonine (talk) 22:58, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Historic vs Modern Dialects - Cleanup Required
This article seems to be in really poor shape and in need of a cleanup. Part of the problem appears to be the conflation of historical dialects with modern ones throughout the article. When one is dealing with English as currently spoken, southern England makes sense as a region as there are a handful of different notable accents/variations of English, all of which have a lot in common apart from accents, the very occasional dialect vocabulary word, and some minor variations in grammar.

If, however, we are talking about historical dialects, prior to the standardisation of English in the 19th century, then southern England encompassed multiple distinct dialect continuums, with a dialect in the far west of the region likely being mutually unintelligible to a dialect in the far west of the region.

An example of this is the Kent, Sussex and Essex historical dialects, each of which were distinct, unique, full-fledged dialects in their own right, with very separate histories and evolution. However, in modern English, all three of these counties are almost completely dominated by Estuary English and Home Counties English (in varying proportions depending on which county you're in). If you're talking about the modern dialects then it makes sense to group these counties together. If you're talking about the historic dialects then you need to deal with them separately on a case by case basis.

Unfortunately this article doesn't do that, and seems to be in a real muddle due to lots of conflicting edits over the years. The distinction between modern dialects and historic (largely extinct) dialects is missing, references often don't provide sources for what the citations claim, and the geographical organisation of the article is a mess. It's in need of a proper cleanup and reorganisation, including a thorough double-checking of sources.

Additionally, the quality has been compromised further by poor quality, partial "mergers" of content from dedicated articles for different dialects, with the main articles then being replaced with redirects to this article. This does not make for an informative and well-sourced article. Antonine (talk) 22:01, 30 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't see this "conflation" between historic and present dialects you're concerned about. It seems very clear to me. One section ("19th-century Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Surrey English") covers historic dialects of the South; all the rest cover modern dialects. What's the confusion?
 * I only have one response to your 2nd and 3rd paragraphs: can you provide any credible sources?
 * Where do you think info on this page needs "double-checking" (you may be right! -- but can you at least give one or two specific examples?)
 * In response to the quality has been compromised further by poor quality, could you be any more vague? WHAT do you find to be poor quality? Why does my merging of articles here automatically also somehow make the information "poor"? I'm largely lost with your criticisms. Wolfdog (talk) 15:49, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Merger Discussion
Request received to merge articles: Sussex dialect, Essex dialect, Kentish dialect, and Surrey dialect into English language in Southern England or, more specifically: English language in Southern England; dated: 9 Oct 2023.
 * Proposer's Rationale : The sources on Sussex dialect include a variety of informal descriptions or eye-dialect representations of a 19th-century Sussex dialect, often with no page numbers provided. What's missing is precise descriptions or details from actual and credible linguistic sources of any kind. The section on accent features almost entirely relies on a single source from 1875 that is focused on lexical features ("provincialisms") without any commentary on accent whatsoever and without page specifics; beyond that, this section is hard to read, only somewhat following Wikipedia IPA conventions. Other sections of the page are baffling in terms of both sourcing and meaning. In a similar vein, Essex dialect barely constitutes anything substantial; Kentish dialect is largely a poorly-defined subset or early version of Estuary dialect; and Surrey dialect only has two sources. Instead of leaving a cluster of messes, let's cleanly bring all the info to one Southern England dialect page until such time as better citations (which I doubt) and writing can be achieved. Wolfdog (talk) 00:57, 9 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Support merge for Surrey dialect: There are only two references given for the Surrey dialect article. The first, (Leveson Gower, 1893/4), is written by an antiquarian rather than an academic specialising in linguistics. It is mostly a "vocabulary list" - i.e. a glossary of words heard by the author in "this part of Surrey" (meaning the east of the county) from the late 1870s to the early 1890s. It is not a systematic study and there is no consideration of how the dialect of other parts of Surrey differed. Leveson Gower makes it clear in his introduction that his intention has been "to note every word without stopping to ascertain if it is 'peculiar' to this locality". Furthermore he writes: "I do not pretend to say that these words... are not in use in the adjoining counties of Kent and Sussex, or elsewhere". In short, the 1893/4 publication is a 20-year snapshot from the end of the 19th century from one of the more rural and sparsely populated areas of the county.
 * The second book referenced in the article (Davis, 2007) is a reissuing of the Leverson Gower book fronted by a fairly general introduction. I have read a partial preview on Google Books (admittedly not the whole book). Davis states (p37) that "a claim of a sort to dialect status could be advanced for the Surrey English recorded by GLG [Leveson Gower]" - hardly a ringing endorsement!
 * I don't think much of the current Surrey dialect article is worth keeping. The "vocabulary lists" are too long and are presented without comment - far better to compare variations of the same word from different parts of the wider region in the English language in Southern England article. Similarly the differences in pronunciation and syntax would be more useful if considered along with those of Kent/Sussex/Essex etc.
 * Best wishes Mertbiol (talk) 12:33, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Over a month of zero discussion from my supposed critic (troll?) and even some support. Re-performing the merge. Wolfdog (talk) 15:04, 11 November 2023 (UTC)