Talk:On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at

Translation
I think we need a full translation ;)Secretlondon 20/9/03

Dinnae think so! Kev 20/9/3

Not "Ilkla moor Baht 'at" ! Ilkley moor bar t' 'at ! They do speak English, you know !

Counties
Alas, there is no longer (officially) an English county of Yorkshire :( As for the verses, I must say that in my 40-odd years of exposure to (mostly Yorkshire) folk singing the song, I've NEVER heard the supposed 'verse 9'. Ever. Kay Dekker 01:22, 17 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Yorkshire is not an 'official' county due to the 1974 governmental reorginisation of the administritive areas of the country but this does not make the traditional county obsolete, they may have changed the boundries and names but the traditionalists know that places like Middlesborough and Kingston-Upon-Hill are 'real' Yorkshire. I was born in York and now live in Leeds and like many, I'd say even most, natives throughout the county - I regard myself as from the 'county of Yorkshire'. I'm pretty certain Yorkshire 'Humbersiders' will think of themselves of being from Yorkshire but it would be interesting to what the 'Clevelanders' around Middlesborough think they now are?--Mac.hawk (talk) 21:01, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I have and I'm a Yorkshireman from Halifax. It's absolutely correct.Bkpip 11:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Humberside and Cleveland only existed as counties from 1974-1996. Jim Michael (talk) 08:25, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Different version
I'm from Bradford, and we know it as:

Chorus:

On IMBT (Where's That?)

On IMBT (Where's That?)

On IMBT (Where the ducks play football)

Verse: Tha's been a-courtin Mary Jane, Mary Jane

On IMBT

Tha's been a-courtin MJ, MJ

Tha's been a-courtin MJ (without your trousers on)

Chorus: (etc.)

Does this contrast with the version presented here and is it worthy of note? BTW, I was introduced to this version, ducks and all, by my parents, grandparent, aunts and uncles none of whom could be desribed as "younger singers" (no offence).

Also, am I correct in thinking that the version of "While Shepherds Watch their Flocks" is differant to the traditional hymn which I know? It has none of the jolliety of this classic tune.--Crestville 19:11, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * When I was a young lad in Leeds we would use the tune to repeat: "While Shepherds Washed their Socks"!  11 August 2007


 * I always heard it sung as "Where the Dutch play football", rather than ducks Maltaran 19:12, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Hast tha bin or wer ta bahn?
Another version I've heard suggests that the first line starts "wheer wer ta bahn wen ah saw thee", or "where were you going when I saw you" - any comments?


 * Seeing as it is said to have originated from a group of people from Halifax, the original version would have used ''ta'.

Correct on both counts. I'll leave the former as it's the form that most people are now used to but I'm going to change the latter as it is absolutely incorrect. Bkpip 11:04, 8 Apr 2007 (UTC)

Dialect
I've changed the dialect in the song to sound a little more authentic. It was a bit of a hotch-potch before and not correct Halifax dialect. Bkpip 11:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Halifax church choir - lyrics origin
Can anybody tell me the name and location of the Halifax church? 13 August 2007 I'm still waiting! 31 January 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.148.237.55 (talk) 00:20, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * In a word, no. Shrouded in the mists of time. Even Kellett in his book says "traditionally, the firs singer of On Ilkla Mooar came from a mill town."! PamD (talk) 16:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Sound clip
I have a brass band version of them anthem (without words), does anybody know how it can be uploaded? Some songs such as the one on God Save the Queen are in "ogg" form, but how do you change a song from a CD to that? - Yorkshirian (talk) 17:20, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
 * to convert to OGG you need software such as Harmony Assistant (free download). Then you'd upload it to Wikimedia commons. However you would also need a letter of full release of copyright from the band and the CD producers. Wikimedia/pedia won't accept it otherwise.

Place and age
1. Since 1974 Yorkshire has been divided in West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and North Yorkshire. Previously it was divided into three 'Ridings' (and old word from 'thirdings' - West, East (sic) and North.

Yorkshire is where people living in any of these areas still live, even if Yorkshire as a whole has no legal existance.

2. As for the age of the song. I'm puzzled - on more than one occasion in the 1960s I recall local TV interviews with old people who claimed to be on the famous day trip to Ilkley when they invented the song. A date of c. 1916 would fit with this. The claim that it was then already a couple of generations old may I suspect simply have been a joke (quite typical of people from Halifax), or even a music publisher's attempt to avoid paying royalties (quite typical of publishers).

Steve Ainsworth Halifax, Yorkshire. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.12.72.126 (talk) 19:33, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Ducks
There's a picture captioned 'Ducks on Ilkley Moor, as in the song', but these ducks are not playing football. Pls fix, thx. --Oolong (talk) 16:57, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Proper phonetic transcription
I think it would be useful to include a proper transcription in the IPA as I think it would be difficult for anyone not familiar with the accent to understand the existing one. For instance it is not clear that 'eear' means [ɛːə] as in air and not [i:ə] as in ear. Nor that 'cowd' means [koːd] and not [kaʊd]. There is also no way of indicating that 'duck' (/dʌk/ in most accents outside of Northern Enɡland & Scotland) rhymes with 'took' /tʊk/ or that [ɛːə] and [uːə] are disyllables and not diphthonɡs as in the [ɛə] and [ʊə] of some forms of RP. Are the lyrics a direct quotation or are they somebody's respelling? Could I re-write then as 'On Ilkley Moor baut hat' for instance, on the understanding that the dialect is usually (but not necessarily) spoken in an h-dropping, MOUTH-monophthonging accent that uses [e:] as the HAPPY vowel? A. D. Harding (talk) 03:06, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah! Is that what I reverted yesterday? I see now. Yes, I think you have a valid point.  (What I saw yesterday was a strange, non-English character set with no explanatory context.  Hence my reversion.) I think I would now agree with you that there is a case to be made for this, if accompanied by a little context, such as mentioning that is is an IPA transcription. I guess there are other articles where similar issues might arise. Might one of their over-arching projects have an established policy on whether to do this, and if so, then how?  Feline Hymnic (talk) 20:24, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Halifax chapels
From readers letters Halifax Courier 12 December 2011:

...it is highly unlikely that we shall ever know the truth behind the origin’s of the famous Yorkshire anthem as a proper record was probably never kept.

However it is widely excepted that the choir was from a Baptist Church in Halifax.

Now there were three Baptist Chapels in the centre of Halifax at one time all with well established choir’s. There was Trinity Road (where the Halifax has its computer block) North Parade and Pellon Lane. All of these buildings have been pulled down in the 1950s for redevelopment but at one time they were thriving establishments.

I am fairly certain that it would have been one of these choir’s that went to Ilkley at about the turn of the century. I well remember going on Choir trips from Pellon Baptist Church in the fifties with my parents and there were lots of singing coming from the back rows as the younger members of the choir sang there favorite songs of the time.

Pellon Baptist was founded as an offshoot of Pellon Lane in 1876 but the new church was not built until 1913, so I cannot see they would be involved in the Anthem, similarly Lee Mount at Ovenden built round about the same time and both still going... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.5.6.142 (talk) 09:41, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

First motor charabanc - day trip to Ilkley
The first motor charabanc (the forerunner of today's motor coaches - still sometimes referred to in Yorkshire as a 'sharra') arrived in Yorkshire in 1905. Halifax Corporation got its first motor bus in 1912. Before then local day trips would have been by horse-drawn charabanc - and Halifax to Ilkley would have been a very long, arduous, and surely highly improbable, journey for a horse-drawn vehicle. This therefore suggests a composition date somewhere between 1905 and publication. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.5.6.142 (talk) 10:13, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The two are linked by rail these days, that may provide an explanation. Pete the pitiless (talk) 10:19, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Comparison is perhaps worthwhile with another excursion by similar vehicle in song, though there the date - 1862 - is actually included in the lyrics and thus not in doubt, and the vehicle is just referred to as the bus. 2016-2-6 G6JPG (talk) 10:57, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Bar t'at
I feel this page needs rewriting as "bar t'at" since "baht 'at" is meaningless. There is now a general belief the full words are "bar thy hat", "bar" is the prepostion meaning except; omitting; as used in "bar none". The title of this song is now most commonly rendered as "On Ilkley Moor Bar T'at" Kildwyke (talk) 23:10, 14 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Your two sources appear to be a Scottish student society songsheet and a blog posting. These do not seem to be reliable sources for changing the wording, and a quick Google search does not support the idea that it is "most commonly rendered" as "bar t'at". I will revert your changes to the wording of the song and amend the text accordingly. Pam  D  22:28, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Baht is the correct rendering of without in Yorkshire dialect and I have corrected the entry. Esemgee (talk) 08:47, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I appreciate your help in this matter Kildwyke (talk) 16:56, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I see now it would be more correct for me to study the etymology of the word Baht on some other site Kildwyke (talk) 17:00, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

The local Halifax dialect/accent is, well, very local. Or localised. Different from nearby Bradford, Leeds or Huddersfield. If the words were spoken slowly, rather than being sung, and thus slurred together, they would come out as "baht a 'at"  i.e "without a hat" - but compressed by speed the words sound almost like "bar tat". Confusion arises outside the area because the single sound 't' often replaces 'the' in Yorkshire dialects including the Halifax version - hence the well-worn phrase 'There's trouble at t'mill' in which the 'at' and 't' also merge when pronounced. Cassandra. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.162.46 (talk) 14:01, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

As a Yorkshire speaking Yorkshire man, I've always understood the baa't hat (or bar t'at) to be "bar tha hat" which translates to "without your hat". I don't recognize all the "thy" stuff as we use "tha" for meaning you/yours. eg; "Where hast tha bin" for "Where have you been"... Regards, Martin — Preceding unsigned comment added by M3142 (talk • contribs) 04:05, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Translating the title
Contrary to the current version of the article, and to my own beliefs before tonight, the majority of sources translate the title as neither "...without thy hat" nor "without your hat", but rather as "On Ilkley Moor Without A Hat".

As it happens, I can't find very many reliable sources for a translation but, , ,  translate the title as "On Ilkley Moor Without A Hat", while  and  translate it as "On Ilkley Moor Without Your Hat". I can find no reliable sources for "On Ikley Moor Without Thy Hat", which in any case is not the standard English purported in the text.

In Google searches, "On Ilkley Moor Without A Hat" and "On Ilkley Moor Without Your Hat" both generate over 3000 results, while "On Ilkley Moor Without Thy Hat" returns 19 (all searches in quotes "x" for exact matches; obviously the unquoted searches generate a lot more results, with "...without a hat" again coming out on top).

I already believe I have enough reliable sources to make the necessary change, but since there is no consensus and I don't wish to edit war with Tharthan, I will hold back for now. Thoughts? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:04, 16 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Actually, hold that thought. There are several places within the article where the "baht 'at" (or however it's spelt) part is translated as "without a hat", so I'm just going to make the change. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:08, 16 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Don't confuse being common with being correct! 31.49.9.229 (talk) 23:56, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 01:50, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

United (2011)
The Busby Babes sing the song in the scene preceeding their fight to Munich in this made for TV Movie.

Apparently someone thinks that this does not qualify as a TV program and deleted my entry so I have added a subsection for films in order to post it there.

I'm not going to attempt to add any links because wiki nazis get upset when you attempt to do such things and end up breaking the text.

Whatever the Nazis decide to do I think that some mention of the movie scene is worthwhile, considering Jones (a Yorkshireman) decribes it as "part of our cultural heritage".

Now someone hass flagged this with "citation needed", when no other reference to usage has any citation. The citation would be to watch the film on you tube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1817&v=9iWkeDgmUM086.165.185.239 (talk) 15:03, 29 October 2017 (UTC)


 * We don't generally use links from YouTube to support article claims, unless we can be totally sure they are not in breach of copyright. I somehow doubt that Arun Alinkeel has the copyright for this film. So you might need to provide a better source, I expect you'll be able to find one at the article for the film here: United (2011 film). Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:09, 29 October 2017 (UTC) p.s. it's not always a good idea to describe other editors as "Nazis".