Norfolk dialect

The Norfolk dialect, also known as Broad Norfolk, is a dialect that was once spoken by those living in the county of Norfolk in England. Much of the distinctive vocabulary of Broad Norfolk has now died out and only the older generations use the fullest amount, so the speech of most of Norfolk is now more an accent than a dialect.

Portrayal of the Norfolk dialect/accent in TV is often regarded as poor and the treatment of it in a TV Drama "All The King's Men" in part prompted the foundation of FOND (see below)

There have been attempts to revive the Norfolk dialect. The Friends of Norfolk Dialect (FOND) is a group which formed in 1999 with the aim of preserving and promoting Broad Norfolk. The group campaigns for the recognition of Norfolk as a dialect, and for the teaching of "Norfolk" in schools. FOND aims to produce a digital archive of recordings of people speaking the dialect's traditional words. In July 2001 the group was awarded £4000 from the National Lottery in aid of recording equipment for this purpose.

A typical example of the Norfolk accent and vocabulary can be heard in the songs by Allan Smethurst, aka The Singing Postman. Smethurst's authentic Norfolk accent is well known from the songs he released in the 1960s, such "Hev Yew Gotta Loight Bor?".

Distribution

The Norfolk dialect is a subset of the Southern English dialect group. Geographically it covers most of the County of Norfolk extending to the south into the northern parts of the county of Suffolk in particular the town of Lowestoft and its surrounding area. The accent of Norwich is (not surprisingly) similar but the vowels tend to be different.

The Norfolk dialect should not be confused with Pitcairn-Norfolk, a second language of the Pitcairn Islands, or with Norfuk, the language used on Norfolk Island.

Features

Accent

General
*A slower, drawling manner of speech in rural areas of Norfolk with a broader, thicker tone and a quicker manner of speaking in Norwich with a higher, thinner tone.
*Broad Norfolk has a 'lilt' to its speech where intonation fluctuations occur especially when asking questions where the voice raises or drops in pitch so that for example the intonation might drop when asking "how do you go?" and raise when asking "do you know that?"
*Lengthening of vowel sounds
*Merging of syllables in words. For example the syllables in doing (do-ing) merge to become like "durn", going (go-ing) becomes like "gorn", holiday (ho-li-day) becomes like "hol-day".
*Smoothing of sentences for example "betta-r-an-what-a-was" is better than what I was

Vowels
*The diphthong of in words such as right, buy, pie and sky sound more like "oi" giving "roight", "boi", "poi" and "skoi"
*The and distinction is retained so words with the vowels spelt oa, oe and oCe such as toe, boat, road and whole can be represented as giving what to outsiders would seem like "too", "boot", "rood" and "whoole" respectively.
*Single syllable words with the vowel spelt oC or oCe such as boat or home can be pronounced like the vowel as in the vowel of foot, giving and (to sound like the Northern England and the English Midlands pronunciation of but and hum respectively).
*Single syllable words with the vowel spelt oo such as roof and hoof have the vowel often pronounced to give and ( to sound like the Northern England and the English Midlands pronunciation of rough and huff respectively).
*The and distinction is retained so words with the vowel spelt aCe such as cake, make and face would be represented as "air" giving "cairke", "mairke" and "fairce" but it can be written as "ear" giving "cearke", "mearke" and "fearce" - similar to some Northern England accents, whilst words with the vowel spelt ai, ay, ei and ey such as train, day, rein and they would be pronounced as giving "traein", "daei", "raein" and "thaei".
*The near-square merger is prevalent so that cheer sounds like chair, beer sounds like bear, here sounds like hair and ear sounds like air.
*The vowel (as in lot) realised as an unrounded vowel , as in many forms of American English.
*Yod-dropping happens after all consonants so that becomes so for example beautiful, due, few, huge, new and tune instead of becoming "bjeautiful", "djue", "fjue", "hjuge", "njew" and "tjune" become "bootiful" , "doo", "foo", "hooge", "noo" and "toon" respectively. A humorous example is where pew would become like "poo"!
*A variation on yod-dropping also happens when the spelling ur occurs after all consonants so that for example pure sounds like purr and during would be pronounced like "durring" rather than "djuring".
*The suffix at the end of a doing word is shortened to an sound so becoming and coming would sound like "becom'n" and "com'n" respectively
*The vowel pronounced as such as the word bath in Northern and Midland accents, but with the vowel sound lengthened so church, work, heard, her and girl can be written as "chaach", "waak", "haad", "haa" and "gaal", though this pronunciation can also be written like "fust" (for first), "wust" (for worst), "bust" (for burst) and so on. This is a pronunciation almost similar to Scottish English. A good example of this sound is in the sound clip 'The NURSE vowel' at [1].
*The rounded vowel when followed by spellings 'f', ff, gh or th such as in often, off, cough, trough and cloth can become as in the vowel of caught and is represented as "orf", giving "orften", "orf", "corf", "trorf" and "clorth" respectively.
*Broad Norfolk is non-rhotic.

Consonants
*Glottaling of the at the end of words, before consonants and before vowels but usually not when the stress follows the t such as in determine.
*The final in a word is replaced with a sound so wanted and hundred would be represented as "wantet" and "hundret".
*The dark el () is pronounced clearly so the sound in hill and milk sounds the same as clear el () at the beginning of words such as lap and lack. This is in contrast to L vocalisation.
*The spelling thr becomes like "tr" so three sounds the same as tree
* Any word beginning with has the first letter changed to and pronounced like a so you have "wicar" instead of vicar, "winegar" instead of vinegar, "willage" instead of village and so on.

Grammar

*The third person present tense of [s] at the end of words disappear so that for example doesn't and wasn't become don't and weren't. Examples of this are "he do" for he does, "she reckon" for she reckons and "it become" or more accurately "that become" for it becomes.
*The word that often replaces it so that it is becomes "that is"
*The word one when preceded by a descriptive word such as good or bad can become an "un" so that you have "good'un" and "bad'un". Some local sports papers in the Norfolk region have embraced this part of the dialect with the Pink'Un and the Yellow & Green'Un (a Norwich City FC supplement that comes with the Eastern Daily Press) being such examples.

Phrases

bred and born (used instead of "born and bred")
cor blarst me (when expressing, shock, surprise or exasperation)
dew yew keep a troshin (means "carry on with the threshing" on its own but also mean's goodbye or "take care of yourself")
fare y'well (goodbye)
get wrong (told off)
high learned (well-educated, clever)
hoddy-doddy (very small)
hold yew hard (hang on)
I/we/you will hatter keep a dewin (no alternative but to keep going)
ill a bed an wus up (very sick)
lend us a lug (when asking someone else to listen in to a conversation for you)
lolloping along (strolling along)
mobbed a rum'un (made a lot of fuss)
Old Year's Nyte (New Year's Eve)
on the huh (awry, slanted, not level)
suffin savidge (very angry)
that'll learn you (that'll teach you)
titty-totty (very small)
yellow belly (person from the Fens; a Fenman)

The following exchange is a shibboleth for Broad Norfolk speakers.

He yer fa got a dickey, bor? (Has your father got a donkey, boy?)
Yis, an' he want a fule ter roid 'im, will yew cum? (Yes, and he wants a fool to ride him, will you do it?)

Vocabulary

Dialect words
afront (in front)
ahind (behind)
atop (on top)
atwin (between)
bishy barney bee (ladybird (from Bishop Bonner's bee))
blar (cry)
bor (pronounced 'buh' in West Norfolk) (a term of address, boy or neighbour)
crockin (crying)
dickey (donkey)
dodman (snail)
drant (drawl)
drift (lane)
dudder (shiver)
dwile (floor cloth)
gorp (look or stare (what you gorpin at?)
guzunder (goes-under (another word for chamber-pot)
harnser (heron)
hint (haven't)
jip (feeling, sense of pain)
jollificeartions (to have fun)
*kewter (money)
*loke (alley; another word for lane)
*lollop (progress slowly)
*lug (ear)
*lummox (clumsy or ungainly person)
*mardle (to chat; village pond)
*mawkin (scarecrow)
*mawther (young woman)
*pishamire (ant)
*puckaterry (stress, panic)
*queer (ill)
*rum (odd or unusual)
*squit (nonsense)
*stingy (mean)

Accented pronunciation
*diffus (difference)
*gret (great, big, or significant)
*loight (light)
*ollust (always)
*occard (awkward)
*shud (shed)
*troshin (originally 'threshing,' now working in general)
*warmint (varmint or vermin, troublesome person)
*zackly'' (exactly)

Famous Speakers

*Horatio Nelson - "I am a Norfolk man , and glory in being so", also said to Captain Hardy "Do you anchor." (an order, not a question in the Dialect)
*Keith Skipper - former Norfolk broadcaster and dialect expert.

External links and references

*List of published works in and about the dialect
*Friends of Norfolk Dialect
*BBC information about the FOND group
*Sound clips of the dialect
*English to Broad Norfolk machine translation
*Norfuk Uz Ow Thass Spook
*Norfolk Dialect Dictionary