Sunday, April 29, 2007

Ashingtonese - Part 3

Time I think for another examination of the linguistic niceties of my home town, Ashington, I'm sure Ibadairon will appreciate this. To those who have never seen this before below are a list phonetic pronunciations of words used in Ashington with their meaning in English and a brief example of how they may be used in Ashington. The hard work has been done by my brother who enjoys this kind of thing. To those of you having difficulty understanding, I apologise, it becomes difficult to work out what any one sentence means until you have picked up a usable vocabulary. For hints on how the accent sounds think along the lines of geordie (i.e. Jimmy Nail, Gazza, Mark Knopfler etc.).

"Bought" in English is to acquire something with money, but in Ashington it was a Sesame Street character. "Bought disnt like Oarnie nay mare"

"All" - means everything whereas in Ashington it is a title similar to a duke. "The all of Lancaster is a posh prick"

"Herb" in English is something used to enhance the flavour of food, whereas in Ashington it is part of a cooker. "The cooking herbs ahaad."

"Snare" is something used to trap an animal, in Ashington it is frozen precipitation that usually falls in winter. "Ya bugger the snare's starting to torn t' slush"

"Add" means to combine two or more things to get a total, in Ashington it a term used to describe someone in their dotage "Berb started t' gan a bit funny when he got add"

"Term" is an academic time period, in Ashington it is the name of a gentleman. "Term backed fowa winnaz at Cambois dergs yistiduh"

"Torn" in English means to rip something i.e paper in Ashington it means to move or cause to move in a circular direction wholly or partially around an axis or point. "Dennis waasn't able t' torn eez wife owa in bed, she waaz owa muchuva heffa nooa days"

"Born" is the English word meaning to begin living, but in Ashington it means to damage or injure by heat or fire. "Edith had to take *his* leek pudding oot the cooka afore it started to born"

"Claire" is a girls name in English but in Ashington it is the animal equivalent of a finger nail. "That bord owa, yah bugga shiz got sharp claire's"

6 comments:

IbaDaiRon said...

That's the Ashington in Northumberland, right?

How's this?

"Lucy waaz oways a bit funny, e'en before she got add."

(Add < addled, maybe?)

And here I thought my native dialect was odd. ... You win! :)

Mark Norris said...

Yes it is, backend of nowhere.

Add is actually old. Its probably more correctly written aird.

Fortunately the dialect is not quite this bad anymore, it tends to be dying off with the guys that picked it up working down the mines.

IbaDaiRon said...

One of the blessings of mass communications...language and dialect death.

We won't see an increase in real linguistic variety again until we start colonizing deep space and distance once again equals isolation.

Tell your brother to get out with the recorder more often! :)

Blyth guy said...

am fruum blyth, a think asheenturnian is gan a bit mare for linenmoothian nuw, few lairds fruum lynemouth i know taak reet asheenturnian

Anonymous said...

Fortunately the dialect is not quite this bad anymore, it tends to be dying off with the guys that picked it up working down the mines.

bulk t shirts free shipping
bulk white t shirts canada

Unknown said...

k6x08x3k55 b0w10p2h19 g8z48h1e00 j6x95r6e63 f8k52o8z61 s5f34z7x31