There is a tale told of a Yorkshireman on a visit to London that he fell into argument with a bus conductor over the correct way of pronouncing the simple word ‘road.’ The cockney bus-conductor had, in his usual way, called out ‘’Toria Rowd; ’Toria Rowd!’ and the Yorkshireman was highly displeased with this obvious murder of the King’s English. ‘Rowd!’ said he in his disgust; ‘whah dooant ya speeak English? R-o-a-d—that’s hoo it’s spelt, beeant it? Whah dooant ya ca’ it Roo-ad?’

The story will serve to illustrate the fact that a man born and bred in the heart of England’s biggest shire, and one born and bred in the heart of England’s biggest city, do not sound all their words in the same manner, though they may at the same time spell them alike. Moreover, neither of the two will perhaps sound his words in the way in which custom says it is correct to sound them.

Such differences are to be found in many parts of the country. The Northumberland miner, the Sheffield steel-worker, the Nottingham lace-worker, the Norfolk grazier, and the ‘Zummerzet’ farm-labourer all speak ‘English’; but yet they would have no little difficulty in making one another understand what their respective English words meant. In other words, the districts to which they belong have each a Dialect or Folk-Speech of their own.

Let us see what are some of the peculiarities of the Folk-Speech of our East Riding:—

(1) An East Yorkshireman sounds his vowels in his own peculiar way. With him I is pronounced as ah, warm as wahrm, night as neet, road as rooad, cow as coo, know as knaw, pound as pund, come as coom, and ought as owt. He is, moreover, very fond of the EEA sound; for he makes cake into keeak, meat into meeat, home into heeam, sure into seear, school into skeeal, look into leeak, enough into eneeaf, and plough into pleeaf.

(2) He finds it too much of an effort to sound the whole word ‘the,’ and therefore clips it into t’; so that with him ‘the cow is in the close’ becomes t’ coo is i’ t’ clooase. If he is a Holderness man even that effort will probably be too great for him, and what he will say is coo is i’ clooase.

(3) In the same way he finds it much easier to drop the final G of words ending in ING and to drop an initial H. To make up for the latter, however, he may very possibly put in an occasional H somewhere where it would not be expected. Thus he may tell us, speaking of his companions, that hivvry yan on em is gannin t’ ’Ool t’ morn.

(4) He has a very simple method of dealing with the inflections of the verb. I am, thou art, he is; and I do, thou dost, he does, are levelled into:—

—while, in speaking of his sheep, he may even tell us that Them’s good uns.

(5) The plural words cows, eyes, children, are not at all to his liking. He much prefers to speak of such things as ky, een, and childer. Nor does he take kindly to the ‘apostrophe s’ as a sign of the possessive case; but will tell his boy to stan bi t’ hoss heead.

(6) He is very fond of doubling his negatives, and occasionally he is not even satisfied with the doubling process. It is said of an East Yorkshireman whose apple trees were the aim of many a schoolboy’s stone, that his lamentation took the form of neeabody’s neea bisniss ti thraw nowt inti neeabody’s gardin.

(7) He is also very fond of ‘strong’ past tenses and of past participles ending in EN. The past tenses beat, crept, snowed, are with him bet, crop, and snew; while the past participles burst, fought, got, held, let, put, become brussen, fowten, gotten, ho’dden, letten, and putten. So firmly fixed in popular favour are these forms in EN that it is told of a small boy who had been receiving a lesson on their incorrectness, that in a state of momentary excitement he informed his mistress: Pleease, miss, Billy Jooanes ha’ putten ‘putten’ wheer he owt ti ha’ putten ‘put.’

(8) The East Yorkshireman has a host of words that are all his own. Thus he will tell us that theer war nobbut yah coo i’ t’ helm at t’ far-end o’ t’ pastur; and that he doots t’ awd meer’s boon ti dee, but happen she mud live whahl Moon da.^[67]

(9) He has likewise his own way of expressing his thoughts, and no other will serve his purpose so well. ‘Well, my boy, who are you?’ a country parson freshly arrived from the South is said to have asked a village boy. Ah’s weel, hoo’s yersen? was the unexpected reply that the parson received. But, of course, he should have known that in East Yorkshire the correct way of asking his question is ‘What do they call you?’

There are very many of these special modes of expression. To spread a report is to set it aboot, to scold a person is to call him, to call a person is to call of him, to pour hot water on tea-leaves is to mash t’ tay, to be going to the bad is to be at a loose end, to leave off doing a thing is to give ower, and to give good promise of success is to fraame middlin.

If an East Yorkshireman wishes to make known that he saw his brother Sam, he will say Ah seed oor Sam. Of one who cannot look after himself he will say that t’ awd chap canna fend for hissen, and of one who is not getting better from an illness it will be said that he dizn’t mend onny.

Sometimes the result of the change of expression becomes ludicrous, as it was in the case of the cottager who, telling of a lodger that he prepared his own food and she did his washing for him, explained: He meeats hissen an’ ah weshes him.

The East Yorkshireman, like many other people, likes making comparisons; but he has his own idea of what forms a fit and proper comparison. Thus, in speaking of the steepness of a cliff he will tell us that it is as brant as a hoose sahd, or he will explain that his grandfather is as deeaf as a yat-stowp.^[68] Concerning a person of whose capabilities he does not think highly, he will tell us that he is as fond as a billy-gooat, or as green as a yalla cabbish, or even as soft as a boiled tonnap.

Many other examples of the peculiarities of the East Yorkshire Folk-Speech might be given. What shall we say about them? Shall we smile at what we are pleased to consider mis-pronunciations and awkward attempts to speak the English language? When the farm-labourer, who had been beguiled into buying a ‘solid gold-plated keyless watch jewelled in seven holes’ from a cheap-jack in Beverley Market Place, was told by his companion to ax where the key was, and proceeded to bawl out Wheer’s t’ kay? was he to be laughed at for murdering the King’s English?

If we wish to laugh at those who thus speak ‘broad Yorkshire’ let us do so. But at the same time let us remember that what we are pleased to call ‘broad Yorkshire’ is often much truer English than what we ourselves customarily use.

A thousand years ago our ancestors called a key cæg (pronounced kaig), and used the verb acsian where we should use ‘ask.’ They also used the word cy (pronounced kee) for the plural of cu (pronounced koo), and the word cilder (pronounced kilder) for the plural of cild.

So really the East Yorkshire farm-labourers are speaking the language of their ancestors much more truly than we who mis-pronounce words and make them into cows and ask, and who manufacture such a double plural as the word child(e)r-en.

In numerous instances is the East Yorkshire Folk-Speech nearer to the true English than is the commonly accepted ‘English’ of to-day. The following examples might be multiplied indefinitely:—

At Beverley there are three very interesting examples of the survival of old English words, which have elsewhere dropped entirely out of use. The Beverley Frith-Stool has preserved its name unchanged from the days when the word which meant peace was frith. The street known to-day as Toll Gavel preserves memories of the time when gafol meant a tax or toll, and it is clear that tolls continued to be paid in it long after the original meaning of this word had become forgotten. Similarly the Hurn, or freemen’s pasture which was once a corner of Beverley Westwood, has kept its name from the days when hyrne meant a corner.

Another example of how the original meaning of a word may be kept in one instance only occurs in the descriptive name which is so commonly applied to England’s largest shire. Yorkshire is known far and wide as the ‘Land of the Broad Acres.’ But to how many who use this expression does it convey any meaning? Are the acres in Yorkshire ‘broader’ than they are elsewhere in Britain? If they are not, what sense is there in the expression?

As a matter of fact, the expression is a most suitable one. But it is so only if we know that the word aecer (pronounced akker)^[69] originally meant not a certain area of land, but merely a ploughed field. Yorkshire is still the ‘Broad-acred Shire,’ for in no other part of our country shall we find fields of waving corn that measure as much as a hundred acres in extent.

In Chapter VIII. we read how the fierce Northmen settled in our land, and on pages 59–61 it was shown how numerous are Danish place-names in the East Riding of Yorkshire. But it is not only in the place-names of the district that we find proofs of the presence of the Northmen. There are in common use among the inhabitants of the East Riding scores of words that are purely Danish words, handed down from father to son, almost or quite unchanged during more than a thousand years. Some are as follows:—

Other proofs of the great influence of the Old Norse tongue on the language of East Riding folk are seen in their liking for the sound of K where modern standard English demands that of CH. The words benk (or bink), birk, breeks, caff, kirk, kist, pickfork, and thack, are commonly heard used in place of the Southern English forms bench, birch, breeches, chaff, church, chest, pitchfork, and thatch. So also hask or ’ask is the East Riding pronunciation of harsh, and brig is universally used for the different meanings of the word bridge.

In the Rev. M. C. F. Morris’s history of Nunburnholme the author gives an amusing example of the East Riding Folk-Speech. But it is really something more than this. For we can see from it very clearly how much truer English is spoken by the East Yorkshire farm-labourer than by the fine fellow who prides himself on his knowledge of the English language.

Let us take Mr. Morris’s story—the Fable of ‘The Bear and the Bees’—in two forms. Here is one of them:—

‘A bear happened to be stung by a bee, and the pain was so acute that in the madness of revenge he ran into the garden and overturned the hive. This outrage provoked their anger to a high degree, and brought the fury of the whole swarm upon him. They attacked him with such violence that his life was in danger, and it was with the utmost difficulty that he made his escape, wounded from head to tail.

‘In this desperate condition, lamenting his misfortunes and licking his sores, he could not forbear reflecting how much more advisable it had been to have acquiesced patiently under one injury than thus by an unprofitable resentment to have provoked a thousand.’

Now this version of the fable contains just over eighty different words; and, if we turn over the pages of a French dictionary, we shall find that twenty-one of the twenty-five words printed in italics were not originally English words at all, but are words introduced into our language from the French. Some of them ‘came over with the Conqueror’ undoubtedly. Others were introduced in more recent times. The remaining four words—acute, desperate, reflecting, and acquiesced—are purely Latin words.

Let us now take the East Yorkshireman’s account of what happened:—

‘Yah daay yan o’ them girt beears gat hissen sadly tenged wi’ a bee. He wer seea despe’tly ho’tten was t’ beear at he wer wahld ommeeast. Noo, they’re a varry lungeous thing is a beear, an’ seea ti mak ’em think on t’ next tahm, he maks nowt ti deea bud he off ti t’ gardin an’ clicks t’ beeskep ower wi sikan a bat. Noo, by that, mun, ther was a bonny ti-deea; t’ bees was sairly putten aboot, an’ seea they all com at t’ beear, an’ leeted on him; an’ he wer that tenged all ower, whahl it leeaked agin they wer boun ti rahve him i’ bits; an’ he wer hard set ti ger awaay frev ’em wick.

‘Varry seean he was swidgin’ an’ warkin’ awhahl he could hardlins bahd; bud, hooivver, he set hissen doon upo’ t’ grund an’ started ti beeal, an’ he shakk’d his heead an’ scratted his lugs an’ sike leyke. Eftther he’d gotten sattled doon a bit, thinks he tiv hissen, ah mebbe mud as weel ae tae’n neea noatis eftther t’ fo’st bee tenged ma, as ti a’e meead sikan a durdam amang t’ others, awhahl they were fit ti modther ma; an’ it wer all ti neea use at t’ finish.’

All the long French words have disappeared, and in the whole account only five French words and one Latin word are used. The difference is striking, and the reason for the difference is not far to seek.

The language of the former version is that which has come down to us from the Court, and the Court language was for centuries Norman-French. The words used by the East Yorkshire farm-labourer are those of his humble forefathers who knew no bewk-larning, and who learned their English tongue by word of mouth, picking up here and there only an occasional French word.

In other words, the language of the farm-labourer is almost exactly the same as that used by his ancestors four or five centuries ago. In fact, as Mr. Morris puts it, ‘if old Tommy Smith who died in 1500, aged 80, and old Willie Ward who died in 1900, aged 80, could come to life again and hold converse with one another, they would understand each other perfectly.’