CHAPTER XVI
A FEW SIMPLE HINTS ON THE GRAMMAR OF THE FOLK-SPEECH

The Article.

There is no variation in the usage of the indefinite article, save that it still retains its place before participles and the adjectives few, many, and great many.

Educated people do not nowadays say, ‘I sat a sipping of my tea, and a smiling at the kettle a singing on the hob,’ No, it sounds quaint. And to those who know as little of their Shakespeare as they do of their Bibles, such speech is put down to ignorance, or a lack of education, when in point of fact they are listening to an echo of that old-time speech which was in full swing long before their great grandmothers were born, and used by really quite respectable people; e.g.—

• ‘As he was yet a coming’ (Luke ix. 42).
• ‘I go a fishing’ (John xxi. 3).
• ‘While the ark was a preparing’ (1 Pet. iii. 20).
• ‘His greatness is yet a ripening’ (Henry VIII).
• ‘There is some ill a brewing towards my rest’ (Merchant of Venice, Act ii. Sc. 5).

In such cases, however, ‘a’ cannot be parsed as an article. Many opinions have been given, but perhaps Cobbett, who holds it to be an abbreviation for ‘at,’ meaning ‘without doubt,’ has gained the most supporters. In the Spectator, No. 86, we find, ‘Socrates’ disciples burst out a laughing,’ and in No. 420, ‘The spirits which set the springs a going.’ Such are by no means archaic forms of speech in the North Riding, ‘bud ez common ez pigs a grunting at yan anuther.’

The definite article, as mentioned elsewhere, is ‘t’.’ To this rule there are very few exceptions. Before certain letters it is almost inaudible; nevertheless, it is always there. It may be said, and with truth, that a perfect mastery of the definite article, both in speaking and hearing it spoken, has advanced those desirous of knowing something of our folk-speech—rather more than half of their journey. I know many people who are fluent speakers of the dialect, but who read it, even when in printed form, with the greatest difficulty; others who can read fairly well, but so far as understanding the dialect when spoken, might as well listen to a batch of Chocktaw Indians, as two or three good old Yorkshire dames when fairly letting out.

A Frenchman once said to me, ‘I could understand you English people, if you did not speak so quickly.’ Aye, just so, and so would many another body from other counties understand a great deal of what our country folk say if each word was uttered separately, but with us, as in standard English, very frequently no pause is made between commas; so the difficulty increases tenfold, when a stranger strives to follow a fairly classical dalesman or woman. Take, for instance, a few words which the other day I heard a woman shout across a village street to her daughter. Firstly, as they sounded when uttered, then the same as they would be written, and thirdly, the translation.

As spoken. Teggattenlaadsitwinner.

As written. T’ egg at t’ ‘en laad’s i’ t’ winner99.

Standard English. The egg (that) the hen laid is in the window.

Number.

This, with only a few exceptions, follows the ordinary rule of grammar.

Case.

The possessive case is noted elsewhere.

Gender.

The same as in standard English, with this slight deviation: many things which are neuter are spoken of as being of the feminine gender. Ex.—‘Sha’s a fine stack;’ ‘Sha’s a bit rough ti-daay,’ speaking of the sea; ‘Sha’s gitten a fine bole on her,’ speaking of an oak. There can be no rule given for guidance, because in a compound sentence the same noun is sometimes both feminine and neuter. A man speaking of his watch said, ‘It’s yan ov t’ best ’at Ah ivver ’ed; sha’s a good un,’ i.e. ‘It is one of the best that I ever had; she is a good one.’

Adjectives.

Adjectives which in standard English are compared by the addition of more and most to the positive, generally form their degrees of comparison by the addition of er or r for the comparative, and ist or st for the superlative; e.g.—

Though it is quite common to hear such expressions as ‘mair okkader’ or ‘t’ maist okkadist,’ and the like, with other adjectives, it is also not uncommon for the adjective to be used as an adverb, as ‘It’s easy deean.’

Personal Pronouns.

There is no rule to guide the student in the use of thoo, tha, ta. In a general way ta follows an auxiliary verb, and thoo, used in the accusative case, is definite in its application. ‘He’s shooting o’ thoo,’ and ’he’s shooting o’ tha,’ have a well-marked distinction of meaning. ‘He’s shooting o’ thoo’ implies that the person told of the fact is the actual person being shouted of; not only does it point him out from amongst many, but the fact that thoo was used further implies that the shouting had better be attended to at once. ‘He’s shooting o’ tha,’ is merely certain information given, making known to some other person that he was being called for without regard to others.

Relative Pronouns.

Who and which are declined as follows. That and what as in standard English.

Singular and Plural.

The compound relatives are formed by the addition of ever and soever; ’at forming the compound ’ativver, i.e. whatever.

Possessive Pronouns and the compound personal and possessives are formed as under:—

Demonstrative Pronouns.

This and that are used as follows:—

This refers to an object near at hand, that is rarely used, yon being almost universal, e.g. ‘Yon man ower theer ’ll tell tha.’ Q. ‘Which is Mister Thompson?’ A. ‘Yon chap’s him,’ i.e. ‘That man is Mr. Thompson.’

Indefinite Pronouns.

Yan and yah are noticed elsewhere, also vide Glossary.

Adverbs.

Adverbial peculiarities are fully noticed in the Glossary.

The Prepositions and Adverbs mostly in use are:—

• About, aboot.
• Above, aboon.
• Across, quarrelled. ‘Him an’ me’s gitten across.’
• After, efter or efther101.
• Against, ower agaanst, near to.
• Among, amang. Amongst, amangst.
• Before, afoor. ‘For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect’ (Isa. xviii. 5).
• Behind, ahint.
• Between, atween.
• Betwixt, atwixt.
• Beyond, ayont, beyont.
• By, byv or by, pronounced be.
• From, fra before a consonant, frev before a vowel.
• In, i’.
• Into, intiv, inti, intil.
• Near, near-hand.
• Nigh, near, ommaist, also nigh.
• Of, ov and foor.
• Over, ower and aboon.
• Beyond, past. ‘He did entreat me past my saying nay’ (Merchant of Venice, Act iii. Sc. 2).
• Too, ower.
• With, wi’, wiv.

Until is never used, whahl always taking its place: no exception to this rule.

It may be noted this peculiarity extends to the south of Northamptonshire.

The Verb.

It will only be possible to note one or two of the more striking peculiarities.

Also the older form is quite common—

Examples:—

• ‘Ah be gahin’ ti morn.’
• ‘Thoo byst efter neea good.’
• ‘We be twelve brethren’ (Gen. xlii. 32).
• ‘If thou beest he’ (Paradise Lost, Bk. i. 84).
• ‘If thou beest death’ (Henry VI, Part II, Act iii. Sc. 3).
• ‘If thou beest rated by estimation’ (Merchant of Venice, Act ii. Sc. 7).

Imperfect.

Observe is and be generally take the place of are and am. In fact, the latter word is very rarely heard amongst the country people. ‘Are you Tom?’ in the folk-speech, would be, ‘Is ta Tom?’—the answer would not be ‘Ah am!’ but ‘Ah is!’

Q. ‘Is ta gahin’ wiv uz105?’ i.e. ‘Are you going with me?’

A. ‘Neea, Ah’s nut,’ or ‘Neea, Ah isn’t,’ i.e. ‘No, I is not’ (I am not).

Nobbut, as a sign of the conditional mood, is quite as general as if.

Q. ‘Will ta cum?’ Will you come?

A. ‘Nobbut it be owt leyke, an’ nobbut I git deean;’ i. e. ‘If it be anything like’ (as to weather), ‘and if only I finish my work.’

It is not uncommon to hear the future tense used for the present, and in many instances the country people, as it were, confuse the perfect tense and perfect participle. ‘Ah’ve chose t’ whip ’at Ah want.’ ‘I have chosen the whip I want (or like).’

‘’Ez ta broke t’ winder?’ would be asked in a whisper, but ‘Aye, he’s brokken ’t,’ would certainly be the form in which it would be shouted to the other boys. ‘Ah’ve spoke tiv him mair ’an yance,’ would be the form such a declaration would take from one confiding to another the hopelessness of making any further entreaties; but ‘Ah’ve spokken tiv him ower an’ up agaan,’ would be the language used when temper was in the ascendent. Nevertheless, those who would consider vulgar such sentences as have been given, are apt to forget that the accepted rules which govern the speech of to-day are only correct because they are of to-day. The rules which were once accepted may have been laid aside in favour of others; but the country people move slowly—their speech is that of their grandparents, and it is what they have been used to all their lives. They know nothing of the new order of things. And again, they keep very good company.

Examples:—

Steele, in the Spectator (No. 344), has, ‘I have wrote to you three or four times.’ And he is generally acknowledged to have been a fairly good scholar, but then his writings go back a hundred years, and they spoke differently then. Our people speak very much like it now.

The formation of the perfect and of the participle vary considerably from that of ordinary grammar. As a rule the past participle is formed by the addition of en. There are other striking peculiarities in the vowel changes. A list of some of the leading ones is here given.

Conjunctions.

Some of those generally in use will be found contained in the following request:—

In reading the key over, it will be found, in several instances, that a single word does duty for several. This tendency towards redundancy is very common, e.g. ‘If so be as how ’at wa cannot,’ simply means ‘If we cannot’; and ‘Besides, thoo knaws,’ is ’besides.’ Instead of the last word, ‘besides,’ the usage of ‘An’ moreover ’an that’ is very common.

The rule that prepositions govern the objective case, expressed or understood, the conjunction never, holds good in the folk-speech.

The conjunctions in italics are very rarely used, those in brackets commonly taking their place.

• ‘Ah s’all be theer (an’ all),’ as well.
• ‘(Bud hooivver) thoo mun cum,’ still.
• ‘(Wivoot) Ah cum, deean’t start,’ unless.
• ‘(Ez) stop wiv him, Ah’ll cum,’ rather than.
• ‘Ah’ve cum (for ti) see Tom,’ in order to.
• ‘Deean’t leeave t’ hoss (bidoot) he gi’es tha t’ brass,’ unless.
• ‘Thoo wait (whahl) Ah cum,’ until.

There are many who consider the folk-speech of our country people little better than a mixture of about equal parts of bad grammar and mispronunciation. Such a notion, I feel sure, can only have arisen from either a lack of information or undue haste. From such I would humbly crave a reconsideration of the case.

I can well understand those who know little of the various sources through which the standard English of to-day has come down to us, considering such words as those contained in the following list as being vulgar—backerly, balk, belly-wark, botch, cant, chaamer, clag, cleg, drukken, flacker, flit, fra, lake, lang, leck, lig, lop, lown, luke, mirk, neeaze, owerwelt, raun, roke, rud, scraffle, shive, snite, steg, stob, stower, sump, theeak, thrave, till, &c. Though some words in the list may be new to the reader, they are in common usage amongst our people. And what is much more to their credit, every one of them were doing duty hundreds of years ago. And as in many cases the pronunciation is identical with that of their Danish relations, we have grounds for assuming that not only has the word itself been preserved, but the actual sound in which it was formerly uttered, though the spelling often differs greatly in the two countries. Take, as a single example, the North Riding word ’stower’; the Danish word is spelt ’staver,’ but the pronunciation is exactly the same in both countries. Therefore, as Angus says, if the sound rather than the spelling be taken, the similarity of the languages will be found to be much more striking. A few so-called vulgar words and their respectable relations are given in the following list.

Note.—Scandinavian in this list must be taken in its widest sense, as including Old Norse, Frisian, Swedish, and Danish.