West Country Dialects - Characteristics

Characteristics

• Some of the vocabulary used is reflective of English of a bygone era, e.g. the verb "to hark" (as in "'ark a'ee"), "thee" (often abbreviated to "'ee") etc., the increased use of the infinitive form of the verb "to be" etc.
• The final "y" is pronounced /ei/. For example: party /paːɹtei/ silly /sɪlei/ etc...
• All "r"s in a word are pronounced (as an approximant rather than a trill), in contrast to Received Pronunciation where "r" is only pronounced before vowels. West Country pronunciation of "r" corresponds with that in Ireland and in most of North America. For example: park, herd and car.
• Initial fricative consonants can be voiced, so that "s" is pronounced as Standard English "z" and "f" as Standard English "v".
• Long "a" vowels in words such as grass, ask and Bath are represented by the sounds or in different parts of the West Country; the isoglosses in the Linguistic Atlas of England are not straightforward cases of clear borders.
• In Bristol, a terminal "a" can be realised as the sound – e.g. cinema as "cinemaw" and America as "Americaw" – which is often perceived by non-Bristolians to be an intrusive "l". Hence the old joke about the three Bristolian sisters Evil, Idle and Normal – i.e.: Eva, Ida, and Norma. The name Bristol itself (originally Bridgestowe or Bristow) is believed to have originated from this local pronunciation.
• In words containing "r" before a vowel, there is frequent metathesis – "gurt" (great), "Burdgwater" (Bridgwater) and "chillurn" (children)
• In many words with the letter "l" near the end, such as gold or cold, the "l" is often not pronounced, so "an old gold bowl" would sound like "an ode goad bow".

In various districts there are also distinct grammatical and syntactical differences in the dialect:

• The second person singular thee (or ye) and thou forms used, thee often contracted to 'ee.
• Bist may be used instead of are for the second person, EG: how bist? ("how are you?") This has its origins in the Old English – or Anglo-Saxon – language and is the form adopted as standard in modern German ("Du bist").
• Use of male (rather than neutral) gender with nouns, e.g.: put'ee over there ("put it over there") and 'e's a nice scarf ("That's a nice scarf").
• An a prefix may be used to denote the past participle; a-went ("gone").
• Use of they (also pronounced thoa) in conjunction with plural nouns, where Standard English demands those e.g.: They shoes are mine ("Those shoes are mine" / "They are mine"). This is also used in Modern Scots but differentiated thae meaning those and thay the plural of he, she and it, both from the Anglo-Saxon ðà/þà 'they/those', the plural form of se 'he/that', seo 'she/that' and ðæt/þæt 'it/that'.
• In other areas, be may be used exclusively in the present tense, often in the present continuous; Where you be going to? ("Where are you going?")
• The use of to to denote location. Where's that to? ("Where's that?"). This is something you can still hear often, unlike many other characteristics. This former usage is common to Newfoundland English, where many of the island's modern-day descendants have West Country origins — particularly Bristol — as a result of the 17th–19th century migratory fishery.
• Use of the past tense "writ" where Standard English uses "wrote". e.g.: I writ a letter ("I wrote a letter").
• Nominative pronouns follow some verbs. For instance, Don't tell I, tell'ee! ("Don't tell me, tell him!"), "'ey give I fifty quid and I zay no, giv'ee to charity inztead" ("They gave me £50 and I said no, give it to charity instead"). In most Germanic languages (and it is most noticeable in Icelandic) it is nominative pronouns (I, he, she) which follow the verb to be, e.g.: It is I, It is he, These are they and not It is me, It is him, These are them. However in casual Standard English the oblique case is now used. In West Country dialect however, the object of many other verbs takes the nominative case.
• West Country accents also share certain characteristics with those of other isolated rural areas where Standard English has been slow to influence the speech of most people; for example, in parts of Northumberland final "r"s are still pronounced, or, in East Anglia, long "a"s retain the æː pronunciation.
• The Survey of English Dialects found that Cornwall retained some older features of speech that are now considered "Northern" in England. For example, a close /ʊ/ in suck, but, cup, etc. and sometimes a short /a/ in words such as aunt.

There is a popular prejudice that stereotypes speakers as unsophisticated and even backward, due possibly to the deliberate and lengthened nature of the accent. This can work to the West Country speaker's advantage, however: recent studies of how trustworthy Britons find their fellows based on their regional accents put the West Country accent high up, under southern Scottish English but a long way above Cockney and Scouse.

The West Country accent is probably most identified in film as "pirate speech" – cartoon-like "Ooh arr, me 'earties! Sploice the mainbrace!" talk is very similar. This may be a result of the strong seafaring and fisherman tradition of the West Country, both legal and outlaw. Edward Teach (Blackbeard) was a native of Bristol, and privateer and English hero Sir Francis Drake hailed from Tavistock in Devon. Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta The Pirates of Penzance may also have added to the association. West Country native Robert Newton's performance in the 1950 Disney film Treasure Island is credited with popularizing the stereotypical West Country "pirate voice". Newton's strong West Country accent also featured in Blackbeard the Pirate (1952).