Potteries dialect
| Potteries | |
|---|---|
| Native to | England |
| Region | North Staffordshire |
|
Indo-European
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | None |
Potteries is an English dialect of the North Midlands of England, almost exclusively in and around Stoke-on-Trent.
As with most local dialects in English, Potteries dialect derives originally from Anglo Saxon Old English. The 14th-century Anglo Saxon poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which appears in the Cotton Nero A.x manuscript uses dialect words native to the Potteries, leading some scholars to believe that it was written by a monk from Dieulacres Abbey. However, the most commonly suggested candidate for authorship is John Massey of Cotton, Cheshire (now part of Cranage outside Holmes Chapel). The same manuscript also contains three religious alliterative poems, Cleanness, Patience and Pearl, which are attributed to the same unknown author. Although the identity of the author is still disputed, J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon writing in 1925 concluded that "his home was in the West Midlands of England; so much his language shows, and his metre, and his scenery."
The first documented instance of Potteries dialect is by the prominent Stafforshire lawyer John Ward (1781–1870) and local historian Simeon Shaw in their book The Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent published in 1843, and still available from Webberley's Bookshop, where Ward recorded phonetically a conversation which he overheard in Burslem marketplace in 1810. In the passage, entitled A Burslem Dialogue, Ward provided an explanation of some of the words unique to the district: ‘mewds’ (moulds), ‘kale’ (being called upon in order, first, second….), ‘heo’ (she), ‘shippon’ (a cow-house).
From the 1750s onwards the Industrial Revolution created a high concentration of workforce in the ceramic and coal mining industries, working in close proximity in Stoke-on-Trent. This allowed the dialect to develop as a way of speech specific to those industries.
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