East Midlands English - Dialect Variations Within The Political Region

Dialect Variations Within The Political Region

Although Northamptonshire is located in the East Midlands, and has historically harboured a dialect comparable to other forms of East Midlands English, particularly among the older generation, the linguistic distinctiveness of Northamptonshire has significantly eroded. There are influences from the western parts of East Anglia, the West Midlands, and the South as well as the 'Watford Gap Isogloss', the demarcation line between southern and northern English accents. Contrary to popular belief, the Watford in question is Watford village and not the town of Watford which borders the north of London.

The Danelaw split the present county into a Viking north and a Saxon south. This is quite plainly heard, with people in the south speaking more like people from Oxfordshire or Cambridgeshire and people in the north sounding more like people from Leicestershire.

Also of note is the anomalous dialect of Corbyite spoken around Corby in the north of Northamptonshire, which reflects the migration of large numbers of Scottish and Irish steelworkers to the town during the 20th Century. The dialect is often compared to Glaswegian.

The dialect of Coalville in Leicestershire is said to resemble that of Derbyshire because many of the Coalville miners came from there, and the dialect of Glossop in North West Derbyshire has similarities with Northern English due to its close geographical position to Greater Manchester.

Lincolnshire is, in a sense, separated from the remainder of the East Midlands. East of the Lincolnshire Wolds, in the southern part of the county, the Lincolnshire dialect is closely linked to The Fens and East Anglia, and, in the northern areas of the county, the local speech has characteristics in common with the speech of the East Riding of Yorkshire. This is largely due to the fact that the majority of the land area of Lincolnshire was surrounded by sea, the Humber Estuary, marshland, and the wolds; these geographical circumstances permitted little linguistic interference from the East Midlands dialects until the nineteenth century when canal and rail routes penetrated the eastern heartland of the county.

There are also variations in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Though all native speakers sound similar, there are noticeable differences between the accents of residents of, for example, Nottingham and Derby, or Mansfield and the Erewash Valley.