East Midlands Dialects in Literature
The romantic English novelist, and East Midlander, D. H. Lawrence who was from the Nottinghamshire town of Eastwood wrote in the dialect of the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Coalfield in several dialect poems as well as in his more famous works such as Lady Chatterley's Lover and Sons and Lovers.
Though spoken less commonly today, the dialect of the East Midlands has been investigated in texts such as the Ey Up Mi Duck series of books (and an LP) by Richard Scollins and John Titford. These books were originally intended as a study of Derbyshire Dialect, particularly the distinctive speech of Ilkeston and the Erewash valley, but later editions acknowledge similarities in vocabulary and grammar which unite the East Midlands dialects and broadened their appeal to the region as a whole.
"Ey Up" (often spelt ayup / eyup) is a greeting thought to be of Old Norse origin (se upp) used widely throughout the North Midlands and South Yorkshire, and "Mi Duck" is thought to be derived from a respectful Anglo Saxon form of address, "Duka" (Literally "Duke"), and is unrelated to waterfowl. Non-natives of the East Midlands are often surprised to hear men greet each other as 'Mi Duck.'
Read more about this topic: East Midlands English
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