Features
Two noticeable features of the dialect are the vowel sound ow (as in low) which is used where standard English would use ol as in cowd = cold, 'towd" = told, etc. and the use of thee and they in place of you (both singular and plural), also heard in parts of Yorkshire and Lancashire.
Another peculiarity is the use of the addition of ne at the end of words to indicate the negative as in thee cosne goo dine theyr sirree, theyl get thesen ow bautered u. Although clearly similar to Latin in the way this is used, this might just be coincidental. There are differences in the way people from Staffordshire Moorlands villages speak to people from the Potteries. Indeed it used to be possible, within living memory, to be able identify which village people came from simply by their accent or words used. i.e. 'thesen' is a moorlands word and 'thesell' is Potteries. A sparrow would be described in the Moorlands as a "spuggy", a watering can a "lecking can" or a horse a "tit" - though not so in the Potteries.
The late Mr John Levitt from Keele University was very interested in recording this dialect and often stated that the Potteries or North Staffs Dialect was the most difficult dialect to speak as well as it being the closest to Anglo Saxon. It is interesting that if one, as a native dialect speaker, attempts to read "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" in this dialect it suddenly changes from incomprehensible to a lilting poem as it was constructed to be. This has led scholars to speculate that it was written by a monk from Dieulacres Abbey.
Mr Levitt was also intrigued by the ability of Potteries people to be able to confuse the letters O and H as in otel or horanges.
Read more about this topic: Potteries Dialect
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