Buckley - Dialect

Dialect

Although very few locals speak with a 'Buckley' accent nowadays, due to people moving in and out of the area, and with the proliferation of television and radio, a few of the town's older citizens still speak in a form of the strongly accented dialect, full of colloquialisms, and often unintelligible to outsiders. One of the last remaining pure 'Buckley' speakers was noted linguist Dennis Griffiths, a Buckley resident, who died in 1972, and whose books are the main repository and record of the dialect. A few examples (mainly phonetic) are noted below:

• Wunst every blue moon - rarely occurring
• Thou fries me to death - the limit of boredom
• A lick and a promise - a quick wash
• Fasen the fost un fost - fasten the first one first
• The daddy on um aw - the best of the lot
• Husht thee naise - be quiet
• I conna meke thee out - I can't understand you
• Chunner - Complain

The last 'pure' speaker of the Buckley dialect was Joseph Charles Shone, a foundryman born in 1917, who died in 1987.