Geordie

This article is about the people and dialect of Tyneside. For other uses, seeGeordie (disambiguation).

Geordie(/ˈdʒɔːrdi/JOR-dee) is anEnglish dialectspoken in theTynesidearea ofNorth East England,especially connected withNewcastle upon Tyne,and sometimes known inlinguisticsasTyneside EnglishorNewcastle English.The Geordie dialect and identity are primarily associated with aworking-classbackground.A 2008 newspaper survey found the Geordie accent to beperceivedas the "most attractive in England" among the British public.

Television presentersAnt and Decare Geordies fromNewcastle upon Tyne.

Geordie
Native to	England
Region	Tyneside
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic North Sea Germanic Anglo-Frisian Anglic Geordie
Early forms	Old English Middle English
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–

Geordieis also anicknamefor a resident of this same region,though there are different definitions of what constitutes a Geordie, and not everyone from the North East identifies as such.Furthermore, a Geordie can mean a supporter of the football clubNewcastle United.Geordie Schoonerglass was traditionally used to serveNewcastle Brown Ale.

History

Like all English dialects, the Geordie dialect traces back to theOld Englishspoken byAnglo-Saxonsettlers, initially employed by the ancientBrythonswho foughtPictishinvaders after the end ofRomanrule inBritainin the 5th century.TheAngles,Saxons,andJuteswho arrived became ascendant politically and culturally over the native British through subsequent migration from tribal homelands along theNorth Seacoast of mainland Europe. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that emerged in theDark Agesspoke largely mutually intelligible varieties of what is now called Old English, each varying somewhat inphonology,morphology,syntax,andlexicon.InNorthern Englandand theScottish borders,then dominated by the kingdom ofNorthumbria,there developed a distinctNorthumbrian Old Englishdialect, which preceded modern Geordie. Thelinguistic conservatismof Geordie means that poems by the Anglo-Saxon scholar theVenerable Bedecan be translated more successfully into Geordie than into standard modern English.

TheBritish Librarypoints out that the Norse, who primarily lived south of theRiver Tees,affected the language in Yorkshire but not in regions to the north. This source adds that "the border skirmishes that broke out sporadically during the Middle Ages meant the River Tweed established itself as a significant northern barrier against Scottish influence". Today, many who speak the Geordie dialect use words such asgan('go' – modern Dutchgaan) andbairn('child' – modern Danishbarn), which "can still trace their roots right back to the Angles".

Geographical coverage

People

When referring to the people, as opposed to the dialect, dictionary definitions of a Geordie typically refer to a native or inhabitant of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, or its environs,an area that encompassesNorth Tyneside,Newcastle,South TynesideandGateshead.This area has a combined population of around 700,000, based on 2011 census-data.

The term itself, according to Brockett, originated from all the North East coal mines.Thecatchment areafor the term "Geordie" can include Northumberland and County Durhamor be confined to an area as small as the city ofNewcastle upon Tyneand the metropolitan boroughs of Tyneside.

Scott Dobson, the author of the bookLarn Yersel Geordie,once stated that his grandmother, who was brought up inByker,thought the miners were the true Geordies.There is a theory the name comes from the Northumberland and Durham coal mines. Poems and songs written in this area in 1876 (according to theOED), speak of the "Geordie".

Dialect

Academics refer to the Geordie dialect as "Tyneside English".

According to the British Library, "Locals insist there are significant differences between Geordie and several other local dialects, such asPitmaticandMackem.Pitmatic is the dialect of the former mining areas in County Durham and around Ashington to the north of Newcastle upon Tyne, whileMackemis used locally to refer to the dialect of the city of Sunderland and the surrounding urban area of Wearside ".

Etymology

A number of rival theories explain how the termGeordiecame about, though all accept that it derives from a familiar diminutive form of the nameGeorge,"a very common name among the pitmen"(coal miners) in North East England; indeed, it was once the most popular name for eldest sons in the region.

One account traces the name to the times of theJacobite Rebellionof 1715. The Jacobites declared that the natives of Newcastle were staunch supporters of theHanoverian kings,whose first representativeGeorge Ireigned (1714–1727) at the time of the 1715 rebellion. Newcastle contrasted with ruralNorthumberland,which largely supported the Jacobite cause. In this case, the term "Geordie" may have derived from the popular anti-Hanoverian song "Cam Ye O'er Frae France?",which calls the first Hanoverian king "Geordie Whelps", a play on "George theGuelph".

Another explanation for the name states that localminersin the northeast of England usedGeordie safety lamps,designed byGeorge Stephenson,known locally as "Geordie the engine-wright",in 1815rather than the competingDavy lamps,designed about the same time byHumphry Davyand used in other mining communities. Using the chronological order of twoJohn Trotter Brockettbooks,Geordiewas given to North East pitmen; later he acknowledges that the pitmen also christened their Stephenson lampGeordie.

LinguistKatie Walesalso dates the term earlier than does the currentOxford English Dictionary;she observes thatGeordy(orGeordie) was a common name given to coal-mine pitmen in ballads and songs of the region, noting that such usage turns up as early as 1793. It occurs in the titles of two songs by songwriterJoe Wilson:"Geordy, Haud the Bairn" and "Keep your Feet Still, Geordie". Citing such examples as the song "Geordy Black", written by Rowland Harrison of Gateshead, she contends that, as a consequence of popular culture, the miner and the keelman had become icons of the region in the 19th century, and "Geordie" was a label that "affectionately and proudly reflected this," replacing the earlier ballad emblem, the figure ofBob Crankie.

In theEnglish Dialect Dictionaryof 1900,Joseph Wrightgave as his fourth definition of "Geordie":A man from Tyneside; a miner; a north-country collier vessel,quoting two sources from Northumberland, one from East Durham and one from Australia. The source from Durham stated: "In South Tyneside even, this name was applied to the Lower Tyneside men."

Newcastle publisher Frank Graham'sGeordie Dictionarystates:

The origin of the word Geordie has been a matter of much discussion and controversy. All the explanations are fanciful and not a single piece of genuine evidence has ever been produced.

In Graham's many years of research, the earliest record he found of the term's use dated to 1823 by localcomedianBilly Purvis. Purvis had set up a booth at the NewcastleRaceson theTown Moor.In an angry tirade against a rival showman, who had hired a youngpitmancalled Tom Johnson to dress as aclown,Billy cried out to the clown:

Ah man, wee but a feul wad hae sold off his furnitor and left his wife. Noo, yor a fair doon reet feul, not an artificial feul like Billy Purvis! Thous a real Geordie! gan man an hide thysel! gan an' get thy picks agyen. Thou may de for the city, but never for the west end o' wor toon.

(Rough translation: "Oh man, who but a fool would have sold off his furniture and left his wife? Now, you're a fair downright fool, not an artificial fool like Billy Purvis! You're a real Geordie! Go on, man, and hide yourself! Go on and get your picks [axes] again. You may do for the city, but never for the west end of our town!" )

John Camden Hottenwrote in 1869: "Geordie, general term in Northumberland and Durham for a pitman, or coal-miner. Origin not known; the term has been in use more than a century."Using Hottenas a chronological reference, Geordie has been documented for at least256 years as a term related to Northumberland and County Durham.

The nameBad-weather Geordyapplied tococklesellers:

As the season at which cockles are in greatest demand is generally the most stormy in the year – September to March – the sailors' wives at the seaport towns of Northumberland and Durham consider the cry of the cockle man as the harbinger of bad weather, and the sailor, when he hears the cry of 'cockles alive,' in a dark wintry night, concludes that a storm is at hand, and breathes a prayer, backwards, for the soul of Bad-Weather-Geordy.

— S. Oliver,Rambles in Northumberland,1835

Travel writerScott Dobsonused the term "Geordieland" in a 1973 guidebook to refer collectively to Northumberland and Durham.

Linguistic surveys

TheSurvey of English DialectsincludedEarsdonandHeddon-on-the-Wallin its fieldwork, administering more than 1,000 questions to local informants.

TheLinguistic Survey of ScotlandincludedCumberlandand Northumberland (using historic boundaries) in its scope, collecting words through postal questionnaires.Tyneside sites includedCullercoats,Earsdon,Forest Hall,Gosforth,Newcastle upon Tyne,Wallsend-on-TyneandWhitley Bay.

Phonology

The phonemic notation used in this article is based on the set of symbols used byWatt & Allen (2003).Other scholars may use different transcriptions. Watt and Allen stated that there were approximately 800,000 people in the early 2000s who spoke this form of British English.

Tyneside English (TE) is spoken in Newcastle upon Tyne, a city of around 260,000 inhabitants in the far north of England, and in the conurbation stretching east and south of Newcastle along the valley of the River Tyne as far as the North Sea. The total population of this conurbation, which also subsumes Gateshead, Jarrow, North and South Shields, Whitley Bay, and Tynemouth, exceeds 800,000.

Consonants

Geordieconsonantsgenerally follow those ofReceived Pronunciation,with these unique characteristics as follows:

• /ɪŋ/appearing in an unstressed final syllable of a word (such as inreading) is pronounced as[ən](thus,readingis[ˈɹiːdən]).
• The Geordie accent does not use the glottal stop in a usual fashion. It is characterised by a unique type of glottal stops./p,t,k/can all be pronounced simultaneously with a glottal stop after them in Geordie, both at the end of a syllable and sometimes before a weak vowel.
  • T-glottalisation,in which/t/is realised by[ʔ]before a syllabic nasal (e.g.,buttonas[ˈbʊtʔn̩]), in absolute final position (getas[ɡɛtʔ]), and whenever the/t/is intervocalic so long as the latter vowel is not stressed (pityas[ˈpɪtʔi]).
  • Glottaling in Geordie is known as 'pre-glottalisation', which is "an occlusion at the appropriate place of articulation and 'glottalisation', usually manifested as a short period of laryngealised voice before and/or after and often also during the stop gap".This type of glottal is unique to Tyneside English.
• Othervoicelessstops,/p,k/,are glottally reinforced in medial position, andpreaspiratedin final position.
• The dialect isnon-rhoticlike most other dialects of England, with/r/being realised most commonly as an alveolar approximant[ɹ],although a labiodental realisation[ʋ]is additionally growing in prevalence among younger females. (This variant is also possible, albeit rarer, in the speech of older males.) Traditionally,intrusive Rwas not present in Geordie, with speakers instead glottalising between boundaries; however, it is present in newer varieties of the dialect.
• Yod-coalescencein both stressed and unstressed syllables (so thatdewbecomes[dʒɵʊ]).
• /l/is traditionally clear in all contexts, meaning thevelarised allophoneis absent. However, modern accents may periodically use[ɫ]in syllable final positions, sometimes it may even bevocalised(as inbottle[ˈbɒʔʊ]).

Vowels

Monophthongsof Geordie (fromWatt & Allen (2003:268)). Some of these values may not be representative of all speakers.

Monophthongs of Geordie

	Front			Central	Back
	unrounded		rounded
	short	long			short	long
Close	ɪ	iː			ʊ	uː
Close-mid		eː	øː			oː
Open-mid	ɛ	ɛː		ə		ɔː
Open	a	(aː)			ɒ	ɒː

Length

• For some speakers, vowel length alternates with vowel quality in a very similar way to theScottish vowel length rule.
• Vowel length is phonemic for many speakers of Geordie, meaning that length is often the one and only phonetic difference betweenDRESSandSQUARE(/ɛ/and/ɛː/) or betweenLOTandSTART(/ɒ/and/ɒː/).If older or traditional dialect forms are considered,TRAP(/a/) also has a phonemic long counterpart/aː/,which is mostly used inTHOUGHTwords spelled with⟨a⟩,making minimal pairs such astack/tak/vs.talk/taːk/(less broad Geordie pronunciation:/tɔːk/). Another[aː]appears as an allophone of/a/before final voiced consonants in words such aslad[laːd].

Phonetic quality and phonemic incidence

• FLEECEandGOOSE,/iː,uː/,are typically somewhat closer than in other varieties in morphologically closed syllables;/uː/is also less prone to fronting than in other varieties of BrE and its quality is rather close to the cardinal[u].However, younger women tend to use a central[ʉː]instead.In morphologically open syllables,FLEECEandGOOSEare realised as closing diphthongs[ei,ɵʊ].This creates minimal pairs such asfreeze[fɹiːz]vs.frees[fɹeiz]andbruise[bɹuːz~bɹʉːz](hereafter transcribed with ⟨uː⟩ for the sake of simplicity) vs.brews[bɹɵʊz].
  • TheHAPPYvowel is tense[i]and is best analysed as belonging to the/iː/phoneme.
• As with other Northern English varieties, Geordie lacks theFOOT–STRUTsplit,so that words likecut,upandluckhave the same/ʊ/phoneme asput,sugarandbutcher.The typical phonetic realisation is unrounded[ɤ],but it may be hypercorrected to[ə]among middle-class (especially female) speakers.
• The long close-mid vowels/eː,oː/,inFACEandGOAT,may be realised as monophthongs[eː,oː]in open syllables or as opening diphthongs[ɪə,ʊə]in closed syllables. Alternatively,/eː/can be a closing diphthong[eɪ]and/oː/can be centralised to[ɵː].The opening diphthongs are recessive, as younger speakers reject them in favour of the monophthongal[eː,oː~ɵː].
  • Other, now archaic, realisations of/oː/include[aː]insnow[snaː]and[aʊ]insoldiers[ˈsaʊldʒɐz].
  • Many female speakers mergeGOAT/oː/withTHOUGHT/ɔː/,but the exact phonetic quality of the merged vowel is uncertain.
• NURSE,/øː/,may be phonetically[øː]or a higher, unrounded vowel[ɪː].An RP-like vowel[ɜ̝ː]is also possible.
  • In older broadest Geordie,NURSEmerges withTHOUGHT/ɔː/to[ɔː]under the influence of a uvular[ʁ]that once followed it (when Geordie was still a rhotic dialect).The fact that the original/ɔː/vowel is never hypercorrected to[øː]or[ɜ̝ː]suggests that either this merger was never categorical, or that speakers are unusually successful in sorting those vowels out again.
• The schwa/ə/is often rather open ([ɐ]). It also tends to be longer in duration than the preceding stressed vowel, even if that vowel is phonologically long. Therefore, words such aswaterandmeterare pronounced[ˈwɔd̰ɐː]and[ˈmid̰ɐː].This feature is shared with the very conservative (Upper Crust) variety of Received Pronunciation.
  • Words such asvoicesandendedhave/ə/in the second syllable (so/ˈvɔɪsəz,ˈɛndəd/), rather than the/ɪ/of RP. That does not mean that Geordie has undergone theweak vowel mergerbecause/ɪ/can still be found in some unstressed syllables in place of the more usual/ə/.An example of that is the second syllable ofseven/ˈsɛvɪn/,but it can also be pronounced with a simple schwa/ə/instead. Certain weak forms also have/ɪ/instead of/ə/;these includeat/ɪt/(homophonous with strongit),of/ɪv/(nearly homophonous withif),as/ɪz/(homophonous with strongis),can/kɪn/andus/ɪz/(again, homophonous with strongis).
• As in other Northern English dialects, theBATHvowel is short/a/in Geordie, thus there is no London-styletrap–bath split.There are a small number of exceptions to this rule; for instance,half,master,plasterand sometimes alsodisasterare pronounced with theSTARTvowel/ɒː/.
• Some speakers unroundSTART,/ɒː/,to[ɑː].Regardless of the rounding, the difference in backness between/ɒː/and/a/is very pronounced, a feature which Geordie shares with RP and some northern and midland cities such as Stoke-on-Trent and Derby, but not with the accents of the middle north.
• Older traditional Geordie does not always adhere to the same distributional patterns of vowels found in standard varieties of English. Examples of that include the wordsnoandstone,which may be pronounced[niː]and[stɪən],so with vowels that are best analysed as belonging to the/iː/and/iə/phonemes.

Part 1 of Geordiediphthongs(fromWatt & Allen (2003:268))

Part 2 of Geordie diphthongs (fromWatt & Allen (2003:268))./æʊ/shows considerable phonetic variation.

Diphthongs of Geordie

		Endpoint
		Front	Central	Back
Start point	Front	ɛɪ(aɪ)	iə	æʊ
	Back	ɔɪ	uə

Diphthongs

• The second elements ofNEARandCURE,/iə,uə/,are commonly as open as the typical Geordie realisation of/ə/([ɐ]).
• The first element ofMOUTH,/æʊ/,varies between[æ],[ä]and[ɛ].Traditionally, this whole vowel was a high monophthong[uː](withtownbeing pronounced close to RPtoon) and this pronunciation can still be heard, as can a narrower diphthong[əu](withtownbeing pronounced close to RPtone).
• PRICEis/ɛɪ/,but Geordie speakers generally use a less common allophone for certain environments in accordance with theScottish vowel length rule,[äɪ],which has a longer, lower, and more back onset than the main allophone. Thus[ɛɪ]is used in words such asknife[nɛɪf],whereas[äɪ]is used inknives[näɪvz].For simplicity, both of them are written with ⟨ɛɪ⟩ in this article.

Vocabulary

The Geordie dialect shares similarities with other Northern English dialects, as well as with theScots language(See Rowe 2007, 2009).

Dorfy,real name Dorothy Samuelson-Sandvid, was a noted Geordie dialect writer.In her column for the SouthShields Gazette,Samuelson-Sandvid attests many samples of Geordie language usage, such as the nounsbairn( "child" )andclarts( "mud" );the adjectivescanny( "pleasant" )andclag( "sticky" );and theimperativeverb phrasehoway( "hurry up!"; "come on!" )

Howayis broadly comparable to the invocation "Come on!" or theFrench"Allez-y!" ( "Go on!" ). Examples of common use includeHoway man!,meaning "come on" or "hurry up",Howay the lads!as a term of encouragement for a sports team for example (the players' tunnel atSt James' Parkhas this phrase just above the entrance to the pitch), orHo'way!?(with stress on the second syllable) expressing incredulity or disbelief.The literal opposite of this phrase ishaddaway( "go away" ); although not as common ashoway,it is perhaps most commonly used in the phrase "Haddaway an' shite" (Tom Hadaway, Figure 5.2 Haddaway an' shite; 'Cursing like sleet blackening the buds, raging at the monk of Jarrow scribbling his morality and judgement into a book.').

Another word,divvieordivvy( "idiot" ), seems to come from the Co-op dividend,or from the twoDavy lamps(the more explosive Scotch Davyused in 1850, commission disapproved of its use in 1886 (inventor not known, nicknamed Scotch Davy probably given by miners after the Davy lamp was made perhaps by north east miners who used the Stephenson Lamp), and the later better designed Davy designed byHumphry Davyalso called the Divvy.) As in a north east miner saying 'Marra, ye keep way from me if ye usin a divvy.' It seems the word divvie then translated to daft lad/lass. Perhaps coming from the fact one would be seen as foolish going down a mine with a Scotch Divvy when there are safer lamps available, like the Geordie, or the Davy.

The Geordie wordnetty,meaning a toilet and place of need and necessity for reliefor bathroom,has an uncertain origin.However, some have theorised that it may come from slang used byRoman soldiersonHadrian's Wall,which may have later becomegabinettiin theRomance languageItalian(such as in theWestoe Netty,the subject of a famous painting from Bob Olley). However,gabbinettois theModern Italiandiminutive ofgabbia,which actually derives from theLatincavea( "hollow", "cavity", "enclosure" ), the root of theloanwordsthat became theModern Englishcave,cage,andgaol.Thus, another explanation would be that it comes from a ModernItalianform of the wordgabinetti,though only a relatively small number of Italians have migrated to the North of England, mostly during the 19th century.

Someetymologistsconnect the wordnettyto theModern Englishwordneedy.John Trotter Brockett, writing in 1829 in hisA glossary of north country words...,claims that theetymonofnetty(and its related formneddy) is theModern Englishneedyandneed.

Bill Griffiths, inA Dictionary of North East Dialect,points to the earlier form, theOld Englishníd;he writes: "MS locates a possible early ex." Robert Hovyngham sall make... at the other end of his house a knyttyng "York 1419, in which case the root could be OE níd 'necessary'".Another related word,nessyis thought (by Griffiths) to derive from the Modern English "necessary".

A poem called "Yam" narrated by author Douglas Kew demonstrates the usage of a number of Geordie words.

Vocabulary usage

• aa/aye/ai,yes
• aall,all
• aalwiz,always
• aboot,about
• alang,along
• alreet,alright
• an,and
• baccy,tobacco
• bairn,child
• cannit,cannot
• canny,pleasant
• childhud,childhood
• clag,sticky
• clarts,mud
• dee,do
• dinnor,dinner
• divvn't,don't
• divvy,idiot
• doilum,idiot
• Frida,Friday
• fud,food
• gan hyem,go home
• gan on,go on
• gan,go
• gan't,gone to
• geet,very, really
• guzzlin,eating
• haad,hold (e.g.keep a haadis 'keep a hold' andhaad yer gobbecomes 'keep quiet'.)
• haadaway,get away, (disbelief)
• heor,hear
• hinny,honey (a term of endearment)
• hoose,house
• hooswife,Housewife
• hord,heard
• howay,hurry up, come on
• hoy,to throw
• hyem-myed,home made
• ivry,every
• lang,long
• larns,learns
• larnt,taught
• ma/mar/mam,mother
• mesel,myself
• Monda,Monday
• neebody,nobody
• neet,night
• noo,now
• nooadays,nowadays
• nowt,nothing
• oot,out
• owt,anything
• pianna,piano
• reelise,realise
• reet,right
• roond,around or round
• smaall,small
• stotty-cyek,stotty cake (bread)
• summackorsummit,something
• Sunda,Sunday
• taak,talk
• thor's,there's
• Thorsda',Thursday
• waarms,warms
• watt,what
• wawd,word
• wesh,wash
• wheor,where
• wor,our
• worsel's,ourselves
• y'kin,you can

Sources

• Beal, Joan (2004), "English dialects in the North of England: phonology", in Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.),A handbook of varieties of English,vol. 1: Phonology, Mouton de Gruyter, pp.113–133,ISBN3-11-017532-0
• Colls, Robert; Lancaster, Bill (1992),Geordies: roots of regionalism(2nd ed.), Newcastle upon Tyne: Northumbria University Press,ISBN978-1904794127
• Di Martino, Emilia (2019),Celebrity Accents and Public Identity Construction. Geordie Stylizations,Routledge,ISBN978-1000022407
• Keuchler, Karsten (2010),Geordie Accent and Tyneside English,GRIN Verlag,ISBN978-3640742738
• Pearce, Michael (2020),"The Survival of Traditional Dialect Lexis on the Participatory Web",English Studies,101(4):487–509,doi:10.1080/0013838X.2020.1805184
• Rowe, Charley (2007), "He divn't gan tiv a college ti di that, man! A study of do (and to) in Tyneside English",Language Sciences,12(2):360–371,doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2006.12.013
• Rowe, Charley (2009),Salience and resilience in a set of Tyneside English shibboleths,Language Variation: European Perspectives II, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp.191–204
• Simmelbauer, Andrea (2000),The dialect of Northumberland: A lexical investigation,Anglistische Forschungen, Universitätsverlag C. Winter,ISBN978-3825309343
• Watt, Dominic (2000),"Phonetic parallels between the close–mid vowels of Tyneside English: Are they internally or externally motivated?",Language Variation and Change,12(1):69–101,doi:10.1017/S0954394500121040,S2CID144002794
• Watt, Dominic; Allen, William (2003), "Tyneside English",Journal of the International Phonetic Association,33(2):267–271,doi:10.1017/S0025100303001397
• Wells, John C.(1982),Accents of English,Vol. 2: The British Isles (pp. i–xx, 279–466), Cambridge University Press,doi:10.1017/CBO9780511611759,ISBN0-52128540-2

External links

• Newcastle English (Geordie)