Cumbrian Dialect

The following is a recollection of Cumbrian as spoken in and around Low Nest, Keswick in the middle to end of the twentieth century.  The pronunciation  fifteen miles away in West Cumberland was discernibly different, in the north of the county around Carlisle it was different again.
The vocabulary may also have been different in other parts of the county.

The Borrowdale valley, seven miles away, allegedly, had its own pronunciation and vocabulary.

There are very few written records of the Cumbrian dialect. Those that exist are mostly transliterations of traditional stories and ballads.

Cumbria

Cumbria has only existed as an administrative county since 1971. It was created from the old counties of Cumberland, Westmorland* and the Furness district of Lancashire.

Cumberland was referred to as Cummerlan and its citizens referred to themself as Cummerlan-fwolk. However it is convenient to use the term Cumbrian since the dialect does extend into Westmorland and Furness. Also Cumbrian makes a more felicitous adjective than Cummerlan'ish.

*Note that Westmorland is the correct spelling. Many people wrongly insert an 'e'. Our American friends are particular prone to this error and consequently also pronounce it wrongly. We should not blame them too harshly since most of their dictionaries have the wrong spelling.

Syntax and Pronunciation

An important point of syntax in Cumbrian speech  is that the definite article is nearly always elided to t'.  e.g. put t'wood in t'wohl = put the wood in the hole = please shut the door.
Many southerners attempting to speak Cumbrian (or other variants of Northern English) fail to hear the short t' sound and omit it. This is a grave solecism, as bad as omitting 'the' in Southern English

Thoo is also often elide to t' or ta as in "whoos t' gaan on?' (how do you do?)

Vowels sounds  in Cumbrian  are derived from the standard northern vowels which are mostly pronounced as they are written. The North was not afflicted by the Great Vowel Shift of the 14th and 15th centuries that mangled the pronunciation of English in the southern extremities of the country.

e.g. bath is pronounced as bath with a short a in contrast to the southern  'baarth' *

However Cumbrian does vary quite considerably even from the standard northern pronunciation -

the vowel 'oo' has a 'y' sound inserted -
eg  book, cook, fool, cool are pronounced 'byeuk', 'cyeuk', 'fyeul', 'cyeul',
'y' is also inserted in words with a long 'a' (words that end in e)
eg  tale, bake, cake, spade are pronunced 'tyal', 'byak', 'cyak', 'spyad'
In words with a long 'o'  a 'w' sound is inserted
e.g. pole, hole, coal are pronounced 'pwohl', 'Wohl', 'cwohl'.
Some words don't follow any particular rule
eg calf is pronounced 'cwohf', gate is 'yat', ewe is 'yow', oak is 'yak', ash is 'esh', hot is 'hyet'.

Some of these pronunciations are so different from standard northern English that it is debatable whether they should be listed in the glossary as distinct words.

* apologies to southern readers if this seems a bit overstated. It is in the nature of a protest at the inequality of respect  afforded to northern and southern pronunciation.

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Pronunciations of some placenames

'Spyat ree' - Aspatria

'Tra penah' - Torpenhowe

'Grey seun' - Greysouthern

'Carrel' - Carlisle

'Wuk it'n' - Workington

Glossary of Cumbrian Words

Without extensive research it is difficult to know which words are exclusive to Low Nest, which are exclusive to Cumbrian and which have wider currency. We used to think 'mowdy' for mole was peculiar to our family until we found Mouldywarp is the English dictionary.

What can be asserted  is that the words listed below are more commonly used in Cumbrian than in Southern English. For instance 'mowdy' may be in the dictionary but is rarely heard on the BBC.

The more commonplace northern words e.g. ghyll, beck, fell have been omitted since they are well known and recorded elsewhere. Many of these words are derived from Norse, thanks to Viking incursions and settlement; others derive from Icelandic.

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Personal Pronouns

Ah , me, thoo - I, me, you

Ah's,Ah'm; Ah'd; Ah'l - I am; I would; I will

Thoo's; Thoo'd; Thoo'l - You are; You would, You will

See the Table of Cumbrian Personal Pronouns

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Awuhr, Awivver  - However, indeed. (often appended for emphasis or contradiction). 'Ah will awivver'

Bait, Bate - N Packed lunch or more often 'ten o'clocks'. Usually carried in a canvas 'bate bag', 'Ten o'clocks' ideally consisted of a round  of cheese sandwiches, followed by apple cyak and a flask*  of coffee. This was a particularly agreeable combination of  flavours..
* (a billy-can or bottle would serve in the old days)

Back-end - N Autumn

Barn, Barney - N A child. (from Scots bairn via Geordie)

Barney - N An altercation, with or without fisticuffs

Beest - N Cattle (both singular and plural)

Beestins - N Colostrum

Bettermer - Adj Superior. 'Bettermer mak o' folk'. (Only ever used in this phrase ?)

Brat - N An apron, sometimes improvised from jute sacking.

Bray - V To hit or beat. To give a good hiding.

Brossen - Adj. Bloated and round with food particularly as applied to a cow, sheep or other herbivore (Think of a Thelwell pony)

Carry-on - N A fuss, a to-do, an unfortunate event or sequence of events. 'Thoo'l laik on til thoo carries-on' (= there will be tears)

Car - N A cart as pulled by a horse
Car-rack - N Cart track.
Something that is always wrong in period dramas on film or TV is that dirt roads only show a pair of tracks. In reality there were always three, the broad centre track made by the horse was no less pronounced than the narrow tracks made by the slender cart wheels. (Another thing they get wrong is that the cows are always Friesians and the hens are always Rhode Island Reds - both these breeds were almost unknown before 1960 - except perhaps in Friesland and Rhode Island)

Caulkers - N The iron strips nailed to the bottom of clogs, similar in principle to a horse shoe but more slender and foot-shaped. (It is particularly difficult to walk in snow in clogs. The snow freezes to the caulkers and builds up between them and with each step another layer of snow sticks to the bottom) Do horses have this trouble?

Clocker - N A broody hen. (from the distinctive sound it makes)

Clocker box - N A small cage in which a clocker was confined for several days until it lost interest in being broody and ceased to 'clock'.

Cleg - N A horsefly. Clegs are a particular nuisance at hay time.

Clowk - V To claw, to scratch. 'Divn't clowk thee heid! Has thoo got nits?'

Cock, haycock - N A conical pile of hay shaped so that the rain runs off. The point of cocking is to save the half-dry hay from a passing shower. After the rain had passed the cocks would be skaled out again to finish drying. It the rain lasted too long - as it often did - the damp hay in the cock would go mouldy but perhaps not quite as rotten as if it had been left out in the open.

Coolin hoose, Separator hoose - N Dairy

Dairy - N   Larder. The coolest room in a house usually with stone flagged floor and slate sconces.

Coppy - N A three-legged milking stool

Cowp - V to topple. ' t'coppy was on a cant and cowpt ower'

Crack - N conversation, gossip, news.. (from Scots) (The Irish Gaelic craic also derives from the Scots)

Crowdie - N A sort of dog food made by mixing Euveeka with hot water

Euveeka - N Flaked maize, a bit like large cornflakes, a brand name?

Cyak - N  Cake, or fruit pie. In Cumbria a pie would normally  contain meat. The pastry for apple cyak etc is traditionally  made with lard. Made with butter or vegetable fats it is just not right in taste and texture.

Dinnae, Divvent - V  Don't. From Scots and Geordie respectively

Dyke - N usually a hedge, Sometimes a wall, never a ditch.
Dyke - V to lay a hedge.
Dykin mittens  - N Very thick leather gauntlets, proof against blackthorn, used for dyking.

Fair, Fairly  - Adv    Very

Gae, Gaily  - Adv    Very

Fash     V. Bother, 'Dinnae fash thisel'

Fillum - N A film (a movie) as shown at The Pictures (picture house)

Flartch - V To ingratiate oneself , to Flatter. N a Flatterer.

Flay, Flayte - V  Frighten,    Adv  Frightened

Flaysome - Adj. Frightening

Fogg - N  The second growth of grass after the hay has been cropped.

Form - N A backless wooden bench

Fratch - V To argue, to bicker

Gaj, Gadgie -  N A man. Masculine third-person singular personal pronoun  (disparaging). (from Romany)

Galusses - N Braces

Gimlik - N A Gimlet

Greet - Adj  Gurt, great, big

Gripe - N A fork for loading or skaling muck (fym). Usually short handled with four or five slender tines. The tines are like the two tines of a pitchfork, more slender than those of a garden fork. Gripes are used for mucking-out the hulls where the muck is mixed with straw or other bedding, In the byres shovels are used because the bedding mostly remains separate from the muck which is therefore in a more liquid state)

Guiversome - Adj.    Devious, Crafty.

Gully - N  A kitchen knife 6 to 8 inches long, pointed, about 2 inches deep at the heel.

Gutter - N A Stream esp. at the edge of a field. Usually the position of the gutter defines ownership of the boundary.. 'thoo gaas ower a dyke till a gutter'. i.e. if there is a gutter at the edge of your field maintenance of both the gutter and the dyke are your neighbours responsibility.

Gurn - V To pull a face. to complain.

Gurt - Adj. Greet, big, great. Greet was always preferred at Low Nest. Gurt was considered rather broad and uncouth..

Gyavlik - N a Crowbar  (from Icelandic?)

Hap up - V To wrap

Helm wind - N An easterly that produces a distinctive Helm cloud along the top of the Helvellyn range which can persist for days. Cross Fell also has a Helm cloud but the mechanism appears to be different.

Hirple - V To limp. (from Scots)

Hocker - V To fumble, or struggle, to have difficulty with an inanimate object. 'Ah hed sek a hocker parkin t' car'

Hod! - Imp. Hold-on! warning to passengers when setting a vehicle in motion

Hog, hogg - N A castrated male sheep

Hogest - N Hog-house, a barn, usually remote from the farmstead, to shelter hogs or other livestock  in winter, usually with fodder storage on the upper floor. The stock are not usually fastened in since the hogest usually has no water.

Hogwohl - N A hole in a stone wall big enough for sheep to pass through but too low for a calf.

Howk - V To poke, retrieve or extract an object esp. using a hook or other implement.(similar to hoik in English slang)
             V To clear the throat inelegantly

Hull, Hool - N A loosebox. Calf-hool, bull-hull
                   N A wooden poultry shed, Often on cast iron wheels. Hen hull, Duck hull

Intik, hintik - N Intake, an enclosed area of fellside, a large high-lying field typically above 700 or 800 feet, often covered in bracken.

Jisle - V to squirm, jitter, jiggle

Kess, Kessin - V  The restless behaviour of a ewe about to lamb.

Kist - N  A chest, usually of oak, for bedding etc)

Kittle - Adj.  (of an inanimate object) Skittish, unstable

Kevel, Kyevel - V To trample. Particularly the action of a frightened cow, or by extension, any ungainly or carelessly destructive footwork.

Kysty, kaisty -  Adj  Overly discerning about ones food.
              Adj  Generally awkward and uncooperative ?

Kytel, kitle - N A grey working jacket (from Norse kyrtill ?)

Laal - Adj  Sma' small, little

Laik - V To Play.

Lait - V To  fetch, to procure, to seek out.

Leed, Lead - V To cart. 'Leedin hay', 'muck leedin'

Lish - Adj. Supple, sprightly, fit.

Loaven - Adj  [?????]  'Ah've nivver seen sek a thing in all me loaven days'

Lonnin - N A narrow lane, usually for access to fields.

Lowp - V To jump. ' t'yow lowpt ower t'yat' (the ewe jumped over the gate)

Matey, Matey-Boy - N A Gadgie, a Man. Masculine third-person singular personal pronoun  (disparaging)

Marra - N Mate, Friend, Workmate

Mew, haymew, mewsteed -
              N  A mow of hay in a barn- usually delineated by the rafters or, in a dutch barn, by the spacing of the uprights.

Mew      V   (with a pitchfork) to arrange the loose hay in a mew so that the whole is tidy, stable and not prone to cowp owwer or rush.  (with small rectangular bales, in a mewsteed or on a trailer) to arrange the bales so that they overlap and bind together in a stable structure.

Moss - N A flat low-lying area, usually waterlogged, often with birch trees or alder. 'Shoulthwaite Moss'.

Moider - V To bother, to pester. Similar to 'Mither' in other northern dialects but without the sense of 'to complain'.

Mawk-flee,Moke - N  Bluebottle, Blowfly
Mawked - Adj  Afflicted by blowfly strike. It may be true, in a medical context, that maggots prefer to consume necrotic tissue and the blowfly is attracted to lay its eggs on damp smelly and, preferably,  suppurating places but unfortunately the maggots are not deterred from eating when they have exhausted the supply of dead flesh or when the flesh on which they they find themselves is entirely alive and merely a bit dirty.

Mowdy - N Mole. From the old English Mouldywarp

Myrtle - V To flake off.  Of mud spatters - 'Let it dry and myrtle off'

Neb - N Beak or Nose. 'lang-nebbed words'

Pike - N, V  a round stack of loose dry hay, shaped so that the rain runs off, like a haycock but bigger - about 8 to 10 feet high. If the hay was not completely dry it would sweat and moulder or even catch fire. They were intrinsically thatched and could be left out in the rain for weeks without taking much harm on the inside.

Pike bogie - N  a cart designed for transporting pikes whole. The bogie tilted down to the ground and had a winch so the pike could be winched onboard. The process could be reversed with pike being tethered and the bogie driven out from under it.

Pople - V To move slowly and aimlessly like an old hen

Poddish - N Porridge made from oats

Poyt - N Poet.  'Ah'v vanya kilt t'poyt'  -allegedly said by the coachman who collided with a pony and trap carrying Wordsworth. (Does anyone know where this comes from? I seem to recall the accident was supposed to have happened at the sharp bend at the bottom of Nest Brow)

Rowk - N Mist or fine smoke esp. that which lies in the cold still air of early morning

Rush - V To collapse. Applicable to a drystone wall, a haystack or any pile of loose material

Sarra - V To serve. 'It sarras thoo reet'.
            V To feed and water animals. 'Ahs gaan t' sarra t' beest'

Sconce - N A stone shelf, Usually a slate flag mounted on brick pillars or sometimes cantilevered from a wall.

Scop - V To throw. 'Scop it ower t'dyke'

Seg - N  One of several iron studs nailed to the bottom of hobnail boots

Seives - N Rushes (Juncus sp.)

Sile - N A filter for milk. A 'sile pad' (paper filter) was sandwiched between two removable perforated plates in the bottom

Sister!, Seester! - Excl.  Look!   (from see'est thee)
Often used in the sense  'I said that would happen'.

Skale - V To scatter. especially new mown hay or muck. Muck was dumped in piles in a field and then skaled with a gripe.

Muck Skaler - N muck spreader. (muck from the byres and calf hools is not to be confused with  manure which comes  in plastic sacks from the factory)

Side-up - V To tidy. 'Come and side-up this skrow'

Skrow - N A mess, extreme disorder.

Skrower, skaler - N A  hay tedding machine. One of its two large cast iron wheels drove a horizontal axle via a gearbox. Around the axle were mounted six or eight banks of tines 8" or 10" long and the same distance apart. For transport the gearbox was disengaged and the tines were folded.

Skelp - V To slap or hit. 'Ah'l skelp thee backside'

Slape - Adj  Slippery

Slatter - V To Spill (esp children playing with water) 'Slattery Ike'

Slavver - V To slobber or drool (usually of an animal)

Smit - N a paste dye used for marking sheep. V to apply smit.

Snag, Snagging - V Snagging turnips (or more often swedes) involved pulling the turnips from the ground and topping and tailing them with a bill hook. One of the less pleasant jobs since it was done in November and the turnips were usually wet and often frozen.

Spout - N  The horizontal part of a gutter at the edge of a roof. The corresponding vertical part is the Down-spout. Gutter itself  would be a stream

Sough or Sow - A broad, deep, stagnant gutter, usually choked with seives, intended to lower the water table in a Moss. (Sough of despond?)
Horses often had to be rescued from soughs

Snowk - V To snort, to clear the nostrils inelegantly
               V To sneak about, to pry furtively

Spell or Spelk - N A Splinter

Spraflin - Adj  [?????? ]  A perjorative term. ' thoo gurt spraflin gowk'

Stark - Adj Strong

Steg - N Gander. 'stalking aboot like a steg on stilts'

Stowp - V To stoop

Stoop, Yat stoop - N Gate post,  particularly one fashioned from a single piece of stone as opposed to a  wooden post.

Stoor, Stour - N airborne dust, particularly that produced by haymaking or harvesting operations or sweeping a barn floor

Sump - N a cess pit used to receive the liquid efflux from byres and calf hools. There is a mystery here. Where did it go? There was a considerable volume of liquid - not only the slurry and urine from the cows but also the water used to hose the byre down every day and the water that passed through the milk cooler. I don't recall the sump ever being emptied. Also, although all the byres and calf hools had drains they did not all have a sump to drain into.

Syke - N A sough. Sough was always the preferred term

Tatie-pot, Tattie-pot - N A traditional dish with potatoes, mutton and black pudding.

Thrang - Adj  Busy, 'thrang wi wark'

Twine - V To complain, to whine

Twined - Adj  Twisted

Vanya, Vanneer - Adv. Very nearly!

Whee! - Imp.  Whoa!  Stop!

Wemmel - N Nothing at all to eat. 'If thoo's kysty Thoo'l hev wemmel for dinner'

Wick - N Maggot of the blowfly. see Moke
Wick't - Adj.  Mawked, being eaten alive by maggots..
(Matt, on hearing  the villain on the wireless declaring "I'm wicked" before committing suicide - ' t'poor bugger was wick't, neeah wonder he did away wid hissel' )

Wicket - N A small yat, intended for people rather than for livestock and therefore only found adjacent to the farmstead.

Wireless - N A radio receiver ( a large wooden box with bakelite knobs and glowing valves which received broadcasts from Hilversum, Droitwich, Athlone etc. - also the BBC Home Service, The Light Programme and The Third Programme)

Yammer - V to speak quickly, unintelligibly (disparaging)

Yak - N Oak, the tree or the wood..

Yan, yah, ane - N One (from Scots) ' yan o them things', 'thoo'l kill theesel yah day'. 'She's tyan yan agyan' (she has taken one again i.e. a funny turn  i.e. thrown a fit)
The Scots Twa for two was less often used and then only in jocular allusion to the Twa Dogs pub in Keswick. Yan, tan, tethera ...for sheep counting was never heard.

Yat - N Gate

Yow N Ewe