The Dialect of the West of England; Particularly Somersetshire by James Jennings (the mitten read aloud TXT) 📕

ay-er, for air; boo-äth, for both; fay-er, for fair; vi-ër for fire; stay-ers for stairs; show-er for sure; vröo-rst for post; boo-ath for both; bre-ash for brush; chee-ase for cheese; kee-ard for card; gee-ate for gate; mee-ade for mead; mee-olk for milk; &c.

Chaucer gives many of them as dissyllables.

The verb to be retains much of its primitive form: thus I be, thou, or thee, beest, or bist, we be, you be, they be, thä be, are continually heard for I am, &c., he be is rarely used: but he is. In the past tense, war is used for was, and were: I war, thou or thee wart, he war, &c., we have besides, we’m, you’m, they’m, for we, you, they, are, there is a constant tendency to pleonasm in some cases, as well as to contraction, and elision in others. Thus we have a lost, agone, abought, &c., for lost, gone, bought, &c., Chaucer has many of these prefixes; but he often uses y instead of a, as ylost. The frequent use of Z and V, the softened musical sounds for S and F, together with the frequent increase and multiplication of vowel sounds, give the dialect a by no means inharmonious expression, certainly it would not be difficult to select many words which may for their modulation compete with others of French extraction, and, perhaps be superior to many others which we have borrowed from other languages, much less analogous to the polished dialect of our own. I have added, in pursuance of these ideas, some poetical and prose pieces in the dialect of Somersetshire, in which the idiom is tolerably well preserved, and the pronunciation is conveyed in letters, the nearest to the sound of the words, as there are in truth many sounds for which we have neither letters, nor combinations of letters to express them. [I might at some future period, if thought advisable, go into a comparison between the sound of all the letters of the alphabet pronounced in Somersetshire, and in our polished dialect, but I doubt if the subject is entitled to this degree of criticism]. The reader will bear in mind that these poems are composed in the dialect of Somerset, north east of the Parret, which is by far the most general.

In the Guardian, published about a century ago, is a paper No. 40, concerning pastoral poetry, supposed to have been written by Pope, to extol his own pastorals and degrade those of Ambrose Phillips. In this essay there is a quotation from a pretended Somersetshire poem. But it is evident Pope knew little or nothing about the Somersetshire dialect. Here are a few lines from “this old West country bard of ours,” as Pope calls him:

“Cicely. Ah Rager, Rager, cher was zore avraid, When in yond vield you kiss’d the parson’s maid: Is this the love that once to me you zed, When from tha wake thou broughtst me gingerbread?”

Now first, this is a strange admixture of dialects, but neither east, west, north, nor south.

Chez is nowhere used; but in the southern part utche or iche, is sometimes spoken contractedly che. [See utchy in the Glossary].

Vield for field, should be veel.

Wake is not used in Somersetshire; but revel is the word.

Parson, in Somersetshire, dealer, is pâson.

In another line he calls the cows, kee, which is not Somersetian; nor is, be go for begone: it should, be gwon; nor is I’ve a be; but I’ve a bin, Somersetian.

The idiomatic expressions in this dialect are numerous, many will be found in the Glossary; the following may be mentioned. I’d ‘sley do it, for I would as lief do it. I have occasionally in the Glossary suggested the etymology of some words; by far the greater part have an Anglo-Saxon, some perhaps a Danish origin; [and when we recollect that Alfred the Great, a good Anglo-Saxon scholar, was born at Wantage in Berks, on the border of Wilts, had a palace at Chippenham, and was for some time resident in Athelney, we may presume that traditional remains of him may have influenced the language or dialect of Somersetshire, and I am inclined to think that the present language and pronunciation of Somersetshire were some centuries past, general in the south portion of our island.]

In compiling this Glossary, I give the fruits of twenty-five years’ assiduity, and have defined words, not from books, but from actual usage; I have however carefully consulted Junius, Skinner, Minshew, and some other old lexicographers, and find many of their definitions correspond with my own; but I avoid conjectural etymology. Few dictionaries of our language are to be obtained, published from the invention of printing to the end of the 16th century, a period of about 150 years. They throw much light on our provincial words, yet after all, our old writers are our chief resource, [and doubtless many MSS. in various depositories, written at different periods, and recently brought to light, from the Record and State Paper Office, and historical societies, will throw much light on the subject]; and an abundant harvest offers in examining them, by which to make an amusing book, illustrative of our provincial words and ancient manners. I think we cannot avoid arriving at the conclusion, that the Anglo-Saxon dialect, of which I conceive the Western dialect to be a striking portion, has been gradually giving way to our polished idiom; and is considered a barbarism, and yet many of the sounds of that dialect are found in Holland and Germany, as a part of the living language of these countries. I am contented with having thus far elucidated the language of my native county. I have omitted several words, which I supposed provincial, and which are frequent to the west, as they are found in the modern dictionaries, still I have allowed a few, which are in Richardson’s Johnson.

Thee is used for the nominative thou; which latter word is seldom used, diphthong sounds used in this dialect are:

uai, uoa, uoi, uoy, as guain, (gwain), quoat, buoil, buoy;

such is the disposition to pleonasm in the use of the demonstrative pronouns, that they are very often used with the adverb there. Theäze here, thick there, [_thicky there_, west of the Parret] theäsam here, theazamy here, them there, themmy there. The substitution of V for F, and Z (_Izzard_, Shard, for S, is one of the strongest words of numerous dialects.)

In words ending with p followed by s, the letters change places as:

hasp—haps; clasp—claps, wasp—waps;

In a paper by General Vallancey in the second volume of the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, read Dec. 27, 1788, it appears that a colony of English soldiers settled in the Baronies of Forth Bargie, in the county of Wexford, in Ireland, in 1167, 1168, and 1169; and that colony preserved their customs, manners, and language to 1788. There is added in that paper a vocabulary of their language, and a song, handed down by tradition from the arrival of the colony more than 600 years since. I think there can be no question that these Irish colonists were from the West of England, from the apparent admixture of dialects in the vocabulary and song, although the language is much altered from the Anglo-Saxon of Somersetshire. [Footnote: This subject has been more fully treated in the following work: A Glossary, with some pieces of verse of the old dialect of the English colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, Co. Wexford, Ireland. Formerly collected by Jacob Poole, of Growton, now edited with Notes and Introduction by the Rev. W. Barnes, author of the Dorset Poems and Glossary, fcap. 8vo, 1867.] The words nouth, knoweth; zin, sin, vrast, frost; die, day; Zathardie, Saturday; Zindii, Sunday; and a few others, indicate an origin west of the Parret. There are many words which with a trifling alteration in spelling, would suit at the present time the north eastern portion of the county: as blauther, bladder: crwest, crust; smill, smell; skir, to rise in the air [see skeer]; vier, fire; vier, a weasel; zar, to serve; zatch, such, &c. From such words as ch’am, and ch’uh, the southern part of the county is clearly indicated. I think the disposition to elision and contraction is as evident here as it is at present in Somersetshire. In the song, there are marks of its having undergone change since its first introduction.

Lowthee is evidently derived from lewth [see Glossary] lewthy, will be, abounding in lewth, i. e. sheltered.

The line

“As by mizluck wus I pit t’ drive in.”

would in the present Somerset dialect stand thus:

“_That by misluck war a put ta dreav in.”

That by misluck was placed to drive in.

In the line

“_Chote well ar aim wai t’ yie ouz n’eer a blowe_.”

the word chete is, I suspect, compounded of ‘ch’ [iche] and knew, implying I knew, or rather I knew’d, or knewt. [Footnote: The following is from, an amatory poem, written, in or about the reign of Henry II., during which the colony of the English was established in the county of Wexford.

“Ichot from heune it is me sent.”

In Johnson’s History of the English Language, page liii. it is thus translated—

“I wot (believe) it is sent me from heaven.”

To an admirer of our Anglo-Saxon all the lines, twelve in number, quoted by M. Todd with the above, will be found a rich treat: want of space only prevents my giving them here.]

The modern English of the line will then be,

I knew well their aim was to give us ne’r a blow.

I suspect zitckel is compounded of zitch, such, and the auxiliary verb will. I view ame, is a veo o’m; that is, a few of them. Emethee, is emmtey, that is, abounding with ants. Meulten away, is melting away.

Th’ast ee pait it, thee’st a paid it; thou hast paid it.

In the English translation which accompanies the original song in General Vallancey’s paper, some of the words are, I think, beyond controversy misinterpreted, but I have not room to go critically through it. All I desire should be inferred from these remarks is, that, although this Anglo-Saxon curiosity is well worthy the attention of those who take an interest in our early literature, we must be careful not to assume that it is a pure specimen of the language of the period to which, and of the people to whom, it is said to relate.

A GLOSSARY OF WORDS COMMONLY USED IN THE County of Somerset,

BUT WHICH ARE NOT ACCCEPTED AS LEGITIMATE WORDS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE;

OR WORDS WHICH, ALTHOUGH ONCE USED GENERALLY, ARE NOW BECOME PROVINCIAL.

A.

A. adv. Yes; or pron. He: as a zed a’d