Amang thy oald chances thū’s m’appen finnd yan
Ma’ be fain, though thū’s snaip’t her, to hev the’ ageàn,
But, Eddy! that yan isn’t me.
[REMARKS ON THE CUMBERLAND DIALECT.]
The dialect of Cumberland, spoken in its purity only in the central parts of the county, may be admitted to be deficient in rhythm; and remarkable as it is for force and expression, its harshness of cadence renders it scarcely available for any poetry except the humorous or descriptive. By those unaccustomed or unattached to it, it may probably be considered hard and coarse even in prose compositions.
Its principal peculiarity is to be found in its vowel and diphthongal sounds, which, for the most part, are made either broader or deeper than in ordinary pronunciation; and this may be indicated with sufficient ease and distinctness, by means of phonetic spelling, when written or printed, to enable any reader with a little practice and care to pronounce broad Cumbrian with tolerable correctness.
The most important instance of this vowel peculiarity exists in the pronunciation of the long A and the short U, the former of which is sounded generally yah and the latter uh; thus to secure the Cumbrian pronunciation—ale must be spelled yahl and ace, yahss, lame is made lyahm, name nyahm, etc., etc., all monosyllabic, or, to prevent the accent being laid upon the Y, and so making two syllables, these words might be written leahm, neahm. As regards the U, the first syllable of cunning is in Cumberland lengthened out exactly to the sound of the German kuhn, and come is made kuhm. These sounds can only be conveyed by the interposition of the H. When I first scribbled in the folk-speech of Cumberland I wrote it after this fashion, and the efficacy of the method was proved by the fact that intelligent or painstaking readers, knowing nothing of the dialect as spoken, were able to repeat the verses called “Branthet Neuk Boggle” in a style that might have satisfied even an exigeant professor of our Cumbrian philology.
The Cumberland dialect so written, however, had a remarkably ugly and uncouth appearance when printed, and the remonstrances of my present provincial publisher induced me to abandon the H orthography, and endeavour to secure the proper pronunciations by means of accent marks, spelling the words instanced above leàm, neàm, cūnning, cūm, et similia similiter.
The broad O and Oa are in our Cumberland speech altered into eà, with the sound of yah, home becoming heàm, broad breàd, etc. There are exceptions to this as to most other rules, for lane is rendered as lwoan or lonnin’, choke as chowk, croak as crowk, road as rwoad, and more as mair, while shore has its ordinary sound. Almost in reversal of these changes the broad A as in ball, a dance, Al, as in walk, Aw, as in awful, are sounded like the broad O or Oa, thus boall, woak, oaful, etc.; but the L is preserved in oala’s, for always, scalp is pronounced scowpe, and ball, a plaything, is bo’, all, oa’, call, co’, hall, ho’, etc., etc.