Yorkshire dialect

Yorkshire dialect, also known as Yorkshire English, Broad Yorkshire, Tyke, or Yorkie, is a grouping of several regionally neighbouring dialects of English spoken in Yorkshire. Yorkshire experienced drastic dialect levelling in the 20th century, eroding many traditional features, though variation and even innovations persist, at both the regional and sub-regional levels. Organisations such as the Yorkshire Dialect Society and the East Riding Dialect Society exist to promote the survival of the more traditional features.

The dialects have been represented in classic works of literature such as Wuthering Heights, Nicholas Nickleby and The Secret Garden, and linguists have documented variations of the dialects since the 19th century. In the mid-20th century, the Survey of English Dialects collected dozens of recordings of authentic Yorkshire dialects.

Based on fragments of early studies on the dialect, there seem to have been few distinctions across large areas: in the early 14th century, the traditional Northumbrian dialect of Yorkshire showed few differences compared to the dialect spoken in Aberdeen, now often considered a separate Scots language. The dialect has been widely studied since the 19th century, including an early work by William Stott Banks in 1865 on the dialect of Wakefield, and another by Joseph Wright who used an early form of phonetic notation in a description of the dialect of Windhill, near Bradford. Significant works that covered all of England include Alexander John Ellis's 1899 book On Early English Pronunciation, Part V, and the English Dialect Dictionary, which was published in six volumes between 1898 and 1905.

Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby (1839) and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1847) are notable 19th century works of literature which include examples of contemporary Yorkshire dialects. The following is an excerpt of Brontë's use of contemporary West Riding dialect from Haworth in Wuthering Heights, with a translation to standard English below:

'Aw wonder how yah can faishion to stand thear i' idleness un war, when all on 'ems goan out! Bud yah're a nowt, and it's no use talking—yah'll niver mend o'yer ill ways, but goa raight to t' divil, like yer mother afore ye!'

'I wonder how you can dare to stand there in idleness and worse, when all of them have gone out! But you're a nobody, and it's no use talking—you'll never mend your evil ways, but go straight to the Devil, like your mother before you!'

Yorkshire covers a large area, and the dialect is not the same in all areas. In fact, the dialects of the North and East Ridings are fairly different from that of the West Riding, as they display only Northumbrian characteristics rather than the mixture of Northumbrian & Mercian features found in the West Riding. The Yorkshire Dialect Society draws a border roughly at the River Wharfe between two main zones. The area southwest of the river has been influenced by Mercian, originating from the East Midlands dialects during the industrial revolution, whilst that to the northeast, like Geordie, the Cumbrian dialect and the Scots language, is descended more purely from the Northumbrian dialect. The distinction was first made by A. J. Ellis in On Early English Pronunciation. The division was approved of by Joseph Wright, the founder of the Yorkshire Dialect Society and the author of the English Dialect Dictionary. Investigations at village level by the dialect analysts Stead (1906), Sheard (1945) and Rohrer (1950) mapped a border between the two areas. A rough border between the two areas was mapped by the Swiss linguist Fritz Rohrer, having undertaken village-based research in areas indicated by previous statements by Richard Stead and J.A. Sheard, although there were "buffer areas" in which a mixed dialect was used, such as a large area between Leeds and Ripon, and also at Whitgift, near Goole.

One report explains the geographic difference in detail: