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THE DIALECT OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND PARTICULARLY SOMERSETSHIRE
THE DIALECT OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND PARTICULARLY SOMERSETSHIRE JAMES JENNINGS HONORARY SECRETARY OF THE METROPOLITAN LITERARY INSTITUTION
LONDON.
BASED ON THE _SECOND EDITION_
THE WHOLE REVISED CORRECTED AND ENLARGED WITH TWO DISSERTATIONS
ON THE ANGLO-SAXON PRONOUNS AND OTHER PIECES
BY JAMES KNIGHT JENNINGS M.A.
Late Scholar and Librarian Queens' College Cambridge; Vicar of
Hagbourn Berkshire; and Minister of Calcott Donative
Somersetshire.
TO THA DWELLERS O' THA WEST
Tha Fruit o' longvul labour years
In theA?ze veo leaves at last appears.
Ta you tha dwellers o' tha West
I'm pleas'd that thAc shood be addresst:
Vor thaw I now in Lunnan dwell
I mine ye still--I love ye well;
And niver niver sholl vorget
I vust drAcw'd breath in _Zummerzet_;
Amangst ye liv'd and left ye zorry
As you'll knaw when you hire my storry.
TheA?ze little book than take o' me;
'Tis Acll I hAc just now ta gee
An when you rade o' _Tommy Gool_
Or _Tommy Came_ or _Pal_ at school
Or _Mr. Guy_ or _Fanny Fear_--
I thenk you'll shod vor her a tear)
_Tha Rookery_ or _Mary's Crutch_
Tha cap o' which I love ta touch
You'll vine that I do not vorget
My naatal swile--dear Zummerzet.
JAS. JENNINGS.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
In preparing this second edition of my relative's work I have
incorporated the results of observations made by me during several
years' residence in Somersetshire in the centre of the district.
I have also availed myself by kind permission of hints and
suggestions in two papers entitled "Somersetshire Dialect" read
by T. S. Baynes in 1856 and reprinted from the Taunton Courier
in London in 1861.
During the forty years which have elapsed since the first edition
very much light has been thrown on the subject of Provincial
Dialects and after all much remains to be discovered. I consider
with Mr. Baynes that there is more of the pure Anglo-Saxon in the
west of England dialect as this district was the seat of
classical Anglo-Saxon which first rose here to a national tongue
and lasted longer in a great measure owing to its distance from
the Metropolis from which cause also it was less subject to
modern modification.
I shall be happy to receive any suggestions from Philological
scholars which may increase the light thrown on the subject and
by which a third edition may be improved.
_Hagbourn Vicarage August_ 1869.
PREFACE.
The usefulness of works like the present is too generally admitted
to need any apology for their publication. There is
notwithstanding in their very nature a dryness which requires
relief: the author trusts therefore that in blending something
imaginative with the details of philological precision his work
will afford amusement to the reader.
The Glossary contains the fruit of years of unwearied attention to
the subject; and it is hoped that the book will be of some use in
elucidating our old writers in affording occasional help to the
etymology of the Anglo-Saxon portion of our language and in
exhibiting a view of the present state of an important dialect of
the western provinces of England.
A late excursion through the West has however induced the Author
to believe that some valuable information may yet remain to be
gathered from our Anglo-Saxon dialect--more especially from that
part of it still used by the common people and the yeomanry. He
therefore respectfully solicits communications from those who feel
an interest in this department of our literature; by which a
second edition may be materially improved.
To a _native_ of the west of England this volume will be
found a vade-mecum of reference and assist the reminiscence of
well-known and too often unnoted peculiarities and words which
are fast receding from the polish of elegance and the refinement
of literature.
In regard to the _Poetical Pieces_ it may be mentioned that
most of them are founded on _West Country Stories_ the
incidents in which actually occurred. If some of the subjects
should be thought trifling it must not be forgotten that the
primary object has been to exemplify the Dialect and that common
subjects offered the best means of effectuating such an object. Of
such Poems as _Good Bwye ta thee Cot_; _the Rookery_;
and _Mary Ramsey's Crutch_ it may be observed that had the
Author _felt_ less he might perhaps have written better.
_Metropolitan Literary Institution London March 25 1825._
CONTENTS
- Dedication
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Preface to the First Edition
- OBSERVATIONS on some of the Dialects of the West of England
particularly Somersetshire
- A GLOSSARY of Words commonly used in Somersetshire
- POEMS and OTHER PIECES exemplifying the Dialect of the County
of Somerset
- Good Bwye ta Thee Cot
- Fanny Fear
- Jerry Nutty
- Legend of Glastonbury
- Mr. Guy
- The Rookery
- Tom Gool
- Teddy Band--a Zong--Hunting for Sport
- The Churchwarden
- The Fisherman and the Players
- Mary Ramsey's Crutch
- Hannah Verrior
- Remembrance
- Doctor Cox
- The Farewell
- Farmer Bennet an Jan Lide a Dialogue
- Thomas Came an Young Maester Jimmy a Dialogue
- Mary Ramsay a Monologue
- Soliloquy of Ben Bond
- Two Dissertations on Anglo-Saxon Pronouns
- Miss Ham on the Somerset Dialect
- Concluding Observations
OBSERVATIONS &c.
The following Glossary includes the whole of Somerset _East_
of the River Parret as well as adjoining parts of Wiltshire and
Gloucestershire. West of the Parret many of the words are
pronounced very differently indeed so as to mark strongly the
people who use them. [This may be seen more fully developed in two
papers by T. Spencer Baynes read before the Somersetshire
Archaeological Society entitled the Somersetshire Dialect
printed 1861 18mo to whom I here acknowledge my obligations for
several hints and suggestions of which I avail myself in this
edition of my late relative's work].
The chief peculiarity West of the Parret is the ending of the
third person singular present tense of verbs in _th_ or
_eth_: as he _lov'th_ _zee'th_ &c. for he
loves sees &c.
In the pronouns they have _Ise_ for _I_ and _er_
for _he_. In fact the peculiarities and contractions of the
Western District are puzzling to a stranger. Thus _her_ is
frequently used for _she_. "_Har'th a doo'd it_" is
"_she has done it_" (I shall occasionally in the Glossary
note such words as distinguishingly characterise that district).
Two of the most remarkable peculiarities of the dialect of the
West of England and particularly of Somersetshire are the sounds
given to the vowels A and E. A is almost always sounded open as
in _fA?ther_ _rA?ther_ or somewhat like the usual sound
of _a_ in _balloon_ _calico_ lengthened; it is so
pronounced in bA?ll cA?ll. I shall use for this sound the
_circumflex over the a_ thus Ac_ or A?_. E has commonly
the same sound as the French gave it which is in fact the
slender of A as heard in _pane fane_ _cane_ &c. The
hard sound given in our polished dialect to the letters _th_
in the majority of words containing those letters [as in
_through_ _three_ _thing_ think_] expressed
by the Anglo-Saxon _A _ is frequently changed in the Western
districts into the sound given in England to the letter _d_:
as for _three_ we have _dree_
for _thread_ _dread_ or _dird_
_through_ _droo_ _throng_ _drong_ or
rather _drang_;
_thrush_ _dirsh_ &c. The consonant and vowel following
_d_ changing places. The slender or soft sound given to
_th_ in our polished dialect is in the West most commonly
converted into the thick or obtuse sound of the same letters as
heard in the words _this_ these &c. and this too whether
the letters be at the beginning or end of words. I am much
disposed to believe that our Anglo-Saxon ancestors used
indiscriminately the letters A? and A for D only and sounded them
as such as we find now frequently in the West; although our
lexicographers usually have given the _two_ sounds of
_th_ to A? and A respectively. The vowel O is used for
_a_ as _hond dorke lorke hort_ in hand dark lark
heart &c. and other syllables are lengthened as _voote bade
dade_ for foot bed dead. The letter O in _no gold_
&c. is sounded like _aw_ in _awful_; I have therefore
spelt it with this diphthong instead of _a_. Such word as
_jay_ for _joy_ and a few others I have not noted.
Another remarkable fact is the disposition to invert the order of
some consonants in some words; as the _r_ in _thrush
brush rush run_ &c. pronouncing them dirsh birsh hirsh
hirn; also transposition of _p_ and _s_ in such words as
clasp hasp asp &c. sounded claps haps aps &c. I have not
inserted all these words in the Glossary as these general remarks
will enable the student to detect the words which are so inverted.
It is by no means improbable that the order in which such sounds
are now repeated in the West is the original order in which they
existed in our language and that our more polished mode of
expressing them is a new and perhaps a corrupt enunciation.
Another peculiarity is that of joining the letter _y_ at the
end of some verbs in the infinitive mood as well as to parts of
different conjugations thus "I can't _sewy nursy reapy_
to _sawy_ to _sewy_ to _nursy_ &c. A further
peculiarity is the _love of vowel_ sound and opening out
monosyllables of our polished dialect into two or more syllables
thus:
ay-er for air;
boo-A?th for both;
fay-er for fair;
vi-A"r for fire;
stay-ers for stairs;
show-er for sure;
vrA?o-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 thA? 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 _pAcson_.
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_. _TheA?ze here thick there_ [_thicky
there_ west of the Parret] _theA?sam_ 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
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