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Title: The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire

Author: James Jennings

Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7453] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on May 3, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIALECT WEST ENGLAND ***

Produced by Miranda van de Heijning, David Starner, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

“Goo little Reed! Aforn tha vawk, an vor me plead: Thy wild nawtes, mâ-be, thâ ool hire Zooner than zâter vrom a lâre. Zâ that thy Maester’s pleas’d ta blaw ‘em, An haups in time thâ‘ll come ta knaw ‘em An nif za be thâ‘ll please ta hear, A’ll gee zum moor another year.”—_The Farewell._

THE Dialect of the West of England

PARTICULARLY SOMERSETSHIRE;

WITH A GLOSSARY OF WORDS NOW IN USE THERE; ALSO WITH POEMS AND OTHER PIECES EXEMPLIFYING THE DIALECT.

BY 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 theäze veo leaves at last appears. Ta you, tha dwellers o’ tha West, I’m pleas’d that thâ 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 drâw’d breath in Zummerzet; Amangst ye liv’d, and left ye zorry, As you’ll knaw when you hire my storry. Theäze little book than take o’ me; ‘Tis âll I hâ 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 fäther, räther, or somewhat like the usual sound of a in balloon, calico, lengthened; it is so pronounced in bäll, cäll. I shall use for this sound the circumflex over the a, thus â_ or ä_. 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 ð, 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 Ð and ð 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 Ð and ð 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