Many voices,
countless words,
One Show
Ground-breaking research into the rich variety of English dialect words and phrases was celebrated on prime-time TV this week.
Over many years, the University of Leeds gathered a vast collection of photographs, notebooks and tape recordings, chronicling regional traditions and language from around the country. Now a film for BBC TV’s One Show meets some of the people whose own stories and memories have added new insights into the dialect of today.
From 1950, researchers from the University of Leeds visited villages around the country to explore the different words, phrases and traditions of local communities.
“They had 1,300 questions and visited 313 locations – so you can imagine how much data was collected,” says Dr Fiona Douglas, researcher and custodian of this remarkable archive. “It’s perhaps a sign of the times, but men were asked about words used in their working lives, often in farming, while women were asked about cooking and the home.”
The maps they produced reveal the geography of language. While a Midlander might have talked about freckles, someone from the North East might describe brannyspeckles or ferntickles; in Cornwall these might be muffles, in Somerset summervoys. Words for weather, food, trades, farming, domestic life and games varied widely across the country.
Between the 1960s and 1980s the work continued through the Institute of Dialect and Folk Life Studies which captured photographs and information relating to rural traditions and daily life which all added to the Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture.
Now, with the support of donors and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Fiona and her colleagues are putting this wealth of material back into the community, while gathering more material on the dialects of today. The support has funded the digitization of the collection, making it far more accessible, and has enabled students to mine the archive’s rich seam of data.
By working in partnership with five independent folk museums – in Hutton-le-Hole and Hawes in North Yorkshire, Bromsgrove in the Midlands, Stowmarket in Suffolk and near Chichester in Sussex – they have re-engaged with the public. Donations have allowed the project to spread yet further, to libraries and county shows. “We’re inviting people to share their childhood memories and help us collect present day dialect,” says Fiona.
All this work is driven by her conviction that the fruits of these decades of research belong back where they came from. “This material is really important to people and to communities. It actually matters more there than it does as an intellectual pursuit.”
"We're really grateful to the National Lottery Heritage Fund, members of the public, and University of Leeds alumni for their amazing support. Without their help, it would have been impossible to mount this fascinating programme of research, impact and public involvement."
Dr Douglas appeared on The One Show on BBC Two on Monday July 10. Watch here.
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