Talk of the Nation

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Talk of the Nation

• LIVERPOOL

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(No Transcript)
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Audio extract from Radio 4 programme The Routes
of English
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The Liverpool VarietyOrigins and History

• A very small port at the start of 18th century
• By end of 19th century Liverpool was the nations
  second port after London
• Many different languages brought to Liverpool as
  result of trade
• 18th century Irish, Danes, Germans, Norwegians,
  Swedes
• 19th century Greeks, Turks, Egyptians, Indians,
  Chinese, Jews

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The Liverpool VarietyOrigins and History

• The Irish immigrants had the greatest impact on
  the linguistic variety of Liverpool
• They came to Liverpool not as merchants but as
  refugees from starvation (many planned to go on
  to America but didnt make it)
• The Irish accent and dialect strongly influenced
  the urban variety of Liverpool, which quickly
  came to be know as Scouse

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The Liverpool VarietyOrigins and History

• The word scouse probably comes from Danish
  labscouse, a stew-like dish originally from
  Lapland
• Scouse is originally a Lancashire accent/dialect
• Scouse intonation mirrors that of the Irish
• This pronounced dis
• Fairies pronounced furries
• Many Irish Gaelic words came into the Liverpool
  dialect

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The Liverpool VarietyOrigins and History

• Liverpudlian merchants were also responsible for
  the introduction of many lexical borrowings into
  the standard language e.g. hurricane, tornado,
  banana, tomato, potato

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The Transcript
Hughes, Trudgill Watt English Accents and
Dialects
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The Transcript

• Multiple negation
• I didnt take no rent off her
• I didnt have to do nowt to help her
• Past tense of to come is come (not came)
• Past tense of to do is done (not did)
• 2pl pronoun is youse (to stress plural)

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The Transcript

• Bob a shilling
• Made up very pleased
• Tap take money from
• Well away drunk
• Where it is the thing is
• Like, you know and kind of thing are all common
  fillers in Liverpool

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The Transcript

• /p/, /t/ and /k/ are heavily aspirated (as in
  cant, straight and back)
• Very few glottals in Liverpool speech
• Between vowels, /t/ is often realised as
  something close to /r/ (as in matter and got a
  job)
• /h/ is usually absent, as in her and him
• Initial voiced TH is often /d/, as in there