Mapping out Northumberland accent

Date : 16/08/1999 Publication : THE JOURNAL

I WAS interested to read Peter Arnold's letter (August 13) regarding the Northumberland accent and the assumption that Geordie is a corruption of the same.
In an article reported in the old Monthly Chronicles, February 1888, a Dr Murray, author of Dialects of the Southern Counties of Scotland, states that the Northumberland dialect is marked off from its neighbours by the strong individuality of the Northumbrian Burr.

In this report, he claims that the influence of the Scots, both by invasion and by settlement, provides a clear boundary where the Scots accent ends, around Berwick and up to Jedburgh (although somewhat diluted) and where the Northumbrian accent begins.

He traces it down from Otterburn, pronounced OTOHR-BOHRN and he draws a clear line to follow, to show the existence of the Burr down the North Tyne, crossing as far west as Bardon Mill, then turning eastward.

It can be traced a little to the south of Hexham, from which the line continues through northern Durham, skirting Chester-le-Street, north east by Washington, then on to Jarrow, passing to the west of North Shields, this would certainly substantiate the argument that the Newcastle accent is a town corruption of that of the Northumberland accent.

He also states that South Shields, Sunderland and south west by the Tees Valley are marked by their own peculiarity of dialect, which grows more pronounced as you advance further south.

There have been many stories associated with the Northumbrian Burr and its origin, the most famous being the association with the ruling family of the Percys and that of their most famous son, Harry Hotspur, who allegedly had a speech impediment, which was copied out of respect and fear of insult by all those in his surrounding lands. Shakespeare includes this as the reason, in the second part of Henry IV:

He was indeed the glass
wherein the noble youth did dress themselves,
He had no legs that practised not his gait;
And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
Became the accents of the valiant;
For those that could speak low; and tardily
Would turn their own perfection to abuse
To seem like him: So that in speech, in gait,
In diet, in affections of delight,
In Military rules, humours of blood,

He was the mark and glass; copy and book that fashioned others.

TONY HARDING,

Longbenton, Newcastle.

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