I am a born and bred Novocastrian, that is a person from the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England, commonly known as a Geordie. One of the most distinctive things about the Geordies is our accent. I say our accent, but I lived away from the city for many years and now have an accent that’s a cross between BBC English, South Suffolk, Essex and Geordie, mostly BBC English though.
Sorry I got distracted there! So the Geordie dialect is noted for its peculiar words, many of which come from ancient Germanic and Scandinavian languages, words like hyem for example, which means home, comes from the old Norse word heimr, and is similar to the Danish word for home, hjem.
Now the reason for this is that when the Romans evacuated Britain at the end of the 4th Century, the Welsh speaking Britons, who formally inhabited Hadrian’s Wall country, suddenly became vulnerable to attack from the Pitts in the north. So the Britons turned to mercenaries, the Angles from Anglus in southern Denmark, and the Saxons from Saxony in northern Germany. In exchange, the Angles and Saxons were granted the former Roman town of Pons Aelius and the Tyne Gorge, which would evolve into Monkchester and eventually Newcastle upon Tyne. Now as we all know, the Angles and the Saxons conquered England and carved out the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, including Northumbria.
Now the thing about Northumbria is that of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England, it is the only one in which the Angles were dominant, as opposed to the others where the Saxons were the dominant group, and as such the Northumbrian language evolved to be similar to Danish, unlike English, which is more similar to German.
Looking at hymn the only known work of the Northumbrian poet Caedmon, in the original Northumbrian, English and Geordie side by side you can see the influences that Northumbrian and English have both had on Geordie.
| Northumbrian | English | Geordie |
| Nū scylun hergan hefaenrīces Uard,
Metudæs maecti end his mōdgidanc, uerc Uuldurfadur, suē hē uundra gihuaes, ēci dryctin, ōr āstelidæ. Hē āērist scōp aelda barnum heben til hrōfe, hāleg Scepen. Thā middungeard moncynnæs Uard, ēci Dryctin, æfter tīadæ firum foldu, Frēa allmectig. |
Now let us praise the Guardian of the Kingdom of Heaven
the might of the Creator and the thought of his mind, the work of the glorious Father, how He, the eternal Lord established the beginning of every wonder. For the sons of men, He, the Holy Creator first made heaven as a roof, then the Keeper of mankind, the eternal Lord God Almighty afterwards made the middle world the earth, for men. |
Neeo let wor praise the Guardian iv the Kingdom iv Heaven
the meet iv the Creator an’ the thowt iv eez mind, the wark iv the glorious Fethor, ha He, the eternal Lord established the beginnin iv evarry wondor. For the sons iv men, he, the Holy Creator forst myed heaven as a roof, then the Keepor iv mankind, the eternal Lord God almighty afterwards myed the middle warld the earth, fo’ men. |
Interestingly, many many years ago my Nana took me to Bedes World, the guide there told us that some scholars find it easier to translate the work of the Venerable Bede to Geordie than it is to translate it to English!
Anyway so why am I even talking about this, well a little while ago I was chatting to a primary school teacher, who works at a school in Walker, in the east end of Newcastle. Now she told me that many children were struggling in their English classes because they think in Geordie, meaning it takes a great deal of effort to associate things with their name in English, she told me that quite a few children could actually write, but they wrote in Geordie, and apparently there was a common grammatical structure to it. So in other words she was saying that these children would have no trouble at all, if they were taught Geordie rather than English.
It was her stated belief that Geordie is a separate language to English, and it should be given a status equal to that of Welsh, Scots and Gaelic. I personally wonder, because I have noted that the dialect of younger Geordies tends not to be as strong as the older Geordies, I have always put this down to TV diluting the local dialect, along with the breakdown of the North East traditional pit villages. But listening to preschool children, I can hear that their dialect is actually quite a bit stronger that children who have been at school for a couple of years. So maybe its schools that soften their dialects.
But when does a dialect become a language, in 1860 French anglophile linguist Louis-Lucien Bonaparte, Nephew of Napoleon, believed that Geordie was a language rather than a dialect, and went so far as to publish a translation of the Bible in Geordie, the Beuk O’ Ruth.
In 1833 George Stephenson had to address a committee in the House of Commons regarding his miners’ safety lamp, commonly called a Geordie Lamp and a possible origin of the term Geordie, as its was only really used here in the North East, and the Davy Lamp was used in the rest of the country, and so is said that Miners in the rest of the country referred to North East miners as Geordies after the lamp, and thus the name eventually came to apply to not only people from the North East but our dialect as well!
Anyway, during the hearing the committee required a translator as they could not understand a word that Stephenson said due to his dialect. A translator would have come in useful at my wedding as my farther-in-law has such a thick accent that very few of the guest whom were not from the North East could understand it!
Given the current popularity of the Geordie accent at the moment, thanks to the likes of Cheryl Cole from Girls Aloud, Simon King from The Hairy Bikers and Ant & Dec, perhaps the dialect can grow stronger and who knows maybe one day it will be recognised as a language.
So that’s that, but before I sign off, I have decided to see what a prayer from the Bahá’í Faith would look like if translated into Geordie, and thus I have done a rough translation of the Short Obligatory Prayer, as revealed by Bahá’u'lláh.
Ah beor witness, O me God, that Yee hast created wor tuh knar Yee an’ tuh worship Yee. ah testify, at this ma, tuh me powerlessness an’ tuh Yor meet, tuh me poverty an’ tuh Yor wealth.
Thor’s nee othor God but Yee, the Help in Botha, the Self-Subsistin.
Michael
