We must begin with the familiar Yorkshire motto:
See all, 'ear all, say nowt.
Eyt all, sup all, pay nowt.
An' if tha 'ivver does owt for nowt,
allus do it for thissen.
With such an onslaught of mass and social media, the traditional style of local Yorkshire dialect is on its way out but (in 2024) a large number of local people in their seveties and beyond would easily understand and converse in the thickest dialect. Anyone younger would be quite baffled.
This Yorkshire language page was inspired by remarks on Facebook, then I thought it would be a good page on its own. Some of these words aren't exclusively Yorkshire but many are in common use in our South Yorkshire region. I have mostly picked those that I have heard of (or think that I have).
Abide (Suffer. "I can't abide him" = "He's insufferable")
Aboon (Above)
Addle (Earn, but 'Addled' can mean 'Confused')
Afeared (Afraid)
Agait (To go or to start doing something. "Come on, get agait!")
Allicker (Vinegar)
Allus (= Always. Every time)
A-peth (a halfpennyworth or something of small value, such as "You daft apeth!" when you do something wrong. The hard 'a' rhymes with 'hay')
Appen (Happen = Perhaps, but Yorkshire usually finds aitches to be superfluous, as the French do with word endings)
Appens as meb'be (- as maybe, It might happen.)
Ard On (= fast asleep, a term in decline as it can be misinterpreted.)
Armuch! (Always as an exclamation and oft heard in the Co-op = "How Much?" rhetorical question for an overpriced item)
Arse over tit (He fell over)
Ar lass (Wife or girlfriend. In Yorkshire, the singer R Kelly sounds like "Our Kelly" = a close relative called Kelly. 'Our so-and-so' is common in Yorkshire for family members)
Ayup (or Eyup, very common word of flexible purpose. Can be mild surprise, acknowlegement or greeting, such as 'Hello' or 'What's this?')
Bab or Cack (A child's word for faeces.)
Babbiwark (Child's play or silly behaviour.)
Back-end (Autumn.)
Badly (Unwell.)
Bahn (Leaving - "I'm bahn ooam" = "I'm going home")
Bairn - (Child. Same as in Scotland, but might otherwise be called an "Ankle-biter")
Band (String or twine much used by farmers. A rough sort of string is "Airy band")
Barmpot (Not right in the head = 'Loopy' or just a but dotty)
Be Reyt (= 'It will be alright', the Yorkshire answer to everything no matter how bad it gets)
Bits (What some call 'scraps' at the chip shop, left over batter scrapings)
Blagging (Blackberry-picking)
Bleb (Blister)
Bletherin' (Jabbering, talking)
Bog (Crude term for lavatory, suggesting a swamp-like sanitary condition)
Bray (To bash. "Watch it or ah'll bray thi" = "Be careful or I might hit you")
Brew (A mashing of Tea to drink. "I've put t' kettle on for a brew")
Broddle (To poke something or make holes)
Brussen (Arrogant or bullying in demeanour. "Yon's a brussen bugger" = "He is an arrogant chap")
Bugger (Playfully derogative yet innocuous term to imply that someone is a bit daft, "Ya daft bugger." Quite different from its other meaning)
Bugger All (= Nothing. And again, not to do with personal predilections)
Cack-'anded (Left-handed or clumsy)
Call (To bad-mouth someone. Usual pronunciation, rhymes with 'Hall')
Callin' (Having a natter, Gossiping. 'Call' rhymes with 'Mall')
Chabbies (Children)
Chelpin' (Jabbering, talking)
Chuddy (A modern term for Chewing gum)
Chuffed (Well-pleased)
Claht (Cloth or clothing. "Cast ne'er a claht, till May be out")
Cloth ears (Hard of hearing or tone-deaf)
Chip-oyl (the "Chip hole" = Fish and Chip shop)
Coil-oyl (the "Coal Hole" a Coal cellar or outhouse for coal)
Crozzled (Singed or burnt, typically about cooked food but could be sunburnt)
Deead (Dead with a diphthong, "dee-ad")
Dinner (In Yorkshire, always at dinnertime, Noon to 2pm)
Dee-Dars (= Sheffield people, reputed to pronounce 'Thee' and 'Tha' as 'Dee' and 'Da')
Dolly Blue (A little porous bag containing blue colouring, was used for whitening hand-washed clothes, etc. No longer to be had)
Dolly Peg (Device used to stir up hand-washed clothing in a Dolly Tub. Something like a three-legged stool on a long stick. Obsolete term.)
Dooer-oyl (Doorway, "doo-er" diphthong.)
Don, Doff (Put on 'don' or take off 'doff' shoes or clothes)
Een (Eyes)
Eck (= Hell, a mild swearword, "Like eck he did!" or "Did he eckers like!" = No. he didn't)
Er Inside (the wife)
Eyup (same as Ayup with the 'a' sound as in Hay or Hey and, of course, without the 'h')
Faffing (Dithering or procrastinating - "Stop faffin' abaht")
Fettle (Mend, tidy up)
Flaid (Afraid of)
Flummoxed (Baffled or confused)
Foisty (Musty or mouldy smell)
Frame (To shape up, as in "Frame thi sen, lad" - Sort yourself out)
Frozzed (Suffering from the cold)
Flags (Paving stones)
Flaggy (That deep part of the River Don on the bend between the viaduct and the Cricket Club)
Flower (Mild term of endearment for all female strangers)
Gander (to see, "Have a gander at this")
Gawp (To vacantly stare with an open mouth)
Gi' o'er (Stop doing that, such as an irate "Will tha Gi-o'er?" the soft 'G' pronounced like ghee = "Give over doing that")
Gip - (Hard 'G' said as "Jip" = Pain; soft 'G' = to vomit)
Glims (Spectacles)
Goz (spittle, saliva)
Goosegogs or Goosegobs (Gooseberries)
Growler (a proper-sized Pork pie)
Gumption (Common sense)
Heeard tell (Had heard it said)
Jiggered (Very tired)
Kali (Sherbet, pronounced as Kay-Lie)
Kecks (Trousers, also 'underkecks' for 'underwear' and btw, 'pants' always means underpants or "undercrackers")
Koo (Cow, similar to German 'Kuh')
Laikin' - (Old Norse = Playing. To Laik often means to skive off work; 'playing' as opposed to working)
Lamp (To hit or assault - "I lamped him one")
Lig (Lay down)
Lip (to answer back)
Loopy (Not right in t' ead)
Love (Some to call everyone "Love" as a friendly word, whether male or female)
Maungy (Pron "Mawnjee" = Contrary, moody and sullen)
Mardy (Sulking or whingey, same as "Maungy" and usually for a sulky child)
Manky (Dirty or Infected)
Mind Thysen (= watch how you go and don't do anything wrong)
Monk On (Sullen or moody, "He's got t' Monk on")
Mullock (mess. "Tha's mullocked that up" possibly from 'Mulwarked')
Mun (= 'Must'. "Tha mun get thisen reight" = "You must get yourself right" = "You need to make improvements to yourself")
Munt (= 'Mustn't' as above, "Tha munt do that")
Mythering (Harrassing or bothering - "Gi o'er mytherin' that dog" = "Give up bothering that dog". Can also mean crabby, weepy or cantankerous - "What's that bairn mytherin' about?")
Nah Then (= 'So' - and not much else; can be a greeting or depicting mild surprise)
Nark (To annoy)
Natter (Grumble or talk)
Neb (Peak or the front part of a cap)
Neet (Night)
Nesh (Over-sensitive to the cold. "Tha's nesh"= "You are (too) sensitive to the cold" used implies a weakness of the traditionally strong Yorkshire constitution)
Nipper (Child. "Our nip" might mean "My young brother")
Nivver - (= never)
Nobbut (Only. Nothing but)
Nowt ('Not aught' = Naught, or Nothing. An 'awe' or 'O' sound. In some places like 'Out' - but never locally)
Ockering ('Hesitating to begin', but not a familiar term locally. "It's ockering to slart" = "It's trying to rain" like N Yorks, 'Ossing')
Os (Equine quadruped)
Ossing (Something starting to happen, unfamiliar in the local dialect but North Yorks use it - "Ossing to slart" = "Starting to rain")
Ovver or Ower (Over, O'er - a short 'o' as in pot)
Owt (From the old word 'Aught' = Anything. Similar to 'Nowt' it is an 'O' sound, not pronounced as 'out')
Oyl (Any aperture or hole, such as doorway, mouth, storage place)
Palaver (Goings on or empty talk. Much ado about nothing much)
Parky (Chilly, see also 'Nesh')
Peffin' (Coughing)
Peggy Tub (An old name for a galvanised washing tub, agitated by a 'posser')
Peys (Peas. sounds like 'weighs' with a 'P'. The natural companion for a growler)
Picking up (Improved health after an illness)
Pike (To watch something. In modern usage, 'pikers' observe 'dogging'. That will not be explained here)
Plague (To annoy. "Will tha gi' o'er plaguing t' young 'un?" = "Will you stop annoying that child?")
Poised (Kicked up - "He poised his dog" = "He kicked his dog")
Posser (Device for stirring up clothes being hand-washed, usually in a 'Dolly Tub'. A holed, copper cup on a long stick.)
Pot-shelf (Facial expression of a truculent child with the lower lip pushed out, same as "He's got t' lip out")
Puther (smoke or fumes)
Radged (Tired or feeling ragged)
Reyt (Same as 'right' and pronounced as the number eight, "A tha or-reyt?" = "Are you alright?" and never said in S Yorks as reet like feet)
Rive (To tear or rip out)
Rooer ('Roar' = tearful cry. "She wa' rooering like a bairn")
Rum 'n (A dubious character)
Sam (Gather. "He sammed up his winnings" Mostly Huddersfield)
Sen (Self - "Do it thi sen" = "Do it yourself")
Side Up (Tidy up. Eg. "Are you going to side them dishes?" = put them away)
Siling (Raining heavily. "It's siling it dahn" is the same as "Raining cats and dogs")
Sithi (= "See thee" - take notice or 'look at this')
Skeg (Have a look at)
Skive (Bunk off work, playing instead of doing what you are supposed to do)
Slart (Splash. Colloquially - 'Rain')
Smidge (Small amount)
Snap (Food. 'Snap-bag' = Worker's packed lunch. Snap is a very common term, especially in Barnsley)
Sneck (Catch on a door-latch, colloquially - a nose)
Snotty (A self-important person, perhaps looking down their noses)
Sod-all (Nothing)
Spanish (Liquorice - from its supposed country of origin)
Spahs (Pronounced something like 'sparse' = spice = sweets)
Spooin (= spoon but as a diphthong)
Spugs (Sparrows)
Squitters (Diarroeah)
Stalled (Fed up or disappointed)
Starved (Hungry)
Stoup (A post in the ground, possibly as a hitching post of old. Pronounced 'stoop')
Summat (Something)
Sup (What's up? as in "Sup with thi?" = 'What is up with you' or 'what is wrong')
T' (Shortening of the definite article as a glottal stop)
Tea (Pronounced with a diphthong, as in "tee-a")
T'owd lass ('The old lass' = Mother, possibly wife)
Thack (Thatch, with a hard 'th')
Tha (You, "Tha munt do that!", meaning 'You must not do that'. 'Thee' would not work here. 'Thee tha and thi' are all used differently)
Tha Nose (You know)
Thee (you, single or plural, as in "What about thee?", 'What about you' but 'What about tha?' might also work)
Thi (Possesive 'Your' such as "Whear's thi coit?" or 'Where is your coat?')
This Wind (The lazy sort of wind that goes right through rather than around. Very cold and penetrating)
Thissen (= Yourself, emphasis on 'sen' = 'self')
Thrang (Busy or Thronged with people)
Threap (Argue, but might be North Yorks)
Throstle (Song thrush)
Twonk (Idiot)
Tyke (Someone from God's Own County)
Umpteen (Many or several)
Undercrackers (underwear or more precisely a man's underpants, usually to be avoided)
Us (It can mean 'us', 'ours' or 'me'. Typically like the 'Royal We' = 'me' as in "What abaht us?" for "What about me?")
Utch ("Utch up" = "Snuggle up closer")
Wang (=Throw)
War ('Worse', usually "War na" as in Worse than, "War na owt" = "Worse than anything" The sound '-ar' is pronounced as in 'far')
Wazzock (Mildly derogitary term for Fool. "Yon's a wazzock")
Wheear (= where, but we do like our diphthongs)
While ('Until' and see the section below on this very subject)
Whittle (Kid being mardy)
Wellie (Effort, "Gi it some wellie" = "Put some effort into it" or possibly 'drive faster' as in 'put your foot down')
Wick ("Wick wi fleas" = "Infested with fleas" same as 'crawling with' but can be 'as-lively-as' fleas, etc.)
Wood (Can mean a door. The doorway is considered a hole, as in "Put t' wood int oyl!" = 'Close the door' because it is cold with the door open)
Wooden Overcoit ('Wooden overcoat' = Coffin)
Yorky (=Yorkshire pudding. 'Small' is about 5½ inch diameter and anything smaller is an insult, 'Full-sized' fills a plate - as a starter - and contains potatoes, veg and gravy)
Yon (Yonder = over there, such as "Yon bugger" as a playful term for that person over there)
Page Notes:
An interesting, if unfathomable, 'Dialect of the Huddersfield Region' can be found on the Huddersfield Exposed website. It is not quite the dialect of our area but not far removed from it. One oddity of Huddersfield dialect is pronouncing 'Love' as "Lov" rather than "Luv". Also a List of Publications at the same site, some of which are free and can be downloaded others are links to buy local books.
How to 'Write Good'
From the interweb:
How to Write Good
Snap
Typical Yorkshire food. A nice thick gravy can go with almost anything, including chips.
Tea has to be Yorkshire Tea and served strong in a big mug. Don't give us weasel water, we need to taste our mashing of tea.
While/Until
A story in a national newspaper referred to the word 'while' causing confusion at Barnsley town centre railway crossing. The sign said: "Do not cross the tracks while the lights are on." In the Barnsley dialect, 'while' had the opposite meaning as in "Do not cross the tracks until the lights are on."
The Yorkshire dialect was strongly influenced by Scandinavian invaders, although it has similarities with 'Low German' or Friesian. There was an anecdote in The Dalesman magazine about two Yorkshiremen needing overnight lodgings when visiting a Danish town. They had trouble being understood.
When, in exasperation, they lapsed into the Yorkshire dialect and wanted to 'Lig out fo't neet' (= lay down for the night), they were fully understood. Danish people know about 'lig' and 'neet'. Another example in the same magazine was a picture showing a children's recreation site in Denmark. A word similar to 'Laiking' was used on the sign to signify the playing area.
A 'Yorkshire' Translator
From: Whoohoo - the Yorkshire 'Chicken Run' translator. Not an accurate name as the Wallace and Gromit cartoons were set in Lancashire, not Yorkshire. It was near enough for the southerners. The translator is fun but is not accurate. I tried this line from 'Ilkley Moor':
I puts in - "Where have you been since I last saw you?"
I gets out - "Wheear 'ev theur bin sin ah last saw theur?"
It should, of course, have read:
"Wheear as t'a bin sin ah saw thee?" (there are some regional variations in Yorkshire dialect)
And Another Thing ...
While we are about it, one personal annoyance is bad spellings and punctuation, such as the Denby Dale hairdresser's sign for Studio's instead of Studios, which is a single studio anyway, althere there are plenty of hairdressers in Denby Dale. Slightly less annoying is street signs because we always expect council sign-writers to be illiterate anyway, so we get St Johns Wood (in London) instead of St John's Wood. That is not as bad as signage at Penistone railway station when two signs for Huddersfield were both spelled wrongly, and in two different ways. They soon replaced them.
Then we have posters for local events and we get Penistone St Johns Church, not St John's Church (perhaps there must be several St Johns). Another common one is Complimentary versus Complementary, such as a Wedding Fair with freebies. I added this line to the Events List:
... Free admission. Upon arrival, complmentary reception drink and canapés (not 'complmentary' unless you are just saying nice things, See Merriam-Webster and ThoughtCo).
Common Yorkshire Sayings
Which you will often find in our district. Yorkshire dialect and pronunciation varies from place to place. Huddersfield people say 'Lov' and 'Tong' for love and tongue. Sheffield is on the edge of Yorkshire and you might hear 'dee' for you. They are called 'Dee-dahs' for that reason. Some of the subtleties of pronunciation have become lost now in the third decade of this century but it was possible to discern between the Penistone and Denby dale dialects some decades ago.
Now everyone speaks fluent 'Estuary English' and replaces mid-word tees with glottal stops. The word 'Britain' is now often heard as "Bri'-n" and 'bottle' is "bo'-l" even on BBC Radio4's 'Today' programme. The worst accent can be found in the Commons, where you might hear 'Politics' pronounced with heavy glottal stops as "Poli'-icks" (shudder!).
Tha Knows
'Nowt' (from 'naught') is pronounced more like 'knowt' than the usual 'nout' which imitators use. I have never, ever heard 'ee bah gum' said in normal conversation in Yorkshire but we do say ayup ('hey up') at every opportunity. It can be a universal greeting ("Ayup Dave, arrs tha doin?") or a mild exclamation of surprise. Aitches have been proved to be superfluous at the beginning of all words. Trust me ;~)
It is very odd when southern actors doing a Yorkshire accent can't do the glottal stop. They will say "going to pub" rather than "going to't pub", when the same interruption in sound is common in Estuary and Cockney English - "pu' the ke'ew on" or "ave you go' a new mo'ah?"
It crosses my mind how well Yorkshire words would work with text messages. 'Or8' is an accurate way to pronounce 'Alreight' (nobody says alreet). 'Look here' would, of course, be 'Cthi' and 'our lass' = 'Rlass'. The name of singer R Kelly always sounds like someone's sister, as in 'our Kelly'.
The Yorkshire Character
Some interesting remarks about Tykes, from various websites:
The Yorkshireman's Coit o' Arms
as explained by Mr AW Pope in The Spectator:
A Flea, a Fly, a Magpie, an' a Bacon Flitch,
Is t' Yorkshireman's coit-of-arms:
An' t' reason they've choszn these things so rich
Is becoss they hev all speshal charms,
A flea will bite whoivver it can,-
An' soa, my lads, will a Yorkshireman.
A magpie can talk for a terrible span,-
An' soa an' all, can a Yorkshireman.
A flitch is no goid whol it's hung, ye'll agree,-
No more is a Yorkshireman, don't ya see?
From JN Dransfield's 'A History of the Parish of Penistone.
A few language and Yorkshire-related links.
Old Saying: "Cast ne'er a claht, till May be out"