Newcastle English (Geordie)

Introduction

The people of Newcastle are called Geordies and their accent is also given that name. Many English-speaking people find it very difficult. It is similar in some ways to Scottish English (compare the Geordie examples with the Scottish ones). People say ay for yes and there are words like bairn, which are found in both dialects. Newcastle English has a peculiar sing-songy intonation. There are several examples of Geordie vocabulary in our recording: gan = go, divven = don't , wor = our, dunsh = crash, fettle = mood, canny = careful.

Vowels

Like Scottish, when some words that are pronounced /ɒ/ in RP, are pronounced /ɑ/ in Geordie. Examples long /lɑ:ŋ/ stone /stɑ:n/. The NURSE set is merged with the NORTH set in broad Geordie accents (Wells 1986). So a word like shirt can be pronounced like short (listen to example). The GOAT and FACE words are normally monophthongal as in most Northern accents. The broad pronunciation of MOUTH words is /u:/ instad of /aʊ/. For example toon as in the Toon Army = Newcastle United Supporters. A very striking pronunciation is that of the LettER and COMMA words with [ɐ]. Unfortunately there are no examples in the recording.

Consonants

Unlike other Northern accents there is no h-dropping. The /l/ is clear in all positions. According to Wells (1986: 374) one of the most striking aspects of Geordie consonants is the glottalization of /p, t, k/: paper [ʹpeəpʔɐ] couple [ʹkʊpʔəl] pity [ʹpɪtʔi] local [ʹloːkʔəl].

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