Pitmatic
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Pitmatic (originally "pitmatical") is a dialect of English used in the counties of Northumberland and Durham in England. It developed as a separate dialect from Northumbrian and Geordie due to the specialised terms used by mineworkers in the local coal pits. For example, in Northumberland and Tyne and Wear the word "Cuddy" is an abbreviation of the name Cuthbert (particularly the local saint, Cuthbert of Lindisfarne), but in Durham Pitmatic "cuddy" denotes a horse, specifically a pit pony[1]. In Lowland Scots cuddie usually denotes a donkey or ass but may also denote a short, thick, strong horse.[2]
Traditionally, pitmatic, together with some rural Northumbrian communities including Rothbury, used a distinctive, soft, rolled "R" sound, produced at the very back of the throat. This is now less frequently heard: since the closure of the area's deep mines, many younger people speak in a local ways that do not usually include this characteristic.[citation needed] The softly throaty "R" sound can, however, still sometimes be detected, especially amongst elderly populations in more rural areas.
While in theory pitmatic was spoken throughout the Great Northern Coalfield, from Ashington in Northumberland to Fishburn in County Durham, early references apply specifically to its use by miners "especially from the Durham district" (1873) and to its use in County Durham (1930).[citation needed]
Nowadays "pitmatic" is an uncommon term in popular usage.[citation needed] In recent times all three dialects have converged, becoming closer to standard English. English as spoken in County Durham has been described as "half-Geordie, half-Teesside", and is quite accurately described in the article about Mackem. Today young people with a pitmatic accent may describe their accent as geordie as north-eastern accents are all termed by people from elsewhere in England or occasionally mackem.[citation needed]
Melvyn Bragg presented a programme on BBC Radio 4 about pitmatic as part of a series on regional dialects.[3]
Other Northern English dialects include
- Geordie (spoken in Newcastle upon Tyne)
- Cumbrian dialect
- Yorkshire and Lancashire dialects both vary across the counties, and merge into each in border areas.
- Scouse (spoken in Liverpool)
- Mackem (spoken in Sunderland)
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- www.pitmatic.co.uk - newsletters February 2003
- Durham Dialect website
- Dialect Poems from the English regions
- Sounds Familiar? — Listen to examples of regional accents and dialects from across the UK on the British Library's 'Sounds Familiar' website
- Guardian review of "Pitmatic: The Talk of the North East Coalfield"
- BBC News report on release of Griffiths' book
- YouTube video of a Pitmatic poem, as read by its author
[edit] References
- Dictionary of North-East Dialect, Bill Griffiths (Northumbria University Press, 2004).
- Pitmatic: The Talk of the North East Coalfields, Bill Griffiths (Northumbria University Press, 2007).
- ^ Durham Cathedral sermon discussing pitmatic
- ^ Entry for "cuddy" in Dictionary of the Scots Language
- ^ Melvyn Bragg explores Pitmatic in a BBC Radio 4 programme
