In this post it will be briefly summarise the most significant grammatical differences between Standard English and the Geordie dialect. However, not every Tyneside English speaker uses all of them at the same time.
Verb Phrases
A few Tyneside verbs endure some irregularities (Keuchler (n.d.): 6), such as the ending –en of the participle forms of forget – forgetten, get – getten and put – putten. Another irregularities are the use of tret as the past tense form of treat, the substitution of the verb go with gan, or the frequent application of divvent as the negation of do, in sentences like:
(1)
Standard English: “I do all the work, don’t I?”
Geordie dialect: “I do all the work, divvent I?” (Keuchler (n.d.): 6)
Another important feature of Tyneside English (Keuchler, (n.d.): 6) is that the inflectional suffix –s is used both in verbs with a third person singular subject (he, she, it), and with a third person plural subject, when this subject is a noun, and not a pronoun.
(2)
Standard English: “Mary has changed”, “Things have changed”.
Geordie dialect: “Mary has changed”, “Things has changed”, but “They have changed”.
However, in the past simple form of the verb to be, was is used with third person plural nouns.
(3)
Standard English: “He was”; “They were”.
Geordie dialect: “He was”; “They was” (Keuchler (n.d.): 6).
According to modal verbs (Keuchler, (n.d.): 6), may and shall are not commonly used in Geordie, since they are considered extra-polite substitutions for can and might. In interrogations, even will would be used rather than shall, as in North-American English. In this way:
(4)
Standard English: “Shall I open the door?”
Geordie dialect: “Will I open the door?”
Regarding to modal verbs (Keuchler, (n.d.): 7) there are some cases of double modal use in negation statements in broad Tyneside English such as:
(5)
Standard English: “He couldn’t have worked” or “He wouldn’t have worked”
Geordie dialect: “He wouldn’t could’ve worked” (Keuchler (n.d.): 7).
In Standard English, adverbs go right before the main verb, being in this way, in middle position between the modal and the main verb. However, Geordie (Keuchler, (n.d.): 7) allows to put the adverb before both modal and main verb.
(6)
Standard English: “If they could only see”.
Geordie dialect: “If they only could see” (Keuchler (n.d.): 7).
Multiple negations are not used in Standard English, but they are possible in Geordie (Erbanová, 2011: 13).
(7)
Standard English: “I can’t do anything”; or “I can do nothing”
Geordie dialect: “I can’t do nothing”
Another feature regarding negation, Tyneside English does not commonly contract them.
(8)
Standard English: “Isn’t he there?”
Geordie dialect: “Is he not there?” (Keuchler (n.d.): 7)
Moreover, Geordies alternate (Keuchler, (n.d.): 7) the negative form of will between won’t, ‘ll not, or even the very old form winnet.
On the other hand, the negation of can, being in Standard English the contracted form can’t, is not usually adopted in Geordie. Thus, it remains cannot, or even cannet – making it more similar to Scottish cannae (Erbanová, 2011: 13).
Noun Phrases
The most visible variations that appear in noun phrases have to do with the pronominal usages from Standard English (Erbanová, 2011, p.9). In fact, the possessive determiner ‘my’ is different from ‘me’; this last one makes reference to the object of the sentence. However, ‘me’ is used among Geordie people to express subjectiveness:
(9)
Standard English: «My (possessive) friend is watching the documentary».
Geordie dialect: «Me (possessive) friend is watching the documentary».
Geordie dialect: «Us’ll do it». (Keuchler, (n.d.): p.10)
The same happens if we compare the first person plural. While in Standard English the pronoun ‘our’ is used for alluding to the possessive determiner, Geordies use ‘us’ for referring to the same element:
(10)
Standard English: «You insulted our (possessive) cousin»
Geordie dialect: «You insulted us (possessive) cousin»
In addition, Geordie owns a particular form in order to mention the possessive form of ‘our’ (known as ‘wor’) even if they use it for alluding to 1st person singular possessions (Standard ‘my’) in phrases such as:
- Wor lass= my wife
- Wor kid = my brother
Another difference appears when Geordies use the Standard subjective form ‘we’ when mentioning an object:
(11)
Standard English: «Tell us (objective) what’s going on»
Geordie dialect: «Tell we (objective) what’s going on».
(12)
Standard English: «Give me (objective) my (possessive) pen».
Geordie dialect: «Give us (objective) me (possessive) pen» (Keuchler, (n.d.): 10).
The Standard reflexive pronoun ‘myself’, ‘himself’ etc. and the second person usage ‘you’, also suffer changes in Geordie, but only spelling changes (Erbanová, 2011: 10):
- Mysell, hissell
- Youse guys = you guys
Therefore, if we make a sentence mixing these pronouns, sentences like this example would appear in Geordie dialect (Keuchler, (n.d.): 10):
(13)
Standard English: «Our friends told us we could do it».
Geordie dialect: «Wor friends told we yous could do it».
Geordies also have other tendencies such as ‘emphasising the person described in phrases’ (Erbanová, 2011: 10) thanks to the anticipatory pronoun: ‘I read a book, me’ (Erbanová, 2011: p.10), or ‘omit the relative pronoun even when the relative is the subject of the relative clause’ (Keuchler, (n.d.): 10): ‘I have a friend works as a teacher’ (Erbanová, 2011: 11), or using relative pronoun ‘what’ instead of ‘that’ in phrases such as: ‘There is something on the table what your brother brought’ (Erbanová, 2011: 10).
References
Erbanová, P. (2011). Intelligibility of the Geordie Dialect (Doctoral dissertation, Masarykova univerzita, Filozofická fakulta).
Keuchler, K. (n.d.). Geordie Accent and Tyneside English: “On the Language and the Dialect Spoken in and around Newxastle-upon-Tyne”. Seminar paper.
Geordie dialect 