Ey up, it’s time to talk dialect with one of Ryedale’s experts.

“EY up, ow ist tha?”. Okay, now in English, “Hello, how are you? You will have to bear with me because writing articles is not my strong point, in fact writing is not really a strong point of mine at all on of account I only went to school once, and it was shut.

Well no one mentioned it was shut on a Sunday.

Who am I and what am I doing on these pages? Well for those of you who don’t know me I am Adam Collier, from Nawton, and I am a funeral director.

What am I doing? Well that is easy, I have been asked to write a piece for the paper about my interests. So, from the introduction, you will have realised I am going to tell you a bit about one of my passions, Yorkshire dialect.

I have many passions in life, which over the months I will probably mention.

I love this place of ours we call Ryedale and could not imagine living anywhere else, but for me the cherry on the top of the cake is our wonderful rich dialect, which for some of you may take some understanding.

I developed a love of dialect from an early age doing a monologue at primary school when I was about 10 years old, Marriott Edgar’s The Lion and Albert, and it went down a treat.

From there I read another piece, Walter Turner’s Goodies, at a function in Wombleton, and I got the bug, and my collection of dialect books really started. Bookings for functions came in and, to this day, people are still wanting to hear about dialect and a lot of organisations have asked me back again and again, although I confess I don’t know why.

So where does it come from? Well, that is easy.

The Vikings gave us our dialect and if you go right back to the start, it is nearly Norse. I have racked my brains as to where to start on my favourite subject, so I thought I would start on a piece that people always ask about and love to hear me recite.

“Yah, Tiah, Tethera, Methera, Pip, Seezar, Leezer, Cattera, hona, Dick, Yah-Dick, Tiah-Dick, Tether-a-Dick, Mether-a-Dick, bumper, Yah-De-Bumper, Tiah-de-Bumper, Tether-de-Bumper, Mether-de-Bumper, Jigger.”

listen to ‘Adam Collier talk about Yorkshire dialect - counting sheep from 1-20’ on Audioboom
Now that does look foreign, but it is not, it is the old way of counting sheep in our dialect. One to 20, they only counted to 20 then once 20 had gone through the pop hole in the wall they put a mark on a tree and that is where the scoring system comes from, four marks down and one through the middle for a hundred.

I once taught a group of children to count this way as they had been doing French. Well 10 years later, I asked if they could remember their French, but they had forgotten, although to my delight they had remembered the dialect.

Well as I get close to my 500 words I had better sign off, also I think the dog is chewing my slippers.

But before I go, there were two miners on their yearly trip to Scarborough and as they walked in the sea with out there boots on one said to the other, “By lad thee feet are as black as neet”. The miner looked at his mate and said, “Why thee fool they will be I nivver com last year did ah”.