ON behalf of the dwindling indigenous population of our area, I would like to congratulate your editor on the new monthly feature by Adam Collier.

Our North Yorks Moors dialect is totally different from the stereotypical West Riding dialect so loved by the media when they need a Yorkshire voice.

There are few people who understand North Yorks Moors dialect now and even fewer who can speak it. When this way of speaking has died out completely, will we become like the Welsh and try to teach it in schools (alongside environmental and obesity issues)? I doubt it. Then maybe it will be like the story of the academic who was overheard trying to discuss North Yorkshire vowels and verbs with an old Moors shepherd. Bewildered by the technicalities of language, the old shepherd threw up his hands in despair: “Nay, nay lad – if thou as ti larn’t thou’ll bi nea gud at’t”.

Well done Adam, lang mae thi lum ree-ak.

Moor’ender, Pockley