Sound recordings of Yorkshire dialect specific to the Ryedale region have been made available to listen to in this section of our website. Reporter JAMES KILNER spoke to one of the people whose speech was recorded, Steven Welford, from Wrelton, near Pickering, about the influence that local dialect has had upon his life.

STEVEN Welford's love affair with the dialect of our region began during his earliest years as he grew up on a farm just outside Wrelton, near Pickering.

"At the age of five, or thereabouts, I became aware that there were two languages in use at the farm," he says.

"My parents spoke standard English in the home, yet outside there was another language going on."

This 'other language' was, of course, dialect, and the young Steven began to pick it up. However, he remarks that it was not 'done' to speak dialect when the parson, or some such worthy, came to visit.

It was at Lady Lumley's Grammar School (as it was then), in Pickering, that Steven's interest in dialect really took off, thanks to inspirational headmaster F Austin Hyde (1890-1965), who was a renowned dialect expert, writing books and plays as well as making recordings in this 'other language' of the region.

The relationship between headmaster and pupil was such that they became great friends later in life. Steven was invited to sing a solo at his former headmaster's funeral.

However, despite F Austin Hyde's fascination with dialect, pupils were not permitted to speak in the language of the region while at school. They were even given elocution lessons.

Since those early years, Steven's voice has won him remarkable acclaim - among many other things, he has enjoyed great success as an opera singer.

And there is something in the tone, rhythm and intonation of his speech that suggests this musical background, as you will hear if you listen to recordings of Steven speaking in dialect on the Gazette & Herald website, www.thisisryedale.co.uk.

Throughout his life, Steven has retained his interest in dialect and continues to research traditional North Yorkshire speech and its origins, which lie, for the most part, in the languages of Scandinavia and northern Germany.

Our region's dialect is heavily influenced by the languages of the Vikings, Angles and some Friesians who invaded this part of the country and settled here over a millennium ago. In many cases, we are their descendants.

Indeed, points out Steven, if a very old dialect poem happened to be read to a modern-day Norwegian or Dane, for example, he or she would probably broadly understand it.

There is very little French influence in the region's dialect, despite the vast changes wrought on this nation by the Norman invasion of the 11th century.

Steven puts this down to the fierce resistance shown by the people of what is now North Yorkshire to the invading force, leaving the Normans ensconced in castles, such as those between Scarborough and Helmsley, yet surrounded by a hostile native population.

For Steven, the "linguistic area" of which much of Ryedale is a part forms, very roughly, a triangle of land. One point of the triangle is Thirsk, to the west, the second is Whitby, to the north-east, and the third is Bridlington, to the south-east of the region.

Very roughly within this triangle, dialect speech is extremely similar. Significant changes develop as you move out of this triangle. For example, the definite article 'the' is gradually dropped among dialect speakers as you move through East Yorkshire. In West and South Yorkshire, dialect is radically different.

Steven believes that this triangle, this "linguistic area" of very similar dialect speech, developed because of the region's relative geographical isolation. There are the moors to the north, the wolds to the south and the sea to the east.

One feature of regional speech specific to Ryedale, says Steven, is the rising intonation of dialect sentences, which makes statements sound almost like questions. A similar, but much more pronounced, phenomenon can be detected in the Australian accent.

Steven believes that this feature of dialect suggests the influence of the Cleveland area to the north. Indeed, visitors from Kent have remarked to him that speech in Ryedale reminds them of 'Geordie', the colloquial term used to describe the accent of many people living on Tyneside.

This is likely to be because, well over a millennium ago, the area that is now North Yorkshire was part of the kingdom of Northumbria, which stretched from north of the Humber (hence the kingdom's name) all the way up to the Scottish borders.

Areas such as West and South Yorkshire were, in those days, more associated with the kingdom of Mercia, centred around the Midlands. Therefore, each kingdom is likely to have developed its own idiosyncratic speech patterns, which have influenced more recent regional language.

However, the future of dialect is exceptionally precarious. Many of the dialect expressions of North Yorkshire are likely to vanish over the next 20 years, says Steven. He suggests that we should, perhaps, take note of the actions of other communities whose native languages have come under threat.

"If people like the Catalans in Spain or the Basques, and, for example, the Welsh in the UK, can try to preserve their heritage, why can't North Yorkshire?" he asks.

Steven, though, is encouraged by the fact that more and more academics are taking up the study of dialect generally, including that of North Yorkshire. Maybe through their work, the dialect of this region can be preserved.

"We can still use good English, when required, in spite of modern abuse," says Steven. "But we should never despise our rich Yorkshire heritage. After all, it has survived for well over 1,000 years, even if it has changed during that time."

Updated: 08:51 Wednesday, March 10, 2004