CD to Preserve Essex Dialect

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: The Sandman
Date: 30 Sep 10 - 01:45 PM

Nic Jones[Brentwood],

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: GUEST,Larry
Date: 30 Sep 10 - 10:19 AM

I lived on the cusp of London overflow/Essex countryside in my formative years and heard both accents every day. My uncle who is in his 80s lived most of his life as a tree feller in and around the rural villages near Brentwood and has a most pronounced 'real' Essex accent.
Any notable folk musicians from these parts? (Not Billy Bragg, before anyone suggests him!)

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 02:41 AM

Thanks Nicholas. I have my copy. I love the cucumber song.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 09 Apr 10 - 06:43 PM

I think this is brillant! Preserving old dialects is vital. An improvement would be to take these CDs, encase them in concrete, and bury them at the bottom of a mine, where they could be preserved for ever!

I'll get me hat...

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: GUEST,GUEST Nicholas Jenkins
Date: 09 Apr 10 - 12:54 PM

Yes, the Essex CD has indeed been reprinted. They were not going to make any more but I asked if I could print it under license and the ERO agreed! It is now in a traditional CD form with a booklet, which is a lot less bulky than the original. Check out my website if you want more details:

http://www.essexdialect.co.uk

If anyone would like to contribute anything to this website about Essex dialect, please let me know. The hope is that it will grow to become a resource for anyone interested in the dialects of the county.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: Matthew Edwards
Date: 09 Apr 10 - 08:35 AM

We moved to Brightlingsea from Dublin in 1966 when I was 13, and I remember being really baffled by the speech of some of our new neighbours, but after a while it did grow on me though I never learned to speak it. Anyway I see the CD is now on sale again as Essex Voices at £9.99 so I shall be ordering my copy. Thanks to Virginia Tam for publicising it here on Mudcat.

Matthew

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 03:08 PM

CD is in production again. A promotional tour started this past Friday. It doesn't show in this book shop, but that may be because the person who updates it online is on extended leave.

more here

details in this programme

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: GUEST,SID
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 02:31 PM

The Lancashire Society will be organising the 2nd National Dialect Day later this year. Last year we had representatives from Northumberland, Cornwall, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Lake District, Yorkshire and Lancashire. Unfortunately, we couldn't find anyone from the Southeast. I'll put details up on here soon when they are finalised so that every English dialect can get the recognition it deserves.

Sid.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 06:58 AM

I was a bit shocked by 'breezy's' insensitive comments above. Although I happen to live in the North I think that an Essex accent (or an East End of London one for that matter) is just as valid, and worthy of valuing and conserving, as Geordie or Lancashire.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine, who was brought up in Essex, was criticised for singing traditional songs in an Essex accent. What was she supposed to do - sing them in some sort of parody of Geordie or Scots? This is a peculiar sort of inverse snobbery. Whereas a couple of generations ago kids in Manchester or Leeds were chided, or even 'clipped around the ear', for adopting their native tongue, nowadays Mancunian and West Yorkshire accents are seen as some sort of noble 'badge of authenticity'. Whereas certain southern accents are looked down upon. Silly really, diversity is (or should be) the 'spice of life'!

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: GUEST,gib
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 05:09 AM

Can you tell us if the CD is still available, save me puggling around on the innernet?

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 04:22 PM

ECC legal service has agreed a contract with an external producer. The CD will go back into production soon and be available to order. I will post where, when I find out more.

I listened to the first track of the office copy today. Charming little ditty - I like Cucumber. Heard a bit of the second track and I was shocked at how broad the Essex accent once was. Very heavy northern sound. Something like Yorkshire.

Must find out more about that cucumber song.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 04:24 PM

Mayomick, The cd was produced by the sound and video archivist at Essex Record Office. You might check with your local record office to see if a similar project has been done, or is being considered.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 01:47 PM

I thought "puggled" was Norfolk, not Essex.

What a useful word. Means something completely different in Scots, so I can say I'm puggled (Sc) becauseof my coronary arteries and I'm going to have them puggled (Essex) next week so I won't be anywhere near as puggled (Sc) after.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: mayomick
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 12:44 PM

A Wiki quote from Lancashire Uni researchers suggesting that Cockney came from the Kentish and Mercian accents. I would have thought that Essex would have influenced London speech as well.

"The London dialect is really, especially on the South side of the Thames, a perfectly legitimate and responsible child of the old kentish tongue […] the dialect of London North of the Thames has been shown to be one of the many varieties of the Midland or Mercian dialect, flavoured by the East Anglian variety of the same speech […]"

I could never distinguish between north and south London accents myself in all the years I spent in London. Virginia, do you know if there are any recordings of a distinct Middlesex accent?

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: GUEST,daen
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 07:28 AM

I grew up in Hockley and Barling Magna, and went to school in Southend-on-Sea, so unfortunately I don't have much of the magical rural Essex accent ... However my stepfather would tell me about his childhood in Hawkwell and he does still has a fairly pronounced Essex accent. When I bought a house in Wivenhoe, I was amazed at how many of the locals spoke like my stepfather, and assumed that they came from Suffolk, a suggestion to which they reacted with mock outrage - "Naaah, boooy! We bin heyah since 'fore them Romans!" And if anyone thinks rural Essex people are stupid because of the way they speak, think on some of the phrases and sayings they have - some sound like compliments, but by the time you've said "Oh, thank you", you've actually parsed what they've said and thought "Hang on - did he really say that?" ... Example: "If you're going by this way again, I'd love to see you walk past" ... "You're not the stupidest man in the village, but you're just like him" ... "Lend us a tenner and I'll buy you a pint and pay you back that five I owe yer" ... And famously, when asked how to get to Ipswich from Wivenhoe, where the conversation was taking place: "Hmmm ... that's a tough'un ... well, I wouldn't start from here". Martin Newell in Wivenhoe is a keen scholar of the Essex dialect, so he may be interested in the CD, if he doesn't already know about it.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: GUEST,BBP at work
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 08:02 AM

Having been born and brought up in Plaistow, East London (near West Ham football ground), my original medical card was crested as the county borough of West Ham in Essex. I was most upset when it was taken from me when I registered with another doctor when I went to college.

Deirdre

PS: It wasn't that long ago either, I'm "only" 51.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 04:19 AM

But Liz is from Darzet.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 03:17 PM

I thought "puggled" was Norfolk, not Essex.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 03:10 PM

Well, the CD is now sold out. Then there was a interview with Essex Sound and Video Archivist on BBC Look East 17 August. So now we are getting calls for it.

Archivist has been approached by a radio producer who has done memory (oral history) recordings who wants to produce and market the CD, with royalties going to the Essex Record Office Sound and Video Archive. So now we are looking into the permissions and legal side of things.

So did any Catters buy the CD?

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: Jane Bird
Date: 26 Jul 09 - 05:28 PM

Thanks VirginiaTam - I particularly enjoyed the article about Mr Clooney's views on the subject :-)

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: Mick Tems
Date: 26 Jul 09 - 11:35 AM

"I remember, as a child from the East End of London, being enchanted and baffled by the accents of older people in Brightlingsea..."

They used to call it "Brittlesea" - one more disappearing Essex accent.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 26 Jul 09 - 10:26 AM

More stuff on the Essex accent.

Absolute Radio

Daily Mail

India Times

The Echo

but is it a traditional Essex accent

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: glueman
Date: 18 May 09 - 04:57 PM

Although not a southerner I used to know a chap from somewhere near Colchester who spoke recognisably different from estuary. Also met a young couple from Blackboys in Sussex who spoke nothing like a London accent. They said they and their family spoke old Sussex.
It's interesting how a few pockets in the home counties have resisted the pull of London, both parties were from farming backgrounds.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 18 May 09 - 04:47 PM

"who oop,as a greeting.and the term [going over yonder] "

And Whoop to you Capn'n!
My Grandad's (& friends) standard greeting - and still used by my uncles!

I could hug you for that!

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 18 May 09 - 04:37 PM

Wow!

Over yonder is a Virginia precedent to giving a location. Where's the car? Over yonder by the post office. Where do you live? Over yonder in Dinwiddie.

But the first settlers in Jamestouwn sailed out of Harwich Essex, so maybe not so surprising.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 May 09 - 03:38 PM

who oop,as a greeting.and the term [going over yonder]

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 18 May 09 - 03:33 PM

I didn't produce the CD. It was launched last week and after reading internal email about it, I thought "how intersting and timely after reading in mudcat threads about singing songs in appropriate national or regional accent."

Some belive that if one can not replicate the accent then the song shouldn't be sung. This CD illustrates that dialects and accents do change and vanish. And indicates that songs need to be sung by whoever will, in order to preserve them.

Nothing created that dates back prior to sound recording can have been recorded in an unfiltered unchanged state. By the time it was recorded it had already changed from its first rendering. Language constantly morphs.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: GUEST,LDT
Date: 18 May 09 - 08:21 AM

[i]When I was in Stowmarket for last year's TMD it was striking how London accents had reached into rural Suffolk. [/i]
Oy! I sorta resemble that remark ;)
I've got a Saaaafend accent, mate.

Couldn't find anything similar in Essex..so had to go all the way to Suffolk. :P

I find it so hard to find folkie things in Essex....maybe I just looking in the wrong places.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 18 May 09 - 08:14 AM

I remember, as a child from the East End of London, being enchanted and baffled by the accents of older people in Brightlingsea. In more recent years I have heard similar accents as close to London as Southminster and even Corbet's Tey. Southminster is at the end of a minor branch of the railway and I suspect that Corbet's Tey was just by-passed by settlers from London.

Bear in mind, that when people first started complaining about London accents swamping rural ones that people were still leaving the very same rural areas to settle in London.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: Pete_Standing
Date: 18 May 09 - 08:02 AM

I was raised in Southend. I can rememeber that people who had come from those parts for generations or from the countryside just outside Southend, had quite a different accent, something more akin to that of Suffolk or Norfolk. The kind of London sounding accent that people associate with Essex I suspect is a result of the migration of people from London settling after WWII, the inevitable creep of the suburbs swallowing up parts of west Essex and the influence of the modern media, all things that are having an effect in other parts of the country too.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 May 09 - 07:40 AM

the use of the word bor,is a dialect word,and was used in Essex as well as in Suffolk.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: Barb'ry
Date: 18 May 09 - 07:25 AM

To all accent and dialect enthusiasts and please excuse the slight thread-drift but it is great to see others trying to record and revive traditional dialects.
The Lancashire Society is hosting a dialect day at Fylde Folk Festival this year. It is taking place from midday on Sunday 6th September and Dialect Societies from all over the country are coming to perform - it would be great to include Essex too.
Virginia Tam, do you think they may be interested in sending some CDs to sell at the event?
Mark Dowding has already publicised this in a thread called 'Dialect readers wanted for Fylde' so pm him or me for more info.
B

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: breezy
Date: 18 May 09 - 07:13 AM

sorry jacqui , what was that you said?

easy Tam, 1880, wow!

Must talk to Mike Sparks about this

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 18 May 09 - 05:41 AM

Ah, you'm all puggled..

LTS

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: MartinRyan
Date: 17 May 09 - 07:06 PM

I have a little text on "English Dialects from the eighth century to the present day" by Skeat, published in 1911. As an example of Essex dialect he quotes a set of verses (not clear if its a song) from 1839. While the standard English roots are generally clear, there are some unusual words and pronunciations.

Regards

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 17 May 09 - 06:58 PM

What Fred McCormick said.

I'm interested in English language dialect, accent and dialect words and origins no matter how far afield from my homeground.

It's a fascinating language and I'm glad I'm speaking one version of it, at least. (Hmmm...maybe more than one. I'm currently disguising myself as a New Englander, but I lapse into Midwestern or Milwaukee-ese occasionally.)

Linn

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: MartinRyan
Date: 17 May 09 - 05:19 PM

The links seem to refer to accent only, effectively. Any examples of dialect words and their possible origins?

Regards

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: jacqui.c
Date: 17 May 09 - 04:54 PM

I remember,from my childhood, a holiday on the Essex coast - Walton on Naze - and playing with local kids who talked 'really funny' to us North London kids. there definitely was a discernible Essex accent then.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 17 May 09 - 04:50 PM

Essex dialect? I would have said accent rather than dialect myself.

From the context I assume you mean the rural accent that merges into Suffolk rather than the distinct Thamesside accent which has closer links with Kent than with East Anglia.

When I was in Stowmarket for last year's TMD it was striking how London accents had reached into rural Suffolk.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 17 May 09 - 01:27 PM

Thanks Fred

I understand there are some songs on the CD as well, performed in the true Essex.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 17 May 09 - 12:10 PM

VT, Thanks for publicising this. Anything which helps to preserve the culture of ordinary people is worth doing, IMO.

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 17 May 09 - 11:47 AM

Breezy

The CD is about how the Essex dialect disappeared in the face of East London encroachement. There were concerns about it as far back as 1880.

The CD contains recordings of the true dialect dating back to 1906.

If you had read the links I installed, you may have gathered that.

Regards

Tam

Subject: RE: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: breezy
Date: 17 May 09 - 11:41 AM

Essex Dialect, = East end of London

Get a life

Geordie   Yes

Tyke yes

Kernow   yes

Lancs yes

Dudley   yes


Eseex no


Sufflk Norfolk yes together and apologies to Bucks and others

sit back and watch the s... fly

Subject: CD to Preserve Essex Dialect
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 17 May 09 - 08:31 AM

This is not a shameless plug for an item produced by The Sound and Video Archive Service at Essex Reocrd Office (where I work). I had nothing to do with it's production.

It is, however, of interest to me in context of the several threads themed on the rendering tradtional folk song, among many comments about accents and dialects in song.

I didn't know whether I should put the tag of review on it, but it belongs, I think in the music section. I thought other Catters might be interested too.

Some articles about the CD

BBC news

Eastmans Online Geneaology

and the email to order the CD if interested.

[e-mail]

I think it sells for £9.50.

I plan to get it this week.