04 



diphthongal sounds vary from the ordinary English. The proper diph- 

 thongal sound of "ou" or "ow" is changed to that of "oo" : thus, house 

 becomes "hoose" ; cloud, "clood"; round, "roond" ; and so with "ow," 

 cow is "coo" ; now, "noo" ; how, "hoo" ; and so on. Then such words 

 as have the "oo" sound in ordinary English require "eu" in the dialect : 

 book is "beuk"; look, "leiik"; school, "scheul"; and fool, "feiil." Again 

 such words as in the English have the long "o" and "oa" sound, are 

 sometimes pronounced in the dialect as if spelt with a "w," so that note 

 is "uwote" ; coat, "cwoat" ; and boat, "bwoat" ; but sometimes the long 

 "o" is changed into the proper diphthongal sound of "ow," so that 

 brought is "browt" ; thought, "thowt," &c. The sound of the long "i," 

 too, is often changed to that of "ee" ; and right is "reet" ; light, "leet" ; 

 bright "breet" ; and so on. The short "e" also is occasionally changed to 

 the long "e," when head becomes "heed," and dead, "deed." Passing 

 from the vowel sounds, we will proceed to notice some other peculiarities 

 of pronunciation. In the dialect the termination "en" is invariably used 

 instead of "ing" — thus writing is " writen' ; " walking, "walken';" 

 working, "worken'," and so on. The dental sound of "th" is seldom 

 heard in the dialect either- — as : father is "fadder" ; mother, "niudder" ; 

 and brother, "brudder" ; twentieth is "twentit" ; and thirtieth, "thirtit." 

 Even in the article "the" the "th" is not sounded Instead of saying "The 

 master and the mistress," a Cumbrian says "T' maister an' t' mistress.'' 

 "And" is always contracted to "an," "thee" to "the'," and "with" to "wf ": 

 thus, the sentence "I will go with thee," is shortened to " I'll ga wi' the'." 

 It will be seen from these few examples, that in the Cum- 

 brian pronunciation there is a marked tendency to contract, or 

 shorten the words, a tendency of which many more specimens might 

 be given, such as "slape" for slippery; "flate" for frightened; " 'pleen" 

 for complain, and such like. The few words we have noted wiU, 

 however, be sufficient to give a fair idea of the Cumbrian vocabulary, 

 and therefore we will next glance at a few of its idiomatic peculi- 

 arities. Perhaps the most noticeable thing about the way in which the 

 dialect is .spoken, and its worst feature, is the total disregard which 

 the speakers have f(.)r all the rules of grammer. They use pronouns in 



