East Midlands English is a dialect, including local and social variations spoken in most parts of East Midlands England. It generally includes areas east of Watling Street (which separates it from West Midlands English), north of an isogloss separating it from variants of Southern English (e.g. Oxfordshire) and East Anglian English (e.g. Cambridgeshire), and south of another separating it from Northern English dialects (e.g. Yorkshire). This includes the counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland and Northamptonshire. Dialects of northern Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire usually share similarities with Northern English dialects. Relative to other English dialects, there have been relatively few studies of East Midlands English.

Origins

The Eastern English Midlands were incorporated in the Norse-controlled Danelaw in the late 9th century by Ivar the Boneless. With their conquest, the county towns of the East Midlands counties were converted into fortified, Viking city-states, known as the Five Boroughs of the Danelaw. The region's dialect owes much of its grammar and vocabulary to the Nordic influences of its conquerors. For example, the East Midlands verb to scraight ('to cry') is thought to be derived from the Norse, skrike in modern Scandinavian, also meaning to cry. The East Midlands dialect of Middle English which extended over a much larger area, as far south as Middlesex, is the precursor of modern English spoken today, which has descended from the early modern English of the early 16th century.

East Midlands dialects in literature

The novelist and East Midlander D. H. Lawrence was from the Nottinghamshire town of Eastwood and wrote in the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Coalfield dialects in several poems as well as in his more famous works such as Lady Chatterley's Lover and Sons and Lovers. Though spoken less commonly today, the dialect of the East Midlands has been investigated in texts such as the Ey Up Mi Duck series of books (and an LP) by Richard Scollins and John Titford. These books were originally intended as a study of Derbyshire Dialect, particularly the distinctive speech of Ilkeston and the Erewash valley, but later editions acknowledge similarities in vocabulary and grammar which unite the East Midlands dialects and broadened their appeal to the region as a whole. "Ey up" (often spelt ayup / eyup) is a greeting thought to be of Old Norse origin (se upp) used widely throughout the East Midlands, North Midlands, North Staffordshire and Yorkshire, and "m' duck" is thought to be derived from a respectful Anglo Saxon form of address, "Duka" (literally "duke"), and is unrelated to waterfowl. Non-natives of the East Midlands and North Staffordshire are often surprised to hear men greet each other as "m' duck".

Grammar

Those who speak traditional regional dialects are not trying unsuccessfully to speak Standard English. East Midlands English follows a series of distinct grammatical rules. Some examples follow below.

Formal address

Until the mid-20th century, it was not uncommon to hear the use of informal forms of address, thee and thou, as compared to the more formal you. Use of the informal form of address is now uncommon in modern speech.

Personal and possessive pronouns

Personal pronouns differ from standard English as follows: Example: It eent theirn; it's ourn! (It isn't theirs; it's ours!)

Reflexive pronouns

Reflexive pronouns are characterised by the replacement of "self" with sen (from Middle English seluen) Example: We sh'll ay to do it ussens. (We shall have to do it ourselves.)

Vocabulary

Humorous texts, such as Nottingham As it is Spoke, have used their phonetically spelled words to deliberately confuse non-natives of the region. However, there are many words in use in the traditional East Midlands Dialect which do not appear in standard English. The short list below is by no means exhaustive. More comprehensive glossaries exist within texts such as Ey Up Mi Duck by Richard Scollins and John Titford. There are also word forms that occur in Standard English but which have additional meanings in some of the varieties considered here. (There is a yet older sense now only commonly used in Scots, Northern & some Midland dialects meaning 'beautiful' generally rather than of individuals having a pleasing embonpoint specifically.) The greeting 'now then' (as 'Nah theen') is still in use in Lincolnshire and North-East Derbyshire, used where other people might say "Hello". 'Nen mate' can also be heard instead of "now then mate". People from Leicester are known in the popular holiday resort Skegness as "Chisits", due to their expression for "how much is it" when asking the price of goods in shops.

Phonology

Dialect variations within the political region

Southern Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire is in the East Midlands region defined in the late 20th century, and has historically harboured its own dialect comparable to other forms of East Midlands English, particularly among the older generation. However, more recently its linguistic distinctiveness has significantly eroded due to influences from the western parts of East Anglia, the West Midlands, and the South as well as the 'Watford Gap isogloss', the demarcation line between southern and northern English accents. The Danelaw split the present county into a Viking north and a Saxon south. This is quite plainly heard, with people in the south speaking more like people from Oxfordshire or Cambridgeshire and people in the north sounding more like people from Leicestershire.

Corbyite

Also of note is the anomalous dialect of Corbyite spoken around Corby in the north of Northamptonshire, which reflects the migration of large numbers of Scottish and Irish steelworkers to the town during the 20th century. The dialect is often compared to Glaswegian.

Derbyshire

Derbyshire, unlike other counties in the East Midlands, does not share a single identifiable accent or dialect within its bounds. This is in part due to its borders taking in areas that are naturally "cut off" from the rest of the county by topographical borders such as that of the Peak District, as well as areas that are of considerable distance from the city of Derby and its diaspora, therefore being too far away to be of any influence both linguistically and culturally. This, combined with political and economic factors, has sparked debate in Chesterfield and the Borough of High Peak – the latter of which has extreme geographical reach into North West England – as to the future of the regional and county-affiliated identities of both boroughs. The city of Derby, as well as boroughs in the vicinity of the city such as Amber Valley and Erewash, share a common Derby dialect, which sounds largely similar to other East Midlands cities and counties. In addition, the town of Burton upon Trent, in Staffordshire, has an accent that is more identifiable as an East Midlands accent. This is largely due to the town's location near the borders with Derbyshire and Leicestershire, as well as the A38 providing commuter links to and from the East Midlands. However, as previously mentioned, many other areas within the boundaries of Derbyshire have accents influenced by neighbouring counties and cities. For example, the dialect of Glossop, Hadfield and Gamesley in the Borough of High Peak is largely similar to the Manchester dialect due to being less than a mile in places from the border with Greater Manchester; while that of the Hope Valley, North East Derbyshire, Chesterfield and Bolsover share commonalities with the South Yorkshire dialect owing to their proximity to Sheffield. In addition, the dialect of Buxton and parts of the Derbyshire Dales echoes that of the nearby areas of Stoke-on-Trent, East Cheshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands. The dialect of Coalville in Leicestershire is said to resemble that of Derby because many of the Coalville miners came from there. Coalville's name is still almost exclusive pronounced as "Co-ville" by its inhabitants. Neighbouring pit villages such as Whitwick ("Whittick") share the Coalville inflection as a result of the same huge influx of Derbyshire miners.

Lincolnshire and East Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire has long been an economically relatively homogeneous, less industrial more heavily agricultural county and is in part naturally separated by the River Trent divorcing its largest market town, Gainsborough, Torksey and the City of Lincoln from Nottinghamshire. East of the Lincolnshire Wolds, in the southern part of the county, the Lincolnshire dialect is closely linked to The Fens and East Anglia where East Anglian English is spoken, and, in the northern areas of the county, the local speech has characteristics in common with the speech of the East Riding of Yorkshire. This is largely due to the fact that the majority of the land area of Lincolnshire was surrounded by sea, the Humber, marshland, and the Wolds; these geographical circumstances permitted little linguistic interference from the East Midlands dialects until the nineteenth century when canal and rail routes penetrated the eastern heartland of the country.

Nottinghamshire

Minor variations still endure between Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Though all native speakers sound similar, there are noticeable differences between the accents of residents of, for example, Nottingham and Derby, or Mansfield and Bolsover which is pronounced locally as. The dialect of Bassetlaw in north Nottinghamshire, is very similar to South Yorkshire due to its proximity to both Sheffield and Doncaster. This includes the occasional use of the pronoun thou amongst older people. Examples of speech in the Worksop area is shown in Stephen Whyles's book A Scab is no Son of Mine.

Counties in which East Midlands English is spoken

In popular culture

The children's writer Helen Cresswell came from Nottingham, lived in Eakring and some of her characters featured on television during the 1970s and 1980s, such as Lizzie Dripping and Polly Flint, have distinct East Midlands accents, otherwise rarely heard in national broadcast media at the time. Actor Jack O'Connell has a distinct Derbyshire accent. The character 'Sylvie' in the Disney+ Marvel series 'Loki', played by Sophia Di Martino, has an East Midlands accent: "Di Martino's desire to represent underserved people led her to use her natural Nottingham accent on 'Loki'.

Links to East Midlands dialect in literature