retired british teacher aims to revive a thousand-year-old english dialect
2024-09-03
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according to the british newspaper metro, a retired british teacher wants to revive the thousand-year-old language by teaching the yorkshire dialect in schools.
rod dimbleby is the chairman of the yorkshire dialect society and is on a mission to save the yorkshire dialect because the language is becoming obsolete. he believes that schools in the uk should teach young people the yorkshire dialect as if it were a foreign language. he teaches dialect lessons every week and promotes the yorkshire dialect through television programs. but he is still worried that the dialect is dying out, and there are only a few places in yorkshire that still speak the authentic dialect. rod, 80, said: "it's part of our cultural heritage and anyone who was born or raised in yorkshire should be proud of it. if we don't do something about it, it will become completely extinct. i hope schools will teach the yorkshire dialect or offer it as an after-school activity."
yorkshire is the largest county in the uk, so there is no fixed yorkshire dialect, and people in different areas speak different dialects. however, there are some commonalities between these dialects, such as the frequent presence of "t". for example, "you" is expressed as "ye", "thee" or "thou" in yorkshire dialect. this is partly due to the dialect's roots in old english and old norse. yorkshire dialect also cuts letters and syllables in words, such as "happen" becomes "appen" and "how are you" becomes "ow do". the dialect association's website has some examples of yorkshire dialect.
rod was a german teacher before he retired. he added: "i teach the yorkshire dialect course in the same way as i teach german, mainly covering the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing. since the first course, there has been a gratifying increase in the number of new members joining our association." rod said that the working class has been using this dialect. he added: "people often mistakenly associate dialects with uneducated people or confuse them with slang. in fact, many words in the yorkshire dialect come from germanic languages, and some phrases are related to the industrial revolution. i am lucky to have grown up in a bilingual environment speaking yorkshire dialect and english." so far, yorkshire dialect courses have been carried out in keighley, brighouse, cleckheaton and leeds. (reported by china youth network)
(source: china youth network)
