Tees speak
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Tees - Speak is a local, informal term for the dialect around the Teesside conurbation of North East England although a more appropriate term would be Lower Tees Dialect. North Tees is tradionally a Durham dialect and South of the Tees is traditionally a North Yorkshire dialect. The modern accent is a cross between Durham and North Yorkshire accents due to the influx of people from these areas to Teesside in its Industrial development mainly to the Middlesbrough area. An h is usually dropped in Middlesbrough, but Durham and Northumberland are said to be the two English counties that drop the h least often.
Although Tees-speak (often called smoggie or just Boro) is distinguishable as a Teesside dialect locally, it is still a very diverse dialect with certain areas of Teesside sounding different from other areas. For example, the Middlesbrough accent sounds different to that of a Redcar accent. This is mostly due the migrant workers from Wales, Lincolnshire, Cheshire as well as areas of Eastern Europe coming to Middlesbrough in the late 1800's to the early 1900's. Middlesbrough also had a large Irish population only second in the UK to Liverpool. However, many of the West Riding accents that are well-known in the British media also have a large Irish influence for much the same reasons, so it could be argued that Irish and Yorkshire are intertwined. Redcar however remained a more North Yorkshire dialect with traits of Old Cleveland predominantly heard more around the coastal Towns of Cleveland. Stockton-on-Tees is very similar to to the Middlesbrough accent except the Middlesbrough accent tends to have more recognisable use of the "O" and "U" vowels. This is an example of a Middlesbrough accent:
The Middlesbrough accent is similar in dialect to Scouse on certain words that use "o" and "U".
Here are a few words with the corresponding Teesside dialect:
- Berra (Hartlepool); Borra (Stockton); Burra (Middlesbrough)
- Beck = Small stream
- Berger = Burger
- Canny = Nice/Pleasant (as in a person or place); also in reference to size/amount ("It were a canny size")
- Hacky = Dirty
- Mek = Make
- Tek = Take
- Scran = Food
The non-use of certain consonants in words is often commonplace mostly with words beginning with "H":
- Hear or Here = 'ere
- Heard or Herd = 'erd or 'eard
- Head = 'ead
- Have = 'ave
- "Have you heard him, hes having a head fit"
- "ave yer 'erd 'im, 'es 'avin 'n 'ead fit"
The example above can also be further characterised by the joing of words for example ave ya 'erd can become 'ave yer-rerd
Great Ayton and Stokesley have similar accents to Middlesbrough due to their close proximity but obviously the accent has a more definite North Yorkshire sound, although in recent, the younger generations of North Eastern Yorkshire Towns appear to have a more 'Teesside' sound in their accents.
