The Yorkshire Dialect Society, a leading member of our Heritage Guardians network (who will be taking part in the Saltaire event on May 18th), have just launched their new Talk Yorkshire project. This originates from a recognition that it is not only the landscape and the people that makes Yorkshire special, but our historic Language or Dialect, which still reflects, in both vocabulary and intonation, those Viking invaders over 1,000 years ago.
Talk Yorkshire is about ways of reviving interest and use of our historic variety of English through seminars, discussions, demonstrations, recordings and films. This includes four wonderful new short films by Maltby film-maker Joshua Daniels about the history of Yorkshire dialect, readings of famous poems by experienced dialect speakers, Tolkien and the Huddersfield dialect, and, fascinatingly, interviews and poems by two young Yorkshire lasses from Halifax of South Asian descent, who are equally proud of their Yorkshire and their Pakistani heritage – their dual identity. The Society has also produced a valuable new book – Yorkshire – How to Write it by Hebden Langtoft.
The Yorkshire Dialect Society is also planning another Yorkshire Dialect Day linked to Yorkshire Day 2023, which this year will take place in Rotherham. The event – at which both the films and the new book will be presented – will be on Wednesday August 2nd, at Wath Hall, a lovely 18th century hall in the village of Wath, halfway between Rotherham and Barnsley. Full details will shortly be available at www.yorkshiredialectsociety.org.uk.
