Eddera-a-dix - unlucky for some.

Through clicking for a random blog on the Yorkshire Bloggers webring, I found myself chez supermum who not only has an intriguing (and I have to say, rather disappointing) link to the Feminist Mormon Housewives blog, she has also linked to an interwebnet corner of amazingness. Oh yes.

Counting Sheep is about the local and ancient dialects used by farmers to count their sheep, which is vital for many reasons explained there.

Having grown up in Lancashire and living now in Yorkshire I have always been fascinated by the local dialects of each, the new words I learned on moving over here, and the little turns of phrase and usages which I find myself using naturally now, to be greeted with a raised eyebrow by many of the old Lancastrian crowd.

In Lancashire I felt I was virtually witnessing the local language and dialects die out. Children and young people just didn't use a lot of the words and phrases that the older generations did. In Sheffield it feels somewhat different. People under the age of 30 or so use at least some aspects of the Yorkshire dialect freely, and it feels less threatened than the Lancs ones, although not altogether thriving.

So, finding the Counting Sheep page filled me with glee. The ways of counting to 20 from village to village, changing, the same, similar, different. Really, really interesting, and very exciting that this info is being gathered. Well, for linguistic geeks like me.

From Bolland (Bowland):
1 - Yain
2 - Tain
3 - Eddera
4 - Peddera
5 - Pit
6 - Tayter
7 - Layter
8 - Overa
9 - Covera
10 - Dix
11 - Yain-a-dix
12 - Tain-a-dix
13 - Eddera-a-dix
14 - Peddera-a-dix
15 - Bumfit
16 - Yain-a-bumfit
17 - Tain-a-bumfit
18 - Eddera-bumfit
19 - Peddera-a-bumfit
20 - Jiggit.

And the other places - nearby and also through Wales, Cumbria, Brittany and Cornwall, are all listed and it is really, really very cool.

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Some of the new links added to the right today are:

John Peel Day on October 13th.

Ministry of Reshelving. If you feel that Orwell's 1984 would be more at home in the Current Affairs or US / UK Politics sections of your bookshop than they are in the Fiction section, you might want to pay the Ministry of Reshelving a visit.

BBC Free Video Clips for VJs.

The Apostrophe Protection Society and Project Gutenberg should have been in the links for ages, but I have only just got round to putting them in. But they're there now.

Bye for now xx