Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Wirelect in the local media NEW UPDATE!

As promised...


NEW UPDATE! Just a couple of hours until the Wirelect interview on Radio Warrington http://radiowarrington.co.uk/listen-live/

Stream live on the above link.



UPDATE! Here is a link to the article: Forget Vladivar, did the Vikings put the "V" in Warrington?
The article is featured on page 4 of the Warrington Guardian paper edition.



What a week!

Wirelect will be featured in this week's Warrington Guardian http://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/ as part of the follow-up to its first birthday, AND we will be on Radio Warrington http://radiowarrington.co.uk/listen-live/ this Friday (28th September) from 12 noon (GMT) to 3pm (15.00).

The Warrington Guardian article will be in the paper edition this week and will also appear on the web edition in the next few days.

My most sincere thanks must go to Vicki Stockman at Warrington Guardian; and David Ball, Diane Abbott, and Gordon Gandy at Radio Warrington.

Thank you all for your support!

Keep reading and commenting, and tell your friends about Wirelect :-)
Wirelector

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Homonymy and "The Green"

Two interesting points came to my attention over the last few days.

The first was raised by Pete Magill who commented that his old school teacher used to remark on the misuse of our and are.

The difference, of course, is obvious in writing but not so in speech. For example, it is perfectly feasible for someone to say the following two sentences in the dialect, but make no audible distinction between our and are :
  • "I'm goin' to see our Mike later."
or
  • "D'you know how old Mike and Steve are?"
However, in Standard English and many other dialects our and are have different pronunciations altogether.

Words like these are often referred to as homonyms and are erroneously defined as words that are spelled differently but pronounced in exactly the same way. The precise linguistic definition of homonym is words that have the same spelling and pronunciation but have different meanings. An example of true homonyms would be bow, which can mean to lean forward as a mark of respect; or the front part of a ship - both spelled and pronounced the same way, but with distinct meanings.

In the case or our and are they can be referred to in two different ways:

  1. homophones - the same pronunciation but a different meaning and/or different spelling
  2. heterographs - the same pronunciation but a different meaning and different spelling
For the sake of simplicity, it makes more sense to refer to all these instances as examples of homonymy. Are there any other examples in the dialect?

The second point that came up is the name of the large traffic roundabout that forms the junction of Sankey Way, Lovely Lane, Froghall Lane, and Thewlis Street.

To me, it has always been and always will be "The Green". I had never heard it referred to as anything else until a couple of days ago when I saw it referred to as the "Pink Eye roundabout". Admittedly, I don't think that this name was used in all seriousness, but nevertheless, it got me thinking.

What do you call that particular place? Is it "The Green" to you?

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Wirelect on the airwaves 28th Sept.

Don't forget to tune in to Radio Warrington http://radiowarrington.co.uk/listen-live/ this Friday (28th September) from 12 noon (GMT) to 3pm (15.00).



During my visit to Warrington at the beginning of September, I was fortunate enough to be interviewed by David Ball of Radio Warrington.

David and I talked at length about many different aspects of the Wirelect project, such as the Warrington dialect and its influences, the differences between a dialect and an accent, descriptive versus prescriptive approaches to language, and many other matters relating to language and dialect.

You can hear the interview in its entirety on Radio Warrington on Friday 28th September between 12 noon and 3 pm (15.00). The interview will be divided into smaller sections that will be spread out throughout Diana Abbott's show.

You can stream Radio Warrington live from the following link: http://radiowarrington.co.uk/listen-live/

My sincere thanks go to David and Diana, and the Radio Warrington team :-)

Don't forget to tune it!


Sunday, September 2, 2012

Warrington - the Viking theory

Received wisdom on the subject of Warrington's name would lead us to believe that it is Old English in origin. There are some well-founded theories to support this claim, but there should always be room for new theories, too.

I believe that the Vikings gave our town its name as the "Place to moor the boats", or as they would have said, "Vǫrr-ing-tun".

But before we get to my theory, let's have a look at the existing theories.

A quick Google search or the first few pages of any Warrington local history book will provide you with the standard explanations for the name "Warrington".

  1. "Waer" the personal name of a local ruler or chieftan, and "tun" a homestead or settlement. These together form "Waerstun" or Waer's settlement. This is certainly a feasible explanation for the name.
  2. "Werid", "Weryt", or "Gweryt" and other permutations are possible words from Brythonic languages (the languages spoken in the British Isles before the Roman conquest, and represented nowadays by Welsh). These words are listed as meaning "ford" as in a river crossing. When combined with "tun", as above, we get various versions of "Weritun" or the settlement on the river crossing. This is a very good theory due to the clear importance of the river crossing in the development of the town.
  3. The final popular theory is based on the Anglo-Saxon word "Waering" meaning a weir or dam. There have no doubt been various fish weirs on the river throughout history, indeed there is written historical data to prove the presence of fish weirs on the River Mersey. "Waering", again, combined with "tun" gives us "Waeringtun", the settlement of the weirs on the river. A very compelling theory, especially as it fits the idea of the importance of the river and looks, to our modern eyes, very close to the modern spelling of Warrington.
The above are all very reasonable explanations for the name of the town, and any of them could be true. However, these theories are all very local in nature and do not take into account the broader regional context.

If we take a closer look at the surrounding towns and villages along the Mersey shoreline, we can see a distinct Nordic influence. Starting at the mouth of Mersey estuary and working our way inland along the northern shoreline we can see places such as: Formby, Crosby, Kirkdale, Aigburth, Oglet, and Widnes - all Scandinavian in origin. Along the southern shoreline we have: Bromborough, Eastham, Ellesmere, Helsby, Frodsham - again, Scandinavian in origin.

This abundance of place-names of Scandinavian origin suggests strongly a high incidence of people who spoke a Scandinavian language. Works such as Viking DNA: The Wirral and West Lancashire Project by Steve Harding, Mark Jobling, and Turi King provide clear evidence of a Viking presence in the Wirral. Indeed, the huge number of Scandinavian place-names within the Wirral is testament not only to the fact that Vikings came to our shores, but also that they stayed. This is also supported by the genetic evidence presented in the book.

But what about Warrington?

It seems more than a little strange to me that the Vikings should have such key presence in the Wirral, and obvious influence along the Mersey shoreline, but not leave their mark on the most important Mersey-coastal town of the age - Warrington!

The proof is in Warrington's location on the mersey. The Mersey has always been a difficult river to navigate because of silting and its large tidal range. This was not a problem to the Vikings due to the ingenious design and construction of their longboats, which had a draft (the amount of a ship's hull that is submerged) of only 40 - 50 cm (approx 18 inches). This design allowed them to navigate seaworthy long boats far upstream and inland.

However, there were limits; and these limits are what gave Warrington its name.

The Vikings, both Norwegian and Danish, spoke dialects of a language that we know today as Old Norse. As they sailed further and further inland along the Mersey, they would eventually have come to a place where the water was too shallow, or the river too marshy to continue. This place would have also been the site where the river was fordable. This place was the site of modern Warrington.

Old Norse had two words that were related to each other: Vǫrr - meaning a wave or the sea; and Vör - meaning a landing space for a boat. The latter is still present in modern Icelandic place names (Icelandic being the closest modern language to Old Norse).

It is perfectly reasonable to assume that the Vikings, having sailed as far as they could up the Mersey, would have moored their boats somewhere in the vicinity of Latchford. As more and more Vikings used this site as a landing place to enter the established settlement near the ford, they would have begun to call it by a name. In their native Old Norse, that name would have been "Vǫrr" or "Vör" or something related. They would have added the particle "ing" to that name, as all modern Scandinavian languages do, to describe the place where the event happens, and then the "tun", which simply means a town or settlement.

So we are left with Vikings calling our town "Vǫrringtun" or Vöringtun", simply meaning, "The place to moor the boats".

What do you think? Do you have a theory? Tell me your thoughts.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Wirelect LIVE in Warrington!

Wirelect is back in town!

The blog is one year old at the end of this week, and to celebrate I will be out and about in Warrington handing out fliers and talking to people about the dialect.

I will be doing more research for the book and I will also be doing an interview for Radio Warrington about the Wirelect project.

Keep your eyes open for me, and see you in town!

Wirelector