Barrovian (or Barronese) is an accent and

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

of English found in

Barrow-in-Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town and civil parish (as just "Barrow") in the Westmorland and Furness district of Cumbria, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in the county of Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borou ...

and several outlying settlements in

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, historically in the county of

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

. Although a member of the Cumbrian dialect, the Barrovian and south Cumbria accent has much in common with the dialect of northern Lancashire, particularly the Lancaster/

Morecambe Morecambe ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster district of Lancashire, England, on Morecambe Bay, part of the Irish Sea. In 2011 the parish had a population of 34,768. Name The first use of the name was by John Whit ...

area. Barrovian is also used as a

demonym A demonym (; ) or 'gentilic' () is a word that identifies a group of people ( inhabitants, residents, natives) in relation to a particular place. Demonyms are usually derived from the name of the place ( hamlet, village, town, city, region, ...

for the inhabitants of Barrow.

Origins

Up until the mid-19th century Barrow was nothing but a cluster of small villages with the Cumbrian dialect prevailing throughout. Huge growth occurred, however, between 1860 and 1880, spurred by the introduction of a railway to the Furness peninsula and the rapidly expanding

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

and jute works. Barrow also became a major shipbuilding centre in the early 20th century. From a few thousand to 70,000 residents in under half a century, the majority of these were immigrants to the town drawn by the burgeoning industries. Large influxes came from elsewhere in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

(especially the counties of Antrim and Tyrone) and

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, with existing shipbuilding regions such as the Clyde and

Tyneside Tyneside is a List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, built-up area across the banks of the River Tyne, England, River Tyne in Northern England. The population of Tyneside as published in the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census was 774,891 ...

providing a significant percentage of migrants in the early to mid-20th century. During the 1890s, one-sixth of the local population had been born in Ireland or Scotland. Barrow became a melting pot of accents and dialects and although it remains primarily Cumbria/Lancashire-oriented it has strong influences from a wide geographical area. Numerous place names in Barrow are of

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

and

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...

origin. Although they have long been

Anglicised Anglicisation or anglicization is a form of cultural assimilation whereby something non-English becomes assimilated into or influenced by the culture of England. It can be sociocultural, in which a non-English place adopts the English language ...

, many have had their pronunciation skewed over time by the aforementioned immigrant groups. One notable example is the suburbs of Roose which was settled by Cornish tin miners and is now pronounced locally with a 'z' in place of the 's'. The name

Furness Furness ( ) is a peninsula and region of Cumbria, England. Together with the Cartmel Peninsula it forms North Lonsdale, Historic counties of England, historically an exclave of Lancashire. On 1 April 2023 it became part of the new unitary author ...

is also pronounced to sound like 'furnace'.

Phonology

A 2005 study of the Barrovian dialect by the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

found a number of traits common amongst the populace. Most of the observations made are similar to other Northern English dialects with the sound /ʌ/ (as in 'up' or 'mother') being pronounced /ʊ/ (as in 'good' or 'put'). Other observations made included frequent

T-glottalization In English phonology, ''t''-glottalization or ''t''-glottalling is a sound change in certain English dialects and accents, particularly in the United Kingdom, that causes the phoneme to be pronounced as the glottal stop in certain positio ...

on last letters and frequent intervocalic and syllable initial T-glottaling. In

Plain English Plain English (also referred to as layman's terms) is a mode of writing or speaking the English language intended to be easy to understand regardless of one's familiarity with a given topic. It usually avoids the use of rare words and uncommon euph ...

this can be described as the letter 't' being dropped from the middle or end of words. Examples of this include the word 'cart' (/kɑrt/) being pronounced as 'car' (/kaːʔ/), with a

Glottal stop The glottal stop or glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many Speech communication, spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic ...

after the letter 'r'. Alternatively the number 'twenty' (/twɛnti/) could be pronounced 'twen-y' (/twɛnʔi/). The same study also found frequent G-dropping,

H-dropping ''H''-dropping or aitch-dropping is the elision, deletion of the voiceless glottal fricative or "''H''-sound", . The phenomenon is common in many dialects of English language, English, and is also found in certain other languages, either as a pu ...

and Th-fronting. Respective examples of these phonetics include: 'freezing, exciting, sleeping' being pronounced 'freezin, excitin, sleepin' (where G-dropping speakers pronounce the -ing syllable as �n while non-G-dropping speakers have /ɪŋ/); 'appy (/hæpi/), hour (/haʊ.wər/), have (/hæv)' being pronounced 'appy (/æpi/), our (/aʊə/), ave (/æv)' with removal of the front '/h/'; and 'through (/θru/), thought (/θɒːt), three (/θri/)' being pronounced as 'rough (/frɪu/), frought (/frɒːt/), free (/frɪi/)'. Pronunciation of words ending with the sound 'ure' (/ˈu:r/) are another distinct indicator of the Barrovian dialect. Some words drop the /u:/ completely and convert the 're' (/r/) to 'er' (/ər/), Examples of this include the word 'brochure' being pronounced 'broch-er' (/ˈbroːʃə/), 'texture' as 'text-er' (/ˈtɛkstʃə/) and 'figure' as 'fig-er' (/ˈfɪgə/). Alternatively many words containing /ˈu:r/ are pronounced /u:.ər/ (e.g. in the Barrovian dialect 'moor' rhymes with 'truer'). Further examples being: 'cure' (/ˈkjʊər/) pronounced 'kyou-er' (/ˈkjɪuə/), 'tour' (/tʊər/) as 'too-er' (ˈtɪuə), 'mature' as 'ma-chou-er' (/ˈməˈtʃɪuə/) and 'secure' as 'sec-you-er' (/səkˈjɪuə/). There is no convention for which words drop the letter 'u' and which emphasise it, with little correlation between word length and pronunciation.

Phrases and lexis

The words 'dead' and 'well' are often used in conversation to mean 'very' or make a strong point, for example "it was well good", or "it was dead bad". The word 'like' is frequently used with little meaning, as is the term 'and that' which roughly translates to the use of the term ' etc.' in a spoken conversation. For example, "I bought some crisps and biscuits and that" (a boughʔ sʊm crisps’n biscuits n’aʔ). The list below contains common words and daily greetings in

Standard English In an English-speaking country, Standard English (SE) is the variety of English that has undergone codification to the point of being socially perceived as the standard language, associated with formal schooling, language assessment, and off ...

(in bold) and their Barrovian equivalent (in italics), and examples of use in a sentence or phrase (in parentheses). * I - ''a'' (a went out last night) * Anything - ''aught/owt'' * Barrow - ''Barra'' * Clothes - ''clobber'' * Drunk - ''ratted, off your head (off yer’ead), recked'' * Going on a trip or walk - ''going on a bod'' * Hello - ''iya'' * Him/Her - ''im/er'' * Here you go - ''eer yare'' * How are you - ''Ow are ya (owar-y)'' or ''(y')oriʔe'' or ''oreeʔ'' * Later - ''after'' * Me - ''us'' (leave us alone) * Moody - ''mardy'' * Mother - ''mam'' * Nothing - ''nowt'' * Playing truant - ''jigging'' * Saw - ''sin'' (I sin her yesterday in town) * Something - ''summat'' * Trousers - ''kecks, pants'' * Unfair - ''tight'' * Where are you? - ''where y'aʔ?'' * Where are you going? - ''where y'off?'' * We - ''us (us two)'' * Up to no good - ''Shithouse'' * You (plural) - ''Youse / yous'' referring to a group of people

Barrovian as a demonym

'Barrovian' is also used to refer to an individual hailing from Barrow. For some the term has become

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

ous with local football team Barrow A.F.C. The term 'Old Barrovian' was used in the 20th century to refer to alumni of the Barrow Boy and Girl Grammar Schools,oldbarrovians.org/ which through a complicated history has become Furness Academy.

Recognition

Outside of

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of 7,4 ...

, Barrovian is relatively unknown in comparison to more widespread dialects. A poll conducted by Travelodge in 2014 resulted in Barrovian being placed sixth 'least favourite' of regional accents in the UK behind

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, Brummie,

Cockney Cockney is a dialect of the English language, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by Londoners with working-class and lower middle class roots. The term ''Cockney'' is also used as a demonym for a person from the East End, ...

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

and

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally, ''upland'' refers to a range of hills, typically from up to , while ''highland'' is usually reserved for range ...

respectively.

Notable speakers

References

{{English dialects by continent Barrow-in-Furness British English English language in England