Gower dialect
Encyclopedia
The Gower Peninsula
on the south Wales coast was Normanised/Anglicised relatively early after the Norman conquest of England
. Relatively cut off from the Welsh hinterland, but with coastal links across south Wales and the West Country, the region developed a distinct English dialect
which endured to within living memory.
.
A few of the Gower words seem to derive from the Welsh language
(eg 'pentan'), but many more of the words and usages are cognate with English country dialects including those of South Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire.
Back - iron plate , part of a dredge
Beader/bidder - person appointed to summon guests to a Gower wedding
Bellamine - unglazed brown earthenware pitcher
Bett - prepared turf used for hedging
Blonkers - sparks
Bossey - a calf still running with its mother
Bubback - scarecrow ; dull person
Bumbagus - the bittern (cf Welsh aderyn y bwn)
Butt - a small cart
Caffle - tangle
Carthen - winnowing sheet
Casn't - cannot
Cassaddle - harness piece for a draught horse
Cavey - humble
Charnel - box-like space above the fireplace, often used for hanging bacon
Clavvy/ Clevvy - large oak beam supporting the inner wall of a chimney
Clever - fine (adj)
Cliffage - tithe on quarried lime stone, payable to the Lord of the Manor
Cloam - earthenware
Cratch - haystack
Culm - small coal used in lime-burning
Cust - could
Cuzzening - coaxing
Dab - a large stone used in playing duckstone
Deal - a litter (of pigs)
Dobbin - large mug
Dowset - Gower dish, similar to whitepot
Drangway - narrow lane or alleyway
Drashel - a flail
Dree - three
Dreppance - three pence
Drow - throw
Dryth - dryness
Dumbledarry - cockchafer
Evil - a three pronged dung-fork
Frawst / froist - a dainty meal; frightened/astonished
Gake - yawn
Galeeny - guinea-fowl
Gambo - a cart; wagon
Glaster - buttermilk in the churn
Gloice - a sharp pang of pain
Gurgins coarse flour - coarse flour
Gwain - going
Hambrack/hamrach - a straw horse-collar (cf rach)
Herring-gutted - lean, skinny
Holmes - holly
Inklemaker - busy person
Ipson - the quantity that can be held in a pair of cupped hands
Ite - yet
Jalap - liniment; laxative tonic
Jorum - large helpingof tea or beer
Keek - to peep
Keelage - foreshore berthing fee due to the Lord of the Manor
Keeve - large barrel or vat
Kerning - ripening; turning sour
Kersey - cloth woven from fine wool
Kittlebegs / kittybags - gaiters
Kyling - sea fishing
Lake - small stream or brook
Lancher / lansher - greensward between holdings in a common field or viel
Leery - empty
Lello - a fool; a carefree lad
Makth - makes
Mapsant - local saint’s feast day celebrations
Mawn - large wicker basket for animal feed
Melted - broken up, disintegrated
Mort - pigfat; lard
Mucka - a rickyard
Neargar, fargar - nearer, farther
Nestletrip / nesseltrip - smallest pig in a litter
Nice - fastidious
Nipparty / Noppit - perky
Nummit / nommit - a simple lunch , eg of bread and soul, as might be sent to harvesters in the field
Oakey - greased
Oakwib - cockchafer
Owlers - wool smugglers
Pentan - hob (from Welsh 'pen' - head or top, 'tan' - fire)
Pill - stream
Pilmy - dusty
Planche - to make a board floor (cf French plancher)
Purty - to turn sulky
Quapp - to throb
Quat - to press or flatten
Raal - real
Rach - the last sheaf of corn to be harvested
Reremouse - the bat (animal)
Resiant - resident, particulazrly a person resident in the area but not having a feudal tenancy
Riff - short wooden stick for sharpening a scythe
Rining - mooching; scrounging
Rying - fishing
Scrabble - to gather up objects hastily
Shoat - a small wheaten loaf
Shrid - to trim a hedge
Slade - land sloping towards the sea
Soul - cheese or butter, as eaten with bread
Spleet - (1) a knitting needle (2) a quarryman’s bar
Starved - perished with cold
Stiping - hobbling a sheep by tying its head to its foreleg with a band of straw
Tacker - a youngster
Tite - to overturn
Towser - a rough apron
Uddent - wouldn’t
Umman - woman
Vair - a stoat or weasel
Vather - father
Vella - fellow
Viel/Vile - a field. The name is still used to describe a commonly managed field at Rhossili on Gower, which is farmed in a mediaeval strip field arrangement
Vitte - clever or smart
Vorrit - forehead
V'rall - for all
Vurriner - foreigner
Want - a mole (animal)
Weest - dismal
Whirret - a slap
Whitepot - a Gower delicacy of flour, milk & currants baked (cf Devon whitepot, a sort of bread-&-butter pudding)
Wimbling - winnowing
Witches - moths
Yau - ewe
Zig - urine
Zive - scythe
Zongals/songals - corn gleanings
Zul/sul - a plough
Zz'thee knaw - do you know
Gower Peninsula
Gower or the Gower Peninsula is a peninsula in south Wales, jutting from the coast into the Bristol Channel, and administratively part of the City and County of Swansea. Locally it is known as "Gower"...
on the south Wales coast was Normanised/Anglicised relatively early after the Norman conquest of England
Norman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
. Relatively cut off from the Welsh hinterland, but with coastal links across south Wales and the West Country, the region developed a distinct English dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
which endured to within living memory.
Not quite a language
Peninsular Gower was geographically insulated from ‘mainland’ modern language influences until well into the twentieth century. A number of words and proninciations were recorded during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as distinct usages in Gower - many of which might once have been widespread but which had fallen out of use in the developing standard EnglishStandard English
Standard English refers to whatever form of the English language is accepted as a national norm in an Anglophone country...
.
A few of the Gower words seem to derive from the Welsh language
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
(eg 'pentan'), but many more of the words and usages are cognate with English country dialects including those of South Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire.
A glossary of some Gower words
Angletouch - a wormBack - iron plate , part of a dredge
Beader/bidder - person appointed to summon guests to a Gower wedding
Bellamine - unglazed brown earthenware pitcher
Bett - prepared turf used for hedging
Blonkers - sparks
Bossey - a calf still running with its mother
Bubback - scarecrow ; dull person
Bumbagus - the bittern (cf Welsh aderyn y bwn)
Butt - a small cart
Caffle - tangle
Carthen - winnowing sheet
Casn't - cannot
Cassaddle - harness piece for a draught horse
Cavey - humble
Charnel - box-like space above the fireplace, often used for hanging bacon
Clavvy/ Clevvy - large oak beam supporting the inner wall of a chimney
Clever - fine (adj)
Cliffage - tithe on quarried lime stone, payable to the Lord of the Manor
Cloam - earthenware
Cratch - haystack
Culm - small coal used in lime-burning
Cust - could
Cuzzening - coaxing
Dab - a large stone used in playing duckstone
Deal - a litter (of pigs)
Dobbin - large mug
Dowset - Gower dish, similar to whitepot
Drangway - narrow lane or alleyway
Drashel - a flail
Dree - three
Dreppance - three pence
Drow - throw
Dryth - dryness
Dumbledarry - cockchafer
Evil - a three pronged dung-fork
Frawst / froist - a dainty meal; frightened/astonished
Gake - yawn
Galeeny - guinea-fowl
Gambo - a cart; wagon
Glaster - buttermilk in the churn
Gloice - a sharp pang of pain
Gurgins coarse flour - coarse flour
Gwain - going
Hambrack/hamrach - a straw horse-collar (cf rach)
Herring-gutted - lean, skinny
Holmes - holly
Inklemaker - busy person
Ipson - the quantity that can be held in a pair of cupped hands
Ite - yet
Jalap - liniment; laxative tonic
Jorum - large helpingof tea or beer
Keek - to peep
Keelage - foreshore berthing fee due to the Lord of the Manor
Keeve - large barrel or vat
Kerning - ripening; turning sour
Kersey - cloth woven from fine wool
Kittlebegs / kittybags - gaiters
Kyling - sea fishing
Lake - small stream or brook
Lancher / lansher - greensward between holdings in a common field or viel
Leery - empty
Lello - a fool; a carefree lad
Makth - makes
Mapsant - local saint’s feast day celebrations
Mawn - large wicker basket for animal feed
Melted - broken up, disintegrated
Mort - pigfat; lard
Mucka - a rickyard
Neargar, fargar - nearer, farther
Nestletrip / nesseltrip - smallest pig in a litter
Nice - fastidious
Nipparty / Noppit - perky
Nummit / nommit - a simple lunch , eg of bread and soul, as might be sent to harvesters in the field
Oakey - greased
Oakwib - cockchafer
Owlers - wool smugglers
Pentan - hob (from Welsh 'pen' - head or top, 'tan' - fire)
Pill - stream
Pilmy - dusty
Planche - to make a board floor (cf French plancher)
Purty - to turn sulky
Quapp - to throb
Quat - to press or flatten
Raal - real
Rach - the last sheaf of corn to be harvested
Reremouse - the bat (animal)
Resiant - resident, particulazrly a person resident in the area but not having a feudal tenancy
Riff - short wooden stick for sharpening a scythe
Rining - mooching; scrounging
Rying - fishing
Scrabble - to gather up objects hastily
Shoat - a small wheaten loaf
Shrid - to trim a hedge
Slade - land sloping towards the sea
Soul - cheese or butter, as eaten with bread
Spleet - (1) a knitting needle (2) a quarryman’s bar
Starved - perished with cold
Stiping - hobbling a sheep by tying its head to its foreleg with a band of straw
Tacker - a youngster
Tite - to overturn
Towser - a rough apron
Uddent - wouldn’t
Umman - woman
Vair - a stoat or weasel
Vather - father
Vella - fellow
Viel/Vile - a field. The name is still used to describe a commonly managed field at Rhossili on Gower, which is farmed in a mediaeval strip field arrangement
Vitte - clever or smart
Vorrit - forehead
V'rall - for all
Vurriner - foreigner
Want - a mole (animal)
Weest - dismal
Whirret - a slap
Whitepot - a Gower delicacy of flour, milk & currants baked (cf Devon whitepot, a sort of bread-&-butter pudding)
Wimbling - winnowing
Witches - moths
Yau - ewe
Zig - urine
Zive - scythe
Zongals/songals - corn gleanings
Zul/sul - a plough
Zz'thee knaw - do you know
Further reading
- The Revd J Collins - A List of Words from the Gower Dialect of Glamorganshire — Transactions of the Philological Society 1848-1849 & 1849-50 (London 1850)
- Horatio Tucker - Gower Gleanings (Gower Society 1951) and miscellaneous articles in GowerGower (magazine)Gower is an annual magazine containing articles, photographs and news relating to the archaeology, history, natural history and landscape of the Gower Peninsula. It was first published in 1948 and continues. It is published by the Gower Society....
- the journal of the Gower SocietyGower SocietyThe Gower Society was founded in 1947 to promote the understanding and protection of the local landscape of Swansea. The society is a registered charity and it arranges lectures, visits and other events and publishes its journal, Gower.... - Robert Penhallurick - Gowerland and its language (Peter Lang,1994)