Northumbrian dialect

Northumbrian dialect
Native to	England
Region	Northumberland and Durham (Northumbria)
Ethnicity	English
Native speakers	At max ~307k (2001)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Ingvaeonic Anglo-Frisian Anglic Northumbrian dialect
Early forms	Old English Middle English Early Modern English
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	nort3300
Location of the historic counties of Northumberland and Durham in England
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Northumbrian dialect refers to any one of several traditional English dialects spoken in the historic counties of Northumberland and County Durham. The term 'Northumbrian' can refer to the region of Northumbria but can also refer specifically to the county of Northumberland.^[2] This article focuses on the former definition and thus includes varieties from throughout the wider region, including Durham as well as Northumberland.

The traditional Northumbrian dialect is the moribund older form of the dialect spoken in the area.^[3] It is closely related to Scots and Cumbrian and shares with them a common origin in Old Northumbrian.^[4]

The traditional dialect has spawned multiple modern varieties, and Northumbrian dialect can also be used to broadly include all of them:

• Geordie, the most famous dialect spoken in the region, largely spoken in Tyneside, centred in Newcastle and Gateshead^[3][5]
• Mackem, a dialect spoken in Wearside, centred on Sunderland
• Smoggie, a dialect spoken in Teesside; an area at the southern tip of region which straddles the border of Yorkshire and County Durham
• Pitmatic or 'Yakka', a group of dialects spoken in mining towns of Northumberland and Durham Coalfield
• Berwick dialect, spoken in Berwick-upon-Tweed, the northernmost town in England
• Northumbrian proper, the only rhotic or variably rhotic dialect left in the region (Northumberland and northwest Durham), nearly extinct, which uses the Northumbrian burr, mostly spoken today only by the oldest rural, male speakers.