Traditional Dialect of Huntingdonshire

British English accents and dialects are divided, very basically, into three types: 1. Scots, 2. Northern English and 3. Southern English. Their features can be illustrated by three words - bath, mouth and month.

	bath	mouth	month
Standard English	bahth (ah as a in lager)	mowth(ow as in crown)	munnth (u as in Kentucky)
Scots	bath (a as in can)	mooth	munnth
Northern English	bath	mowth	munth (u as in pull)
Southern English	bahth	mowth	munnth

The "Survey Of English Dialects", which was carried out between 1950 and 1961, was so precise that it is possible to locate dialect boundaries to within a few miles. For example, the Huntingdonshire dialect was a southern dialect. The adjacent Northamptonshire dialect had northern and southern features, while just a few miles up the road the Rutland dialect was northern. This can be illustrated by the pronunciation of the words "some grass" in the three villages Empingham, Warmington and Kimbolton (a town actually) which are on a north - south line. Warmington is 14 miles / 23 kilometres north of Kimbolton and Empingham is 11 miles / 18 km. north of Warmington.

Empingham, Rutland	"sum grass" (u as in "full", a as in "ash")
11 miles, 18km.
Warmington, Northamptonshire	"sum grahs"
14 miles, 23km.
Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire	"summ grahs"

1.	brudhdha	brother	1.	1.
2.	sista	sister	2.	2.
3.	sunn	son	3.	3.
4.	daw-ta	daughter	4.	4.
5.	fahdha	father		5.
6.	mudhdha	mother	1.	6.
			2.	7.
1.	spring	spring	3.
2.	summa	summer	4.	1.	I am	I am

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