Do you know what these words mean? List of Northumbrian words ahead of the launch of A Northumbrian Wordhoard

Ahead of the event in Morpeth Town Hall (1pm start), which will include Wansbeck MP Ian Lavery helping to launch A Northumbrian Wordhoard by reading a poem in dialect written by Raymond Reed of Ashington, the society has given us a taster of what to expect.

Here are some words that are included. See further below for the translations to give you the opportunity of testing yourself.

ax, bullets, fettle, fligarishon, gadgy, marra, muckle, palatic, sark, spelk, whaat cheor?

Society chairman John Davidson said: “The counties of Northumberland and Durham have a rich variety of dialects ranging from the gentle Northumbrian ‘burr’ to the harsh and often humorous vocabulary of the ‘pitmatic’ used in mining communities.

“Sadly, many dialects fall by the wayside as speech becomes more standardised and we believe it’s important that a working knowledge of Northumbrian is kept up and that’s why we have published the dictionary.”

The dictionary costs £10 and can be bought at a number of independent bookshops or online at https://northumbrianlanguagesociety.co.uk/shop

Translations

ax - ask : “Aah axed him whaat ee waas deein”

bullets - sweets : “Mam, can Aah hev sum bullets?”

fettle - make, sort out, health : “Hoo’s yor fettle thi day?

fligarishon - celebration : “Yon disarves a reet fligarishon”

gadgy - old man, any man : “Ee’s a reet radgy gadgy, him”

marra - friend : “Hey, marra, lend is a tenner will yuh?”

muckle - big, great, enormous : “Let’s hev a muckle fligarishon!”

palatic - completely drunk : “Tom waas palatic agyen last Satda”

sark - shirt : “Ee’s wearin ees Sunda sark, an all”

spelk - splinter, weak child : “Mam! Aah’s got a spelk in me finga”

whaat cheor? - how are you? : “Whaat cheor thi day, hinny?”