Just needed to be heard for a little while

seven-day-weekend

Pyxis wrote: »

Golter-yeded gawpsheet!
Love it! Unfortunately, the meaning seems to have been lost.

Shakespeare allegedly spoke a dialect similar to Gornalese, a type of Black Country dialect now only spoken around Dudley.

'Yed' is Gornalese for head, so 'yeded' might be 'headed'. To 'Gawp' is to stare intrusively, have a good look,visual eavesdropping, so gawpsheet might be something to do with that (or like the Scouse 'Gob$hiTe!' !!:eek:). Not a clue what 'Golter might be

So. maybe he is calling them a Golter-headed person who is visually eavesdropping at something not their business. ('Wot yow a-gawpin' at?').

Hope this helps. Probably not!

(ETA: just realised it is Chaucer we are talking about. So my theories are all in vain.......:) ).

I'll get me coat.

Waves_and_Smiles

That makes sense, SDW! A lot of the language from then has filtered down to us in various new forms so I always started by searching for similar words today and then researching backwards. Sometimes it works!

lostinrates

I just love reading it out loud.

And things like Beowulf.

Pyxis

Tee-hee! :rotfl:

Just imagining Juliet calling 'Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo', in a brummie accent!

Waves_and_Smiles

I adore Beowulf! I have always been fascinated in the origins of language, the further back the more I enjoy it. I was the embarrassing child at school who when we started studying Chaucer asked the teacher for extra homework because it totally inspired me. It did me no favours with the other children but it wasn't work to me, I absolutely loved learning it.

A few years ago I decided to include a individualised poem written in medieval-style english in all of my Christmas cards. I was tearing my hair out slightly by the fourth one but it made them very different and also fun for people (I hope) who received them to then have to look up what they meant. Fortunately I only had to write 7 or I may have become slightly hysterical.

Hahahahaha, now I am imagining that, too Pyxis!

lostinrates

Pyxis wrote: »

Tee-hee! :rotfl:

Just imagining Juliet calling 'Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo', in a brummie accent!

Iirc correctly a generalised English accent of the time would have been more like an American accent ( struggling......my memory really is suffering) maybe Midwestern?

Anyway, its to do with movement of peoples and purity of accent / protection from later development here.

seven-day-weekend

'Rowmeo, Rowmeow, wher'm yow at, Romeow?'

(This is Gornalese, not Brummie, they are different

Pyxis

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

'Rowmeo, Rowmeow, wher'm yow at, Romeow?'

(This is Gornalese, not Brummie, they are different

That's interesting! I'd never heard of Gornalese!

seven-day-weekend

Pyxis wrote: »

That's interesting! I'd never heard of Gornalese!

Probably because Gornal is only a working-class suburb of Dudley . Surprisingly they have kept their unique dialect, it is spoken in patches around the Black Country. (I think Gornalese is a word I have made up, though!).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gornal,_West_Midlands

From Wikipedia:

The Black Country has no agreed borders[4] but to traditionalists is defined as "the area where the coal seam comes to the surface - so West Bromwich, Oldbury, Blackheath, Cradley Heath, Old Hill, Bilston, Dudley, Tipton, Wednesfield and parts of Halesowen, Wednesbury and Walsall but not Wolverhampton, Stourbridge and Smethwick or what used to be known as Warley."[5] Today it is described by the government as most of the four Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton[5] although it is said that "no two Black Country men or women will agree on where it starts or ends."[4] It does not include Birmingham[citation need


And some jokes in Gornalese:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blackcountry/features/2002/12/accents/black_country_jokes.shtml

So there you are. Everything you didn't know about the Black Country!

iris

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Probably because Gornal is only a working-class suburb of Dudley . Surprisingly they have kept their unique dialect, it is spoken in patches around the Black Country. (I think Gornalese is a word I have made up, though!).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gornal,_West_Midlands

From Wikipedia:

The Black Country has no agreed borders[4] but to traditionalists is defined as "the area where the coal seam comes to the surface - so West Bromwich, Oldbury, Blackheath, Cradley Heath, Old Hill, Bilston, Dudley, Tipton, Wednesfield and parts of Halesowen, Wednesbury and Walsall but not Wolverhampton, Stourbridge and Smethwick or what used to be known as Warley."[5] Today it is described by the government as most of the four Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton[5] although it is said that "no two Black Country men or women will agree on where it starts or ends."[4] It does not include Birmingham[citation need


And some jokes in Gornalese:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blackcountry/features/2002/12/accents/black_country_jokes.shtml

So there you are. Everything you didn't know about the Black Country!

My husband comes from Gornal (where they put the pig on the wall to watch the band go by:rotfl:). He says he has never heard of Gornalese.