Where Does Newcastle's Geordie Dialect Come From? 

I am a Scot who spent the second half of his childhood living in Newcastle. I came away considering myself an adopted Geordie although the accent faded over time when I returned to Scotland. I am now in my seventies and I still call my wife "Pet" and occasionally lapse into the odd colloquialism like, "Hadaway up the wall man". I loved the Geordies, fiercely proud of their heritage and rightly so. Thank you for this video as it brought back many happy memories.

I am an absolute southerner hailing from Kent with an RP accent. Being nearly 90 now I can catch several words used when I was young. Having a kip or going to the local hop. In early 50s I joined the WRAF. Meeting and going to the cinema with a young Geordie fella I had a very hard job understanding him. We walked down the cinema aisle and he stopped to say something like ‘Weel gang long this roow ‘. I was pushed into a seat and it dawned on me - we will go along this row. It took some days but I began to understand him. Funny, he could always understand me. I have been interested in accents and where our English words come from ever since.

A lot of these words exist all across Northumbria, modern northern England. Crack, marra and deek are all common in cumbria. I’d always thought crack came from craic, some leftover of Irish or Celtic in the still predominantly Celtic parts of north west England. Scran is prevalent across Lancashire as well. I guess the north is more closely connected than our rail lines would have you believe

I'm Dutch and have lived as a student in Newcastle a few years in the '90s. It always amused me how I found it easier to understand Geordie than most English students. Your Dutch pronunciation is the best I've ever heard in any video about English language / history / dialects.

I love being a Geordie, cuz I get to just talk like this all the time its great

I'm a Londoner by birth, I remember being at some party when I was young and chatting to this bloke. I was sure he was Danish, so I said something like 'oh what part of Denmark are you from'? He just laughed and said - no he was from Newcastle! So to my ears the accent sounds Scandinavian. My great grandad was a Geordie who married a Dane. My uncle was the only person who had living memory of them and he said his nan talked a weird mix of Danish and broad Geordie - she'd say - 'we's gooin' doon toon flooer' before taking him out shopping with her, as he grew up in Lewisham and Crystal Palace, it must have sounded quite foreign to his ears!LOL 😄

I am from London, have a very typical London accent, and I love the variety we have across our country. I have never understood the idea of looking down on accents, I just can't imagine doing it. I love to hear them around me

Tyneside is quite isolated from the rest of the country and this seems the most likely reason so many older words have survived. I lived on Tyneside and l absolutely love the dialect (not just an accent). Geordies don’t just speak, they sing. They have a habit of raising and lowering the cadence of their speech and usually end sentences on a higher note than they began. And they have all the wonderful words and phrases you never hear anywhere else. The irony is a lot of people try to ‘correct’ their dialect to more standard forms. Geordie is truly a thing of beauty and if l ruled the world I would make the Queen larn hersel how to speak it.

I went to Newcastle with my Danish boss. On the way to the meeting, we passed a park in which there were some kids playing with a ball. One of them shouted 'Hoy the bal'. My Danish boss was amazed as he said, 'that's what we would say in Denmark'.

Well I’m a geordie and apart from being mistaken for Welsh or Scandinavian (when away from home on a fairly regular basis) I was also once mistaken for a German but speaking a heavily accented version of English on a Greek Island! You also get used to saying everything twice, once in your own accent then the slower more English version when it’s obvious what word has been misunderstood. I do think a lot of it stems from how quick we tend to talk so words can sound like one long word rather that the five or so separate ones that you have just said. Throw in (or hoy in) the odd ‘bairn’ or ‘howay’ or ‘yem’ it’s hardly surprising people will struggle. I love all accents and dialects though - find everyone’s more interesting than mine! Love to hear speech/language that sounds different on holiday. Be a poor day when we all sound the same.

As a London born child I grew up in County Durham and struggled for years with my school voice which became 'geordie' and my home environment which was 'London' based. Your film is really great; I watch a lot of scandi drama's and always pick up the 'geordie' words (Gan Yem) and the cadence which often sounds like 'geordie'. You have brought back wonderful memories of school in the '70's in this fantastic part of England.

When on holiday in Croatia we met some danish lads and got talking about Newcastle when telling them some geordie words, I mentioned yem/yhem and they instantly knew it as home. Turns out it's home in modern danish.

I am a True Geordie.I was in Born in the City of Newcastle upon Tyne.It is the Best Accent in the UK.Howay My Lads and Lasses.❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️.

An old man I know says that when he was a child, Norwegian sailors would come into Newcastle and they would talk to the Norwegians in Geordie and the Norwegians would reply and they could understand each other.

I was born in Darlington, but my family had relatives in Newcastle. I remember as a child visiting one of them and thinking he was speaking a totally foreign language. I always found the use of archaic 'thee' and 'thou' to be fascinating. Like being in a time machine.

I always love the similarities between Old English, Old Dutch and Old Norse 🤩🤩🤩 so fascinating

Thank you for clearing up the word etymology of the word 'crack'. The amount of times I've had to tell people it doesn't come from the Irish 'craic' is unbelievable, even from native Northumbrians.

Please do a video on Scots. I recognise many of these words as being fairly common in Scots, sometimes called Lowland Scots or Broad Scots. To take a paragraph out of How the Scots Invented the Modern World Chapter 5 "For most Scots, learning to converse and write in English was as difficult as learning a new language. Mistakes in grammar, as well as accent, would constantly give them away. David Hume conversed in broad Scots all his life, but he always regretted that he never learned to speak English as well as he wrote it. He confessed that he and his fellow Scots were “unhappy in our Accent and Pronunciation.” It was not easy to pronounce night as nite instead of nicht, or say brite instead of bricht. It was hard to remember to say old instead of auld; above instead of aboon; talk instead of crack; a gathering instead of a rockin’; to say “It made me very glad” instead of “It pat me fidgin’ fain” or “I am angry” instead of “I’m a’ in a pelter” and “I have drunk a great deal” instead of “I drang a muckle.”

I'm a mackem. With a very broad accent I also have Welsh and Scots ancestral roots. I spend a fair bit of time in Newcastle aswell and I bloody loved this video. Dialect amazes me and I've always been very proud to have the tongue I do. Even though when I was little my dad used to say 'stop talking slang' when my regional accent began to form - even though he was the mackemest mackem that ever mackemed 😂 anyways. Scottish accents are by far my favourite to listen to ✌🏻 what a class video. Keep on creating x

I’m a Mackem and still use many of these words today. Was just taking to my partner on how strong old Norse dialect is still here up north. Great video I learned a few things.

I grew up in Newcastle & now live in Scotland, the dialects are indeed similar.

I grew up in West and South Yorkshire and lived in Newcastle for four years. All the words you mentioned in the Middle English bit as Geordie apart from Yem are used to this day where I grew up. Chuddy was also used in both areas. I have a bit of cross contamination though as my Great Grandfather came down from County Durham to work in the pits in South Yorkshire.

I’m in northern County Durham, so we get a mixture of mackem and Geordie as well as pitmac. I think you’ve done a cracking job explaining the dialect itself, I think it’s worth pointing out how a lot of these phrases are used interchangeably between the different areas and how some are different. Mak and tak for example being used less in Tyneside than Durham or Sunderland, whereas hoy (throwing something) is pretty universal across the North East.

I lived in Newcastle for 10 years and took the Geordie accents for granted . But only recently started to wonder I nobody else in Britain sounded remotely like the Geordies. Even though I've been away from Newcastle for 30 years people still asks me am I from the North East By the way if you go into a hospital in Newcastle and you hear the word 'norse' don't be confused they are not talking people from Scandinavia but talking about a nurse !

Glaswegian here and yeah I use many of those words every day. Old Norse & Old English are just too good to let go. I don't think we ever will.

I love the distinctive 'tune ' of Geordie, and wonder how old that is, and how it came about.

Great video. As someone from the northeast, I found learning Norwegian to be fairly accessible because of our dialect. Bairn was barn which meant child in Norwegian, and "I'm gan yam" was very similar to "jeg går hjem". We have lots of words still similar to our Scandinavian ancestors.

From Northumberland, born in Newcastle so technically a Geordie. I found this really interesting the origins of words I use on a daily basis. When working in London I’d frequently be asked if I was Welsh. One small correction… The Hoppings is on The Town Moor, not Gateshead.

This is really interesting! My great grandfather’s family was from Newcastle upon Tyne

Greetings from downunder, (near Newcastle-upon-Hunter, actually). Not sure why I clicked on this vid, but thoroughly enjoyed it, and surprised to see many Geordie words I'm familiar with, without previously knowing their origin. Quite a few were commonly used by my late parents despite no Geordie heritage, but maybe explained by distant Scottish ancestry. Others are common in the military, eg kip and scran. In fact, today I learned that scran is a word in its own right, and not an acronym for S**t Cooked [by] Royal Australian Navy!

I’m from Sunderland and this video is the perfect example of why people in London couldn’t understand me, even though I tried to adjust my speech to be better understood 😂 As for Kets, there’s an isle in Asda Hartlepool for kets, but I’ve not seen any other Asda with a kets isle

If you say some old English words with a Scottish or regional English accent you can see how we’ve arrived at the modern pronunciation

"Would you like a piece of cake, or a meringue?" "Yer not wrang hinny, I'd love a piece of cake"

3:17 In Ireland the more traditional way to say old in English is "Auld" pronounced owl-d (like the animal). Irish people will often call a group of older men the "Aul fellas" at least where I'm from

it's crazy that mainland britain is so small, yet we have such a variety of accents. you can travel 10 miles and find ppl speaking completely different. i live in south yorkshire, there are multiple distinct accents here. the town i live is doncaster, yet barnsley next door is a world away linguistically. same for sheffield and rotherham. we're all so close in distance, yet far apart in speech. i imagine it's the same in other parts of the uk. and other countries. fascinating

Watching Geordie Shore as A Dutch middle school boy a lot makes sense and the link with Dutch is very noticeable

When I was a kid, my mum would often say "Stop slarpin in a slap ole" which was a corruption of the word 'clart' and 'clartin' and meaning 'stop playing in the dirt or similar'. Never heard it said anywhere since and I've lived all over the country. We were all from Yorkshire going way back. Our family has it's roots in Scandinavia and also France, but as far as we've been able to research there is no North Eastern influence. I can still remember hearing my maternal grandparents and my great grandmother (102 yrs old in the 1980's when I knew her!) speaking in Yorkshire dialect.

Interesting video! My Lincolnshire aunt always called children Bairns. A hacking cough was a common expression in my southern upbringing as was gyp for a bad pain or persistent ache from a sprain or pulled muscle or rheumatism. my mother from Buckinghamshire would use Clarty to refer to food that was sticky and/or the taste would linger in the mouth. Kip was also common as a sleep or nap. Maybe WW2 caused the spread of some of these words.

Worked away from home many years ago and shared a large house with two Geordie lads. I’m usually very good with accents having lived and worked around the UK including Wales and Ireland ( I’m Scots ) However, one of the lads’ accent was so broad I simply couldn’t make head nor tail of what he was trying to convey. This was where I came across the term ‘ pit-yakkers ’…apparently denoting people who are from ex-coal mining villages around NewCastle/ North east…who have very strong local accents, that even regular Geordies could barely ‘mak oot!’ They’re not exactly Scots and they’re not exactly English….they’re just, you know…Geordies! Britains finest imo.

As an Aussie with ancestral roots in Boernicia, I enjoy imitating the various English accents, I cannot do the Geordie accent. Pity because it has a lively sound. I listen to Morgoth on RU-vid and even he has trouble with some English words.

This is the most I’ve heard your Geordie/North East accent come through. Not just on the actual Geordie words either. Your knowledge is amazing. Another great video.

marra, clarty, are found in the North in general.. l've heard them used in Stoke and Nottinghamshire. There is some cross pollination due to the mining industry. My village had many people from Newcastle and Scotland because of the pit. The Miners Welfare and the working men's club (called the Geordie Club), used to sell Tartan Bitter!

I thought this was fascinating. Really good research and delivered with passion

Excellent presentation, most interesting, especially as I grew up on Tyneside. Keep them coming. 😊

We had the back of Maggie's hand Times were tough in Geordieland We got wor tools and working gear And humped it all from Newcastle to here --- Mark Knopfler

I can't remember you touching on the lovely term of endearment of "pet". Said with love which it would almost always be done, it is a lovely creamy way to be referred to similar to " canny lad" or "canny lass", and of course being "bonny", but I do miss being called pet. If you know its origins I would love to know.

I watched a documentary several years ago about the Gordie dialect. I believe they mentioned several words related to the landscape and several farming terms which were clearly from Old Norse.

Fascinating. Thanks for your hard work !

Dundee accent would be interesting as it's quite unique, love Newcastle by the way , love the city setup on the medieval layout on the hill .cracking place and people.

Fantastic video!!! Love it!! Geordie & scouse are my 2 favourite English accents/dialects. Long may they continue & thrive!!

That was a fascinating video. I’m amazed how many of the words used in the N.E. are also used over in the North West of England. I also speak a bit of Dutch and can now see how many words from the Netherlands have entered Northern English speech. What stunned me the most was the Romany words that have entered our speech, no doubt as they traveled across the country they left us with a plethora of words like, Chav; Gyp etc all of which we still use too. I love learning how words came about and also how to identify where place names come from and again the influence left by the Norsemen. Great work, thank you.

Really interesting video, love seeing our history or anything about our region. Keep it up. Was expecting romanie to be in our dialect but makes sense, we still have alot of them around in the summer. Your right about the migrants to the toon, My 3rd great-grandfather was a Swedish sailor who jumped ship and stayed.

Thanks for the video. Very interesting! As a Geordie, I recognised most of the words but not all. It's fascinating to see how the language developed. Nice one, marra!

Fascinating. Great video Hilbert.

What a great video. I'll definitely watch more thanks

Really enjoyed this! Even with you saying the big Hoppings was in Gateshead when it’s on the Town Moor near Gosforth!

Very interesting. I'm going to go back and reread some of my old issues of The Viz and see if I can make out more of it. lol. But seriously, really good video.

The hoppings is in Newcastle, on the town moor. Great video, is nice to learn something new as well as reassuring to know some of the things I already understood to be accurate.

Thank you. Wonderful presentation!

Thank you for this video , very interesting English is such an interesting mixture of languages which in turn gives us an enormous vocabulary.

Brilliant video. Very interesting

Cool video, I hope you continue and do other regional dialects like West Country & Cockney

It wasn't that long ago I was searching for this exact video 😄 I was always curious about the origins of certain sounds and phrases, now I know

The word scran was used a lot in Preston, Lancashire where I grew up. I've always thought it was just slang but now I know the origin. Also, I have heard hacky, Gyp/Jip a lot as well growing up.

Thanks for this video. I found it soooo interesting as I and my grandfathers from all the way back to 1405 have been traced back to then. Cheers!

Wonderful. Thank you for sharing!

Hilbert back with another BANGER

Loved this mate ,yes I'm a fellow geordie, I inherited the words "as weel" meaning as well, and wey/wei meaning 'with' fom my grandfather he came from gateshead but his parents were from Cumbria, scottish/English great vid.

I'm from Newcastle mesel like. Really enjoyed this video. Thanks for sharing, hinny.

Another informative and interesting presentation Hilbert. Excellent. Will Cumbric Brithonic have had an influence? I visit friends in West Cumbria often. I have come to know the words ''yam'' 'twine', 'clarty' and 'marra', used in every day speech around countryside Workington along the Derwent. My friend usually greets male friends with, 'Allrite marra'. Or would Geordie have had an influence in Cumbria over the centuries. As a Welsh speaker who studied the development of the Welsh language from Brithonic, I understand written Cumbric very well. Two of Wales's earliest poets, Taliesin and Aneurin, hailed from that part of Britain from Strathclyde (Ystradclud) to Leeds (Elfed/Elmet). Thanks again for an excellent lesson, and I look forward to your next presentation.

This video was awesome, I always wondered where these words came from, now I know 🙂

never heard of this dialect before but this is certainly an interesting topic

Thank you .Great video.

Excellent! Really interesting video. I was aware of many of the commonalities between Geordie and Scots, but some of the origins of words - keek, gadgie, barry - were quite a surprise.

Really canny interesting like! Thank you so much for sharing it was most enteraining. Stay safe. ATB. Nigel

RU-vid found the most interesting rabbit hole today! Awesome video

Thank you. I enjoyed that very much. :)

Brilliant, really enjoyed it, thank you ,👍😎🙏

Geordie is as much pitch and rhythm as anything else. My Dad was born and brought up in Walker, so I was well familiar with a Geordie accent - though he had joined the Navy, been all over the World and settled in the Midlands for work, so no doubt somewhat moderated - but when we went back up to Newcastle it always took a couple of days to "get my ear in" with Gran, Uncles and Aunts.

Interesting, thanks for sharing

Fascinating, thank you.

Many similarities to Cumbrian dialect - excellent viewing- thank you 👍

I found this fascinating. Some of the words and origins I knew about . I am a Geordie but although I know the words I dont have a 'thick' accent and although understanding them don use them everyday. |I love learning about accents and were the words originally come from and why. My favourite is Gadgie. Would love more on this topic.

I'm a Geordie living in Valencia. I love going back home and just listening to our beautiful dialect. Some try to put our dialect down: I think it's just envy. Ours is one of the most beautiful areas of the British Isles.

Great video. Another word I'd add is a word my dad used to use which is 'loppy'. If your hair looked dirty he'd say 'you look loppy' meaning you look as though you might have fleas. In later life I learned the Swedish word for a louse was 'loppa'. Are you from Newcastle? I ask this because I did find the video to be rather Newcastle centred, which on the one hand is understandable it being the main urban Geordie area but on the other hand continues a claim to the origins of the word Geordie, which is just not questioned enough. You mention the poem. In fact, I believe this is just about the only written evidence for any link between the word Geordie (a common short form of George in former times) and the Jacobites. Anyway this is just one theory and it is just a theory. Another theory for which there are more written records is a nickname for the miners of Durham and Northumberland. Again this is a theory but one that I personally feel holds more water. My family on both sides are 100% north eastern with my mother's family coming from mining villages across Durham and my father's family from Gateshead and Newcastle. I myself was born in Framwellgate Moor just outside Durham City but grew up in Hebburn. We all called ourselves Geordies and referred to our dialect as Geordie. There were alway slight differences in accent which meant you could tell if somebody was from Durham or Newcastle etc but I don't recall from my childhood in the 1960s and 70s the people of Newcastle being considered more Geordie than us. The links between the name Geordie and just the city of Newcastle has gained traction over more recent years and I believe there is something in the theory that it originated among Newcastle football fans. Similarly the term Mackem only seems to go back to the 1970s and may well have been a reaction to deliberately underline a difference between Sunderland and Newcastle because of local rivalries. Sorry that's a bit long winded but I do feel the term Geordie has been hijacked by Newcastlers on dubious grounds and is not challenged enough. This is also an interesting film on the topic made by Tyneside Life. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-G0TZY5dtM34.htmlsi=pMuimu2owB3GnkyT There is also a fascinating and extensive examination of the north east dialect on the website of the British Library.

Very interesting! Thank you

Aye mate, this was a hell of a watch. Love me accent, wouldnt change it for oot. Wor kidda used to say i didnt sound that geordie when i was a bairn but now its thick af. Loved hearing you speak it though

Thank you, informative

It is a pity my grandfather is no longer with us. He lived 50 years in the South, but his South Shields dialect remained strong, and I often had to ask for a translation. Some of the words I knew, but I could not translate them in my head as fast as he spoke them. I had the same problem with another grandfather, (I come from a complicated family) but he spoke almost totally in Cockney rhyming slang, and I was always 3 or 4 seconds behind the conversation.

Hello thanks for an interesting video on linguistics and the Geordie language. I love the accent and how smooth it sounds. A distinctive sound almost lyrical it was interesting to show where the different types of words origins came from or began. I found it interesting and considered you included words from the Romani language. as an English native born in the South East of England to mixed English and Welsh Romani people (the word Gypsy was given as the theory of being mistaken for Egyptian people due to the foreign language and the colour of their skin (our original country was India 🇮🇳 and there are several theories as to why we left) Just wanted to say like the different regional accents differ around the UK it is the same for Romani too. The word Gadje for instance you pronounced it slightly different than I would have done. Scran is also used but hobben is also a Romani word meaning for food. Chavi /Chavo is a child similar to the Spanish using o for male child and I for a girl child. Our language has had several changes through out history depending on where we sought a place to live. So you will find many words from Sanskrit Hindi Punjabi and interesting that I also use kip for sleep. As I was raised speaking Romani and English I assumed some words were English or old English but they were Romani.. The producer of this video has certainly been working hard on this.. Thanks for sharing.. Kushti bokt (means good luck in Romani)🍀

From the viewpoint of an old Wallsender, you did a canny job. I spent all my working life communicating with non-Geordies and people who spoke English as a second language, so my accent has been diluted up to a point. I guess the dialect changes with time. Some words I used to hear in my youth seem to be seldom heard now but I've been struck by how many words we have in common with Danes and Germans and how the way their languages work reminds me of how my grandma used to speak.

congratulations on reaching 400,000 subs. I remember being here when you had less than 100,000

That was very interesting. I was brought up in Newcastle and have noticed the change in words and accent as you travel through Northumberland, through Berwick into lowland Scotland. How the Northumbrian roll their ‘r’s in the back of the throat to the Scots on the front of the tongue; and the use of ‘Barry’ Bairn in Berwick to ‘Bonny’ Bairn in Scotland. Thank you for taking the time to share 🌞

I'd love to see something similar for the Liverpool dialect. In the video I heard quite a few words that are also common in Liverpool. I grew up in an area with a tributary river, that was then just a stream at the bottom of a deep but clear river bank. Local legend told that the river was once much deeper and wider, and used by the vikings to raid the local area. This was dismissed as myth until viking artefacts were dug up as the land started to be developed. Sadly, its all been built on now and the river diverted. I suspect the local dialect has been influenced in a similar fashion to geordie.

Great video mate! Im originally from Northumberland, now living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and i have seen the deviations in colloquialism from one to the other. Mainly due to the Northumberlands pit towns. A heavier "pit yacker" accent remaining truer for longer.

Talking about traders visiting Newcastle from around the North Sea - I found that I am (my dads from Newcastle) descended of a Dutch man - way back in 17th century, but up near Berwick

It is interesting to me that English Northumbria fought off the Vikings, and with the Vikings taking Yorkshire, old English dialects were separated for a period, until united with England under the kings of Wessex. Because, when I was a kid growing up and england's northernmost county was called Northumberland, and then later in adulthood finding that Northumbria literally means north of the Humber, while Northumberland was miles from the Humber, and also geographically speaking, this territory covered much of modern Lothian in Scotland, and the current England Scotland border at Berwick established quite a while after England was recognised as an entity.

Yes man this was proper mint

Great video thanks. The word that stuck out to me was Chuddy. It's one of those words that's completely obvious to me despite not using it or hearing it for decades. Chuddy was Chuddy in rural East Yorkshire in the 70's !

Very interesting!!