When I was a kid growing up in York, I had no concept of 'dialect' as such. The way you talked and the words you used were simply part of your everyday existence. Even as an adult, I never really thought about why a Yorkshire dialect and accent is like it is. It sounds strange now, but I never even considered that in some parts of the country people wouldn't understand certain words from the Yorkshire dialect. I suppose that's because your dialect is so deeply engrained within you, that it's not often a thing you actively consider.

All that changed for me one evening when I was watching a documentary on the English language, written and presented if memory serves me correctly by a Canadian professor. My entire view on the subject of the Yorkshire dialect was changed in a matter of seconds. What the presenter did was simple, but wonderfully effective. He demonstrated the deep connections between the Yorkshire dialect and old Norse by showing a film of two farmers from Pocklington near York talking, and then suddenly cutting to two men speaking old Norse! It was incredible, a real jaw-dropper! As I said in the introduction, this encouraged me to do some research. I knew a little about Jorvik of course, it was practically impossible to live in York and not to, but it all seemed so distant, so detached from my life in the 20th Century. That changed when I heard two guys who lived just a few miles down the road sound eerily similar to those long-dead inhabitants of Jorvik.

So now, because of the way the Yorkshire dialect has it's roots in Old Norse I had begun to understand the very strong links between Yorkshire and Scandinavia. That understanding would be enhanced in 1996, after I met my future wife, Charlotta. She is Swedish, and once it became obvious that we were a permanent item, it seemed logical that I should learn a bit of Swedish if I could! Learning a Nordic tongue is an enlightening experience for a Yorkshireman!! Every day I was making new discoveries about Yorkshire's links to Scandinavia, through the medium of language. I was finding out why Yorkshire folk might greet each other by saying "Ayup" ("se upp" - literally "look up" or "watch out"), why counting was referred to as "reckoning up", and why a person's mouth is their "cake-hole" - nothing to do with the foodstuff "cake", rather "käke", or "jaw".

Sure, you might have read about the Danelaw, and how Yorkshire was at the heart of a Scandinavian kingdom in England, but I really began to understand the impact of those events when I could look at a map of Yorkshire and for the first time begin to pick out the literally hundreds of place names with a Norse root, all those places ending in 'by', 'thorpe' or 'holm', all the fosses, dales, fells and gills. Years later I was to see a Swedish friend do exactly the same with a look of incredulity on his face!! Sometimes the meanings of the words themselves have a deeper significance, take the word "riding" for example. From the Old Norse for a third part, it tells the story of how the Vikings split the land into three distinct administrative districts, to make the job of running the place easier. Those same ancient districts were still in place, right up until local government re-organisation in 1974!

This ancient linguistic link has popped up in the weirdest of situations. One afternoon when we were still living in York, we were enjoying a quiet pint in the back room of our favourite pub, the Anglers Arms, in Goodramgate. A family of Norwegians came in, and sat opposite us, totally unaware that Charlotta could understand every word they said! They sat there, with a look of almost rapture on their faces, quietly talking amongst themselves about the music of the York accent, and how close it sounded to their own.

One evening, after we had moved to Göteborg, I was in the kitchen doing the dishes when I heard what I thought to be the Yorkshire based soap opera "Emmerdale" on the TV. It was in fact the Danish drama series "Matador". I remember once listening to a speech at the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony, and being struck by how very similar a Norwegian accent was to an East Yorkshire accent. I have a Danish acquaintance, and when he speaks English, we sound near enough identical! A similar thing happened to Charlotta when we lived in York - people simply did not believe she was Swedish as her York accent was so strong. So strong, in fact, that some people could actually tell which part of York we lived in. On more than one occasion she had to produce a few sentences in Swedish to prove her nationality, but even then some folk still believed she was a York lass with a wicked sense of humour! After she began working in Brussels, all the Brits were struck by the strength of her Yorkshire accent, and in those first few months she had to work really hard at moderating it when speaking to some of her non-British colleagues, as they had real difficulties in following what she was saying!

You are always aware in Britain of how regional accents vary, and in particular how some people from the South East of England tend to look down on regional accents - BBC TV's Teletext pages are constantly printing letters from some irate southerner or other bemoaning the presence of regional accents on national TV. Once in York a new manager at my place of work who came from the south flew into a rage because he couldn't "...understand this stupid bloody Northern accent"! Once I tended to be rather defensive about my dialect, and even attempted to moderate it when in the presence of a southerner. Nowadays I am very proud, defiantly so at times, of the way I speak - it is a beautiful, vibrant, colourful, living link with my past.

We often wonder how all this is going to effect the accent our daughter has! Another Swedish friend summed it up quite succinctly when he said that she was going to have either a very new accent or a very old one!

For more information on the extent of the influence of Old Norse on the Yorkshire Dialect, see the links section.