Paul333: excellent posts. The following is a question about some family research I’m doing . . . As a northern speaker, how do you pronounce the name of the town of Heysham, in Lancashire?
looking at the writing I would say Haeshem, the ae would sound like a drawn out/long A.
its hard to put sounds into words but thats the nearest I could get to how I would describe how It sounds would be Haes Hame. Hey would sound more closer to Hae/Haay/hay, Heys could be interpreted as Haes, therefore it could be 'Haes' 'hame/yame'. possible home of a man called Haes, even a shortening of Heastein/Hastein a possible viking surname, which would fit lancashire.
My dialect is from an ancient area of Northumbria, Eastern County Durham, know known as 'Mackem', by those North of us, and 'Yakker' by those South of us. Another description is Pitmatic, related to the coal mining . Locally it can even be subdivided to specific area,s as was the case during the not too distant 'Jack the Ripper hoax', which identified a part of our accent, down to a very small area in Sunderland. ( re - Wearside Jack 1978/9 )
Regarding Accents. There is a very distinct break and remarkable difference of dialects in my area which could be due to an ancient viking division of lands here in 918AD. In a matter of a Mile or So the accents are completely different, and relate from the very area of that division. This is partly believed to of been through Olaf Ball ( Onlafball )a Viking who divided the area between Olaf ( possibly Guthfrithson )and Scula in AD 918. The difference is very marked from this ancient boundry of the Castle Eden Dene, Beck. Olaf the North to the river Wear, and Scula the south to the river Tees.
It is very important, to hear the local accents and dialects spoken, if you really want, or need to understand English, as it is within these Local dialects and speech, that still retains its oldest Germanic forms.
England has many different counties, each with very different dialects, and within each of these counties, there are many localised differences. Standard Educating English, in other words 'Newspaper English', is miles away, and very distant from Local English, much of which still today you can hear its original Germanic root, dialects, and accents.
If you type in Google 'Death of a dialect, Raymond Reed', and you can hear some old Northumbrian,but even he has to talk slowly and different in order to record it, if he spoke normal it would be quick and very different but it gives you an idea, especially about the long 'A' sound. He really starts about 5.40, but if you compare it against Standard English you will see where our accent came from.