Editing Mackem (section)

==Characteristics==
There has been very little academic work done on the Sunderland dialect.  It was a site in the early research by [[Alexander John Ellis]], who also recorded a local song called ''Spottee''.<ref name=Ellis/> Ellis regarded Sunderland as speaking a variant of the North Durham dialect, which it shared with much of the [[Durham Coalfield]]. He considered Sunderland to be situated near a dialectal boundary. The nearby village of [[Ryhope]] and a narrow coastal strip running south, which at the time had not yet been incorporated into the coalfield, were placed within the South Durham dialectal region. This region also included the dialects of [[Weardale]] and [[Teesdale]].<ref name="Ellis">page 39 of ''On Early English Pronunciation, Part V. The existing phonology of English dialects compared with that of West Saxon speech'', A.J. Ellis, Truebner & Co, London, 1889 [https://archive.today/20130802041836/http://www.openlibrary.org/details/onearlyenglishpr00elliuoft]</ref> Ellis also noted the influence on Sunderland speech from migrants to the area from Ireland and Scotland.<ref>page 640 of ''On Early English Pronunciation, Part V. The existing phonology of English dialects compared with that of West Saxon speech'', A.J. Ellis, Truebner & Co, London, 1889 [https://archive.today/20130802041836/http://www.openlibrary.org/details/onearlyenglishpr00elliuoft]</ref> 

{{Quote|
Come all ye good people and listen to me,<br>
And a comical tale I will tell unto ye,<br>
Belanging yon Spottee that lived on the Law Quay,<br>
That had nowther house nor harbour he.<br>
The poor auld wives o’ the north side disn’t knaw what for te de,<br>
For they dare not come to see their husbands when they come to the Quay;<br>
They’re feared o’ their sel’s, and their infants, tee,<br>
For this roguish fellow they call Spottee.<br>
But now he’s gane away unto the sea-side,<br>
Where mony a ane wishes he may be weshed away wi’ the tide,<br>
For if Floutter’s flood come, as it us’d for te de,<br>
It will drive his heart out then where will his midred be?|An excerpt of the song Spottee from [[The Bishoprick Garland]]. The song includes features considered archaic in the modern dialect.}}

In the [[Survey of English Dialects]], the nearby town of [[Washington, Tyne and Wear|Washington]] was surveyed.  The researcher of the site, [[Stanley Ellis (linguist)|Stanley Ellis]], later worked with police on analysing the speech in a tape sent to the police during the [[Yorkshire Ripper]] investigation, which became known as the [[Wearside Jack]] tape because the police switched their investigation to Wearside after Ellis's analysis of the tape.<ref name=Guardian>Jack Windsor Lewis, [https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/nov/13/stanley-ellis-obituary Obituary: Stanley Ellis], ''The Guardian'', 13 November 2009</ref>

To people outside the region, the differences between Mackem and Geordie dialects often seem marginal, but there are many notable differences.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects|title=Accents & dialects|website=British Library|access-date=31 May 2015 }}</ref> A perceptual dialect study by the [[University of Sunderland]] found that locals of the region consider Geordie and Mackem to be separate dialects and identify numerous lexical, grammatical, and phonetic differences between the two.{{sfnp|Pearce|2012}} In fact, Mackem is considered to be more closely related to Durham dialects than to those of Tyneside.<ref name="Beal"/> There are even a small but noticeable differences in pronunciation and grammar between the dialects of North and South Sunderland (for example, the word ''something'' in North Sunderland is often ''summik'' whereas a South Sunderland speaker may often prefer ''summat'' and people from the surrounding areas prefer ''summit'').{{CN|date=October 2021}}