Editing Yorkshire dialect (section)

== Geographic distribution ==
Yorkshire covers a large area, and the dialect is not the same in all areas. In fact, the dialects of the North and East Ridings are fairly different from that of the West Riding, as they display only Northumbrian characteristics rather than the mixture of Northumbrian & Mercian features found in the West Riding.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Yorkshire Dialect Society |title=Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society |date=1992 |edition=Volume 18, Part 92}}</ref> The Yorkshire Dialect Society draws a border roughly at the [[River Wharfe]] between two main zones. The area southwest of the river has been influenced by Mercian, originating from the [[East Midlands English|East Midlands dialects]] during the industrial revolution, whilst that to the northeast, like [[Geordie]], the [[Cumbrian dialect]] and the [[Scots language]], is descended more purely from the [[Northumbrian (Old English)|Northumbrian]] dialect. The distinction was first made by [[Alexander John Ellis|A.&nbsp;J. Ellis]] in ''On Early English Pronunciation''.<ref group="notes">Ellis also identified a third area around Craven, Ribblesdale, upper Wensleydale and Swaledale as part of his "West Northern" area (numbered Area 31), alongside almost all of Cumbria as well as north Lancashire and south Durham. In the tradition of the Yorkshire Dialect Society, this area is usually grouped with the North Riding dialect.</ref> The division was approved of by [[Joseph Wright (linguist)|Joseph Wright]], the founder of the Yorkshire Dialect Society and the author of the ''[[English Dialect Dictionary]]''. Investigations at village level by the dialect analysts Stead (1906), Sheard (1945) and Rohrer (1950) mapped a border between the two areas.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.yorkshiredialect.com/Border%20text.htm|title=The Yorkshire Dialect Border|access-date=17 May 2012|archive-date=26 February 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180226165051/http://www.yorkshiredialect.com/Border%20text.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> A rough border between the two areas was mapped by the Swiss linguist Fritz Rohrer, having undertaken village-based research in areas indicated by previous statements by Richard Stead and J.A. Sheard, although there were "buffer areas" in which a mixed dialect was used, such as a large area between [[Leeds]] and [[Ripon]], and also at [[Whitgift, East Riding of Yorkshire|Whitgift]], near [[Goole]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Rohrer|first=Fritz|year=1950|title=The border between the northern and north-midland dialects in Yorkshire|journal=Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society|volume=VIII|issue=I}}</ref>

One report explains the geographic difference in detail:<ref name="Yorkshire dialect an explanation">{{cite web |title=Yorkshire dialect - an explanation |url=https://www.yorkshiredialectsociety.org.uk/yorkshire-dialect-explanation/ |access-date=14 April 2023 |website=Yorkshire Dialect Society |archive-date=9 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709184536/https://www.yorkshiredialectsociety.org.uk/yorkshire-dialect-explanation/ |url-status=live }}</ref><blockquote>This distinction was first recognised formally at the turn of the 19th / 20th centuries, when linguists drew an isophone diagonally across the county from the northwest to the southeast, separating these two broadly distinguishable ways of speaking. It can be extended westwards through Lancashire to the estuary of the River Lune, and is sometimes called the [[Humber-Lune Line]]. Strictly speaking, the dialects spoken south and west of this isophone are Midland dialects, whereas the dialects spoken north and east of it are truly Northern. It is likely that the Midland influence came up into the region with people migrating towards the manufacturing districts of the West Riding during the Industrial Revolution.</blockquote>

Over time, speech has become closer to [[Standard English]] and some of the features that once distinguished one town from another have disappeared. In 1945, J. A. Sheard predicted that various influences "will probably result in the production of a standard West Riding dialect", and [[K. M. Petyt]] found in 1985 that "such a situation is at least very nearly in existence".{{sfnp|Petyt|1985|p=327}}