The dialect has existed for centuries and is distinct from standard British English. The works of the 14th century poets; such as, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Gawain poet are written in this dialect. This also includes the religious poem St. Erkenwald, which dates from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. Cheshire author Alan Garner states "Of course has changed, as all living language changes, since the time of the Gawain poet. But when I read sections of the poem aloud to my father, he knew, and used, more than 90% of the vocabulary; and the phonetics of the vowels have scarcely changed." Early references include English proverbs and dialect words collected by John Ray in the 17th century, and a glossary of Cheshire words, compiled by Roger Wilbraham in 1817 and expanded in 1826. These sources were expanded by Egerton Leigh in a glossary published posthumously in 1877, which was an attempt to preserve a way of speech that was already under threat from "emigration, railways, and the blending of shires." Leigh notes that some words collected by Ray had already disappeared. Later reference works include Thomas Darlington's Folk-speech of South Cheshire and Peter Wright's The Cheshire Chatter.
Characteristics and usage
Cheshire dialect contains some words that are distinct from standard English, such as "shippen" for cow shed. According to Leigh, most unique Cheshire words derive from Anglo-Saxon; "shippen" is from scypen. Other words derive from transposition, for example, "waps" for "wasp" and "neam" for "name". The British Library Sound Archive contains recordings of the dialect from various parts of the county. A number of authors have written in Cheshire dialect, including poetry by H. V. Lucas and Rowland Egerton-Warburton, and prose by Beatrice Tunstall.
Phonology
Like most dialects in Northern England and the Midlands, Cheshire English lacks both the trap-bath and foot-strut splits. Words with the bath vowel like castle or past are pronounced with instead of while words with the strut vowel such as cut, up and lunch are pronounced with instead of like in most of Southern England. H-dropping is another feature which occurs in Cheshire English, in which the sound is usually omitted from most words, while NG-coalescence is also absent, with the ng in words like sing or thing being pronounced as instead of just like in most English dialects. Some areas in the north-west of Cheshire such as Runcorn or Ellesmere Port share phonological similarities with Merseyside English, with features such as being fricatised into , along with the dental fricatives and being realised as dental stops and , being present in some cases.
