For Three-Quarters of a century, scholars have had to rely for a general survey of the dialects of England either upon Volume V of On Early English Pronunciation by A. J. Ellis, published in 1889, or upon J. Wright’s The English Dialect Grammar, published in 1905. These two works have merit as pioneer studies but their accuracy and reliability are questioned today.
Studies in linguistic geography in Britain made an important step forward in 1962 with the publication of the first volume of a new, scientifically-conducted dialect survey, Survey of English Dialects (hereafter SED). This survey, when completed, will provide an extensive corpus of primary dialect material but as yet, because it would be largely premature, interpretative study of this material has not been attempted. Despite this, as the basic material for Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Lancashire, and Yorkshire, the six northern counties of England, has been published, a study of questions confined to these counties is valid. It is the purpose of this paper to examine briefly four consonantal features of northern English dialects in the light of this newly-published material.