Sunday, 23 October 2016

POWER OF THE DIALECTS

POWER OF THE DIALECTS

I don’t recall my parents having dialects
Even though my Dad was Welsh
Local words they didn’t feature much
Or perhaps we just knew little else

I suppose in our little household
Whether we were posh you must assess
One of my mums’s little vocal tics -
She’d say “frock” instead of “dress”

One day a schoolfriend asked me
If it was Welsh in my voice he heard
A confusing moment in my young life
The very idea seemed quite absurd

I suppose in our little household
We wouldn’t put flowers in jam jars
One of my mums’s little vocal tics -
She’d say “vors” instead of “vase”

The broadest Northern I ever sounded
Was in a college classroom in Wales
Put right on the spot, the accent I used
To communicate sort of failed

I suppose in our little household
We didn’t watch football on the whole
One of my mums’s little vocal tics -
She’d say “gorl” instead of “goal”

I worked with a girl whose German mum
Would ring the office from time-to-time
Her inflection meant we knew who it was
Yet “Mum’s not got an accent!” she’d claim


Martin A W Holmes, October 2016


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