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Lifeline for the dialect of Norfolk By David Sapsted (Filed: 03/07/2001)

THE threat posed by the spread of Estuary English has persuaded the National Lottery Fund to finance a project to save the Norfolk dialect.

The slowly-spoken, often incomprehensible dialect forever linked to the Singing Postman and Bernard Matthews's "bootiful" turkeys, is under threat from the standardisation of spoken English.

Now the Friends of Norfolk Dialect has been awarded a £3,889 grant to record the accents of East Anglia. Keith Skipper, the chairman, said: "It's a social exercise as well as a linguistic one. There is a large amount of interest in dialect. Now we want to get that material down."

Bill Monaghan, the archives assistant at the Norfolk Records Office, said: "The accent has been under threat for many years. People move around more freely these days, so dialects get watered down."

Allan Smethurst, the Singing Postman, had a hit with Have You Got a Loit?, Boy though, as any Norfolk purist will tell you, its proper title is Hev You Gotta Loight, Bor?, the last word meaning anything from boy to neighbour.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001