The Norfolk dialect, also known as Broad Norfolk, is a dialect that was once spoken by those living in the county of Norfolk in England. Much of the distinctive vocabulary of Broad Norfolk has now died out, so the accent used in Norfolk is no longer strictly a dialect.
Norfolk is popularised as a yod-dropping dialect where /ju:-/ is pronounced /u:-/. Other features of Norfolk are that "here" and "hair" are homophones whilst "daze" and "days" are not.
There have been attempts to revive the Norfolk dialect. The Friends of Norfolk Dialect (FOND) is a group which formed in 1999 with the aim of preserving and promoting Broad Norfolk. The group campaigns for the recognition of Norfolk as a dialect, and for the teaching of "Norfolk" in schools. FOND aims to produce a digital archive of recordings of people speaking the dialect's traditional words. In July 2001 the group was awarded 4000 from the National Lottery in aid of recording equipment for this purpose.
A typical example of the Norfolk accent and vocabulary can be heard in the songs by Allan Smethurst, aka The Singing Postman. Smethurst's authentic Norfolk accent is well known from the songs he released in the 1960s, such "Hev Yew Gotta Loight Bor?".
Norfolk (pronounced IPA: [ˈnɒːfək]) is a low-lying county in East Anglia in the east of southern England.
Norfolk's low-lying land and easily eroded cliffs, many of which are chalk and clay, make it vulnerable to the sea, the most recent major event being the North Sea flood of 1953.
The NorfolkDialect also known as "Broad Norfolk" is the accent/dialect of people living in Norfolk, although over the modern age, a lot of the vocabulary and phrases have died out due to a number of factors such as radio, TV and people from other parts of the country coming to Norfolk.
Thousands of children are to be taught the county's dialect at school as part of a project to promote the much-maligned rural accent.
Derided by city slickers and mocked in adverts for "bootiful" Bernard Matthews turkeys, Norfolk's mother tongue will be recorded and practised by pupils in 11 schools after Friends of NorfolkDialect, or Fond, was awarded a £24,600 grant to introduce understanding and appreciation of the rich vernacular.
The Lost in Translation project, which is being funded by the Local Heritage Initiative, was born of a fear that the spread of Norfolk speech was, in the words of Mr Skipper, "wassanwotterwuz", or worse that what it was.
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