Yorkshire Dialect in Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is the only novel by the English author Emily Bronte. The Yorkshire dialect is reflected in the novel, particularly in the words of the servant Joseph. Even the title has a word from the Yorkshire dialect. The word wuthering means windy.

One of the words from the dialect in the novel is maister. It means master. Others include 't (the), nowt (nothing), nobbut (only), ye (you), laiking (playing), frough (from), spake (spoke) and appen (maybe). For readers who are not familiar with the Yorkshire dialect, the novel can be challenging.

The use of Yorkshire dialect in the novel Wuthering Heights is deliberate. It reflects social class and is extensive in the English of the servants. The use of the dialect also reflects the rural, isolated setting of the novel and lends the novel authenticity.

German z

 he German z is a voiceless alveolar affricate. In comparison to other Germanic languages, the German affricate also occurs word-initially. It occurs in many words. Here is a list of ten which begin with the German alveolar affricate:

zehn (ten)

Zeit (time)

Ziel (goal)

Zigarette (cigarette)

Zimmer (room)

Zink (zinc)

Zug (train)

zwischen (between)

zwei (two)

zwölf (twelve)

The German z is never pronounced as in English. It is an affricate, and it is always voiceless. The German voiceless alveolar affricate serves to distinguish German from other Germanic languages.

Irregular Plurals in English

Regular plurals in English end with -s or -es. However, irregular plurals have four main patterns. They are an alternation of the vowel, a change of f to ves, the addition of -en and no change in the singular and plural.

Words with an alternation of the vowel include man/men, foot/feet and mouse/mice. The words leaf/leaves and knife/knives change f to ves. In the words child/children and ox/oxen the plural ends with -en. Word pairs such as deer/deer and moose/moose are the same in the singular and plural.

A few plurals do not follow those patterns. The plural of cactus is cacti, the plural of phenomenon is phenomena and the plural of die is dice. Other examples include analysis/analyses and thesis/theses. 

English plurals are quite regular. However, a few do not end with the suffix -s/-es. A number of irregular plurals have an alternation of the vowel.