An Introduction to Black Country Dialect

Wednesday 22nd October – 7.30pm Bilston Town Hall. Black Country Society Members:  £3 Non-members: £5

Esther Asprey from the University of Wolverhampton will introduce non-linguists to the main concepts in dialectology.

We will see how the Old English spoken in the western Midlands developed, how the label Black Country arose to denote a still contested area, and how this label got transferred to the local language variety. Across the talk, illustrations of the dialect will be given, and we will see how today’s dialect fits in with its neighbour’s in terms of its grammar and words, and how it might develop in future.