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"Jowling" might just save your life
In Pitmatic, a dialect of the north-east miners in England, "jowling" is a term that signifies different ways of communicating through a mine, especially after the roof falls.
The Guardian reports on efforts made to archive the Pitmatic dialect:
The first Pitmatic dictionary, including pit recollections and analysis of the origins of the dialect's words, has been compiled by Bill Griffiths, the country's foremost Geordie scholar, whose previous work includes the standard Dictionary of North East Dialect. His new book reveals an exceptionally rich combination of borrowings from Old Norse, Dutch and a score of other languages, with inventive usages dreamed up by the miners themselves.
...The dialect was originally called Pitmatical, and its curious name was a parallel to mathematics, intended to stress the skill, precision and craft of the colliers' work. (ELHAM)
July 31, 2007
