Putting English on the Map Trivia Quiz

Doric is a dialect spoken in the north-eastern part of Scotland, in and around the city of Aberdeen. In his humourous book "Teach Yourself Doric", Douglas Kynoch attempts to give the 'student' a grounding in both Doric grammar and vocabulary. Although I've had a copy of this primer since I bought it some years ago in Aberdeenshire, I am, alas, not yet fluent in Doric, despite having ancestors from the region.

A common greeting in Doric is "Fit like?" which can be translated loosely as "Hi, how are you?" to which you might answer "Nae bad", meaning "Well, thanks."

There seems to be no agreement as to why the term Geordie is applied both to people from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Tyneside, and to their distinctive version of the English language. The term is certainly a diminutive form of the forename George, but that is as far as the consensus goes. If you have watched "Vera", and heard DI Vera Stanhope call people "pet", you've heard TV's version of Geordie, if not the real thing.

A Geordie-speaker might greet you by saying "Alreet?", to which you could reply "aye" or "na" depending upon how you are feeling that day.

If you have heard any of the Beatles give an interview, you have heard a Scouse accent, more formally described as either Liverpool or Merseyside English. The name most likely derives from a type of stew popular in the area, also called scouse. I once spent an uncomfortable half hour or so chatting with a Liverpudlian chap whose Scouse accent was so thick that I was lucky to understand one word in three. I did a lot of smiling and nodding, and hoping I wasn't agreeing to something I didn't really want to do.

Upon meeting someone from the area, you might hear "alright la", "hiya" or "lya", depending on how well you know the person who is greeting you. All essentially mean "hello". To say farewell you might say "Ta'ra!"

Janner is a term that is applied to people from Plymouth, and even all of Devon, and by extension to the variety of English spoken in that southwestern county of England. The name is thought to derive from a local variant of the name John (Jan). One idiosyncrasy of the dialect is changing a final "le" sound to "o"; hence "appo" instead of "apple" and "horribo" instead of "horrible".

A greeting might be "Oright?" and one could end a conversation by saying "Cheers'en!" The latter can also mean "thank you".

Most sources consider Bungi (Bungee) to be an extinct dialect, with the University of Manitoba reporting some elderly native speakers as late as 1989. It was common in the Red River District, north of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, in the nineteenth century especially among the area's Métis community. Like the people, the dialect was a mixture, of English, Scots Gaelic, Cree, Ojibwa and possibly more. It developed amongst the fur traders and other occupants of the region, but eventually became closer to standard Canadian English, and died out.

The name Bungi probably came from either a Cree word or an Ojibwa word, each of which meant "a little bit".

Limonese, spoken in the Costa Rican province of Limón, is a variant of the English-based patois spoken in Jamaica. It developed amongst workers from Jamaica who arrived to work on various railway projects, or on the region's banana plantations. In modern times the number of native speakers has dwindled to around 60,000.

Cajun English is a variety of English spoken in parts of southern Louisiana, and is often peppered with French words, phrases and patterns of speech. Cajun speakers are descended from French settlers who moved to Louisiana from what is now Nova Scotia, then Acadia, in the 1750s during what became known as the Great Expulsion. The name Cajun is itself a corruption of the word Acadian.

Besides the use of such French-derived words as "cher", "mais" and "bonjour", Cajun English speakers are likely to pronounce "th" with more of a "d" sound, as in "fadher" for "father" and to stress the final syllable of words, in the French manner.

Ottawa Valley English is a dialect of Canadian English spoken in the towns and villages along the Ottawa River, mostly on the Ontario side. It has been influenced greatly by both Irish and Scots settlers, and has traits in common with Newfoundland English. Distinguishing features include pronouncing long I sounds as if they were long A sounds ("tayme" for "time", for example) and using "for to" when "to" would suffice. E.g. I went to Giant Tayger (Tiger, a store) for to buy some groceries.

I must say that I knew folk from this region when I was younger, heard others kid them about their Ottawa Valley twang, but didn't always hear it myself. It was certainly not difficult to understand, in the way Scouse or Jamaican patois is.

Namlish is a term that was coined in the 1990s to refer to the variety of English spoken in Namibia (formerly known as Southwest Africa). The language, as spoken, varies from the "received pronunciation" standard English, due to influences from Afrikaans and various native African languages. One of the idiosyncrasies of the dialect is the repetition of words to add emphasis. For example, "Now, now" means within a few minutes, whereas "Just now" can take a bit longer, even up to half an hour. (My own experience with these expressions came with friends who had spent years in Botswana, not that far from Namibia.)

A greeting might be "Hoezit?" ("What's up?") or "So...otherwise?", with such responses as "Yebo!" or "Fine, fine!" possible.

Strine, a term coined in the 1960s, describes the Australian variety of English, most particularly in its broadest version. The word itself is a humourous take on the pronunciation of "Australian" through clenched teeth, supposedly something done to keep the bugs out of one's mouth. Movies like "Crocodile Dundee" and TV series such as "Neighbours" have helped to make the Australian dialect and many phrases recognisable around the world. Greetings like "G'day mate!" and phrases like "throw a shrimp on the barbie" have become somewhat cliched.

I've met a few Australians, talked to others on the phone, and have generally had no problem in understanding them. I should say that none of them spoke broad Strine, so perhaps I was lucky.