PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. The Deanery of Craven, the Dialect of which I have attempted to explain, is situated in the Northern part of the West-Riding of the County of York. Its length from North to South is upwards of 30 miles; and its breadth is nearly of the same extent. There are twenty-five parishes in the Deanery, containing, according to the last census, 61,859 inhabitants. It embraces a small portion of the wapentakes of Skyrack, Claro, and Ewcross, and the whole of the wapentake of Staincliffe. The name of this wapentake seems to be a mere translation of the compound Welsh words, craigvan, the district of rock, from which the Deanery of Craven evidently takes its name. Though the Dialect of the whole of this district be somewhat similar, there are still shades of difference in its pronunciation; and many expressions and archaisms may be retained in one parish, which are unknown or nearly obsolete in another. In the Southern boundaries of this Deanery, the language partakes a little of the Dialect of Leeds, Bradford, and Halifax. Thus the true Craven pronunciation ILLUSTRATED BY AUTHORITIES FROM ANCIENT ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH WRITERS, AND EXEMPLIFIED BY TWO FAMILIAR DIALOGUES. BY A NATIVE OF CRAVEN. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. THE SECOND EDITION, MUCH ENLARGED. "What a feaful girt gauvison mun he be, at frames to larn'th' talk of another country, afoar he parfitly knaws his awn." ANON. O little booke, thou art so unconning, CHAUCER. LONDON: PRINTED FOR WM. CROFTS, 59, CAREY-STREET, LINCOLN'S INN; AND ROBINSON AND HERNAMAN, LEEDS. |