Mummerset

Mummerset

Mummerset refers to a fictional rustic English county, and more commonly, the English dialect supposedly spoken there.[1] Mummerset is used by actors to represent a stereotypical English West Country accent while not being specific to any actual county.[2]

The name is a play on words: it is a portmanteau of "mummer", a archaic term for a folk actor, and the name of the largely rural county of Somerset.[2]

Mummerset draws on a mixture of characteristics of real dialects from the West Country, such as rhoticism, forward-shifted diphthongs, lengthened vowels, and voicing of consonants that are voiceless in other Englishes. "S" is replaced with "Z"; "F" is replaced with "V"[1] It also uses perceived dialect grammar, replacing instances of "am", "are" and "is" with "be". The sentence "I haven't seen him, that farmer, since Friday" could be parsed in Mummerset as "Oi ain't zeen 'im that be varmer since Vroiday".[1]

Contents

In literature

In King Lear, Edgar speaks in Mummerset when he fights Oswald:[3]

Good gentleman, go your gait, and let poor volk pass. An ’chud ha’ bin
zwagger’d out of my life, ’t would not ha’bin zo long as ’tis by a vortnight. Nay, come not
near th’ old man; keep out, ’che vor ye, or Ise try whether your costard or my
ballow be the harder. ’Chill be plain with you.

In popular culture

It is commonly associated with Rambling Syd Rumpo a comedy folk singer on the 1950s BBC radio programme Round the Horne.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Thomas Burns McArthur, ed (2005). Concise Oxford companion to the English language. Roshan McArthur. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192806376. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=QMsWFsI0YkIC&pg=PT994&lpg=PT994&dq=%22Mummerset%22&source=bl&ots=O-rAGHmwE0&sig=oBxI5NiRDg-bqiP3oYDi5dXk2RQ&hl=en&ei=wOq1TuiJD_GaiAfpnpibAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=21&ved=0CJ4BEOgBMBQ4ZA#v=onepage&q=%22Mummerset%22&f=false. Retrieved 6 November 2011. 
  2. ^ a b "definition of Mummerset". oxforddictionaries.com. Oxford University Press. http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/Mummerset. Retrieved 6 November 2011. 
  3. ^ "William Shakespeare (1564–1616). The Tragedy of King Lear. The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.". Bartleby.com. http://www.bartleby.com/46/3/46.html. Retrieved 6 November 2011. 

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