For the American anatomic pathologist and physician-scientist born in 1954, see Susan Mackem.
Mackem, Makem or Mak'em a nickname for residents of and people from Sunderland, a city in North East England. It is also a name for the local dialect and accent (not to be confused with Geordie); and for a fan, of whatever origin, of Sunderland A.F.C. It has been used by (a proportion of) the people of Sunderland to describe themselves since the 1980s, prior to which it was mainly used in Tyneside as a disparaging exonym.[1] Prior to the 1980s, the people of Sunderland were known as Geordies, in common with people from Tyneside. An alternative name for a Mackem (except in the sense of a football supporter) is a Wearsider.
According to the British Library, "Locals insist there are significant differences between Geordie [spoken in Newcastle upon Tyne] and several other local dialects, such as Pitmatic and Mackem. Pitmatic is the dialect of the former mining areas in County Durham and around Ashington to the north of Newcastle upon Tyne, while Mackem is used locally to refer to the dialect of the city of Sunderland and the surrounding urban area of Wearside."[2]
There is much debate about the origin of the word Mackem, although it has been argued that it may stem from the phrase "Mak ‘em and Tak’em" - with Mak’em being the local pronunciation of "make them" and Tak’em from "take them".[3][4]
According to the current entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest occurrence of the word Mackem or Mak’em in print was in 1988.[5] However, as evidenced by the attached news articles, the word Mak’em (or Mackem) has been much in evidence for a great many years prior to 1988. Indeed, one of the articles attached dates to 1929.
An article from 1929 in Sunderland Echo discussing Makem.
An article from 1953 in Sunderland Echo discussing Makem.
It has been argued that the expressions date back to the height of Sunderland's shipbuilding history, as the shipwrights would make the ships, then the maritime pilots and tugboat captains would take them down the River Wear to the sea – the shipyards and port authority being the most conspicuous employers in Sunderland. A variant explanation is that the builders at Sunderland would build the ships, which would then go to Tyneside to be outfitted, hence from the standpoint of someone from Sunderland, "we make 'em an' they take 'em" – however, this account is disputed (and, indeed, as an earlier form of the name was Mac n' Tac, it seems unlikely).[6] Another explanation is that ships were both built and repaired (i.e. "taken in for repairs") on the Wear.[1] The term could also be a reference to the volume of ships built during wartime on the River Wear, e.g. "We make'em and they sink'em".[citation needed]
Whatever the exact origin of the term, Mackem has come to refer to someone from Sunderland and its surrounding areas, in particular the supporters of the local football team Sunderland AFC, and may have been coined in that context. Newcastle and Sunderland have a history of rivalry beyond the football pitch, the rivalry associated with industrial disputes of the 19th century.[citation needed]
Evidence suggests the term is a recent coinage. According to the Oxford English Dictionary,[7] the earliest occurrence of it in print was in 1988.[8] The phrase "we still tak'em and mak'em" was found in a sporting context in 1973 in reference to Sunderland Cricket & Rugby Football Club.[8] While this lends support to the theory that this phrase was the origin of the term "Mak'em", there is nothing to suggest that "mak'em" had come to be applied to people from Sunderland generally at such a date. The name "Mak'em" may refer to the Wearside shipyard workers, who during World War II were brought into shipbuilding and regarded as taking work away from the Geordies on Tyneside.[9]
Characteristics
There has been very little academic work done on the Sunderland dialect. It was a site in the early research by Alexander John Ellis, who also recorded a local song called Spottee.[10] Ellis considered Sunderland as speaking a variant of the North Durham dialect, part of the ‘North Northern’ dialect group that also covers Northumberland and the northernmost part of Cumberland around Carlisle.[10] Ellis also noted the influence on Sunderland speech from migrants to the area from Ireland and Scotland.[11]
Come all ye good people and listen to me, And a comical tale I will tell unto ye, Belanging yon Spottee that lived on the law Quay, That had nowther house nor harbour he. The poor auld wives o' the north side disn't knaw what for to dee, For they dare not come to see their husbands when they come to the Quay; They're fear'd o' their sels, and their infants tee, For this roguish fellow they call Spottee. But now he's gane away unto the sea side, Where mony a ane wishes he may be wesh'd away wi' the tide, For if Floutter's flood come, as it us'd for to dee, It will drive his heart out — then where will his midred be?
— An excerpt of the song Spottee from The Bishoprick Garland. The song includes features considered archaic in the modern dialect.
In the Survey of English Dialects, the nearby town of Washington was surveyed. The researcher of the site, Stanley Ellis, later worked with police on analysing the speech in a tape sent to the police during the Yorkshire Ripper investigation, which became known as the Wearside Jack tape because the police switched their investigation to Wearside after Ellis's analysis of the tape.[12]
To people outside the region, the differences between Mackem and Geordie dialects often seem marginal, but there are many notable differences.[13] A perceptual dialect study by the University of Sunderland found that locals of the region consider Geordie and Mackem to be separate dialects and identify numerous lexical, grammatical, and phonetic differences between the two.[14] In fact, Mackem is considered to be more closely related to County Durham Pitmatic than to Geordie, with both dialects collectively forming the Central Urban North-Eastern English dialect region.[citation needed] There are even a small but noticeable differences in pronunciation and grammar between the dialects of North and South Sunderland (for example, the word something in North Sunderland is often summik whereas a South Sunderland speaker may often prefer summat and people from the surrounding areas prefer summit).[citation needed]
Make and take are pronounced mak and tak ([ˈmak] and [ˈtak]) in the most conservative forms of the dialect. This variation is the supposed reason why Tyneside shipyard workers might have coined "Mak'em" as an insult.[15] However, the pronunciation of the word is not confined to Sunderland and can be found in other areas of Northern England and Scotland.
Many words ending in -own are pronounced [-ʌun] (cf. Geordie: [-uːn]).[clarification needed]
School is split into two syllables, with a short [ə] in between, [ˈskʉ.əl]. This is also the case for words with a GOOSE vowel preceding /l/, which are monosyllabic in some other dialects, such as cruel, fuel and fool, in Mackem which are [ˈkrʉ.əl], [ˈfjʉ.əl] and [ˈfʉ.əl] respectively.
This "extra syllable" occurs in other words spoken in Mackem dialect, i.e. film is [ˈfɪləm]. This feature has led to some words being very differently pronounced in Sunderland. The word face, due to the inclusion of an extra [ə] and the contraction thereof, is often pronounced [ˈfjas]. While [ˈfjas] and some other cases of this extra vowel have been observed in the Geordie dialect,[16]
Book rhymes with spook as in Northumberland and on Tyneside, however, there is a difference in vowel quality between Tyneside [ˈbuːk] and Mackem [bʉːk], [bəuk] or [ˈbᵊuk].
The COMMA vowel pronounced [ə] as in Received Pronunciation, unlike the rhotic Scots variant. Cf. Geordie [æ].
Most words that have the TRAP vowel are pronounced with a short /æ/ such as after, laughter, pasta. However, in the same way as the Geordie dialect, the words plaster and master are often pronounced with a long /ɑː/. This is not found in most northern accents apart from in the North East.
The Mackem accent is different from Geordie in some instances. For example, the pronunciation of curry is often more like cerry. As well as this the use of oo <u:> in words with the BROWN vowel isn't as frequent as it is in the Geordie accent (Sunderland=town v Newcastle=toon), however, this feature was traditionally found in all dialects north of the Humber-Lune Line.
In words such as green and cheese it has been said that the Sunderland accent has more of a [ɛi] diphthong instead of the standard /iː/ vowel in most dialects of English.[17]
Unlike some Northern English varieties the definite article is never reduced. As in Scots and other Northumbrian dialects the definite article is used in a wider range of contexts than in standard English, including kinship terms, names of institutions, temporal expressions, illnesses, and even numbers.[20]
Indefinite Article
The indefinite article is used with one in certain contexts.
Modal Verbs
Modals can and will as well as the verb de (do) have uncontracted negative forms.[20]
^"Mackem". Seagull City. 2017. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
^"Sunderland Mackem Origin". englandsnortheast.co.uk. 2016. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
^. OED.com. Oxford University Press. 10 June 2005. pp. "OED News" section. Archived from the original on 18 January 2006. Retrieved 31 July 2011.
^"Sunderland Mackem Origin". englandsnortheast.co.uk. 2016. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
^"The Mackem Wordhunt!". BBC.co.uk. British Broadcasting Corporation. 21 June 2005. pp. "Wear >, Voices 2005" section. Retrieved 31 July 2011.
^ ab. OED.com. Oxford University Press. 11 January 2006. pp. "OED News: BBC Balderdash and Piffle (Series One)" section. Archived from the original on 19 April 2009. Retrieved 31 July 2011.
^"Mackems". Virtual Sunderland. Retrieved 21 September 2007.
^ abpage 39 of On Early English Pronunciation, Part V. The existing phonology of English dialects compared with that of West Saxon speech, A.J. Ellis, Truebner & Co, London, 1889 [1]
^page 640 of On Early English Pronunciation, Part V. The existing phonology of English dialects compared with that of West Saxon speech, A.J. Ellis, Truebner & Co, London, 1889 [2]
^Jack Windsor Lewis, Obituary: Stanley Ellis, The Guardian, 13 November 2009
^"Accents & dialects". British Library. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
^ abcdBeal, Joan, C.; Burbano-Elizondo, Lourdes; Llamas, Carmen (2012). Urban North-eastern English: Tyneside to Teesside (Dialects of English). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Bibliography
Pearce, Michael (31 March 2009). "A Perceptual Dialect Map of North East England" (PDF). Journal of English Linguistics. 37 (2): 162–192. doi:10.1177/0075424209334026. S2CID 144694398.
Pearce, Michael (2012). "Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear". Dialectologia et Geolinguistica. 20 (1): 5–25. doi:10.1515/dialect-2012-0001. S2CID 144961746.
Burbano-Elizondo, Lourdes (2008). Language variation and identity in Sunderland (PhD). University of Sheffield.
External links
Look up mackem in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Mackems Virtual Sunderland
January 20, 2023
mackem, confused, with, makkum, american, anatomic, pathologist, physician, scientist, born, 1954, susan, makem, nickname, residents, people, from, sunderland, city, north, east, england, also, name, local, dialect, accent, confused, with, geordie, whatever, o. Not to be confused with Makkum For the American anatomic pathologist and physician scientist born in 1954 see Susan Mackem Mackem Makem or Mak em a nickname for residents of and people from Sunderland a city in North East England It is also a name for the local dialect and accent not to be confused with Geordie and for a fan of whatever origin of Sunderland A F C It has been used by a proportion of the people of Sunderland to describe themselves since the 1980s prior to which it was mainly used in Tyneside as a disparaging exonym 1 Prior to the 1980s the people of Sunderland were known as Geordies in common with people from Tyneside An alternative name for a Mackem except in the sense of a football supporter is a Wearsider According to the British Library Locals insist there are significant differences between Geordie spoken in Newcastle upon Tyne and several other local dialects such as Pitmatic and Mackem Pitmatic is the dialect of the former mining areas in County Durham and around Ashington to the north of Newcastle upon Tyne while Mackem is used locally to refer to the dialect of the city of Sunderland and the surrounding urban area of Wearside 2 Contents 1 Etymology 2 Characteristics 3 Phonology 4 Grammar 4 1 Definite Article 4 2 Indefinite Article 4 3 Modal Verbs 4 4 Pronouns 5 Vocabulary 6 See also 7 References 8 Bibliography 9 External linksEtymology EditThere is much debate about the origin of the word Mackem although it has been argued that it may stem from the phrase Mak em and Tak em with Mak em being the local pronunciation of make them and Tak em from take them 3 4 According to the current entry in the Oxford English Dictionary the earliest occurrence of the word Mackem or Mak em in print was in 1988 5 However as evidenced by the attached news articles the word Mak em or Mackem has been much in evidence for a great many years prior to 1988 Indeed one of the articles attached dates to 1929 An article from 1929 in Sunderland Echo discussing Makem An article from 1953 in Sunderland Echo discussing Makem It has been argued that the expressions date back to the height of Sunderland s shipbuilding history as the shipwrights would make the ships then the maritime pilots and tugboat captains would take them down the River Wear to the sea the shipyards and port authority being the most conspicuous employers in Sunderland A variant explanation is that the builders at Sunderland would build the ships which would then go to Tyneside to be outfitted hence from the standpoint of someone from Sunderland we make em an they take em however this account is disputed and indeed as an earlier form of the name was Mac n Tac it seems unlikely 6 Another explanation is that ships were both built and repaired i e taken in for repairs on the Wear 1 The term could also be a reference to the volume of ships built during wartime on the River Wear e g We make em and they sink em citation needed Whatever the exact origin of the term Mackem has come to refer to someone from Sunderland and its surrounding areas in particular the supporters of the local football team Sunderland AFC and may have been coined in that context Newcastle and Sunderland have a history of rivalry beyond the football pitch the rivalry associated with industrial disputes of the 19th century citation needed Evidence suggests the term is a recent coinage According to the Oxford English Dictionary 7 the earliest occurrence of it in print was in 1988 8 The phrase we still tak em and mak em was found in a sporting context in 1973 in reference to Sunderland Cricket amp Rugby Football Club 8 While this lends support to the theory that this phrase was the origin of the term Mak em there is nothing to suggest that mak em had come to be applied to people from Sunderland generally at such a date The name Mak em may refer to the Wearside shipyard workers who during World War II were brought into shipbuilding and regarded as taking work away from the Geordies on Tyneside 9 Characteristics EditThere has been very little academic work done on the Sunderland dialect It was a site in the early research by Alexander John Ellis who also recorded a local song called Spottee 10 Ellis considered Sunderland as speaking a variant of the North Durham dialect part of the North Northern dialect group that also covers Northumberland and the northernmost part of Cumberland around Carlisle 10 Ellis also noted the influence on Sunderland speech from migrants to the area from Ireland and Scotland 11 Come all ye good people and listen to me And a comical tale I will tell unto ye Belanging yon Spottee that lived on the law Quay That had nowther house nor harbour he The poor auld wives o the north side disn t knaw what for to dee For they dare not come to see their husbands when they come to the Quay They re fear d o their sels and their infants tee For this roguish fellow they call Spottee But now he s gane away unto the sea side Where mony a ane wishes he may be wesh d away wi the tide For if Floutter s flood come as it us d for to dee It will drive his heart out then where will his midred be An excerpt of the song Spottee from The Bishoprick Garland The song includes features considered archaic in the modern dialect In the Survey of English Dialects the nearby town of Washington was surveyed The researcher of the site Stanley Ellis later worked with police on analysing the speech in a tape sent to the police during the Yorkshire Ripper investigation which became known as the Wearside Jack tape because the police switched their investigation to Wearside after Ellis s analysis of the tape 12 To people outside the region the differences between Mackem and Geordie dialects often seem marginal but there are many notable differences 13 A perceptual dialect study by the University of Sunderland found that locals of the region consider Geordie and Mackem to be separate dialects and identify numerous lexical grammatical and phonetic differences between the two 14 In fact Mackem is considered to be more closely related to County Durham Pitmatic than to Geordie with both dialects collectively forming the Central Urban North Eastern English dialect region citation needed There are even a small but noticeable differences in pronunciation and grammar between the dialects of North and South Sunderland for example the word something in North Sunderland is often summik whereas a South Sunderland speaker may often prefer summat and people from the surrounding areas prefer summit citation needed Phonology EditThis section does not cite any sources Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed April 2016 Learn how and when to remove this template message This section contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet IPA For an introductory guide on IPA symbols see Help IPA For the distinction between and see IPA Brackets and transcription delimiters Make and take are pronounced mak and tak ˈmak and ˈtak in the most conservative forms of the dialect This variation is the supposed reason why Tyneside shipyard workers might have coined Mak em as an insult 15 However the pronunciation of the word is not confined to Sunderland and can be found in other areas of Northern England and Scotland Many words ending in own are pronounced ʌun cf Geordie uːn clarification needed School is split into two syllables with a short e in between ˈskʉ el This is also the case for words with a GOOSE vowel preceding l which are monosyllabic in some other dialects such as cruel fuel and fool in Mackem which are ˈkrʉ el ˈfjʉ el and ˈfʉ el respectively This extra syllable occurs in other words spoken in Mackem dialect i e film is ˈfɪlem This feature has led to some words being very differently pronounced in Sunderland The word face due to the inclusion of an extra e and the contraction thereof is often pronounced ˈfjas While ˈfjas and some other cases of this extra vowel have been observed in the Geordie dialect 16 Book rhymes with spook as in Northumberland and on Tyneside however there is a difference in vowel quality between Tyneside ˈbuːk and Mackem bʉːk beuk or ˈbᵊuk The COMMA vowel pronounced e as in Received Pronunciation unlike the rhotic Scots variant Cf Geordie ae Most words that have the TRAP vowel are pronounced with a short ae such as after laughter pasta However in the same way as the Geordie dialect the words plaster and master are often pronounced with a long ɑː This is not found in most northern accents apart from in the North East The Mackem accent is different from Geordie in some instances For example the pronunciation of curry is often more like cerry As well as this the use of oo lt u gt in words with the BROWN vowel isn t as frequent as it is in the Geordie accent Sunderland town v Newcastle toon however this feature was traditionally found in all dialects north of the Humber Lune Line In words such as green and cheese it has been said that the Sunderland accent has more of a ɛi diphthong instead of the standard iː vowel in most dialects of English 17 H dropping in words such as him her half is said to be a feature in Sunderland Butterknowle Hartlepool and Middlesbrough but not in other areas of the North East 18 19 clarification needed l is traditionally clear in all contexts meaning the velarised allophone is absent 20 Grammar EditDefinite Article Edit Unlike some Northern English varieties the definite article is never reduced As in Scots and other Northumbrian dialects the definite article is used in a wider range of contexts than in standard English including kinship terms names of institutions temporal expressions illnesses and even numbers 20 Indefinite Article Edit The indefinite article is used with one in certain contexts Modal Verbs Edit Modals can and will as well as the verb de do have uncontracted negative forms 20 Word Affirmative Negativedo de dinnetwill will winnetcan can cannetThe use of dinnet contrasts with Geordie divvent Pronouns Edit Standard English MackemI me myself mine my I us mesel mine me 20 we us ourselves ours our we us oursels ouryou singular you plural yourself yours your ye youse yoursel yourthey them themselves theirs their they them themsels theirsels theirs theirVocabulary Editaight eight alang along alarn alone an arl as well also compare Scots an aw an t aren t aye yes beut boot blar blow canny good or a lot card cold clarts mud clip slap in a poor state clivver clever clout hit dinnar dunno diz does dizn t doesn t fower four fyace pyat face gan go garn going gannin is favoured in surrounding colliery towns gie s give me git very grar grow knar know lang long leet light mair more mak make marra friend acquiantance nak hurt neet night neen none nivver never nor nee no owld old pund pound reet right rund round snar snow spelk splinter spuggy sparrow tak take te to telt told the neet tonight the morra tomorrow tret treated wad would waddent wouldn t watter water wesh wash wey well wey nar well no whe who whese whose wrang wrong yem home yisterda yesterdaySee also EditMonkey hanger Smoggie SandancerReferences Edit a b Mackem Seagull City 2017 Retrieved 20 September 2017 Geordie A regional dialect of English Mackem Seagull City 2017 Retrieved 20 September 2017 Sunderland Mackem Origin englandsnortheast co uk 2016 Retrieved 20 September 2017 BBC Wordhunt Your Language Needs You OED com Oxford University Press 10 June 2005 pp OED News section Archived from the original on 18 January 2006 Retrieved 31 July 2011 Sunderland Mackem Origin englandsnortheast co uk 2016 Retrieved 20 September 2017 The Mackem Wordhunt BBC co uk British Broadcasting Corporation 21 June 2005 pp Wear amp gt Voices 2005 section Retrieved 31 July 2011 a b New Entry for OED Online Mackem n Draft Entry Jan 2006 OED com Oxford University Press 11 January 2006 pp OED News BBC Balderdash and Piffle Series One section Archived from the original on 19 April 2009 Retrieved 31 July 2011 Mackems Virtual Sunderland Retrieved 21 September 2007 a b page 39 of On Early English Pronunciation Part V The existing phonology of English dialects compared with that of West Saxon speech A J Ellis Truebner amp Co London 1889 1 page 640 of On Early English Pronunciation Part V The existing phonology of English dialects compared with that of West Saxon speech A J Ellis Truebner amp Co London 1889 2 Jack Windsor Lewis Obituary Stanley Ellis The Guardian 13 November 2009 Accents amp dialects British Library Retrieved 31 May 2015 Pearce 2012 Mackem Accent OED Online Oxford English Dictionary Archived from the original on 24 October 2007 Retrieved 21 September 2007 Where I Actually Live Blast BBC Lincolnshire 5 August 2006 Retrieved 21 September 2007 Pearce 2012 p 12 Pearce 2009 Burbano Elizondo 2008 a b c d Beal Joan C Burbano Elizondo Lourdes Llamas Carmen 2012 Urban North eastern English Tyneside to Teesside Dialects of English Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press Bibliography EditPearce Michael 31 March 2009 A Perceptual Dialect Map of North East England PDF Journal of English Linguistics 37 2 162 192 doi 10 1177 0075424209334026 S2CID 144694398 Pearce Michael 2012 Folk accounts of dialect differences in Tyne and Wear Dialectologia et Geolinguistica 20 1 5 25 doi 10 1515 dialect 2012 0001 S2CID 144961746 Burbano Elizondo Lourdes 2008 Language variation and identity in Sunderland PhD University of Sheffield External links Edit Look up mackem in Wiktionary the free dictionary Mackems Virtual Sunderland Wear Online Home of the Mackem Dictionary Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Mackem amp oldid 1133241257, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
