I'm writing about dialects of Great Britain. I found in a book 3 examples of dialect to say She is not coming:
- She bain't a comin
- Hoo inno comin
- Her idden comin
but I would place these expressions to the respective region of G.B. and I found only that
- She bain't coming - is spoken in the westcountry (is it true?)
- Hoo inno coming - is a rural dialect... BUT WHERE?
- her idden comin - where is it spoken?
Also,what are the differences between
- she's not coming
- she isn't coming
- She ani't coming
???
Thanks for your answers!
"She bain't comin'" looks like west country English, it's a shortened form of "She be not coming". There is a tendency in west country dialects to use "be" instead of "is" and "are". I can't say I recognise the other examples.
"She's not coming", "She isn't coming" and "She ain't coming" all mean the same. "Ain't" is considered uneducated though.
I think that more of us "ain't" than will admit it. Especially for emphasis. Example:
.
I ain't going, and you can't make me..
Of course, I could be wrong, but I tend to think that those who never say "ain't" may be in the same category as those who never swear.
![]()
Well I bloody well don't use ain't. And I don't bloody swear, neither.
On a slightly more serious note, I have to disagree with your first point, at least as far as I am concerned. I don't know any reasonably educated speakers of Southern BrE who use ain't except jokingly, or in such expressions as, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". I know that we drop our aitches more than we admit, and that we say (not write) wanna and gotta, but not ain't.
Incidentally, I find it interesting that we bother to put the apostrophe in the written form as if it were the contraction of ai(n) not.
Well, I said I could be wrong. (I am often wrong.) (Darn, I left a word out again.
)
![]()
This page suggests that hoo is an archaic pronoun used in the Derbyshire dialect. I grew up in a neighbouring county and can't say I heard it used.
Accents and dialects of the UK
Following leads from that page, I came across one (which I have now lost, sorry) suggesting that her also is/was used as a subject pronoun in Derby.
When I worked in Exeter in the mid 1970s, I frequently heard 'er and 'e used as subject pronouns; if I recall correctly, they were used for all genders.
I feel that idden for isn't is not uncommon in many parts of England.
A follow-up to my last post.
Since I read the OP I have used idden in conversations with several native speakers, including a couple of teachers, in both negative statements and question tags. Immediately after completing the utterance, I have asked people what they think they have heard. Answers vary between innit and isn't it. Nobody so far has heard idden it. This is a very unscientific way of suggesting that it might be more common than we realise.
My pronunciation has been close to /IdnIt/, with a syllabic /n/
Thank you for your answers!
Peter Trudgill in The dialects of England (1994) talk about traditional dialects and he did these examples to explain how a dialect is different from standard english, and you are really helpfull for me because, obviously, not beeing an english speaker I can't understand very well the differences and especially set these sentences with the respective regional dialect.