̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - England

Cambridge experts bust myths about family, sex, marriage and work in English history

ta385 — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 23:01:00 +0000

Sex before marriage was unusual in the past – Myth! In some periods, over half of all brides were already pregnant when they got married.

̽��ֱ��rich have always outlived the poor –Myth! Before the 20th century the evidence for a survival advantage of wealth is mixed. In England, babies of agricultural labourers (the poorest workers) had a better chance of reaching their first birthday than infants in wealthy families, and life expectancy was no higher for aristocrats than for the rest of the population. These patterns contrast strongly with national and international patterns today, where wealth confers a clear survival advantage everywhere and at all ages.

In the past people (particularly women) married in their teens – Myth! In reality, women married in their mid-20s, men around 2.5 years older. Apart from a few decades in the early 1800s, the only time since 1550 that the average age of first marriage for women fell below 24 was during the baby boom of the 1950s and 1960s.

These are just some of the stubborn myths busted by researchers from ̽��ֱ��Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure (Campop). Their Top of the CamPops blog (www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog) went live on 11 July 2024, with new posts being added every week. ̽��ֱ��blog will reveal ‘60 things you didn't know about family, marriage, work, and death since the middle ages’.

̽��ֱ��initiative marks the influential research group’s 60th anniversary. Founded in 1964 by Peter Laslett and Tony Wrigley to conduct data-driven research into family and demographic history, Campop has contributed to hundreds of research articles and books, and made the history of England’s population the best understood in the world.

Earlier this year, the group made headlines when Professor Leigh Shaw-Taylor revealed that the Industrial Revolution in Britain started 100 years earlier than traditionally assumed.

Professor Alice Reid, Director of Campop and a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, said: “Assumptions about lives, families and work in the past continue to influence attitudes today. But many of these are myths. Over the last 60 years, our researchers have gone through huge amounts of data to set the record straight. This blog shares some of our most surprising and important discoveries for a broad audience.”

Myth: Until the 20th century, few people lived beyond the age of 40. Reality: Actually, people who survived the first year or two of life had a reasonable chance of living until 70.

Myth: Childbirth was really dangerous for women in the past, and carried a high chance of death. Reality: ̽��ֱ��risk of death during or following childbirth was certainly higher than it is now, but was far lower than many people suppose.

Myth: Families in the past generally lived in extended, multigenerational households. Reality: Young couples generally formed a new household on marriage, reducing the prevalence of multi-generational households. As today, the living circumstances of old people varied. Many continued to live as couples or on their own, some lived with their children, whilst very few lived in institutions.

Myth: Marital titles for women arose from men’s desire to distinguish available women from those who were already ‘owned’. Reality: Both ‘miss’ and ‘mrs’ are shortened forms of ‘mistress’, which was a status designation indicating a gentlewoman or employer. Mrs had no necessary connection to marriage until circa 1900 (and even then, there was an exception for upper servants).

Myth: Famine and starvation were common in the past. Reality: Not in England! Here, the poor laws and a ‘low pressure’ demographic system provided a safety net. This helps to explain why hunger and famine are absent from English fairy tales but common in the folklore of most European societies.

Myth: Women working (outside the home) is a late 20th century phenomenon. Reality: Most women in the past engaged in gainful employment, both before and after marriage

Myth: Women take their husbands’ surnames because of patriarchal norms. Reality: ̽��ֱ��practice of taking a husband’s surname developed in England from the peculiarly restrictive rule of ‘coverture’ in marital property. Elsewhere in Europe, where the husband managed the wife’s property but did not own it, women retained their birth names until circa 1900.

Myth: People rarely moved far from their place of birth in the past. Reality: Migration was actually quite common – a village population could change more than half its members from one decade to the next. Rural to urban migration enabled the growth of cities, and since people migrated almost exclusively to find work, the sex ratio of cities can indicate what kind of work was available.

Campop’s Professor Amy Erickson said: “People, not least politicians, often refer to history to nudge us to do something, or stop doing something. Not all of this history is accurate, and repeating myths about sex, marriage, family and work can be quite harmful. They can put unfair pressure on people, create guilt and raise false expectations, while also misrepresenting the lives of our ancestors.”

On World Population Day, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge researchers bust some of the biggest myths about life in England since the Middle Ages, challenging assumptions about everything from sex before marriage to migration and the health/wealth gap.

Assumptions about lives, families and work in the past continue to influence attitudes today. But many of these are myths.

Alice Reid

Black and white photograph of a family lined up against a wall in E W Hope, Report on the physical welfare of mothers and children (Liverpool, ̽��ֱ��Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, 1917), volume 1

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Earth’s earliest forest revealed in Somerset fossils

sc604 — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 10:27:02 +0000

̽��ֱ��oldest fossilised forest known on Earth – dating from 390 million years ago – has been found in the high sandstone cliffs along the Devon and Somerset coast of South West England.

Services across England now lag far behind East Germany, as experts call for ‘universal basic infrastructure’ in UK

fpjl2 — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 10:34:16 +0000

A new report outlines the dismal state of England’s physical and 'social' infrastructure – from public services in health and education to the parks, cinemas and train stations that prop up communities – when compared to similar regions in what was once East Germany.

̽��ֱ��report’s authors call for a “universal basic infrastructure” (UBI) if the UK is to ‘level up’ its regions and lift itself out of 'flatlining' productivity rates. This UBI would see a minimum level of public and private sector services covering everything from broadband to bus routes.

Researchers matched eleven parts of England such as Manchester and Peterborough with German areas close in population and productivity, primarily in the former Soviet bloc – as this region was a central case study in the UK government’s flagship 2022 ‘Levelling up’ White Paper.

̽��ֱ��report, led by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, found that in 2021, German towns, cities and regions have on average twice as many hospitals and pharmacies per 100,000 people as their English counterparts.

Places in Germany have over 11 times more mental health centres and practitioners, and eight times more further education providers, than equivalent parts of England, according to 2021 data.*

In 2020, German areas also have twice as many railway stations per 100,000 people as matching English areas, although England averages almost four times more bus stops than Germany.

“Access to physical and social infrastructure across England is highly variable, and shortfalls in provision affect both declining and growing areas,” said report co-author Professor Diane Coyle from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Bennett Institute for Public Policy.

“But even England’s wealthier areas are falling short of equivalent places in Germany, and have seen notable declines in a wide range of types of infrastructure over much of the last decade.”

̽��ֱ��report shows that areas such as Cambridge and Manchester have more healthcare facilities per 100,000 people, for example – as well as more banks, museums and restaurants – compared to areas such as Bolton, Rochdale and Stevenage.

In fact, Cambridge, one of the country’s wealthiest locations outside of London, has over twice as many banks and building societies, on average, and over six times as many further education providers, as Oldham, Central Bedfordshire and Rochdale.

However, the team also found that many elements of “social infrastructure” right across all eleven English areas have tumbled since 2014, regardless of regional wealth and average rates of income.

̽��ֱ��availability of public transport, GP practices, hospitals, mental health care, police stations, banks, cash machines, post offices, primary and further education facilities, theatres, swimming pools, museums, shopping centres, and chemists have declined across almost all English areas analysed in the report.

All local authorities analysed in the report reduced at least one type of health service between 2014 and 2023. For example, Blackpool, Central Bedfordshire, Stevenage and Stoke-on-Trent all decreased their number of clinics, GP practices, hospitals, and dental treatment centres.

Even in Cambridge the number of further education facilities per 100,000 people halved between 2014 and 2023, and GP practices per capita fell by over 14%.

̽��ֱ��number of police stations per capita fell in all places except Bolton, and the number of public parks and gardens reduced in four out of the five areas with data. Contrary to public perception, however, the number of libraries increased across most authorities in the report.

“Universality across the nation is key when it comes to the infrastructure that facilitates most aspects of our daily lives,” said report co-author Stella Erker from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Bennett Institute for Public Policy.

“ ̽��ֱ��community assets we should all have access to, not just schools and doctors but parks, trains, pubs and gyms, are the foundation for human wellbeing, which in turn underpins economic growth.”

̽��ֱ��researchers point out that even rapidly expanding places in England are seeing social infrastructure go in the opposite direction – an impediment to desperately needed house-building.

For example, Bedford sits in the ‘Ox-Cam-Arc’ – an economic boom region encompassing Oxford, Cambridge and London – and is growing at three times the national rate, expanding by nearly 18% between 2011 and 2021.

Yet the town has seen local services weaken, with reductions per capita in everything from bus stops and rail facilities to GP capacity, primary schools, and local banks and cashpoints, since 2014.

̽��ֱ��report calls for “provision presumptions”: thresholds at which existing services cannot be reduced. Coyle, Erker and their co-author Prof Andy Westwood from the ̽��ֱ�� of Manchester argue that a minimum UBI level should be tied to an area’s population growth.

Added Westwood: “Achieving a minimum level of universal basic infrastructure is an ambitious but necessary goal if we want to create economic opportunity across the country. It would prevent the current ‘postcode lottery’, and serve as a catalyst for growth in ‘left behind’ areas, as well as places that are growing rapidly but too often without adequate infrastructure and services.”

Full list of towns, cities and areas analysed in report as follows:
England: Bedford, Blackpool, Bolton, Cambridge, Central Bedfordshire, Manchester, Oldham, Peterborough, Rochdale, Stevenage, Stoke-on-Trent.
East Germany: Bautzen, Cottbus, Erfurt, Halle an der Saale and Rostock. ̽��ֱ��report also used data from Hagen in the Ruhr, a post-industrial town in the west of Germany.

*In 2021, German places averaged at 45 mental health centres and practitioners per 100,000, compared to 4 in English places. In 2021, German places averaged at 14 further education providers per 100,000 population, compared to 2 providers in the English places.

Per capita access to hospitals, mental health services, and further education facilities in German towns and cities – primarily in the former GDR – now outstrip equivalent areas in England, often several times over, according to research.

Even England’s wealthier areas are falling short of equivalent places in Germany

Diane Coyle

Bjoern Wylezich/Getty

Intercity 2 train at Warnemünde station in Rostock, one of the parts of eastern Germany look at in the report.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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People in England’s poorest towns ‘lose over a decade of good health’, research finds

fpjl2 — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 08:28:44 +0000

Populations in England’s poorest towns have on average 12 fewer years of good health than those in the country’s richest towns, according to new research from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Bennett Institute.

̽��ֱ��study shows that the number of hospital admissions for self-harm in the most deprived towns is – on average – almost double that of the most affluent, with alcohol-related admissions over 75% higher than in the least deprived towns.

Lung cancer is twice as prevalent in the most deprived towns, and child obesity in the poorest towns stands at an average of 23% by the end of primary school, compared to around 12% in the wealthiest.

In fact, researchers say the overall life expectancy of town-based populations is “moving in a worse direction” compared to cities – with female life expectancy now higher in English cities than towns for the first time this century.

“ ̽��ֱ��previous pattern of rising life expectancy has stalled or gone into reverse in many English towns,” said Prof Mike Kenny, report coauthor and Director of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy. “Declining fortunes and debates over Brexit have highlighted the chasm that divides many town inhabitants from those in cities.

“However, on some key health measures, inequalities between towns are much greater than the average difference between towns and cities. People in England’s most deprived towns lose over a decade of good health compared to the populations of wealthy towns.”

“There is an overriding need for policies to address the large and widening gaps in the health and opportunities of many towns. These policies should be integral to post-pandemic economic recovery agendas,” Kenny said.

̽��ֱ��team found a “strong geographical context”: most of the healthiest towns are in the South East, while most of the unhealthiest towns are situated in former industrial areas of Northern England.

Towns with the longest life expectancy include Frimley in Surrey, and Filton near Bristol. Populations with the shortest lives, on average, were found in Thurnscoe, near Barnsley, and Oldham.

Two seaside towns at either end of the country, Blackpool in the Northwest and Jaywick in East Anglia, had the highest levels of self-harm. Another coastal town, Newbiggin-by-the-sea, near the former collieries north of Newcastle, had the highest child obesity rates. Eccles and Salford on the outskirts of Manchester are the towns with most alcohol-related hospital admissions.

Hertforshire contains a number of England’s healthiest and wealthiest towns, such as Radlett and Harpenden, while many of the country’s unhealthiest towns – scattered across the north – are also those with the largest populations.

̽��ֱ��provision of public green spaces – so important for physical and mental health, and never more so than during the recent coronavirus lockdown – was another dividing line between wealthy and unhealthy towns.

̽��ֱ��most affluent towns are on average twice as likely as the most deprived towns to have a common or municipal park within their “built-up area boundary”, according to researchers.

They also found that the most deprived towns had – on average, per capita – 50% more fast food shops than the most affluent towns.

“More deprived towns are much less likely to have a green town centre and much more likely to have high numbers of fast food outlets than their wealthier counterparts,” said Ben Goodair, the report’s lead researcher. “Both these factors contribute significantly to the widening of geographic health inequalities in England.”

“There is every chance that the coronavirus pandemic will make the inequalities we see in our research even worse,” said Goodair. “Many deprived towns have an older age profile, and are more susceptible to the worst effects of the virus, as well as low employment prospects that will be reduced even further by the economic consequences of lockdown.”

̽��ֱ��report only looked at COVID-19 data up to mid-April, but found a slightly higher death rate was already visible in the more deprived towns during the early phase of the pandemic.

Added Kenny: “ ̽��ֱ��current government has said it is committed to ‘levelling up’ England’s regions. Tackling the factors damaging the health of the poorest towns will have to go much further than the hospital walls, including boosting skill levels, promoting local employment and building community resilience.”

Cambridge researchers find major health inequalities – as well as a geographic divide – between the most and least deprived English towns. They say that life expectancy in cities is now overtaking towns for the first time.

̽��ֱ��previous pattern of rising life expectancy has stalled or gone into reverse in many English towns

Mike Kenny

Clive Varley

Abingdon street in central Blackpool, the English town with the highest rate of hospital admissions for self-harm.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Opinion: Methods for protecting England’s coastal communities ‘not fit for purpose’

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 16:42:50 +0000

In October 2018, a stark report suggested that current methods being used to protect England’s coastal communities are ‘not fit for purpose’.

̽��ֱ��Committee on Climate Change’s Managing the coast in a changing climate report showed that between 2005 and 2014, over 15,000 new buildings were built in coastal areas at significant risk of coastal flooding and/or erosion.

However, if the government meets its ambitious housing targets, up to 90,000 homes built in the next five years might be in areas of significant annual flood risk from all sources of flooding, including coastal flooding.

Practically every winter we are reminded of how dynamic our coastline is. And many of us see at very close quarters how vulnerable many communities in the UK are to coastal flooding and erosion.

But by the time summer arrives, the need for a wide and deep debate as to how we deal with rising sea levels and potential future increases in maritime storminess around the UK coastline evaporates.

Our approach to coastal management issues is to react to failures of coastal defences, either natural or man-made, rather than proactively working towards future-proofing our coastline.

Much of the UK coastline is already eroding, as testified by the dominance of coastal cliff scenery. But coastal erosion and flooding, and consequent damage to infrastructure, disruption of services and modifications to the coastal landscape will become more common over the next century due to climate change.

Specifically, rising sea levels will increase the probability of extreme coastal water levels and this could be exacerbated by potentially larger and more frequent extreme waves due to changes to the wave climate.

At the same time, our coastal zone is far from natural, with numerous clifftop properties and extensive development at the back of beaches, on top of dunes and in low-lying coastal valleys. It is obvious that coastal communities are facing significant future challenges.

Much existing coastal development took place when our understanding of coastal dynamics was limited and when climate change, and its consequences for the coast, was not yet a reality.

That development is already under threat, and the scale of the threat will only increase. Dealing with this issue requires a balanced consideration of the various adaptation strategies, ranging from ‘hard’ coastal protection such as sea walls to more sustainable solutions such as supplementing the amount of sand and gravel on our beaches, and managed realignment.

There will always be locations where only hard coastal defences will do.

But if we wish to avoid piling ever-increasing costs – in both financial and environmental terms – on future generations, we need a more sophisticated, integrated discussion of zoning (to avoid building in high-risk zones).

It may be stating the obvious, but a relatively easy win is to avoid more development in the dynamic coastal zone unless it is absolutely essential.

̽��ֱ��concept of Coastal Change Management Areas (CCMAs) can play a key role here.

̽��ֱ��National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) requires councils to identify CCMAs where rates of shoreline change are expected to be significant over the next 100 years, taking account of climate change.

̽��ֱ��first local plan to make use of CCMAs to inform coastal planning is in Cornwall, where the Newquay Neighbourhood Plan (NNP) is currently under consultation.

̽��ֱ��NNP recommends that proposals for development in CCMAs should only be supported where they are for “small, temporary structures that will not add to the erosion risk”, and rules out residential development.

Proposals for redevelopment, enlargement or extension of existing buildings that fall within the exclusion zone, and proposals to change the use of existing buildings into residential usage, will not be supported either.

In the NNP, the landward limit of CCMAs represents the estimated 100-year erosion line with an additional buffer of 10 metres. Another 2m buffer zone is added if the coastal path is located within the CCMA.

Continued investment into the coastal zone will reduce the natural capability of the coast to respond to hazards, while at the same time passing the financial burden of protecting such coastal development onto future generations.

In order to future-proof our dynamic coast, we need to implement an appropriate buffer zone to inform coastal planning decisions, and these buffer zones will need to be site-specific and science-based.

They would also require regular updating in light of new data, understanding and predictions of climate change and its consequences.

̽��ֱ��Committee on Climate Change’s report has demonstrated the scale of future potential problems, and our own research heavily supports their findings.

By implementing a CCMA-informed policy that is consistent on a national scale, potentially with the policy outlined in the NNP as a blueprint, we can better protect our coastlines now and for future generations.

A bold response to the world’s greatest challenge
̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is building on its existing research and launching an ambitious new environment and climate change initiative. Cambridge Zero is not just about developing greener technologies. It will harness the full power of the ̽��ֱ��’s research and policy expertise, developing solutions that work for our lives, our society and our biosphere.

Professor Tom Spencer from Cambridge’s Department of Geography and Professor Gerd Masselink from the ̽��ֱ�� of Plymouth say evidence suggests there should be far stricter controls on coastal developments.

Christopher Martin

Teignmouth seafront

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Underdogs, curses and ‘Neymaresque’ histrionics: Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Press reveals what’s been getting us talking this World Cup

sjr81 — Fri, 13 Jul 2018 14:58:19 +0000

There has been no shortage of surprises during this year’s competition, and this shines through in the language data. Expressions such as premature exit reflect that several of the predicted favourites haven’t fared as well as expected, with the odd unforgivable blunder making an appearance, too.

Building on similar research conducted during the 2014 World Cup, the Press has mined over 12 million words of media coverage, to analyse the language used when discussing the various teams over the course of this year’s tournament.

Comparison with the language collected in 2014 shows that, whilst traditionally successful teams such as Brazil have gone from stylish to nervous and Argentina from having flair to struggling, World Cup 2018 underdogs such as England have gone from being inexperienced to confident.

̽��ֱ��data reflects that several teams have defied expectations – the word underdogs features frequently in media reports, along with related language like plucky, determined, and punch above their weight also making an appearance.

As fans root for their home teams, the verb overcome is commonly found alongside words such as obstacles, hurdles and adversity. Even England’s long-standing penalty curse has been overcome, whereas previous champions Germany fell victim to the curse of the holders.

̽��ֱ��introduction of Video Assisted Referee (VAR) technology has seemingly been met with mixed feelings, as it is commonly associated with words such as controversy, overturn and incident.

Despite the introduction of VAR, however, bad behaviour still abounds; the word histrionics is prominent in the data – often found alongside adjectives such as ridiculous, headline-grabbing, and amateurish. A new term has even been coined this year: neymaresque.

As well as analysing the language used by journalists and media commentators, ̽��ֱ��Press has also been asking fans to submit the words they would use to describe their national teams.

Laura Grimes, senior ELT research manager at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Press, said: “It’s been great to see the correlation between the language used by the media and the descriptive words submitted by football fans. We’ve combined these two datasets to select the three words most strongly associated with each team.

“ ̽��ֱ��huge amount of language data we’ve collected and analysed gives us fascinating insight into the mood surrounding the World Cup. It’s been a dramatic and surprising tournament and this is certainly reflected by the language used in the media, as well as by football fans.”

̽��ֱ��Press is still inviting submissions for the public’s top three words to describe each national team. To contribute, simply visit www.cambridge.org/word-cup, click on any country and enter the three words you feel best describes this team.

Once submitted, you’ll be taken to a page that is updated in real time and shows the most popular words that have been submitted in a word cloud.

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Press has revealed the results of its global study into the language used around the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.

̽��ֱ��huge amount of language data we’ve collected and analysed gives us fascinating insight into the mood surrounding the World Cup.

Laura Grimes

Photo by Tom Grimbert on Unsplash

Argentina fans at the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

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Opinion: From Medieval kings to modern politics: the origins of England’s North-South divide

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 15:11:35 +0000

̽��ֱ��medieval world has a powerful hold over our modern imaginations. We continually revisit this murky period of history in fictional frolics such as Game of Thrones, and stirring series including ̽��ֱ��Last Kingdom. Echoes of the so-called “dark ages” even carry as far as today’s politics – particularly when it comes to discussions about devolution.

Indeed, as Westminster begins to relinquish political powers to England’s newly-formed city regions, some have claimed that these territories should be defined by historical precedent, rather than administrative practicalities.

But how close are we to our medieval roots, and are our connections with the past really strong enough to influence modern-day decisions? To find out, we need to take a closer look at what’s left of the Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Viking kingdoms of yore.

Ancient Elmet

̽��ֱ��Leeds city region. harkeytalk/Wikimedia commons

Perhaps the most obvious links between past and present can be found simply by looking at the names of places on a map. Take, for example, the Leeds city region – one of the first regions to be granted new powers over transport and skills development.

This region encompasses the villages, towns and cities between Harrogate in the north, Barnsley in the south, Bradford in the west and York in the east, with Leeds at its heart. But it’s not the first time Leeds has been the centre of a regional power base; it was also at the core of the early medieval kingdom of Elmet.

A map of the Old North, based on information from Celtic Culture by John Koch Notuncurious/Wikimedia commons, CC BY-SA

This shadowy kingdom was under the control of Celtic rulers, who spoke a language akin to Welsh. It was later conquered by Edwin, an Anglo-Saxon king, in the 7th century and became part of his empire. Today, the kingdom is recalled in place names, and the parliamentary constituency of Elmet and Rothwell.

Yet despite these geographical similarities, this connection is tenuous – the modern Leeds city region also encompasses parts of North Yorkshire that would not have been in Elmet. And it’s unlikely that administrators had the medieval kingdom in mind when they were drawing the boundaries.

Pursuing the past

To find a more convincing connection between modern politics and medieval monarchs, we need to go beyond mere borders and explore cultural, political and genetic links. For instance, the advocates of Yorkshire devolution trace their heritage back to medieval times – and even earlier. There’s certainly some evidence to support their longstanding connection with the region.

̽��ֱ��People of the British Isles project analysed the DNA of more than 2,000 people whose grandparents came from the same rural areas. ̽��ֱ��resulting genetic groups have been compared with 7th-century kingdoms, indicating some local stability in population over many centuries. What’s more, these ancestral links hold cultural and political force: a recent study showed how much “Yorkshireness” is still a key element of the identity of those living in the county.

We can trace Yorkshire’s political identity back to the days of Edwin, a highly successful Anglo-Saxon king. Edwin belonged to the ruling dynasty of the Deirans, whose power base originally lay in eastern Yorkshire. Edwin expanded into the west of the county and overshadowed his northern Northumbrian neighbours, the Bernicians. He also established looser control over other parts of Britain. Not merely a warrior, Edwin was baptised in York and venerated as a saint. After his death, the Deirans lacked a strong champion. They were dominated by their northern neighbours and absorbed into a greater Northumbrian kingdom.

̽��ֱ��original Northern Powerhouse

̽��ֱ��Kingdom of Northumbria. Wikimedia Commons

Bordered to the south by the River Humber, the Kingdom of Northumbria encompassed northern England and some parts of southern Scotland. Dating from the 7th century, it is said to be the first concrete instance of the North-South divide: the early medieval writer Bede described separate spheres of Northumbrian and southern English politics.

This northern Anglo-Saxon kingdom fragmented during the turbulence of the Viking Age. ̽��ֱ��core area was gradually incorporated into England, while the northern districts became part of Scotland. Nevertheless, Northumbrian identity evolved into a northern separatism that recurred in later times. This in turn generated a sense of northern cultural difference that is familiar today; “pies and prejudice”, in Stuart Maconie’s words.

But while large kingdoms were liable to disintegrate in turbulent times, local and regional networks have tended to remain relatively stable. They formed the building blocks of larger political units and some, like Yorkshire, went on to become modern-day counties.

A key question for modern politics is how the new devolution deals will complement these deeply-rooted identities. ̽��ֱ��case of Yorkshire highlights the tension between the new city regions, the old counties and an ancient northern identity. Medieval allegiances could be multi-layered, and encompass local, regional and national loyalties. ̽��ֱ��same balance is at stake in the modern devolution agenda.

Fiona Edmonds, Senior Lecturer in Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

̽��ֱ��opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Fiona Edmonds (Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic) discusses devolution and the medieval kingdoms of England.

Chris Jones

̽��ֱ��Vikings are coming

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

For image use please see separate credits above.

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Do you say splinter, spool, spile or spell? English Dialects app tries to guess your regional accent

sjr81 — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 00:06:31 +0000

Along with colleagues from the universities of Zurich and Bern, Cambridge’s Adrian Leemann has developed the free app English Dialects (available on iOS and Android), which asks you to choose your pronunciation of 26 different words before guessing where in England you’re from.

̽��ֱ��app also encourages you to make your own recordings in order to help researchers determine how dialects have changed over the past 60 years. ̽��ֱ��English language app follows the team’s hugely successful apps for German-speaking Europe, which accumulated more than one million hits in 4 days on Germany’s Der Spiegel website, and more than 80,000 downloads of the app by German speakers in Switzerland.

“We want to document how English dialects have changed, spread or levelled out,” said Dr Leemann, a researcher at Cambridge’s Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics. “ ̽��ֱ��first large-scale documentation of English dialects dates back 60-70 years, when researchers were sent out into the field – sometimes literally – to record the public. It was called the ‘Survey of English Dialects’. In 313 localities across England, they documented accents and dialects over a decade, mainly of farm labourers.”

̽��ֱ��researchers used this historical material for the dialect guessing app, which allows them to track how dialects have evolved into the 21st century.

“We hope that people in their tens of thousands will download the app and let us know their results – which means our future attempts at mapping dialect and language change should be much more precise,” added Leemann. “Users can also interact with us by recording their own dialect terms and this will let us see how the English language is evolving and moving from place to place.”

̽��ֱ��app asks users how they pronounce certain words or which dialect term they most associate with commonly-used expressions; then produces a heat map for the likely location of your dialect based on your answers.

For example, the app asks how you might say the word ‘last’ or ‘shelf’, giving you various pronunciations to listen to before choosing which one most closely matches your own. Likewise, it asks questions such as: ‘A small piece of wood stuck under the skin is a…’ then gives answers including: spool, spile, speel, spell, spelk, shiver, spill, sliver, splinter or splint. ̽��ֱ��app then allows you to view which areas of the country use which variations at the end of the quiz.

It also asks the endlessly contentious English question of whether ‘scone’ rhymes with ‘gone’ or ‘cone’.

“Everyone has strong views about the pronunciation of this word, but, perhaps surprisingly, we know rather little about who uses which pronunciation and where,” said Professor David Britain, a dialectologist and member of the app team based at the ̽��ֱ�� of Bern in Switzerland.

“Much of our understanding of the regional distribution of different accent and dialect features is still based on the wonderful but now outdated Survey of English Dialects – we haven’t had a truly country-wide survey since. We hope the app will harness people’s fascination with dialect to enable us to paint a more up-to-date picture of how dialect features are spread across the country.”

At the end of the 26 questions, the app gives its best 3 guesses as to the geography of your accent based on your dialect choices. However, while the Swiss version of the app proved to be highly accurate, Leemann and his colleagues have sounded a more cautious note on the accuracy of the English dialect app.

Dr Leemann said: “English accents and dialects are likely to have changed over the past decades. This may be due to geographical and social mobility, the spread of the mass media and other factors. If the app guesses where you are from correctly, then the accent or dialect of your region has not changed much in the last century. If the app does not guess correctly, it is probably because the dialect spoken in your region has changed quite a lot over time.”

At the end of the quiz, users are invited to share with researchers their location, age, gender, education, ethnicity and how many times they have moved in the last decade. This anonymous data will help academics understand the spread, evolution or decline of certain dialects and dialect terms, and provide answers as to how language changes over time.

“ ̽��ֱ��more people participate and share this information with us, the more accurately we can track how English dialects have changed over the past 60 years,” added Dr Leemann.

After taking part in the quiz, users can also listen to both historic and contemporary pronunciations, taking the public on an auditory journey through England and allowing them to hear how dialects have altered in the 21st century. ̽��ֱ��old recordings are now held by the British Library and were made available for use in the app. One of these recordings features a speaker from Devon who discusses haymaking and reflects on working conditions in his younger days.

Dr Leemann added: “Our research on dialect data collected through smartphone apps has opened up a new paradigm for analyses of language change. For the Swiss version nearly 80,000 speakers participated. Results revealed that phonetic variables (eg if you say ‘sheuf’ or ‘shelf’) tended to remain relatively stable over time, while lexical variables (eg if you say ‘splinter’, ‘spelk’, ‘spill’ etc.) changed more over time. ̽��ֱ��recordings from the Swiss users also showed clear geographical patterns; for example people spoke consistently faster in some regions than others. We hope to do such further analyses with the English data in the near future.”

̽��ֱ��findings of the German-speaking experiments were published last week in PLOS ONE.

An app that tries to guess your regional accent based on your pronunciation of 26 words and colloquialisms will help Cambridge academics track the movement and changes to English dialects in the modern era.

We hope that people in their tens of thousands will download the app and let us know their results.

Adrian Leemann

Screen grab of one of the app's questions

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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