Media and Publications

Publications and presentations

Howe, Stephen (2015) ‘Emphatic yes and no in East Anglian dialect: jearse and dow’, Paper presented at the Second Southern Englishes Workshop, University of Cambridge, England, 23 March 2015.

This paper looks at emphatic yes and no in East Anglian dialect. In a variety of East Anglian English, non-emphatic forms for ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are, as in much of English, yeah and no. However, emphatic forms are jearse and dow. This East Anglian dialect thus has a four-form ‘yes’–‘no’ system, with yeah–jearse and no–dow. The paper will examine the origins and use of jearse and dow, neither of which is recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary or the Survey of English Dialects. The author will also compare other forms for ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in English, including the standard yes and informal yeah, non-emphatic un, and regional or archaic aye, yea and nay, as well earlier ‘yes’–‘no’ systems in English. The paper will conclude by briefly reviewing ways of answering in the affirmative or negative in other languages.

Howe, Stephen (2015) ‘Are “yes” and “no” universal?’, Paper presented at the Language Variation and Change Research Forum, Fukuoka University, 30 May 2015.

Howe, Stephen (2015) ‘The origin and meaning of “yes” and “no”’, Invited talk, Fukuoka Linguistic Circle, Fukuoka University, Japan, 18 July 2015.

The starting point of this presentation is the forms for ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in my home dialect of East Anglian English. In this dialect, unemphatic forms for ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are, as in much of English, yeah and no. However, emphatic forms are jearse and dow; neither is recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary or the Survey of English Dialects. The paper will suggest a possible origin of these forms. The presentation then examines the origin and meaning of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ particles in language more generally. It asks how languages express ‘yes’ and ‘no’, what ‘yes’ and ‘no’ stand for, and whether ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are universal. It also examines the well-known difference between English and Japanese and other languages in answering negative questions (such as Don’t you love me anymore?), where ‘yes’ in one language corresponds to ‘no’ in another. Finally, I will discuss paralinguistic ‘yes’ and ‘no’ (as in English uh-huh, uh-uh, Japanese un, uun) and ‘yes’ and ‘no’ gestures, also asking whether these are universal. The presentation will conclude by suggesting a possible origin of forms for ‘yes’ and ‘no’.

Howe, Stephen (2015) ‘The forms of “yes” and “no” in English: origin and development’, Paper presented at the 5th conference of the Japan Society for Historical Linguistics, Hokkai-Gakuen University, Sapporo, 20 December 2015.

Howe, Stephen (2016) ‘Eastern English in America: “dow” and “jearse” in New England’, Paper presented at the 3rd Southern Englishes Workshop, University College London, England, 19 February 2016.

English has surprisingly many words for ‘yes’ and ‘no’. These include the standard yes and no, regional or archaic yea and nay, aye and ayuh, and colloquial yeah. We can also say yep and nope, vocalise uh-huh and uh-uh, and gesture ‘yes’ and ‘no’ by nodding and shaking our heads. In addition, in Eastern English a significant number of speakers have emphatic forms of ‘yes’ and ‘no’, namely jearse and dow. Neither is recorded in the OED, SED or EDD. However, ‘jearse’ and ‘dow’ have been found by the author in a large swathe of Eastern England from the Stour to the Humber. ‘Dow’ and ‘jearse’ are also used in Northeast America. They were not recorded by LANE; however, DARE cites daow(d) or dow in Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, and possibly New York State. There is also day-oh in Rhode Island and daow in New Hampshire. For ‘jearse’, there is jyes and djess in parts of New England and jass in Upstate New York. Colonists from Eastern England may have brought ‘dow’ and ‘jearse’ to New England in the seventeenth century. Four hundred years later, this distinctive feature of Eastern English still survives. The first part of the presentation will examine the extent of ‘dow’ and ‘jearse’ and ask why New England might preserve the speech of Eastern England from four centuries ago? And are ‘jearse’ and ‘dow’ recorded in plays from East Anglia or court records from New England? The second part of the presentation will put forward a number of paths of development of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ particles in an attempt to account for the various forms in a unified theory. What commonalities can we find in the development of yea, yes and aye, no and nay, yep and nope, and jearse and dow?

Howe, Stephen (2017) ‘Aye–aey: An Anglo-Frisian parallel’, Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 77, Issue 1-2, June, pp. 210–242.

The most widespread form for neutral “yes” in the Survey of English Dialects is not yea or yes, but aye. It is used not only in the North and Midlands, but also in areas of the South of England. It is a feature of Scottish English, and is familiar from government in many English-speaking countries. We also find the aye-like ayuh in Northeast America. “Aye” appears suddenly about 1575 and is “exceedingly common” around 1600; it is initially written I and its origin, like yes, is uncertain. Ay is also found in Old Frisian, as well as Sater Frisian today (öäi, a’äi etc.). This study reviews a number of proposed etymologies, examining which can account for the occurrence or development of ay(e) in both languages. Based on a wider study of change in forms of “yes” and “no” in English, I argue that aye–ay is a parallel development of interjection + particle. The study also suggests functional and phonological overlap with the pronominal echo I in English, but not Frisian, with the vocalic form of the pronoun and diphthongisation in the “Great Vowel Shift”, accounting for the popularity and spelling I of “aye” around 1600.

Howe, Stephen (2018) ‘Emphatic yes and no in Eastern English: jearse and dow’, in Southern English Varieties: Then and Now, ed. by Laura Wright, Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter Mouton, pp. 148–187.

Howe, Stephen (2019) ‘New old words for “yes” and “no” in English’, Bulletin of the Central Research Institute, Fukuoka University, series A, vol. 19, no. 1, August.

Howe, Stephen (2020) ‘Jearse and dow: Emphatic “yes” and “no” in the East of England and Northeast America’, poster presentation, Annual Conference of the American Dialect Society, New Orleans, 3 January 2020.

Howe, Stephen (2023) ‘East Anglian English and the Langue de jearse and dow’, NOWELE 76, Issue 1, June, pp. 112–125.