More American translations...

So, following hard on the heels of the news that British Airways has produced a handy little guide for US travellers to the local dialect of these British shores, is news that the producers of the stage production of Billy Elliot have felt it necessary to follow suit. They've supplied our Yankee theatregoing tourist cousins with a glossary in the programme of some of the Geordie dialect used in the play. Handy if you're frantically working on accents and dialects of the British Isles for your forthcoming exam, but do make sure you think about this as a literary representation of Geordie dialect, not as authentic spoken data. Note that the producer's mam didn't think the actors were very Geordie at all!

Mebbies lost in translation: how wor Billy is ganun awa wi' morder

For a clear description of the traditional features of Geordie, check this out:

Language Varieties (Geordie)

And for a very useful analysis of how Geordie is changing (because dialects, like all forms of language, are not static but subject to constant change), try this:

How Geordie is changing