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French scientists have been tabulating some 300 genetic markers in blood
samples taken from over 1000 families from all over France, according to
a report in Le Monde. The research was originally intended for epidemiological
purposes but the genetic maps of France which resulted from the project
raise some interesting speculations far removed from any susceptibility
of the locals to chickenpox in Normandy or measles in the Auvergne.

The maps strongly suggest a correlation between genetic make-up and
the language of the region. The north-south division between the langue
d’oil and the langue d’oc, the French of Paris and the French of Provence,
may not be simply the product of geographical separation. There may well
be a deeper cause, the initial settlement of these regions by people with
different genetic characteristics, characteristics which can still be detected.
That double helix has certainly started something.

British linguists could do well to follow the outcome with interest.
The next breakthrough may come not from post-Chomsky grammatical introspection
but from dialectology. The study of British regional dialects has never
been a strongly supported area of research. The University of Leeds, which
hosted the Linguistic Atlas of England, and Edinburgh University, the final
host of the Scottish National Dictionary, are honourable exceptions. But
the Scottish National Dictionary had to struggle for many years towards
its completion, and its progeny the Concise Scots Dictionary had to appeal
to private donors. Joseph Wright’s monumental English Dialect Dictionary
was ultimately printed by Oxford University Press – but at his own expense.

I suspect that the gathering and codification of British dialect words
has been generally regarded as a hobby for provincial schoolteachers and
rustic eccentrics, somewhat on a level with stamp collecting, at best mere
taxonomy. ‘Real’ scholars looked elsewhere. Now that the French have discovered
it has a link with a proper science – and a very up-to-date brand at that
– things may begin to look rather different.

There is certainly a great deal still awaiting explanation and even
discovery. I had a letter the other day from an English academic, a Cambridge
graduate, telling me he was ‘chuffed’ with his latest findings. He would
not have employed that colloquialism in writing up his results but he and
I knew that he was delighted.

I decided to look up the word ‘chuff(ed)’ in my Concise Oxfords (I have
all eight editions). Understandably, it did not appear in the early issues
but the more hospitable sixth edition of 1976 has the word, labelling it
‘slang (from the dialect chuff)’. What was surprising was the definition:
‘pleased; displeased’. This must surely be the most unsatisfactory definition
ever offered by a dictionary claiming some authority in modern English usage.

Intrigued, I pressed on. The modern ‘standard’ dictionaries were no
help. I turned to the 19th-century English Dialect Dictionary. The answer
was there. Nobody had bothered to look.

There are (were?) not one but two ‘chuffed’ adjectives, lookalikes but
totally different words. One means ‘pleased’; the other means ‘ill-tempered,
displeased’. Joseph Wright, being a real scholar, cited his sources for
each by county. When I plotted these on an old county map of England (not
easy to come by these days) the answer was clear. ‘Pleased, delighted’ chuffed
belongs to the North and the Midlands. The ‘Displeased’ chuffed occurs (occurred?)
exclusively in a southern area that stretches from Cornwall and Devon to
Hampshire, Berkshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent, with a swing north to Norfolk.
It corresponds closely to the old West Saxon kingdom of the 9th century.
Whether these two quite different adjectives correspond to genetic differences
between the West Saxons of the South and the Anglian tribes who settled
further north I do not know. But in view of the French findings the situation
is worth investigating.

British dialects are part of our linguistic totality. It is true we
all speak English. But do we always understand what the other English speaker
is saying? Have you ever made an arrangement to meet someone ‘next Thursday’,
to find that the other party did not turn up? Who is to blame? Have you
ever considered that regional differences in idiom can lie embedded in what
appears to be ‘standard’ English speech?

In the South ‘next Thursday’ means the Thursday immediately following
the day on which you are speaking. In Scotland, Yorkshire, on occasion anywhere
north of Watford – ‘next Thursday’ means what southerners probably call
‘Thursday week’, that is the Thursday immediately following, plus one week.

Next time you make an arrangement for ‘next Thursday’ maybe you should
consider asking for a blood sample (although it would take weeks to get
the results back from the lab). I find it easier to insist on a specific
date, in numeric code.

But would someone please keep an eye on these French investigations
and their implications for what has happened and is still happening in our
language? They come a bit late for me. Having spent a career in the study
of languages I do not think I have time to do a postgraduate degree in molecular
biology. But somebody had better start thinking of it. There may be linguistic
gold in them thar genes.

Ian Gordon is professor of English language and literature at the University
of Wellington, New Zealand.