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The language map of Britain: Chart reveals the most popular words across the UK - including 'knob' in Welsh, 'cheese' in Wiltshire, and 'freak' in Essex READ MORE: Americans are adopting Britishisms like 'bonkers' and and 'cheers' By JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE Published: 10:29, 27 April 2025 | Updated: 10:29, 27 April 2025 e-mail View comments While the UK is only home to around 69 million people, there are dozens of regional languages and dialects spoken across the British Isles. From Cornish to Scottish Gaelic, Manx, and Welsh, each region has its own interests, tastes, and obsessions. Now, data published by Charles Kemp, a professor in psychology at the University of Melbourne , reveals the most popular words in each region.
According to his research, Old English has 'hedge' at the top, marking a very long-standing English preoccupation with hedgerows and gardens. The Sussex dictionary has more mentions of 'flint' than any other word – perhaps a reference to the important Neolithic flint mines around the county. And although it may sound like a stereotype, the Scots dictionary has 'oatmeal' as its most-mentioned word, reflecting the highland love for the breakfast dish.
Meanwhile, several cheekier words have also made the top lists – including 'knob', 'freak', and 'dick'. So, what are the words that appear most in your hometown? Scroll down for the full list. Your browser does not support iframes.
In MailOnline's graphic, there are 13 different languages and dialects from places around the British Isles – such as Cornwall, Devon, Essex, Wales and the Isle of Man. Each region dotted around the graphic has five words ranked from one at the top to five at the bottom. For example, in the Republic of Ireland, you will see words including 'turf', 'champion', 'cork', 'salmon', 'generosity', 'mop' and 'clown'.
According to Professor Kemp, these are the words that have the most appearances in the dictionary of the Irish language. They might appear in the definition of that word, or in definitions of other words across the whole of that dictionary – so any mention across all sections from A-Z. The fact 'turf' is the top word here potentially hints at the Irish love for field sports, particularly their native games of Gaelic football and hurling.
Meanwhile, Scots has a different collection of words ranked from one to five – with 'oatmeal' at the top, which has an impressive 314 mentions across the Scots dictionary. 'If "oatmeal" occurs a lot in dictionaries of Scots, that suggests that there are lots of Scots terms related to oatmeal,' Professor Kemp told MailOnline. The words on each language/dialect's list appear the most times in that dictionary - across all sections from A-Z.
Examples are 'oatmeal' in Scots and 'turf' in Irish The research adds to a growing understanding of language, culture, and the way they both relate, according to Professor Kemp and colleagues Top words from languages around the world Bengali : Nectar Czech : Sleeper Egyptian : Offering Hindi : Caste Japanese : Earthquake North Alaskan Inupiatun : Parka Portuguese : Rapture Russian : Frost Slovak : Disarray Turkish : Mecca Advertisement 'They aren't all necessarily terms for oatmeal. E.g.
there might be definitions like "a special spoon for stirring oatmeal" that are oatmeal-related but not actually terms for oatmeal. 'Also, in the H section of the Scots dictionary, "hasty pudding" is a dish made of oatmeal.' 'Oatmeal' is followed by 'turnip', 'jock', 'peat' and 'generosity' – again suggesting Scots love or interest in these things.
Incredibly, Professor Kemp's exhaustive study has compiled the most frequently-mentioned words from 616 languages and dialects worldwide – not from the British Isles. Among these global cultures represented in the dataset are Afrikaans, ancient Hebrew, Bengali, Egyptian, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, Turkish and many more. His interactive online tool based on the data not only reveals the top five words for each one, but the top 20 words.
Taking Egyptian as an example, the top five words are 'offering', 'waterway', 'gem', 'tomb', 'festival', 'shrine', 'ritual', 'foe', 'linen' and 'sip' – all words that conjure up very Egyptian concepts and themes. Of course, the official language of Egypt is Arabic – so the words for these things are said and spelt using a different alphabet ('تقديم' or 'taqdym' for 'offering, for example). Professor Kemp's online tool based on the data shows the top 20 words when you choose from a language/dialect.
For example, Egyptian shows the top word as 'offering' - meaning it makes more appearances across the whole of the Egyptian dictionary. Of course, the official language of Egypt is Arabic - so 'offering' is said and spelt differently ('تقديم' or 'taqdym') Using the online tool, people can also select words to see languages/dialects that have above-average mentions of that word. For example, 'restaurant' is a reoccurring word in Japanese, or 'レストラン' ('resutoran') Read More The rise of the 'Britishism': Americans are adopting words like 'bonkers', 'tune' and 'cheers' Also using the tool, web users can select popular words from a dropdown menu and see the languages with above-average appearances in their dictionary.
For example, languages with above-average mentions of 'restaurant' include Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and Vietnamese. The new data adds to a growing understanding of language and culture, according to Professor Kemp and his colleagues, who describe their findings in a piece for the Conversation. 'Our hope is that it will spark people's curiosity, and encourage them to think about similarities and differences between cultures,' Professor Kemp told MailOnline.
'For example, looking at the results for "porridge" might help someone learn about a similarity between cultures - cooked grains are important in Scotland and in many places in Africa. 'Looking at the results for "kinship" might help someone realize that kinship relations play a more central role in some cultures (e.g.
indigenous Australian cultures) than others.' Dictionaries of the British Isles and their top 20 words Cornish : Colon , pup, brow, toll, glow, cam, pen, mutation, brew, crow, fest, hen, grove, scorn, warden, envy, poster, tavern, pan, mater Devon : Dialect , accent, toad, hedge, farmer, trough, pronunciation, misuse, stubble, bout, ancestry, wasp, forestry, enclosure, glossary, fork, amplification, dick, county, bibliography Essex : Vernacular , dialect, literature, freak, record, century, muck, glossary, laborer, sliver, survival, shack, ailment, instance, cop, east, diet, supplement, correspondent, craze Irish : Turf , champion, cork, salmon, generosity, mop, clown, spark, treachery, captivity, skirmish, weakness, peat, fairy, woe, spade, contention, cop, whiskey, fragment Manx : Volley , veg, bun, bog, turf, creek, grinder, contraction, net, oat, hedge, initial, eternity, twilight, malt, blast, scripture, island, parish, kiln Old English : Hedge , warrior, misery, treasure, hostility, terror, helmet, dick, marsh, progeny, query, glory, hop, sailor, dwelling, parish, blasphemy, sanctuary, host, treachery Scots : Oatmeal , turnip, jock, peat, salmon, bonnet, highland, whisky, oat, walker, stocking, rink, loaf, stack, scotch, shank, broth, turf, thumb, quarry Scottish Gaelic : Dean , plaid, highland, choir, rowing, blast, peat, salmon, hail, maid, turf, bonnet, specter, hero, rigor, booth, hospitality, bravery, poem, flattery South Yorkshire English : Resident , wad, grouse, sewer, vernacular, lad, autumn, township, scar, breed, glossary, bud, fox, dialect, slush, winter, hall, manor, manure, stack Sussex : Flint , smuggler, hedge, hurdle, charcoal, putt, borough, gate, pudding, manor, wagon, net, fisherman, shepherd, parish, meadow, stack, hop, oak, fare Ulster : Oatmeal , whiskey, illustration, peat, origin, errand, roadside, seaweed, sheaf, granny, bog, spade, alteration, duck, exclamation, chimney, fairy, marble, oat, stack Welsh : Mutation , void, onset, impulse, knob, murmur, contention, tumult, blast, bias, toll, salmon, whirl, wrath, dissolution, tendency, dart, clout, puff, freshness Wiltshire-Hampshire : Putt , mister, harvest, sailor, whack, hedge, granny, captain, hay, goo, cheese, pork, pig, corner, version, whistle laborer, cry, upshot, dick Note: Words for each language/dialect are ranked from #1 to #20 (with #1 in bold) Graphics Share or comment on this article: The language map of Britain: Chart reveals the most popular words across the UK - including 'knob' in Welsh, 'cheese' in Wiltshire, and 'freak' in Essex e-mail Add comment Comments 0 Share what you think No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards.
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