Established in 1897, the Yorkshire Dialect Society is the world's oldest surviving dialect society. It grew out of a committee formed nearly three years earlier by Professor Joseph Wright, which was set up to collect additional Yorkshire material for the English Dialect Dictionary.

 

The Society is managed by an elected Council, and its President is The Right Revd. Dr David Hope KCVO, a former Archbishop of York.

Our main aim has always been to encourage the study and recording of dialect. Our equal interest is in speech and literature and members like to hear dialect spoken and to see it written in our publications.

 

We hold four meetings each year, one in each of the old Ridings, plus our Christmas Crack in York. We aim to have a lecture on a language topic at one of those meetings, choosing speakers who will present their topic in a way that will appeal to a wide audience.

Others feature Society members in programmes of dialect which lean more towards the more humorous aspects of the county. All meetings are open to the general public.