While new settlers colonised South Pembrokeshire, plying their trades, setting up towns and villages and enclosing fields, the native Welsh remained in the north, beyond a ‘frontier’, labelled the Landsker Line in the early 20th century. The name of this ‘frontier’ comes from the Norse term for boundary being ‘sker’.
This divide is apparent to a degree today, with South Pembrokeshire English being heard in Narberth, and Welsh just three miles away in Clynderwen.
So the dialect of South Pembrokeshire is quite unique, being based on a bedrock of native Welsh, seasoned with Norse, to which, after the Normans arrived, was added a large helping of West Country English and some Flemish.
Here are some splendid words and phrases perhaps unique to the area:
| Word | Meaning |
| all to clush/in a caffle | confused |
| all beleejers | leisurely |
| all for heat | miserable day in summer |
| all front | all show (of person) |
| angletwitch | earthworm |
| apple-flap | apple turnover |
| ba | boy |
| babaloobies | pebble/weathered stone copings |
| balshag | ragged person |
| bittie | small |
| brangel | brazen-faced woman |
| cackty | cowardly person |
| cack-handed | awkward, clumsy |
| cadge | scrounge |
| chopsy | overly talkative |
| capswabble | lies, nonsense |
| cobnobble | chastise, knock on the head |
| cockalorum | wand used by charmers/faith healers |
| drapsy | lazy person |
| dicky | poorly, uncertain |
| dimp | simpleton |
| empting | pouring with rain |
| en, un | him, it |
| enough blue sky to make a pair of drawers | signs of weather clearing |
| fantaddling | fussing |
| funkin | unkind person |
| furrable | pushy |
| furren | foreign, abroad |
| scaddly pluck | scramble e.g. for sweets |
| tammat | small load |
…and many more, far too colourful for this webpage!
We also have surviving dialect words from the Welsh, which include:
| Word | Meaning |
| cardydwyn | small person (pron. Ker-did-win) |
| clegyr | big stone (pron. Kleg-ar) |
| cluster | smack around ear (pron. Klis-ter) |
| heck / hercan | to limp |
From the Vikings
Who harried the area from the ninth to eleventh centuries we have:
|
Word |
Meaning |
| sker | field boundary |
| haggard | stackyard |
| hagglestone | hailstone |
From the Flemings
The time they spent in England before they arrived in Pembrokeshire, coupled with intermarriage led to the early decline of their language. A few words are still in use:
|
Word |
Meaning |
| droppel | doorstep |
| hadridge | wild charlock |
| slop | gap in hedge |
Among many words of West Country origin are:
|
Word |
Meaning |
| sker | small coal |
| evil | hay fork |
| drang | passage |
| pill | tidal creek |
| lake | stream |
