Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby (1839) and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1847) are notable 19th century works of literature which include examples of contemporary Yorkshire dialects.

The following is an excerpt of Brontë's use of contemporary West Riding dialect from Haworth in Wuthering Heights, with a translation to standard English below:'Aw wonder how yah can faishion to stand thear i' idleness un war, when all on 'ems goan out!

Bud yah're a nowt, and it's no use talking—yah'll niver mend o'yer ill ways, but goa raight to t' divil, like yer mother afore ye!

One report explains the geographic difference in detail:[12]This distinction was first recognised formally at the turn of the 19th / 20th centuries, when linguists drew an isophone diagonally across the county from the northwest to the southeast, separating these two broadly distinguishable ways of speaking.

It is likely that the Midland influence came up into the region with people migrating towards the manufacturing districts of the West Riding during the Industrial Revolution.Over time, speech has become closer to Standard English and some of the features that once distinguished one town from another have disappeared.

A. Sheard predicted that various influences "will probably result in the production of a standard West Riding dialect", and K. M. Petyt found in 1985 that "such a situation is at least very nearly in existence".

This website features samples of Yorkshire (and elsewhere in England) speech in wma format, with annotations on phonology with X-SAMPA phonetic transcriptions, lexis and grammar.

After many years of low activity, the Society gained some media attention in 2023 with their "Let's Talk Tyke" classes, teaching the traditional dialect to Yorkshire residents.

[74] Significant members of the society have included Joseph Wright, Walter Skeat, Harold Orton, Stanley Ellis, J. D. A. Widdowson, K. M. Petyt, Graham Shorrocks, Frank Elgee, and Clive Upton.

He was the first newsreader to speak in a regional accent rather than Received Pronunciation, "a deliberate attempt to make it more difficult for Nazis to impersonate BBC broadcasters",[76] and caused some comment with his farewell catchphrase "... and to all in the North, good neet".

The director Ken Loach has set several of his films in South or West Yorkshire and has stated that he does not want actors to deviate from their natural accent.

The Lyke Wake Dirge, written in old North Riding Dialect, was set to music by the folk band Steeleye Span.

[87] The late British Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes originated from Mytholmroyd, close to the border with Lancashire, and spent much of his childhood in Mexborough, South Yorkshire.

BBC One series Happy Valley and Last Tango in Halifax, both from creator Sally Wainwright of Huddersfield, also heavily feature Yorkshire accents.

[92][93][94] In the HBO television series Game of Thrones, many of the characters from the North of Westeros speak with Yorkshire accents, matching the native dialect of Sean Bean, who plays Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark.

Several of the dwarfs in the Peter Jackson film adaptation of The Hobbit, namely Thorin Oakenshield, Kíli and Fili, speak with Yorkshire accents.

The character of the Fat Controller in the Thomas and Friends TV series, as voiced by Michael Angelis, has a broad Yorkshire accent.

[96] The freeware action game Poacher by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw features Yorkshireman as a protagonist and majority of the in-game dialogues is done in Yorkshire dialect.