A dialect so dense that it held up social reforms has been rescued from obscurity by the publication of its first dictionary.Thousands of terms used in Pitmatic (originally "pitmatical"), a dialect of English separate from Northumbrian and Geordie due to the specialised terms used by miners in the local coal pits for more than 150 years, have been compiled through detailed research in archives and interviews with the last generation to talk of kips, corf-batters and arse-loops.
Lost language of Pitmatic gets its lexicon
Durham and Tyneside Dialect Group - 20th Century Washington Pitmatic
Inside Out - Geordie Dialect where, amongst other things, there is a link to Listen to pitmatic sounds from Ashington in Northumberland.
Woodhorn Colliery: Pitmatic
Pitmatic at Wikipedia
On the subject of miners here's a excellent photo essay called Strike 84 from the miners' strike of 1984–1985.
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