When does Mum become Mam?

[NoEffingWay]

I'm in the midlands, and it's definitely Mum here but I can't work out where it becomes 'Mam'. Is it all over the UK, or is there a crossover somewhere near Sheffield?

Not inciting a north-south debate here, I'm genuinely interested in linguistics!

Ps although I do love the Irish mammy!

Mum/mummy in Scotland, husband is Irish so it's Mam, refers to me as mammy when talking to our toddler.

It's mom in Birmingham and the Black Country because of the dialect pronunciation of the short 'a' as 'o'.

See also 'mon' and 'ommer'.

Northerner, im Mam, dislike being called Mum, it sounds weird.

Not quite.

The South Wales Valleys say Mam/Mammy and have stronger Welsh accents.

Cardiff and the Vale say Mum/Mummy and have milder Welsh accents.

Not in West Yorkshire - Mum here

Poor oul Mam is hanging on by her fingernails in Cork and Kerry. But she is under attack by this uppity newcomer called Mom. Yer wan thinks she knows everything!

I grew up in Wolverhampton, everyone was mom, we were even taught in school that it was mom. I always wondered why you couldn't buy a birthday/christmas card with mom on it. Turns out most of the country use mum, I didn't realise that until I was about 25.
Now living in Cheshire, I am the only mom around.

Dh calls his Mam. They live in the south west now but were originally from Durham. I don’t know anyone else who says mam where we live (south).
My family in NI are all called Mummy, even by adult children.

My DPs are both from North Yorkshire within 5miles of each other - DM has a softer accent and it has always been Mum. DF has a stronger accent and always called my Grandma Mam. Neither had particular links to the north east, so I reckon the cross over is somewhere in North Yorkshire!

But it sounds like Mom!
You can get cards on mother's day which are for Mom, I have received such cards 😊 I remember there was a bit of a hoo-ha about it because people were saying it was due to americanisation of British culture

Are you from a working class or mining family?

They say 'Mum' in Oakworth, West Yorkshire, according to the housekeeper in The Railway Children: "Viney's the name, Mum. Hilda. Missus".

Factory workers, not miners

It's common in Ireland.

North and West Cumbria - Mam
South Lakes (posh bit of Cumbria 😂) - Mum

@TragoCardboardCopper

"The very Cornish often use Mother. This can be for their own mother, or their kid's mother, or anyone else's mother and/or wife that they might be talking to or about."

I definitely agree with you on that.

Love the username by the way!

Newcastle born and bred……Mammy as a child and Mam as I got older. My Irish friends still say Mammy though which is quite nice I think x

Here in Sheffield, it's mum. For Alan Bennett, from Leeds, it's mam. I don't know if he's typical.

@TragoCardboardCopper

"The very Cornish often use Mother. This can be for their own mother, or their kid's mother, or anyone else's mother and/or wife that they might be talking to"

I can remember at University that people assumed that I was either super posh or had some kind of cold formal relationship with my parents when I referred to them as Mother and Father!

Meeting a friend in the street 'Alright Jane, how's Mother doing? Is her knee any better?'

Or a husband to his wife 'Mother, have we got any cake?'

Or someone (imagine a younger farmer perhaps, greeting a visitor) 'Go in and see Mother, she'll get ee a tea and saffron bun'

That's brilliant!

@Puddleclucks You get little old men in the pub asking each other 'Geddon George, ow be doin? N ow's Mutherr?' (their wife)

I'm from Leeds and call my Mother 'Mam' my kids call me Mum though.

See this might just be me being thick, but what I don't understand, is if it's down to dialect, why are the spellings different and when did that change?

Are they not all regional variations of 'mum'? Just pronounced differently?

Incidentally I knew a South African who wrote the word mom, but it sounded like mum (southern UK style!) when he said it!

In Wales it's not just dialect but the Welsh language. Mam is the Welsh word for mother.