Without resorting to outside sources, including Google or Yahoo! searches, what’s your best paraphrase and meaning for "On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at"?
Have you heard of it before? If so, where and when?
If you never even heard of it, what would you tell a seven-year-old that it was all about?
The best I can say is I’ve vaguely heard of it, as a reference in English novels. I’'d have guessed it was a comic song from the turn of the century, but that, I learn from Wikipedia, is totally wrong. As to the meaning of the phrase, I would have been without a clue. It looks like Klingon, as written.
That was my first (and last) thought.
Isn’t baht the currency of Thailand?
I would sit the seven year old down and make them watch every episode of the first run of All Creatures Great and Small, which is where I first heard of it (in addition to the show being amazing television).
It’s also a good cautionary tale for why we always wear a hat on the cold moor.
Is it: On Ilkley Moor about eight?
I don’t know the reference, but I used to drive through Ilkley when living in the north of England.
If it matters, the only word in it that I even had a clue about was “Moor” and I wasn’t sure whether to think of that as the countryside or the ethnic group. Now and then that phrase will wander into my consciousness uninvited and it’ll remind me (for no obvious reason) of ON JORDAN’S STORMY BANKS I STAND which just goes to show that stuff gets in your head and won’t go away.
It’s a classic of Yorkshire dialect, if I’m not mistaken.
It is quoted in a mystery novel, “Clouds of Witness”, by Dorothy Sayers. It is a song or poem, probably traditional, and Illka Moor is a place. The song/rhyme is about things eating up other things, in a cycle, sort of: Like ducks eat up worms, worms eat up dead people, people eat up ducks. Other than that I can’t decipher the dialect.
The song is incomplete in the novel, though 3 verses are quoted.
No idea about ba’taht. Though I think ba’ might be “bar” meaning “without”, judging how it’s used elsewhere in the novel.
It is Yorkshire dialect, and it means “On Ilkley Moor, without a hat.” It is from a traditional song. IIRC it tells the story of a man who ventures onto Ilkley Moor (a large, desolate hill just outside the town of Ilkley in West Yorkshire in typical - i.e., cold and rainy - Yorkshire weather, without a hat. He becomes ill from the exposure and (I think) dies.
Disclaimer: I have been on Ilkley Moor, and I did not wear a hat. However, it was quite warm and sunny that day, so I suffered no adverse consequences.
The answers from several of you who know the area make me curious if there may be some connection (at least in spirit) with On Top Of Old Smokey even though the singer appears to have survived in the American version.
Here is a performance of the song, together with lyrics (in the video) and an an explanation.
Here is Ilkley Moor (which is, according to Google, part of Rombald’s Moor - news to me, despite having lived in the general area for about 15 years). The town of Ilkley is just to the north.
ETA: It is a very different sort of song from “On Top Of Old Smokey”. All they really share is that they are set on top of a hill/mountain and involve courting.
Since Zeldar likes data points I’ll just add that this is the first I’ve heard of it.
Well I immediately began singing the song. 
It was something we used to sing either at camp or in Girl Scouts. The phrase means “on Ilkla Moor without a hat” and the song says that I caught my death of cold because I was out on the Moor without a hat (and then the worms ate me, etc.)
I was not aware that the actual name of the Moor was Ilkley Moor.
Everyone needs to watch this version. It’s hilariously cheesy, but…BRIAN BLESSED! makes it all worthwhile.
I never heard of this before. Until I read the explanations, I thought it might be some fantasy pseudo-Arabic phrase, although the phrase “klaatu barata nikto” also popped into my head.
The baht is the currency of Thailand. However, that is just a coincidence, as the phrase in the OP bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Thai language. Whatever it is, it’s certainly not a transliteration from Thai.
For the count: I’m now singing it. My 7 year old is not pleased.
And now I see it was answered. Never mind.
Looks like Broad Yorkshire dialect : something like “On the little moor without hat”?
Nope
I’d explain that some people speak kinds of English that basically sound like another language, and that’s one of them.
ETA: I see by googling I wasn’t too far off - didn’t know Ilkley Moor was a proper placename, so I made the inference from “Ickle”. Never heard the song.