Varieties OF Irish English PDF

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VARIETIES OF IRISH ENGLISH

IRELAND Historical line

Three principal sources.

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English language introduced from England, mainly from the west.

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Scots dialect and Scottish accent, introduced into the northern part from Scotland

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Indigenous Irish language, known as Gaelic, a member of the Celtic branch of the Indo-European family

At the beginning of the 19th century 50% of population spoke Irish, but at the middle of the Century, only a quarter remained speaking Irish as their first language. Nowadays English is the ordinary vernacular language for the 43 million inhabitants of the island. However, Irish has an official status in the Republic and is taught in schools.

Migrations 1. To the North of the island: Scottish migrants 2. To the South of the island: people from the Midlands, especially from the West Midlands

Division of accents Phonologists today often divide Hiberno-English into four or five overarching classes of dialects or accents: Ulster accents, West and South-West Region accents (including, for example, the Cork accent), various Dublin accents, and a supraregional accent developing since only the last quarter of the twentieth century.

Northern Ireland

Southern Ireland history •

What we nowadays know as the Republic of Ireland has been heavily influenced by the English occupation of Ireland for 800 years. In Dublin, the capital of the Republic of Ireland, the English language was brought from the West Midlands of England by the 12th Century.

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By the 17th century, all Ireland inhabitants used Irish as their first language, while there were a few English speakers in some towns.

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Nowadays, Irish speakers are only found in rural areas of the West of Ireland, even the Irish language is one of the official ones of the Republic of Ireland.

FLAG •

We find different accents in Southern Ireland: Supraregional Southern Irish English, Dublin, New Dublin and West and SouthWest Irish English

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ANGLO-IRISH Irish accent consists in the sound of Irish imposed upon English

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Both English and Irish are official languages of the Republic of Ireland, and the two languages are taught in schools.

Features of southern irish English •

Non rhotic /r/ Water /ˈwɔːtə/

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Pronunciation of th/θ/ -> /t/ (Thick /tik/) /ð/ -> /d/ (That /dæt/)

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Diphthong /ɔɪ/ In the south, the diphthong is pronounced as [ ɒɪ] -> choice

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“Must” negation Epistemic negative must. -> He mustn´t be Scottish.

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Them as demonstrative “Them books in the shelf.”

NORTHEN IRELAND In 1921 the island of Ireland was divided into 2 different regions as Ireland (also called Republic of Ireland) became independent of the United Kingdom whilst Northern Ireland remained part of it. So, Northern Ireland, along with England, Scotland and Wales, is one of the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom. However, there is not a generally accepted term to call this land. Some say it is a country, others a province… Nowadays Northern Ireland still cooperates with the Republic of Ireland in several areas but they differ on several aspects such as demographics, geography, religions, economy or language, which is the one that concerns us.

ULSTER SCOTS Ulster is a province in the north of Ireland whose dialect has its origins in the settlement of the Planters from England and Scotland in the 16th century. It is also known as Ullans. It is recognized as part of the cultural wealth of Northern Ireland and it is said to be a mixture of three different languages, English, Scottish and Irish. In fact, John Braidwood, a university lecturer fascinated with dialect said ULSTER DIALECT BEGINS LIKE A BAD JOKE “there was an English man, a Scot man and an Irish man”. Which may be why it is fairly easy to understand by English native speakers.

FEATURES OF ULSTER SCOTS Let’s have a look to some of the most common features of the Northern Irish accent. There are many more features than we are going to see today but, we will cover some of the most obvious. h-dropping They do not drop the H as in HAT or HIM. However, there are some exceptions of course, The H is missing when rapid speech is given. Rothic /r/ In standard British English, the R is “ignored”, but northern Irish accent is more like American English in this aspect: Pronunciation of /aʊ/ There we go with the feature I find most curious. Final /t/ Here the T is omitted but not completely. Here, the tongue is brought up to the roof of the mouth as if the speaker was going to pronounce it, but finally the generated.

Long vowel /a:/ In standard British English, speakers would drop the jaw and make it long. In Northern Irish, it would be made shorter.

Before we move on into the next point, I want you to know that these differences are not only a matter of pronunciation. There are also expressions that are way too far from standard English. So here you have a simulation of an everyday conversation between two northern Irish people.

CONCLUSION We cannot be certain when Irish first came to Ireland, but many scholars believe that it was 2.500 years ago. It is true that there were other languages before this, but Irish started to spread all over Ireland during the Christian era. Later on, The Celts would come to Ireland, they spoke different Celtic languages, which mixing with the earlier Irish inhabitants evolved to Irish Gaelic. With the arrival of the Normans, the Irish language has its first contact with English, which evolved, along with many other influences like the Scandinavian to what we know as the Irish language today. In 1921, as a consequence of the partition of Ireland, these two countries would develop different languages and dialects. Nowadays, the Republic features a bunch of dialects which differ in many ways from the dialects in the North....