IRISH ENGLISH

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

To start this session I would like to cite Hickey (2007) to explain a little bit of the English

language’s trajectory in the island. The author says: “English has existed in Ireland for over 800

years and so is the oldest form of the language outside the island of Britain. It has furthermore

developed internally in many ways, for instance, through the early establishment of urban

varieties, particularly in the cities of the east coast, most notably in Dublin. The language has

also been under the continuing influence of Irish, which was the first language of the majority of

the population until the beginning of the nineteenth century. This makes Irish English a

language-shift variety and so offers a scenario for the development of English.” According to this

resource, Raymond Hickey is a Professor of Linguistics in the Department of English, Essen

University, in Germany. His previous books include Motives for Language Change (Cambridge

University Press, 2003) and Legacies of Colonial English (Cambridge University Press, 2004).

To talk about Irish history in general, is important to say that in the 16th century the

island was almost completely Gaelic speaking. In the 17th- 18th centuries, some settlements from

the British people started the ‘plantations’ process, bringing the English to the South of the

island, and the Scots in the North.

In 1920, the island were divided into two countries. The Northern Ireland became

independent, making part of Great Britain, and the Southern area is The Republic of Ireland. It

made Ireland to be politically, ethnically (Catholics and Protestants), and linguistically divided.

Kallen (2013) has as subject matter of her book, the varieties of Irish English and Ulster Scots

spoken within the territory of Northern Ireland. About its history the author says “…three

particular phases can be discerned, namely, during the Norman invasion of the Middle Ages,

the plantations of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the landlord

improvements typical of the Age of Enlightenment.” Still about the Northern Ireland, Hickey

(2007) says: “Ireland has seen several periods characterised by waves of settlement. Perhaps

the most significant of these for present-day Irish English was the large-scale settlement of the

north of the country from the west of Scotland and the Lowlands in the seventeenth century,

yielding Ulster Scots, a unique variety of English which has increased in topicality in recent

years. The interaction of Scots settlers with both Irish speakers and other settlers, chiefly from

the north of England, has led to a complex linguistic landscape in Ulster.” To complement, the

same author also mentioned the island’s division: “However, the linguistic diversity within

Ireland is much more subtle than this basic split suggests. Ulster shows major differences in

varieties, above all that between Ulster Scots and Ulster English. The south of the country has a

long-standing distinction between forms of English spoken on the east coast (the oldest in the

country) and those found to the south and west, which show greater evidence of the shift from

Irish to English which largely took place in the last 300 years or so.”

To illustrate, here is the map used by Kallen (2013):

For a deeper Irish history, Kallen’s (2013) Appendix 1 is a good resource.

“The most remarkable fact in the linguistic history of Ireland since the seventeenth

century is the abandonment of the Irish language by successive generations, to such an extent

that the remaining Irish-speaking areas today are only a fraction of the size of the country and

contain not much more than 1 per cent of the population.” (Hickey, 2007).

LANGUAGES IN IRELAND

The first thing I would like to point in this session as Hickey’s (2007) have mentioned in

his work, some features of Irish English in general have influences of the Irish language, once it

is a second language acquisition caused by the massive immigration occurred at that the time.

About this language contact, Kallen (2013) cite some authors when she points that is

pertinent to say: “…the short distance between the north-east coast of Northern Ireland and the

west coast of Scotland. Just 35 km separate the Ards Peninsula from Galloway and the 22 km

separating Fair Head from Kintyre mean that permanent and seasonal migration between these

places in both directions has always been common.”

As an attempt to explain these language contacts, Kallen (2013) uses a term ‘linguistic

ecology’. “This term is used here in a similar way to the approach taken by Mufwene (2001,

2008). In essence, ‘ecology’ in this context is taken to mean factors such as demography,

geography and socio-economic status that potentially impact upon a language’s evolution…

The geography of NI in general terms, it also highlights particular geological and topographical

features that serve to differentiate the dialect zones of Northern Ireland (NI).” Used as example:

“Mountains, rivers and other natural features also inhibit migration, a necessary precursor for

language change under conditions of contact. As such, early inhabitants of the Antrim Plateau

and its associated Glens would have been similarly peripheral (Boberg 2000; Britain 2004;

Mufwene 2008: 60–7). However, the expansion of the road and rail networks and the

industrialisation of Antrim and Down in the nineteenth century and since, coupled with their

strong links with the Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area (BMUA), have had profound

consequences for the vitality of language here in more recent times.”

As an addition, here is a map from the Northern dialectal zones :

“That said, the three major dialect zones of NI identified on Figure 1.9 have been traditionally

distinguished largely on the basis of phonological criteria, particularly vowel quantity, namely,

the duration or length of the vowel segment.” (Corrigan, 2010). In the same Corrigan’s (2010)

book, is shown as conclusion “Many of the issues raised here with respect to the particular

demographic, geographic and socio-cultural factors that impact on matters of language and

dialect in Northern Ireland.”

PHONETIC AND PHONOLOGY

Corrigan (2010) stated that “Vowels and suprasegmentals are the most distinguishing

features that separate one global English from another.” So to start, I would like to present some

comparisons made by Hickey (2004) about some phonological features of the some Northern

Ireland as well as the Southern Irish English (SIE).

In this work in relation to the SIE’s variations, is said:

“A suprasegmental feature of the south, especially of the city of Cork is the large

intonational range characterised by a noticeable drop in pitch on stressed syllables. This

Raymond Hickey The phonology of Irish English Page 7 of 30 intonational pattern is shared by

Cork Irish, in the remnants which are still extant, so that this prosodic feature can be viewed as

an areal feature of the south/south-west. The city of Cork also has a very open realisation of the

vowels in the LOT and THOUGHT lexical sets which is seen in (often stereotypical)

pronunciations of the city’s name, [kark]. A distinctive feature of the west is the use of dental

stops in the THINK / THIS lexical sets. In vernacular varieties in the east and south, alveolar

stops are employed here. In the history of Irish English one can assume that Irish speakers

switching to English would have used the nearest equivalent to English /2, 3/, i.e. the coronal

stops of Irish. These stops were alveolar in the east and south, but dental in the west so that

speakers used /t, d/ as equivalents to the English dental fricatives in their second language

English. This dental pronunciation of the west has become that of the supraregional variety of

Irish English, itself deriving from usage in Dublin and spreading then throughout the country.

But in vernacular Dublin English the realisation of dental fricatives has been as alveolar stops

so it is not clear how vernacular speakers in Dublin came to use dental stops…

…To the north, the Midlands show the transitional features of the north-south divide (Ó

Baoill 1991) such as u-fronting, the use of dental fricatives for stops in the THINK / THIS lexical

set or a retroflex [5] for the more general, traditional velarised [x] of the south. The single most

obvious feature of the Midlands is the shift of /tj/ to /k/ in intervocalic position as in fortune

[/forku:n], already mentioned in the 19th century. Other features are shared by adjoining

varieties.”

The following table is used to illustrate the features presented.

In this work in relation to the Northern Irish English’s variation, is said:

“An essential feature of standard Ulster Scots is that most words with non-standard

Scots vowel values have re-allocated values which are nearer to those in general Ulster

English. The following list illustrates vowel values and some consonantal features which are

indicative of conservative Ulster Scots; the yardstick of reference is Older Scots (OS), up to

1700, i.e. before the emigration to Ulster began.

The shifts of vowel values in Ulster Scots when compared to southern British English

have led to a re-alignment of vowel space. This can best be indicated diagrammatically as

follows. The first shift one should note is that of Middle English /o:/ to a front vowel, with or

without rounding, i.e. Older Scots /i, #/. In Ulster Scots this vowel appears as /i/.

”

In the same reference, a chapter for contrasting Northern and Southern Irish English

presents:

“In the following sections those features in which varieties in Ulster (both Ulster Scots and general Ulster English) differ from those south of the province will be discussed. In a number of instances it is necessary to distinguish the two main groups within Ulster. The yardstick for the south is the supraregional standard which ultimately is derived from middle-class Dublin English of the early and mid 20th century.

Equivalents of dental fricatives In the entire area of Ulster the THIN and THIS lexical sets show fricatives. The only exception to this are areas of contact with Irish (in County Donegal) where one finds [t] and [d] because of the transfer from Irish of the realisations of /t/ and /d/ in the latter language.

Dentalisation of alveolar stops before /r/ This is a phonetic process whereby an alveolar stop — typically /t/ — is shifted forward to a dental point of articulation when it is followed by an unstressed rhotic schwa. The /r/ is realised as a tap or slight trill due to the position of the tongue parallel to the escaping airstream (Bernoulli effect) and it frequently voiceless

Allophones of alveolar plosives The fricativisation of /t/ and often /d/ intervocalically and word-finally before a pause is not generally to be found in the north — nor in other varieties of English, bar the Irish section of Newfoundland — and thus gains the status of a defining feature of southern Irish English.

The palatalisation of velar plosives A conspicuous feature of generalised Ulster English is the palatalisation of /g/ and /k/ to /kj/ and /gj/ respectively. This palatalisation is only to be found before low vowels. It would appear to be an English and not a Scots feature and is attested in 18th century mainland English although it was later lost.

Off-glides When mid front vowels occur in stressed position then they tend to develop offglides. This is particularly clear before a following consonant.

Unstressed vowels In unstressed positions southern Irish English frequently has the high vowel [i], i.e. without any centralisation to [i], so-called HAPPY-tensing. Ulster English tends to lower an unstressed /i/ to a value approaching /e/.

Vowel quantity In Ulster, in strong contradistinction to the South, vowel quantity is often non-distinctive. High and mid vowels, which are elsewhere either long or short, appear phonetically half-long.

”

Still in the same resource, the author make a distinction to the Irish English from Dublin. Here it says:

“When discussing consonants Sheridan remarks on ‘the thickening (of) the sounds of d

and t in certain situations’. Here he is probably referring to the realisation of dental fricatives as

alveolar plosives as found in vernacular forms of Dublin English today. There is no hint in

Sheridan of anything like a distinction between dental and alveolar plosive realisations, which is

an essential marker of local versus non-local speech today.

…Features of local Dublin English Vowel breaking Long high vowels are realised as

two syllables with a hiatus between the two when they occur in closed syllables. The hiatus

element is [j] with front vowels and [w] with back vowels, clean [klijqn], fool [fuwql]. The

disyllabification of long high vowels extends to diphthongs which have a high ending point as

can be seen in the following realisations: time [tqjqm], pound [pewqn]. Among the further

prominent vocalic characteristics of Dublin English are the following: (1) Fronting of /au/, e.g.

down [deun] - [deun], (2) Lengthening of historically short vowels before /r/, e.g. circle [se:k)],

first [fu:s(t)], (3) Retention of early modern English short /u/, e.g. Dublin [dublqn]. Cluster

simplification Stops after fricatives or sonorants are liable to deletion. Intermediate registers

may have a glottal stop as a trace of the stop in question: pound [peun(?)], last [læ:s(?)].

Fortition of dental fricatives It is safe to assume that the realisation of the first sound in the

THOUGHT lexical set in popular Dublin English as an alveolar plosive [t] Raymond Hickey The

phonology of Irish English Page 15 of 30 is not a recent phenomenon. Hogan (1927: 71-72)

notes that it is found in the seventeenth century plays (assuming that t, d represent [t, d]) and

furthermore in the Dublin City Records (from the first period, i.e. before the 17th century, see

above) where the third person singular ending -th appears as -t. T-lenition The clearest phonetic

feature of southern Irish English is the realisation of /t/ as a fricative with identical characteristics

of the stop, i.e. an apico-alveolar fricative in weak positions. Extensions include the lenition of /t/

in a weak position beyond the initial stage of apico-alveolar fricative to /r/ then to /h/ with final

deletion as in the following instance.

As mentioned above, the THIN and THIS lexical sets show alveolar stops rather than

the dental stops of supraregional Irish English.”

SYNTAX AND MORPHOLOGY

In this section I do not intend to deeply describe all of its features, but there are some of them that are worthy to mention so I will use as reference Milory (1993).

1) –s with plural subjects :

“One of the factors are the nature of the subject itself. Generally speaking, the s- ending (including is/was in the case of be) occurs freely with subjects which are full nouns (as opposed

to pronouns) e.g:

Them two fellas was hit

(‘The two fellows were hit’)”

2) Imperative form of verbs:

“ The imperative form of verbs are employed for the purpose of giving commands or making requests, as in ‘Go away’ or ‘Bring that bottle over here’. As these examples show, the

imperative form of the verb in general English is indistinguishable from the infinitive. In Irish English, there is a endency to use a continuous form in such contexts, i.e. a constructions

composed of ‘be’ and an ‘ing-‘ participle:

Be peeling them there

Don’t be talking…

…Other types of imperatives in Irish English are constructed with modal auxiliaries, especially ‘may’ or ‘can’ as in:

You may leave there!

(‘Leave that there’)

Or in some areas with ‘let’ or ‘leave’:

Let you all go now!

Let you not be making noise! “

3) Habitual ‘be’ or ‘do be’:

“Can be combined with ing- forms of main verbs to produce a ‘habitual continuous’ category. This indicates that the internal temporal structure of each event in a recurrent

series is one of extended duration. For example:

They be shooting and fishing out at the forestry lakesThey do be fighting among other

(‘… among themselves’)”

4) Negation (negative concord):

“…any word apperingin a simple negative sentence must take a negative form if it can. That is, verbs, pronouns, determiners and adverbs must if possible agree in the

marking of negation. Thus we get so-called ‘double negatives’ in sentences such as

I didn’t see nobody(‘I didn’t see anybody’)

I never said nothing(‘I didn’t say anything’)

A better term would be ‘multiple negation’, since more than two negatives can apper in a sentence exhibiting negative concord, as in

She never lost no furniture nor nothing(‘She didn’t lose any furniture or anything’)

5) Prepositional usage:

“It is an area where the effects of Irish influence are very much in evidence…it has more to do with the meanings of the prepositions them selves than with generally applicable rule of

grammar… Some examples:

The money is with them

(‘They have plenty of money’)

She wasn’t asked she a mouth on her

(‘…wether she was hungry’)

There’s a great humour to him

(‘He’s very humorous’)…”

There are other curious features that distinguish the Ireland English from the RP, which can be found on this book but as I have said before, I am not going to deeply describe each one of them for a logistic matter.

COMMON FEATURES

After have written about some differences between the dialects of the Irish English, I believe is fair enough also, show quickly some similarities of them. For that, I will use a Hickey’s (2007) passage: “Despite such local differences, there is a large body of vernacular

features which are shared by varieties of Irish English, north and south.” Following the table used in the book:

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

My intention on this essay was to present some particular characteristics of the Irish English, providing a historical background to support some facts that have changed over the years. I have also pointed out some differences and similarities of the phonological features, as well as some syntactical and morphological attributes existent in a few dialects.

REFERENCES

MILORY, J. & MILORY, L. (1993) Real English: The grammar of English Dialects in the British Isles – Longman, London.

HICKEY, R. (2004) The Phonology of Irish English - Kortmann, Bernd et al. (ed.) Handbook of varieties of English. Volume 1: Phonology. - Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2004, 68-97. Online version (https://www.uni-due.de/~lan300/34_The_Phonology_of_Irish_English-VarietiesHndbk_(Hickey).pdf)

HICKEY, R. (2007) Irish English, History and present-day forms – Cambridge University Press. Online details (http://www.cambridge.org/9780521852999).

CORRIGAN, K. (2010) Irish English, volume 1 – Northern Ireland – Edinburgh University Press Ltd.

KALLEN, J. (2013) Irish English Volume 2: The Republic of Ireland – Cambridge University Press. Online resource (http://www.cambridge.org/9780521852999)