Ireland• North and South.
– Northern Ireland, still a part of the UK– The Republic of Ireland, Eire, independent
since 1921
Ireland• North and South.
– “Northern Ireland” or Ulster, still a part of the UK
– Ireland or Eire, independent since 1921
• Two different origins of English in the North and the South,both dating from the 17th century.– South: Anglo-Irish (mostly from Western
England) – North: displaced Scots
Ireland
• For the early period, 17th-18th cent the English of the North and South were cut off by a band of Irish across the middle of the country.
• Both fully rhotic: – alveolar or retroflex approx (not the Scottish
roll )– General lack of dark l (unlike Scottish)
Northern Ireland
• Consonants:– þ and ð occur (not as in South) – So no t-þ and d-ð merging– Fully rhotic, not rolled– Lack of dark l
Northern Ireland
• Vowels – Vowel system closer to Scottish English.– GOOSE and FOOT merged– TRAP and PALM merged (no TRAP-BATH
split)– LOT and THOUGHT merged
Northern Ireland
• Vowels – Loss of phonemic vowel-length distinction:
Aitken's Law rather than Lax/Tense and clipping– Recap Aitken's Law :
except - always short
Southern Ireland – the Irish Republic
• Norse spoken in and around medieval Dublin
• English spoken in Ireland (The Pale) since around 1200 – settlers from Bristol
• Present-day English is from the ‘planters’ of the 17th century – predominantly from SW England
• Very conservative: very few traces of later British innovations
Southern Ireland – the Irish Republic
• The 'brogue' • (barróg 'accent, speech impediment, or bróg =shoe
(from Norse brók)• Very conservative: very few traces of later British
innovations– No FLEECE Merging– No BATH Broadening– No H Dropping– No Glide Cluster Reduction– No Move towards R Dropping (unlike England)
Southern Ireland – the Irish Republic
• Irish substratum: – vowel system basically Irish (Wells 410)– some substratum effects in the consonants
too, but English consonants such as and z, which do not occur in Irish, have been added
– Syntactic substratum:
Sure I’m after tellin you
It’s thinking I am you’ll be hungry
Southern Ireland – the Irish Republic
Vowels• Unrounding of • LOOK-STRUT Split, uncertain in places, but not
with the same lexical incidents
is a back unrounded centralised
TRAP is [a]
any, many with TRAP, = Annie, manny.
No Long Mid Diphthonging:
FACE, GOAT fe:s go:t
KIT-Schwa MErger (Lenin-Lennon)
Southern Ireland – the Irish Republic
Consonants• Þ and ð become dental stops t and d(this is heard by other British speakers as t and d, but
outside Dublin there is a distinction between thin and tin, breathe and breed.
• Lenition of medial (=between vowels) and final consonants, esp /t/, to [t ] or even[h]nah01tAl 1sah0rde
(graphic follows)
Southern Ireland – the Irish Republic
• Rhotic: r is dark, even retroflex• l is light in all environments• No H Dropping• Scwa epenthesis: Dublin, petrol, Cathleen, film, form,
tavern.• Broad and narrow consonants