Irish English Part 7 pdf

5.1 The early modern background 297 the view that the Irish English scene is not by the author of the rest of the play and attributes a good knowledge of Irish affairs to its original composer. There are discussions of this play in older literature, notably Duggan (1969 [1937]: 51–7), Bartley (1954: 14–16) and Eckhardt (1910–11: 38–41) who deal with phonetic peculiarities of Irish English and mention the frequent replacement of /s/ by / ʃ/ and the use of [φ]for/f/ and wh- []. The language of the Irish English scene in this play is clearly that of the early period, i.e. before 1600. It shows a variety in which the major shifts in English long vowels had not yet taken place, e.g. toone ‘town’, prood ‘proud’, aboote ‘about’. These spellings suggest that ME /u / had not been diphthongised. Feete ‘white’, dree ‘dry’, lee ‘lie’ equally imply that ME /i / had not shifted either. The language represented here does not seem to have merged into later Irish English but appears to have been replaced by superimposed forms which were taken to Ireland later. The second type of text, with English representations of Irish English, can be seen in Ben Jonson’s The Irish Masque at Court (1616). This is a satirical piece, some six pages long, in which four Irish characters are made fun of by Jonson. Certain stock features, typical of external perceptions of Irish English, are to be found here: the (over-generalised) substitution of /s/ by / ʃ/, the use of [φ] (written as ph)for/f/ and wh- [ ], the use of [t, d] for /θ, ð/. The archaic nature of the English portrayed by Jonson is evident in those words which, as with Captain Thomas Stukeley, suggest that the English long vowel shift had not taken place, e.g. chreesh ‘Christ’ points to ME /i /. However, the dangers of setting too much store by English representations of Irish English are evident here: Jonson implies in spellings such as mout ‘mouth’, now, tou ‘thou’ that ME /u / had shifted, or at least he leaves the matter undecided as he does not avail of the orthography <oo> in such words (as did the author of Captain Thomas Stukeley). Furthermore, the question must be asked how a writer like Ben Jonson (1572–1637) attained knowledge of Irish English. He is not known to have been in Ireland (though he did visit Scotland). Perhaps he acquired some acquaintance of Irish English from inmates during his many spells in prison in London and/or through contact with Irish vagrants of which there were many in England in his time. ..     In the Irish context, one must distinguish between the language of Shakespeare, with possible parallels in Irish English, and the more popular view that the conservatism ofIrish Englishlinks it directlyto thelanguage ofEngland’s greatest writer. The latter stance is found in non-linguistic works on English in Ireland and goes back at least a century; consider Burke (1896) who lists features from Irish English which are also found in Shakespeare’s plays, for instance, double negation, interchangeable use of this and that and the partial reduction of the deictic system to one (Burke 1896: 778f.). Other works such as that by Walsh (1926) carry an explicit title, here: ‘Shakespeare’s pronunciation of the Irish 298 Present-day Irish English brogue’, which suggests the parallelism. On closer inspection one finds that such works tend to confine themselves to listing some of the features which the authors consider typical of the Irish brogue, such as unshifted ME / ε/, the fortition of / θ, ð/, etc. More often than not there is a cultural point made as well. Walsh in the appendix to his book tries to show how unjustified the belittling attitude of the English to the Irish is by maintaining that the Irish ‘brogue’ is closest to what he supposed was Shakespeare’s pronunciation of English. This attempt to lend dignity to historically stigmatised varieties has parallels elsewhere in the anglophone world, e.g. in the southern United States where correspondences with Shakespeare’s English are often claimed (Schneider 2003: 18). Today the value of contributions such as those by Burke and Walsh is that they offer attestations of Irish English colloquialisms which are somewhat archaic, in the case of Walsh exactlyhalf-way between Sheridan in the lateeighteenth century and today – but certainly not from the Tudor period. The second, more serious type of study is exemplified by Patrick J. Irwin’s PhD thesis in which he documents the parallels between Irish English and the language of Shakespeare’s plays (which he takes as indicative of Elizabethan linguistic usage as a whole). For example, he notes that Shakespeare has brogue in the sense of ‘shoe’ used by Arviragus in Cymbeline (act IV, scene ii): ‘and put my clouted brogues from off my feet’ (Irwin 1933a: 641), this being the original meaning which had reached England as a loanword by the sixteenth century. Shakespeare’s language also shows structures which have been regarded as exclusively Irish in provenance. A case in point is the use of the conjunction and in a subordinating concessive sense (also noted by Burke 1896: 787): ‘Suffer us to famish, and their storehouses filled with grain’ (Coriolanus, act I, scene i); see section 4.4.6.2 on subordination for further discussion. The language of Shakespeare and that of the Elizabethan era (in a more diffuse sense; cf.Braidwood 1964) needs to be distinguished. As a native of the west coun- try, Shakespeare shows a number of traits of this region, such as his conservative use of periphrastic do (Hope 2003: 137–41). These traits were examined in detail by Hope (1995)for determining authorship. This use can be assumed to have been present in the input to Ireland at the beginning of the early modern period; see the discussion in section 4.4.1.4.3 on habitual aspect. Many non-standard features of Irish English can be attributed to this English input. For instance, Irish speakers frequently confuse complementary verb pairs distinguished by direction such as bring, take; rent, let; learn, teach.With the latter pair the first is used in the sense of the second. This is also found with Shakespeare, e.g. in the wordsofCaliban: ‘the red-plague rid you for learning me your language’ (The Tempest, act I, scene ii). In addition to these cases, there is the ‘Four Nations’ scene from Henry V in which Shakespeare imitates the speech of a stock Irish character, Captain Mac- morris. However, apart fromthis portrayal and the occasional parallels mentioned above, the study of Shakespeare’s language is not of relevance to the historical investigation of Irish English. 5.1 The early modern background 299 ..     Literature by non-Irish writers reveals what features of Irish English were salient and thus registered by non-native speakers. These features have gone into form- ing the linguistic notion of the ‘Stage Irishman’ (Duggan 1969 [1937];Kosok 1990: 61ff.), a stock figure in much drama from the Restoration period, i.e. after 1660. The stereotypical picture of the Irishman as excitable, eloquent and pugna- cious, with a fair portion of national pride, is an image that Shakespeare fuelled in the figure of Captain Macmorris in Henry V. These are features which Kiberd (1980) sees as consistent with the subsequent portrayals of the stage Irishman. His function as a foil within English literature is of significance and continued into the twentieth century; see ‘Stage Irishmen and True-Born Irishmen: Irish drama- tists in London and Dublin’ in Kosok (1990: 61–70) and the various references in Morash (2002). Given the number of Irish figures which appear in English plays from the Restoration period onwards, there has been no shortage of manuals in which prominent features of Irish English are described, e.g. Blunt (1967). Blunt has achapter on ‘Irish’ (1967: 75–90) in which he gives a series of guidelines to those prospective actors unfamiliar with an Irish accent of English. Other works which contain dialect descriptions for actors are Molin (1984) and Wise (1957). In such cases phonetic transcription is rare, rather some system based on English orthography is used. ..      That Swift was concerned with questions of language hardly needs to be stated. His personal interests, his position as a writer in Ireland and above all his literary concern with satire meant that reflecting on language was a common occupation of his. The studies of Swift’s language fall into two broad categories. One looks at Swift’s views on standardisation and language change, the second considers evidence for eighteenth-century pronunciation in Swift works, especially in his poetry. The first type is illustrated by Strang (1967) who examines Swift’s wish to influence the course of English. She offers explanations for this, chiefly the great changes in the lexicon of English of his period, and suggests that the desire to be understood by future generations was the motivation for Swift’s linguistic conservatism. Furthermore, his sense of order caused him to pay inordinate attention to such matters as the placing of adverbs and verbal particles. The second type of study is exemplified by Kniezsa (1985) who, by using Swift’s rhyming poetry (various odes), attempts to trace the development of Middle English long vowels which in south-east Britain underwent the major English vowel shift. She finds confirmation for the view that in early eighteenth- century Ireland, represented by Swift, Middle English /a / had not been raised very far, maximally to / ε/, as indicated by rhymes such as fame : 300 Present-day Irish English stream. She also adduces evidence for the non-raising of /ε/inwords writ- ten with ea,aconservative feature of Irish English still found today, albeit recessively. ..        At the opening of the eighteenth century two Irish dramatists were active, namely William Congreve (1670–1729) and George Farquhar (1678–1707). Congreve was born in Leeds but his father was posted on military service to Ireland which led to his being educated there, first at Kilkenny School and later at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was a fellow student of Swift. He is the author of a number of dramas, the best known of which is probably The Way of the World (1700). The language of his plays does not, however, betray any non-standard elements and hence is not of interest in the present context. The other dramatist just mentioned, Farquhar, was born in Derry; he later started studying in Trinity College, Dublin, and then worked as an actor in the Smock Alley Theatre, playing major Shakespearian roles. He left for London in 1697 where he began as a playwright. His best-known comedy, The Beaux Stratagem (1707), was written just before he died. Farquhar is one of the last Restoration dramatists and his many plays, such as The Twin Rivals (1702) and The Stage Coach (1704), had a strong influence on subsequent writers in the eighteenth century, including novelists like Fielding, Smollett and Defoe. His plays sometimes contain Irish characters and Farquhar uses eye dialect to repre- sent the Irish speech of his time. The late eighteenth century (Morash 2002: 67–93) saw the novelist and drama- tist Oliver Goldsmith (1728–74) produce his popular comedy She Stoops to Con- quer (1773) as well as the Dublin playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751– 1816) begin his dramatic production with The Rivals in 1775, which was a success at Covent Garden. Soon afterwards, Sheridan produced his own major work, The School for Scandal (1778), which was quickly followed by another comedy of considerable merit, The Critic (1779). Neither Goldsmith nor Sheridan were particularly concerned with representing Irish speech in their plays. Indeed, it was Sheridan’s father, the elocutionist Thomas Sheridan (1719–88), who in his one play, Captain O’Blunder or The Brave Irishman (1740/1754), did portray Irish speech using conventional means of eye dialect. The eighteenth century also saw some minor dramatists of sentimental come- dies who are now more or less forgotten. Of these one could mention JohnO’Keefe (1747–1833), who was quite successful and devised a distinctly Irish mode for plays produced in Ireland, often in the reputable Smock Alley Theatre (Morash 2002: 71–4). In the early nineteenth century, after Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s death, drama by Irish writers went into a period of decline. Figures like Charles Maturin (1782–1824), James Sheridan Knowles (1784–1862) and Samuel Lover (1797–1868) are very definitely minor. It is not until the mid nineteenth 5.1 The early modern background 301 century that Irish playwrighting produces a prominent writer in Dion Bouci- cault (1820–90), who was successful in Ireland, Britain and the United States. Boucicault was also concerned with representing Irish speech in his plays and these were consulted for the discussion of grammar to be found in the previous chapter. For English authors and for Irish writers without a dialect background, there existed a repertoire of stock features which were generally assumed to be rep- resentative of Irish English. For instance, in his Soldiers Three (1890), Rudyard Kipling makes use of two orthographical devices to add Irish flavour to direct speech, as in Those are the Black Oirish and ’Tis they that bring dishgrace upon the name av Oirland, where the spelling dishgrace implies the use of / ʃ/for /s/. The second device is seen in the spellings Oirish and Oirland where oi can be taken to represent [ ə], a traditional pronunciation in Dublin and surroundings and something for which the playwright R. B. Sheridan was ridiculed by Fanny Burney (1752–1840) at the beginning of the nineteenth century (although he did not try to represent this in his own writings). George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) occasionally used such features in his plays. For example, in John Bull’s Other Island one finds raising of short vowels before nasals and dentalisation of alveolars before /r/ as in I’m taking the gintleman that pays the rint for a dhrive. ..      As was pointed out in section 2.1 above, the history of Irish English can be divided into two periods, an early one which began in the late Middle Ages and continued until the sixteenth century and a second period which began around 1600. The features of the early period have already been discussed and in table 5.1 only those which can be attributed to forms of Irish English from the early seventeenth century onwards are listed. In table 5.1 the dates for the latest attestations were determined by examining texts, usually satirical drama or realistic prose (see comments at the beginning of this chapter). These dates just give a rough indication of how long a feature lasted or indeed whether it is still found. Some features which still exist are highly recessive or confined to certain varieties or regions of Ireland. Attestations in literary documents are found in the following. 1. Long U-retention thoo talkest to much the English (Captain Thomas Stukeley, 1596/1605) 2. Long I-retention a paire of feete trouzes, or a feete shurt (Captain Thomas Stukeley, 1596/1605) 3. A-back raising you do be mauke de Rauvish upon de young Womans (John Michelburne, Ireland Preserved, 1705) 4. ER-retraction Worn’this sons gintlemen no less? (William Carleton, The Tithe Proctor, 1833) 302 Present-day Irish English if they worwhat Beamish Mac Coul is this day. (Dion Boucicault, Arrah na Pogue, 1864) 5. -lowering is this the way ye sarve the poor fellow? (John and Michael Banim, Tales of the O’Hara Family, 1825–6) 6. I- -interchange shit ub strait (The Pretender’s Exercise, ?1727) Him that’s jist left ye, ma’am (Dion Boucicault, The Colleen Bawn, 1860) 7. -raising you haven’t th’ guts to ketch a few o’ th’ things (Sean O’Casey, The Plough and the Stars, 1926) 8. Long O-raising that will never see you more on her flure (William Carleton, The Hedge School, 1833) 9. Short E-raising the shadow of an illegant gintleman (Dion Boucicault, The Colleen Bawn, 1860) ’tis a Profissor of Humanity itself, he is (William Carleton, The Hedge School, 1833) divil, togithir (Dion Boucicault, Arragh na Pogue, 1864) riverince, niver (Dion Boucicault, The Colleen Bawn, 1860) 10. Unraised long E Merciful Jasus! what is it I see before me! (Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent, 1801) spake ‘speak’ (Dion Boucicault, Arragh na Pogue, The Colleen Bawn, The Shaughraun) rade ‘read’ (Dion Boucicault, The Shaughraun, 1875) kape ‘keep’ (Dion Boucicault, Arragh na Pogue, 1864) 11. Final-O-fronting ‘He’ll be folleyin’ you,’ says he; he heard she’d gone to folly her husband (Sean O’Casey, The Plough and the Stars, 1926) 12. OL-diphthongisation it’s an ould thrick you have (John and Michael Banim, Tales of the O’Hara Family, 1825–6) the last of the Grameses sould the estate (William Carleton, Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, 1833) 13. WH/W-approximation fan I get into Dundalk (Captain Thomas Stukeley, 1596/1605) Phaat dosht dou taalk of shome things? (Thomas Shadwell, The Lancashire Witches, 1681/2) Ve lost van Couple of our Min (A Dialogue between Teigue and Dermot, 1713) 14. -metathesis Ax me no questions about her (William Carleton, Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, 1833) 5.2 Vernacular Irish English 303 if you’ll only ax me, dear (Dion Boucicault, Arragh na Pogue, 1864) don’t ax me any questions at all (Dion Boucicault, The Colleen Bawn 1860) 15. S-palatalisation for my shister’s afraid of ghosts (Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent, 1801) 16. T/D-dentalisation thravels, murdher (Dion Boucicault, Arragh na Pogue,1864) 17. TH-fortition and what will people tink and say (Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent, 1801) wid ‘with’ (Dion Boucicault, Arragh na Pogue, 1864) den ‘then’ (Dion Boucicault, The Colleen Bawn, 1860) 18. -lengthening (not indicated in writing) 19. Post-sonorant devoicing but my lady Rackrent was all kilt and smashed (Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent, 1801) 20. Post-sonorant stop deletion he was bringin’ twenty poun’s a week into the house; his arm fell, accidental like, roun’ me waist (Sean O’Casey, Juno and the Paycock,1924) 21. R-Vowel-metathesis as purty a girl as you’d meet in a fair; a sartin purty face I’m acquainted with (William Carleton, Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, 1833) 5.2 Vernacular Irish English Non-standard features of pronunciation are found most commonly in rural regions and in local urban varieties. These features have been indicated in many historical documents, mostly literary, such as those used for the discussion above, and so their genuineness as historically derived features is confirmed. But not all features are attested. There are aspects of pronunciation which simply fail to appear in the historical record. For instance, although William Carleton was from rural Co. Tyrone and although the T-to-K shift, as in fortune [f ɒrkun], is attested there and in north-central Leinster, 2 he does not represent this feature anywhere in his writings. In addition to this difficulty, there are features which cannot be indicated easily in writing. While it would have been possible for Car- leton to have written a word like fortune as forcune, there is no obvious means of representing a uvular /r/ rather than an alveolar /r/ in dialect spelling. In effect this means that the written records before the twentieth century do not suggest that a uvular /r/, as in square [skwe əʁ], was present in Ireland. This is, however, the case, as many recordings in A Sound Atlas of Irish English (Hickey 2004a)clearly show. 2 This shift would seem to occur, or at least to have occurred across into north Connaught. The material for A Linguistic Survey of Ireland notes [fr εkən] for frighten in north Co. Mayo. 5.2 Vernacular Irish English 305 Table 5.1. (Notes cont.) 4Rounding after /w/ is probably responsible for this retraction. It is most likely a feature of the West Midland dialect of Middle English (Moss ´ e 1952: 84) which was present in later input varieties of English in Ireland. Earlier Irish English (from the Kildare Poems to the eighteenth century) contains no attestations of this retraction. However, in the nineteenth century it is common, for instance with both William Carleton and Dion Boucicault. 5 This is the same feature which produced barn, dark, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, etc. in British English. It had a much wider range in Irish English, probably due to its quantitative representation in input varieties. 6Ashift of [ ]to[]isabasilectal Ulster Scots feature and found occasionally with speakers from Scots-settled parts of Ulster: If you’d be lucky enough to win [w n] anything (TRS-D, U18–2, F, from the Laggan, south-west of Derry city). Some words withthis shift arelexicalised vernacular forms usedby supraregional speakers for local flavour, e.g. onions [ nənz]. [ε]for[]isacommon feature of contact Irish English, e.g. brush [br εʃ], justice /dεsts/, and is probably due to the automatic alternation / / ∼ /ε/ which is found in Irish between nominative and genitive with many nouns, e.g. roc /r k/ ‘wrinkle-NOM’ ∼ roic /rεk j / ‘wrinkle-GEN’. Because the front vowel is used in Irish in the environment of a palatal consonant (here: /k j /), contact Irish English speakers often use this vowel in English words where the consonant flanking a short vowel is interpreted as palatal. 7 This feature appears to have been continued among the Anglo-Irish land-owning class into the twentieth century (it was a prominent characteristic of conservative Received Pronunciation until the mid-twentieth century, Bauer 1994a: 120f.). For example, the novelist Elizabeth Bowen, a native of Co. Cork, had this feature in her speech. It is still recorded in vernacular varieties in Cork city and county, e.g. Mallow [m εlə] (SADIF, M40+, Cork city), You’d catch [kεtʃ] the churn (MLSI, M80+, Bantry, Co. Cork). 8 The pronunciation [flu r] for floor was only found with one speaker for Antrim in A Sound Atlas of Irish English (Hickey 2004a), but it is known to occur in west Ulster as well (Kevin McCafferty, personal communication). 9 Short E-raising is common today, but only in south-western and mid-western rural Irish English and only in pre-nasal position, e.g. when [  n], pen [pn]. Joyce (1979 [1910]: 100) states that ‘short e is always sounded before n and m, and sometimes in other positions, like short i: “How many arrived? Tin min and five women.”’ Occasionally, some speakers have this raising outside a pre-nasal environment: They used be skimming the well [w l] on May mornings (TRS-D, M64–2, M), He’s very clever [kl vəɹ] you know (TRS-D, C42–4, M). 10 Unraised long E has a special status as a stereotypically Irish feature which has been lexicalised in the expletive Jaysus! [d εzz] and in set expressions like lea’ [l ε] me alone! It is found regularly in vernacular varieties throughout Ireland, e.g. I didn’t know I’d be eatin’ [ εtn] German cake (WER, F85+), to sing in either [ εd  ə] (SADIF, F60+, Gorey, Co. Wexford), a decent [dεsnt] wayofliving (SADIF, M60+, Gorey, Co. Wexford). 306 Present-day Irish English Table 5.1. (Notes cont.) 11 Final-O-fronting is common in southern rural Irish English, e.g. We were doing it and the old people followed [fali d] on (TRS-D, M64–1, M), and also in parts of the north. It can appear as a reduction of the vowel to schwa. This leads to alternative pronunciations and lexical splits with non-local and vernacular forms of words (see section 5.3). 12 OL-diphthongisation is most commonwithold and bold today.Joyce (1979 [1910]: 99) mentions it with reference tothese words and to hould where it isnot found today in supraregional speech. However, in vernacular varieties, both north and south, there is a greater range of forms with OL-diphthongisation. On its occurrence in British English, see Tagliamonte and Temple (2005). 13 What appears to have happened here is that Irish non-palatal /f/ (phonetically [φ]) was used as an equivalent for [ ] and Irish non-palatal /v/ (phonetically [ß]) for [w] by individuals in language shift. In eye dialect the bilabial fricative [φ]isrendered as f or ph, and its voiced counterpart [ß] as v. This develop- ment would appear to be independent of developments in Britain, although a case might be made for the transportation of [φ] and [ß] to the Caribbean by inden- tured Irish in the seventeenth century (see Trudgill, Schreier, Long and Williams 2004 on approximants in this context but without a consideration of the Irish situation). 14 Metathesis of /s/ + stop was already a feature of Old English (Lass 1984: 188) and the sequence /ks/ in ask is attested there. It was most likely a feature of input varieties to Ireland which was retained. 15 S-palatalisation is a still feature of contact Irish English and attested in the data collections used for this chapter: Hone[ ʃ]t, they believe in hone[ʃ]t people (TRS-D, C 42–4, M). Related to this is the feature noted by Joyce (1979 [1910]: 98) that ‘there is a curious tendency among us to reverse the sounds of cer- tain letters, as for instance sh and ch “When you’re coming to-morrow bring the spade and chovel, and a pound of butter frech from the shurn.’” No con- firmation of this was found when collecting data for A Sound Atlas of Irish English (Hickey 2004a) and it is not represented in any literary portrayals of Irish English. 16 T/D-dentalisation is a feature which is confined to vernacular varieties and found across Ireland. It occurs before /r/. 17 TH-fortition takes on two forms (i) fortition to dental stops and (ii) fortition to alveolar stops. The former is part of supraregional Irish English, e.g. thin [    n], this [ d  s], whereas the latter is stigmatised. 18 -lengthening is a regular feature of Dublin English(see section 5.4.1) which has spread outside the capital by imitation of its speech. 19/20 Post-sonorant devoicing (19) is generally a rural feature and post-sonorant stop deletion (20), in a way its mirror image, is typical of urban vernaculars of the east coast. 21 R-Vowel-metathesis is still very common in many varieties but is now con- fined to unstressed syllables and the metathesis of /r/ and a short vowel, e.g. modern [m ɒdɹən], secretary [sεkəɹtɹi]. The form purty ‘pretty’, so common in nineteenth century literature, is not found anymore. 5.2 Vernacular Irish English 307 Unraised long E. This continues in all vernacular varieties across the country. In the data collections it is attested in such areas as south Ulster: leave [l εv] (TRS-D, U72–2, border with Co. Louth), Connemara in the mid west: ’Twasn’t easy [ εsi] to get work (TRS-D, C41, M) and Waterford in the south-east: God, you can’t beat [b ε   ] the superglue for stickin’ things (WER, M50+). Sibilant fortition. Originally a feature from the south-west of England, brought to Ireland and found in the south-east, it has travelled with the spread of English from hereto thecentre and west ofIreland: They weren’t [w dn t] able to . (TRS- D, M19, M). It is also found in parts of the southern United States (Schilling- Estes 1995). Unstressed /ju/.Insupraregional Irish Englishyod deletion in stressedsyllables after alveolar sonorants is normal, e.g. new [nu ]. In unstressed syllables this yod tends to remain, but in vernacular varieties it too is deleted, e.g. million [mil ən], occupy [ ɒkəpa] (TRS-D, M64-2, M). There are a few cases of yod insertion on the part of vernacular speakers, e.g. column [k ɒljəm], minute [mnju   ]. (ng) variable. The use of an alveolar [n] in ng [ ŋ]clusters, especially in present participles and gerunds, is widespread across the anglophone world. It also goes back considerably in time: Wyld (1956 [1936]: 289) points to spelling evidence which suggests that alveolar [n] for [ ŋ] occurred in England from the fourteenth century onwards. This shift to an alveolar articulation is particularly common in Ulster, e.g. comin’, keepin’, goin’, etc., and is somewhat more prevalent among mainstream speakers in the north than in the south. The most detailed examination of this variable is to be found in Kingsmore (1995: 100–10) in the context of her Coleraine study. Her sample consists of twenty-six informants. At least four are present for each gender and age group (Kingsmore 1995:37–52). Kingsmore recognises [ n] as an intermediary form between the syllable nasal [n  ] and the standard [ŋ]. She also notes that young females have the highest incidence of an alveolar nasal with the (ng) variable: 83 per cent for males and 89 per cent for females with verbal forms in final -ing,e.g. talking, walking. These and similar verbal forms have the highest incidence of [n] for (ng), as they do in other varieties of English. Epenthesis. This is the first of two major phonological processes which are prominent in most varieties of Irish English. Epenthesis is a process by which an unstressed short vowel is inserted in a cluster of sonorants to resyllabify the cluster in question such that the sonorants belong to different syllables after epenthesis. (2) Heavy coda resolution: film /.f lm./ ‡ [.fl.əm.] The heavy coda cluster, consisting of two sonorants, is split between two syl- lables by introducing a schwa between them (the dot represents a syllable boundary). The range of epenthesis varies. It is universal in/lm/ clusters andin vernacular varieties it extends to other clusters, as seen in (3). Epenthesis tends to shorten the stressed vowel as the overall quantity of words remains more or less the same. [...]... Present-day Irish English The position of /h/ Etymological /h/ is to be found in all positions in Irish English H-dropping, so characteristic of present-day urban English in Britain, is unknown in Ireland and so not part of any sociolinguistic assessment of speakers (Mugglestone 2003: 1 07 59) Due to the influence of Irish, /h/ also occurs word-medially and wordfinally, above all in names of Irish origins,... this is contact Irish English where Irish speakers tend to use the velarised [˜ they have in Irish in positions in which it would occur in l] their first language, e.g word-initially before /a / as in like [˜  k], cf Irish (ar a) la laghad [˜  d] ‘(at) least’ la However, the recent changes in Dublin English include a velarised realisation of /l/ in syllable-final position (Hickey 2005: 77 ), e.g field... refer to advanced Dublin English are indicated by ADE in brackets below For information on specifically northern Irish English features, see sections 3.3 and 3.4        In many respects the vowel system of Irish English is different from that of more mainstream varieties of British English The differences are almost exclusively due to the conservative character of Irish English There is a greater... mainstream varieties of English are [θ ] and [ð ] respectively Table 5.6 indicates the lexical sets necessary for a comprehensive treatment of Irish English The realisations indicated after the keywords are those found in supraregional Irish English 1 Vowels    / / This is identical to present-day British English No lowering or centralisation is found in southern Irish English, as opposed to varieties... in mainland British English In the context of Irish English it 332 Present-day Irish English is important to stress that [s] and [ ] are clearly distinguished phonetically so that kiss [k s] and kit [k ] are not homophones    /w/ is always realised as [w]      /hw-/ Mainstream Irish English generally distinguishes phonetically between which and witch, but advanced Dublin English is losing this... are also to be found before /r/ As Irish English is rhotic there are no diphthongs corresponding to /ə , εə , υə / in RP Short vowels normally merge with /r/ to yield a long rhotacised vowel [ ] The original distinction between a front and back short vowel before /r/, as in term [tεɹ m] and turn [t ɹ n] (Hogan 19 27: 65, 77 ), does not apply to supraregional Irish English For many speakers word pairs... The realisations of /s/ and /z/ and of /ʃ/ and / / in Irish English are essentially the same as in other varieties of English, as are the realisations of the affricates /tʃ/ and /d / The apico-alveolar fricatives of Irish English are the result of lenition which is discussed in more detail in section 5.4.3 Labio-velars A conservative feature of Irish English is the distinction between voiced and voiceless... contained within a single syllable in monosyllabic words This pattern is shared by Irish in both south-west Cork and north-west Kerry It can be heard on the English recordings for Cork/Kerry in A Sound Atlas of Irish English (Hickey 2004a) and in the Irish recordings for the same areas (see Hickey in press) 5.3 Supraregional Irish English Supraregionalisation is an historical process whereby varieties of a... instance, in late medieval Irish English 310 Present-day Irish English there is some evidence that a middle way was chosen among competing morphological forms from different dialect inputs from the British mainland: the quantifier euch(e) ‘each’ was seen by Samuels (1 972 : 108) as a hybrid between ech(e) and uch(e), both of which were probably represented in the initial input to Irish English Because a supraregional... ‘object of commiseration’ applies to the Irish word cr´at´ r [kre tu r], a borrowing from English creature with e u the unraised vowel 5.3 Supraregional Irish English 315 to merger with the alveolar stops in the  lexical set (cf thinker and tinker, both [ tŋ kəɹ ]), is stigmatised in Irish English However, stigma or acceptance of mergers in varieties of English depends crucially on whether the . features of Irish English are described, e.g. Blunt (19 67) . Blunt has achapter on Irish (19 67: 75 –90) in which he gives a series of guidelines to those prospective actors unfamiliar with an Irish. Ben Jonson (1 572 –16 37) attained knowledge of Irish English. He is not known to have been in Ireland (though he did visit Scotland). Perhaps he acquired some acquaintance of Irish English from.  At the opening of the eighteenth century two Irish dramatists were active, namely William Congreve (1 670 – 172 9) and George Farquhar (1 678 – 170 7). Congreve was born in Leeds but his father was