Irish English Part 8 pot

350 Present-day Irish English the features enumerated by Sheridan and Ellis. For instance, an English cartoon from 1829 (the year of Catholic emancipation, McGuire 1987: 103), ridiculing the Irish, has in one sentence the forms ye, asy and crater. The first shows the use of the former second-person-plural pronoun, the second and third show /e /for/i/ and the third also indicates the reduction of unstressed syllables, here /-ju ər/ to /ər/. While such references are very general, they nonetheless confirm the genuineness of features which have long been viewed as salient traits of Irish English and, by implication, of Dublin English. Rural input to Dublin English? During thenineteenth century, especiallyin theyears ofthe Great Famine (1845– 8) and afterwards, large numbers of rural inhabitants passed through Dublin (Bertz 1975: 41f.) at the start of their journey of emigration to Britain, the New World and the southern hemisphere. A certain percentage of these people remained in Dublin and the population of the city grew at a time when the countryside was being abandoned. In all, Dublin expanded by about 10 per cent in the years during and immediately after the famine (Dudley Edwards with Hourican 2005: 219). It is difficult to assess the linguistic contribution of this segment of the popula- tion as it clearly had only low social status and was hence not recorded. However, one possible influence of speakers from the west of Ireland could have been the introduction of a dental stop realisation in the  lexical set. Local Dublin English had, and still has, an alveolar realisation for the first sound in this word, but the later supraregional standard of the south, which has its origins in middle- class Dublin usage from the early twentieth century, shows a dental stop in . In the west of Ireland, particularly for speakers of Irish, a dental realisation was and is also found in this lexical set (de Bhaldraithe 1945: 25ff.). The reason for this is that the non-palatal /t/ in (western) Irish is dental and, for these speakers, it was, and is, the best fit for the initial sound in . The adoption of this realisation by the middle classes in Dublin, via the in-migrants from the west, would have had the advantage of ‘demerging’ words like thinker and tinker, which have clearly not been homophones in middle-class Dublin English since the late nineteenth century, even if they were before. The re-emergence of a distinction between dental and alveolar stops in Dublin English raises the question of whether one is dealing with a genuine case of merger reversal. In the history of English there have been similar instances such as the distinction between point and pint, boil and bile, etc. (MacMahon 1998: 413f.) which now exists for most dialects of English but did not always do so. In the latter case, the usual assumption is that those varieties which had the merger reversed it by adopting the distinction between / ɔ/ and /a/ from other varieties. The parallel in Dublin English would be the adoption of the distinction within the area of coronals – that between dental and alveolar stops – from the western in-migrants into Dublin. 5.5 Urban Irish English 351 Apart from this unsubstantiated case, there is no obvious mixture of inputs in Dublin in contradistinction to Belfast, which has an Ulster Scots and an Ulster English component both of which played a significant role in its genesis (J. Milroy 1981). 5.5.4.2 Present-day Dublin English The city of Dublin lies at the mouth of the river Liffey in the centre of the east coast, and spreads along the shores of the horseshoe shape of Dublin bay. The suburbs, which have increased dramatically since the 1960s, reach down to Bray and beyond into Co. Wicklow in the south, to the west in the direction of Maynooth and to the north at least to Swords, the airport and beyond. The Dublin conurbation now encompasses nearly a third of the population of the Republic of Ireland, i.e. well over one million inhabitants. Like any other modern city, Dublin shows areas of high and low social prestige. There is a clear divide between the north and the south side of the city. The latter is regarded as more residentially desirable (with the exception of Howth and its surroundings on the peninsula which forms the north side of Dublin bay). Within the south, there is a cline of prestige with the area around Ballsbridge, Donnybrook and Montrose enjoying high status. This is the area of certain key complexes like the Royal Dublin Society (an important exhibition and event centre in the capital) and the national television studios RTE (Radio Telef ´ ıs ´ Eireann, ‘Irish Radio and Television’) and of the national university (University College Dublin) in Belfield. This entire area is known by its area number, Dublin 4. Indeed this number has given its name to a sub-accent within Dublin English known as the ‘D4 accent’ which shows the major changes in pronunciation which took place in the late 1980s and 1990s. The less prestigious parts of the city are known by their district names such as the Liberties in the centre of the city, immediately north of the River Liffey (now largely gentrified) and Ballymun, the only suburb in Ireland with high-rise flats and associated with adverse social conditions. Although English has been present in Dublin for upwards of 800 years, the degree of consciousness of the language has not led to a term for it developing. In not having a designation for its own variety of English, Dublin contrasts with many large cities in England such as London with Cockney, Liverpool with Scouse or Newcastle with Geordie. Local Dublin English In the area of vowels the clearest traits of local Dublin English are the centrali- sation of the /a / diphthong, the fronting of /aυ/, the over-long realisation of phonemically long vowels, the realisation of historically short vowels before /r/ and that of Early Modern English short / υ/ (see table 5.10). 5.5 Urban Irish English 353 Irish on the east coast, where it died out some considerable time ago (Wagner 1958: xxvii), is very scarce (T. F. O’Rahilly 1932: 260) and not of any value in the current context. What one does have, however, is a continuous band of English dialects which stretch from Waterford in the south-east up to Dublin, an area which corresponds to the original settlement area with an unbroken tradition of English from the first period. 17 On the east coast local urban varieties show alveolar stops in the  and  lexical sets. Rural forms of Irish English have alveolars in a geographical area which stretches across the south to Co. Kerry and perhaps up as far as Co. Clare. The upshot of these considerations is that, for local Dublin English, the alveolar stops in the  and  lexical sets represent an archaic feature which is also present in conservative varieties of English outside Dublin to the east and south (Hickey 2001b). Hogan (1927: 71f.) notes that the alveolar stops are found in seventeenth-century plays (assuming that t, d represented [t, d]) and also in the Dublin City Records (from the first period, i.e. before 1600) where the third-person-singular ending -th appears as -t. 18 The acoustic sensitivity of the Irish to the shift from dental to alveolar derives not least from the merger which can result from it. To Irish ears the retraction of the dental stops to an alveolar position is immediately noticeable and stigmatised because it is typical of low-prestige speech. 19 (18) Mainstream Dublin English Local Dublin English a. thinker [   ŋ k] thinker, tinker [tŋk] b. tinker [t ŋk] c. breathe [b ɹid  ] breathe, breed [bɹid] d. breed [b ɹid] 2. Cluster reduction The simplification of consonantal syllable codas, particularly of stops after frica- tives or sonorants, is a good indicator of local Dublin English. Intermediate registers may have a glottal stop as a trace of the stop in question. This feature is typical of Dublin English. In other varieties in the Republic the tendency is 17 In Irish by this stage there were no dental fricatives although these had survived as lenited forms of dental stops until the end of the Middle Irish period (thirteenth century, T. F. O’Rahilly 1932: 65). 18 According to Hogan, alveolar realisations are common in rural varieties in the south and south- west of Ireland (an observation confirmed by Hickey 2004a). Here they are probably a contact phenomenon deriving ultimately from the realisation of non-palatal /t, d/ in Irish. Hogan also remarks on the dental stops which are found in present-day Irish English (Hogan 1927: 71f.). According to ´ O Baoill (1990), the use of alveolar stops is found in a widespread area throughout Munster and South Leinster where he assumes that the pronunciation of Irish /t, d/ as [t, d] was responsible for this. He also points out that the alveolar stops are found in Dublin city (1990: 159f.). See Lunny (1981)for a consideration of this question in the context of south-west Cork Irish (Ballyvourney). 19 Joyce (1979 [1910]:2f.) comments on the use of alveolar for dental stops and remarks that this is an older and stigmatised pronunciation which should be avoided. 354 Present-day Irish English not to delete the stop in this position but to retain it and, if voiced, to devoice it, e.g. bend [b εnt]. The Dublin phenomenon is noticeable after /n, l, s/: pound [p ευn(ʔ)], belt [bεl(ʔ)], last [læs(ʔ)]. 3. Further reduction of lenited /t/ The lenition of /t/ to [   ]isnot continued in non-local Dublin English beyond the initial stage with one or two lexicalised exceptions (see discussion in section 5.4.3). The extension beyond the apico-alveolar fricative is characteristic of local Dublin English. 5.5.4.3 Change in Dublin English For the discussion of Dublin English in the present section a twofold division, with a further subdivision, is necessary. The first division comprises those speak- ers who use the historically continuous vernacular in the capital. The term ‘local’ is intended to capture this and to emphasise that these speakers show strongest identification with traditional Dublin life of which the local accent is very much a part. The reverse of this is ‘non-local’ which refers to sections of the metropolitan population who do not identify with what they see as a narrow and restricted local culture. This group then subdivides into a larger, more general section, labelled ‘mainstream’, and a further group which perhaps more clearly rejects a confining association with low-prestige Dublin. This group is labelled ‘new’. 20 (19) 1. local Dublin English 2. non-local Dublin English a. Mainstream Dublin English b. New Dublin English When considering change in contemporary Dublin English the group which is most dynamic is that labelled ‘new’. This group uses a variety which includes many features which up to twenty-five years ago did not exist in Dublin English. Before looking at these features, it is worthwhile considering why change should have taken place at all. Dissociation as a form of language change Dublin provides a typical scenario for language change given the following facts. Firstly, in the last three or four decades the city has expanded greatly in pop- ulation. The increase in population has been due to both internal growth and migration into the city from the rest of the country. Secondly, it has undergone an economic boom in the last fifteen years or so, reflected in its position as an important financial centre and a location for many international firms which run their European operations from Dublin. 20 In previous publications, I have used the term ‘fashionable’ for this group. This was justified several years ago when the group was smaller and more ‘avantgarde’. By now (2007), it has become much more general and much larger so that a more neutral term like ‘new’ is preferable. 5.5 Urban Irish English 355 The increase in wealth and international position has meant that many young people aspire to an urban sophistication which is divorced from strongly local Dublin life. For this reason the developments in new Dublin English diverge from those in local Dublin English, indeed can be interpreted as a reaction to it. This type of linguistic behaviour can be termed ‘dissociation’ as it is motivated by the desire of speakers to hive themselves off from vernacular forms of a variety spoken in their immediate surroundings (Hickey 1998, 1999a). It is furthermore an instance of speaker-innovation leading to language change, much in the sense of James and Lesley Milroy (J. Milroy 1992a: 169–72; 1999;J.and L. Milroy 1997). If people in Dublin do not wish to use the local vernacular then it might be thought that they would just adopt more a standard pronunciation of English, e.g. RP from Britain. But in the Irish context the adoption of an English accent is not acceptable. RP is not a pronunciation norm for the Irish, north or south. This makes the situation in Dublin different from that in Britain where dialect levelling and approximation to southern pronunciation models can be observed (Kerswill 2003). The situation is also different from instances like St John’s, Newfoundland, which is a local capital and where younger speakers are adopting features of mainland Canadian English (D’Arcy 2005). The changes in Dublin English involve both vowels and consonants. While the consonantal changes seem to be individual changes, those in the area of vowels represent a coordinated shift which has affected several elements. In keeping with previous publications (Hickey 1999a), these changes are labelled here the ‘Dublin Vowel Shift’. To all appearances this started about twenty years ago (mid 1980s) and has continued to move along a recognisable trajectory. In essence, the change involves a retraction of diphthongs with a low or back starting point and a raising of low back vowels. Specifically, it affects the diphthongs in the / and  lexical sets and the monophthongs in the  and  lexical sets. The vowel in the  lexical set has also shifted, probably as a result of the other vowel movements. See table 5.11 forasummary of the principal movements. For reasons of space the exact origins of this change cannot be discussed here (see the detailed discussion in Hickey 2005: 45–72). Suffice it to say that the original shift was to be seen in the ‘Dublin 4’ accent of the 1980s which involved the movements shown in table 5.11, though not with quite the same degree of vowelraising. This accent provided the impetus for movement, but in the course of time it became old-fashioned. A more widespread variant developed in the 1990s which did not have the retraction and rounding of /a/ before /r/ in the  lexical set. The older pronunciation was often ridiculed as ‘Dortspeak’ (from ‘Dartspeak’, itself from ‘Dart’ = Dublin suburban railway line + ‘speak’) with [ ɒr] for <ar> which in mainstream Dublin English is [ɑr] as in start [stɑrt]. In fact, the new pronunciation has a front realisation of /a/ before /r/, again probably as a reaction to the retraction and rounding of the stuffy ‘Dublin 4’ accent: Dart [dæ ɹt]. The realisation of /a/ when not followed by /r/, i.e. in 5.5 Urban Irish English 357 Table 5.12. Reactions to vowel retraction and rounding Recording 1: She asked him to start the car.[ʃi ɑskt hmtə stɒɹt d  ə kɒɹ] She said ‘Time is on his side.’ [ ʃisεdtɑm z ɒnhzsɑd] Recording 2: She asked him to start the car.[ ʃiaskt hmtə staɹt d  ə kaɹ] She said ‘Time is on his side.’ [ ʃisεdtam z ɒnhzsad] Do you think the speech in Recording 1 is: r quite normal r colloquial and relaxed r somewhat affected Do you think the speech in Recording 2 is: r quite normal r colloquial and relaxed r somewhat affected Results: Recording 1 quite normal colloquial/relaxed somewhat affected Dublin 2 1 8 (total: 11) Waterford 1 0 6 (total: 7) Limerick 0 0 8 (total: 8) Recording 2 quite normal colloquial/relaxed somewhat affected Dublin 5 5 1 (total: 11) Waterford 3 4 0 (total: 7) Limerick 2 5 1 (total: 8) Table 5.13. Comparative vowel values of local, mainstream and new Dublin English Lexical set Local DE Mainstream DE New DE  [ə][a][a]  [a ][ɒ][ɔ], [o]  [ ɑ][ɒ][ɔ], [o]  [ ɔ][oυ][əυ] the 1990s adopted features of this accent which were opposed to those in local Dublin English but rejected others which were regarded as affected. The primary motivation remains dissociation as the classification of vowel values in new and local Dublin English in table 5.13 and figure 5.1 shows. New Dublin English: how to avoid local features The raising of back vowels is an acoustically salient feature of new Dublin English butitisbynomeans the only one.There are other new features, among consonants and among vowels, other than those discussed above, which can be interpreted 358 Present-day Irish English Table 5.14. Further features of new Dublin English 1. A retroflex realisation of /r/ occurs, e.g. north [no     ]. This has the advantage of clearly delimiting the /r/ vis- ` a-vis local Dublin English which, if at all, only has a weak syllable-final /r/. 2. Phonemically long vowels are shorter in new Dublin English than their local Dublin English counterparts, e.g. caught new: [ko    ], local: [kɑh]. 3. There is strict avoidance of retraction of / ə/ before /r/ in third, first, i.e. new Dublin English [t  ə d], [fəst] which contrasts with local [tυ(ɹ)d], [fυ(ɹ)s(t)]. 4. The back rounded / υ/isreplaced by an unrounded front vowel, which is almost / /, as in Sunday [snde]. 5. Local Dublin English has a distinction between historic back and front short vowels before /r/, [ ε] and [υ]. But because the open front realisation is typical of local Dublin English, there is a migration in new Dublin English of historic front long vowels to the central rhotic type as seen in care [k ], pear [p], etc. These can be somewhat rounded for some speakers, i.e. carefully [k ø ɹ fəli] and pear [p ø ɹ ]. Figure 5.1 Changes in vowel constellations in Dublin English as avoidance strategies used to differentiate new forms of speech from more local ones (see table 5.14). A curious fact about new Dublin English is that although its salient features are opposed to those of local Dublin English, there are nonetheless some traits of the vernacular in this new variety and which it does not share with older mainstream Dublin English. Two of these can be mentioned here (see Hickey 2005: 75–8 foradiscussion of others): (i) velarised [ ˜ l] in syllable-final position as in meal [mi  ə ˜ l], (ii) the front onset in the  lexical set as in town [tæ υn/tευn]. The retention of these features in new Dublin English may in part be a reaction to the older ‘Dublin 4’ accent which did not have the front onset and only variably had velarisation of /l/. A final feature which sets new Dublin English off from more conservative mainstream varieties of Irish English is the voicing of [ ] (see discussion in section 5.4.2). Speakers who have this do not distinguish word pairs like which/witch or 5.5 Urban Irish English 359 where/wear, using initial [w-] in all cases. The voicing of []isageneral present- day development across many varieties in the anglophone world (see discussion in Schreier 2006). It also has low salience for speakers: during the recordings for A Sound Atlas of Irish English (Hickey 2004a), many of the speakers with voicing of [ ] had not realised that they did not distinguish words like whale and wail phonetically until it was pointed out to them. In general, local Dublin English speakers do not have [ ] either, but this fact would seem to be irrelevant to new Dublin English, given the widespread lack of awareness of the feature. Arguments for the shift It could be maintained that the developments in new Dublin English are just a gradual approximation to more standard forms of southern British English due to the strong influence of England on Ireland. This looks like the simplest and most convenient explanation. However, the imitation view can be quickly dismantled. Consider the following arguments. (i) If (southern) British influence was making itself felt, then one would expect other features to be adopted, such as / ɑ/forlong a as in bath. But words of the  lexical set have [a ], i.e. [ba   ]. Indeed the low back realisation is used by the Irish to ridicule a plummy British accent by referring to someone as having ‘a [g ɹɑnd] accent’ (although the RP form of the word is [grænd]). The normal Irish pronunciation is [g ɹand/gɹænt] with a low central or front vowel. (ii) There is no tendency in Irish English to drop syllable-final /r/. If British English influence were operative then one would expect non-rhotacism to be spreading into new Dublin English. Instead, new Dublin English shows an increase in rhoticity by having a retroflex [ ], which contrasts strongly with the low rhoticity of local Dublin English. (iii) Many Irish involved in the shift push it further than the back vowel values typical of southern British English. There are speakers who have, say, [ ənɔ] and others who have [əno], for annoy. This point is of theoretical significance. Pushing the vowel shift Speakers of new Dublin English would seem to be aware of the trajectory on which the vowel shift is located even though their own personal realisation of key vowels may not be at the most innovative end of this track. This accounts forwhy young speakers are seen to push the vowel shift. The trajectory for the shift is unconsciously recognised by speakers and they can not only move within adegree of personal variation in this direction but they can also shift their range of realisations in the direction of innovation, in this case backwards and upwards. As mentioned above, the vowel shift is moving beyond height values which are found in southern British English for corresponding vowels. This is particularly clear with the diphthong / ɔ/inthe lexical set: [ɒ]>[ɔ]>[o], e.g. 360 Present-day Irish English boys [boz], noise [noz], and the vowel of the  lexical set: [ɒ]>[ɔ] >[o ], e.g. bought [bo   ]. This continuing upward movement in the back vowel region would seem to be responsible for the shifting forward of the vowel in the  lexical set, i.e. former [gu s] has become [gu  s]. New Dublin English and Estuary English There has been much discussion in the past decade or so about change in south- eastern British English. This has been centred around the variety which, since its description by David Rosewarne in 1984, has been known somewhat vaguely as ‘Estuary English’. The estuary in question is that of the River Thames and the alliteration in the label has obviously contributed much to its popularity or infamy, depending on one’s point of view (Coggle 1993: 24–35). In linguistic terms, Estuary English represents an intermediate variety between Cockney and RP, and its use by many people, who previously would have favoured RP, may well be due to the somewhat stand-offish attitude associated with the latter. There have been a number of investigations of Estuary English in recent years (Altendorf 2003; Przedlacka 1999) and information on the internet has been made available by J. C. Wells of the Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London. Comparing Estuary English with new Dublin English (Hickey 2007; see table 5.15 below), one can see that the latter is a new variety based on dissociation from local Dublin English whereas the former is a middle way between Cockney and RP. However, Estuary English may be adopted by speakers for the same reason as new Dublin English: to dissociate themselves from strongly local metropoli- tan speech, that is Estuary English can be used by speakers not only to move downwards from RP but upwards from Cockney. The spread of new Dublin English Ireland is a centrally organised country with something under one-third of the population living in the metropolitan area. In size, Dublin outweighs all other cities put together. Most prestigious organisations are located in the capital as is the government along with the national radio and television service. There are also three universities in the city and numerous other colleges. For these and other reasons, the status of Dublin English is greater than that of any other city or region in the country. In the context of the recent changes, this has meant that the new pronunciation has spread rapidly to the rest of the country. For all young people who do not identify themselves linguistically with their own locality (especially females), the new pronunciation is their phonological norm. This fact has been confirmed many times over by the recordings in A Sound Atlas of Irish English (Hickey 2004a). An important consequence of this is that the new pronunciation is fast becoming the mainstream, supraregional variety of Irish English. Young people outside Dublin are not aware of the dissociation which was the original driving force behind the rise of the new pronunciation in Dublin. But because young people’s speech in Dublin is ‘cool’ (Hickey 2003c), 362 Present-day Irish English it is being adopted by other young people who probably unconsciously see it as a means of partaking in the urban sophistication of modern Irish life. 5.6 The lexicon of Irish English Any treatment of the lexicon of Irish English, however brief, must begin with the distinction between lexical items which are retentions from the English brought to Ireland and those which can credibly be regarded as borrowings from Irish. Furthermore, as with other levels of language, the distinction between north- ern and southern Irish English is important. Much research has been carried out on the northern lexicon with a concentration on traditional rural terminol- ogy; see Adams (1966b, 1978), J. Bradley (1986), Braidwood (1965, 1969, 1972), Fenton (2000 [1995]), Macafee (1996), Marshall (1904). For lexical information on Donegal (Ulster, but outside Northern Ireland), see Traynor (1953). Recent publications, which deal largely with the south of Ireland, are Share (2003 [1997]) and Dolan (2004 [1998]). Archaic and/or regional words in Irish English.Bynomeans all the particular lexical items of Irish English derive from Irish. Quite a considerable number represent archaic or regional usage which has survived in Ireland. For instance, the adjectives mad and bold retain earlier meanings of ‘keen on’ and ‘misbehaved’ respectively. In some cases the words are a mixture of archaism and regionalism, e.g. cog ‘cheat’, chisler ‘child’, mitch ‘play truant’, lock ‘quantity’ (Dolan 2004: 142; e.g. There’s been none of that this lock of years, TRS-D, U39). Yet other words are of foreign origin but entered via English, for example hames (from Dutch) ‘curved pieces forming horse collar’, but now a very general word meaning ‘complete failure, mess’. Another feature is the confusion between items which are complementary in meaning: ditch is used for dyke; bring and take, rent and let, borrow and lend are often interchanged as are teach and learn (colloquially and only the latter for the former, e.g. And the little one’s trying to learn me how to do it (WER, F55+). There are also a few attestations of speak for say,e.g.Didn’t he speak it from the altar? (MLSI, M80+, Baile na gCloch, Co. Cork). Phonetic similarity is often the reason for the confusion as in They’ re rising (raising) up the prices all the time (DER, M60+). In some instances, a particular pronunciation of an English word adopts connotations not found elsewhere, e.g. eejit /i dt/ for idiot has more the sense of ‘bungling person’; see section 5.3. Irish use of English lexis. Needless to say, over the centuries in which English has been spoken in Ireland, specifically Irish uses of English words and phrases have arisen which contribute to the lexical profile of Irish English. A good example of this is the very common phrase to give out about sth./s.o.inthe sense of ‘complain’, ‘criticise’. Another is leave which can be used in the sense of ‘accompany, bring’, as in Can you leave me home? Some words with a specific Irish English meaning are homographs with English words of quite a different meaning, e.g. callow means in Irish English [...]... ite ‘drowned’ in Irish The use of the preposition a with in each of these cases corresponds to usage in Irish This transfer of scope may also be responsible for the Irish use of evening with a beginning in the late 364 Present-day Irish English afternoon: She came home at five in the evening (WER, F85+), a scope also found in the north Irish loans in present-day Irish English Although Irish today is spoken... number of words were recorded which are basically Irish words with an English pronunciation, e.g bookelawn ‘ragwort’ (< Irish buachal´ n), a prashuck ‘charlock; mess’ (< Irish praiseach ‘wild cabbage; thin porridge; mess’), mweelawn ‘hornless cow’ (< Irish maol´ in, itself the source of English moiley), a 366 Present-day Irish English puckawn ‘male goat’ (< Irish puc´ n) These and similar words can be regarded... ridge of gravel deposited under a glacier (< Irish eiscir) gallowglass mercenary, particularly of Scottish origin, from Irish gall-´ glach o ‘foreign warrior’ glen narrow or small valley (< Irish gleann) lough lake (< Irish loch /l x/) soogawn rope of straw used in making chairs (< Irish s´ g´ n) u a Irish loans in American English Because of the considerable Irish immigration to the United States since... 2005a: 11–13) In the Irish English context, the data basis for this approach is provided by two major corpora, which have been completed recently: (i) the Limerick Corpus of Irish English and (ii) International Corpus 5.7 The pragmatics of Irish English 371 of English – Ireland (Kallen and Kirk 2001; Kirk, Kallen, Lowry and Rooney 2003) Both corpora are collections of contemporary Irish English, prepared... a long time [Irish: le tamall fada ‘with time long’] (MLSI, M60+, Fanore, Co Clare), He put the cattle to the mountain [Irish: chun an tsl´ibhe ‘to the mountain’] (MLSI, M80+, Ballycroy, Co Mayo), e I’ve no name on it [Irish: ainm agam air ‘name at-me on-it’] (MLSI, M60+, Ballymahon area, Co Longford) Irish loans in English The quantity of borrowing from Irish into mainland or overseas English (Stalmaszczyk... sceptism is called for before trying to construct an Irish etymology 5.6 The lexicon of Irish English 367 for an English word A case in point is the personal pronoun she which, it has been suggested, derives from Irish s´ The contention of Todd (1999: 33f.), and ı echoed by Sammon (2002: 187 ), is that there was considerable influence from Irish scribes on English in the later Scandinavian period and that... attested with Irish authors using them for flavour, but they cannot always be regarded as established generally, e.g cooramagh ‘careful’ (< Irish c´ ramach), flahool ‘generous’ (< Irish flaithi´ il), keen ‘wail’ (from Irish u u caoineadh), kiottogue ‘left-handed person’ (< Irish ciot´ g), shannachee ‘story teller’ o (< Irish seancha´), sleeveen ‘sly fellow’ (< Irish sl´bh´n) ı ı ı Furthermore, the Irish- derived... focus 370 Present-day Irish English shifted to the north with studies by Adams and Braidwood (e.g Adams 19 58, 1966b, 1978b; Braidwood 1964, 1965, 1969) Towards the end of the decade Alan Bliss in Dublin began his series of many articles on Irish English, including lexical questions, which established his reputation in the field The 1970s and 1 980 s saw a few reprints (of Barnes 186 7 and Clark 1977 [1917])... the Irish language, indeed most Irish pronounce them using English phonetics: [ ti ʃə k] is the usual rendering of Irish taoiseach [ i ʃə x] There are also a small number of terms from Irish which have a specific meaning and are not alternatives to English words Currach ‘a boat with a wooden frame covered with tarred canvas’, crannog ‘lake dwelling’ (Irish crann´ g) and carrageen o ‘edible seaweed’ (Irish. .. offshoot of this background is a particular aspect of Irish social behaviour: when two Irish strangers meet in an unofficial context they search for a common acquaintance, or at least a common experience On more than one occasion, the author has found that the non -Irish in a company have been startled by 372 Present-day Irish English the attempts on his part and that of another Irish person present to find . (2003 [1997]) and Dolan (2004 [19 98] ). Archaic and/or regional words in Irish English. Bynomeans all the particular lexical items of Irish English derive from Irish. Quite a considerable number represent. home? Some words with a specific Irish English meaning are homographs with English words of quite a different meaning, e.g. callow means in Irish English 5.6 The lexicon of Irish English 363 ‘low-lying. late 364 Present-day Irish English afternoon: She came home at five in the evening (WER, F85+), a scope also found in the north. Irish loans in present-day Irish English. Although Irish today is spoken