
Hiberno-English is the form of the English language used in Ireland. Hiberno-English is also called Irish English and rarely Anglo-Irish. The basis for the type of English spoken in Ireland is the grafting of types of English and Scots English, that were brought to Ireland during the English and Scottish colonisation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, onto an Irish language / ''Gaedhilge'' stem. The linguistic interference of the Irish language on the English spoken in Ireland is most clearly seen in those areas where Irish is still spoken as a mother tongue or where it has survived until recently. The standard spelling and grammar are the same as UK English, but especially in the spoken language, there are some unique characteristics, due to the influence of Irish language on pronunciation. == Pronunciation == Hiberno-English retains many phonemic differentiations merged in other accents of English. Phonetic transcriptions are given using International Phonetic Alphabet. * 'r' is pronounced wherever it occurs in the word, making Irish English a rhotic and non-rhotic accents dialect. * The distinction of ''w'' and ''wh'' , as in ''wine'' vs ''whine'' is preserved. * Merger of the vowels in ''father'' and ''bother'' in Southern Irish English; and . * In some varieties and [t], and and [d] merger, making ''thin'' and ''tin'' and ''then'' and ''den'' homonyms; and . * The distinction between and in ''horse'' and ''hoarse'' is preserved. * The distinction between -- in ''herd-bird-curd'' is preserved. * "l" is clear wherever it occurs in a word, as in French * 'Pure' vowels: "boat", in a traditional accent, is pronounced , and cane is pronunced * The "i" in "night" may be pronounced . * The "u" in Dublin may be pronounced . * In County Cork, some vowel sounds are often altered. An "e" sound becomes an "i" ("well" becomes "will"). Also "Cork" is locally pronounced as . * An accent unique to Dublin known as the Dublin 4 intonation (referring to the local Dublin postal districts) is an urban/suburban middle class feature. This is an oft derided posh dialect that renders words such as 'car' as 'core' and 'far' as 'fore'. Dublin 4 speakers often end a sentence with the high rising terminal 'Do you know what I mean?' contracted and pronounced rapidly as 'Dja kneww whad I min?' * Similarly the working-class Dublin accent is a unique urban feature resembling the blue-collar accents of Manchester and Liverpool in England. This dialect includes phrases such as 'What's the story, Bud?' meaning 'How are you, friend?' pronounced 'Wats de stary bud?' and 'Mad out of it!' pronounced 'Mad ou vih!' meaning drunk or high. * In some old-fashioned varieties, words spelled with ''ea'' and pronounced with in RP are pronounced with , for example ''meat'', ''beat''. == Grammar derived from Irish == Irish has no words which directly translate as "yes" or "no", instead the verb in a question is repeated in an answer. People in Ireland have a tendency to use this pattern of avoiding "yes" or "no" when speaking English: * "Are you finished debugging that software?" "I am." * "Is your mobile charged?" "It is." Irish verbs have two present tenses, one indicating what is occurring at this instant and another used for continuous actions. For example, 'you are now' is ''tá tú anois'' (literally 'are you now'), but 'you are every day' is ''bíonn tú gach lá'' (literally 'be you each day'). Irish speakers of English, especially in rural areas, use a "does be/do be" (or "bes", although less frequently) construction to indicate this latter continuous present: * "He do(es) be coding every day." * "They do be talking on their mobiles a lot." * "They bes doing a lot of work at school." (rare) Irish has no pluperfect tense: instead the idiom for "I had done X when I did Y" is "I was after doing X when I did Y", modelled on the Irish usage of the compound prepositions ''i ndiaidh'', ''tar éis'', and ''in éis'': ''bhí mé tar éis/i ndiaidh/in éis X a dhéanamh, nuair a rinne mé Y''. This can most commonly be heard used by Dubliners. * "Why did you hit him?" "He was after insulting me." A similar construction is seen with the 'hot news perfect', used to express extreme excitement at something which has happened recently: * "Jaysus, I'm after hitting him with de car!" * "Would ya look at yer one — she's after losing five stone in five weeks!" Less explosively, using what might be termed the 'warm news perfect', the Irish perfect can indicate a recent action of less stellar importance: * "I have the computer rebooted." ''Tá an ríomhaire atosaithe agam.'' * "I have me breakfast eaten." ''Tá an bricfeasta ite agam.'' Mirroring the Irish language and almost every other European language, the plural 'you' is distinguished from the singular, normally by using the otherwise archaic English word 'ye' (the word 'yous' also occurs, but primarily only in Dublin and north Ulster, from Donegal across to County_Antrim.): * "Did ye all go to see it?" Also in some areas in South Leinster the hybrid word 'ye-s' pronounced 'yis' may be used. In rural areas the reflexive version of pronouns is often used for emphasis or to refer indirectly to a particular person, etc., according to context: * "Was it all of ye or just yourself?" * "'Tis herself that's coming now." ''Is í féin atá ag teacht anois.'' - where 'herself' might, for example, be the boss or the woman of the house. Note also the indirectness of this construction relative to, for example, 'She's coming now' and the use of "'Tis" rather than the more standard contraction "It's". It is also common to end sentences with 'no?' or 'yeah?' * "He's not coming today, no?" ''Níl sé ag teacht inniú, nach bhfuil?'' * "The bank's closed now, yeah?" ''Tá an banc dúnta anois, an bhfuil?'' Irish English also always uses the "light l" sound, and the pronunciation of the letter 'h' as 'haitch' is standard. When describing something, rural Hiberno-English speakers may describe this as something that is 'in it', which can also be translated into English as 'so it is', or for comical effect 'that it be'. * The day that is in it. ''An lá atá ann.'' * That's John, so it is. ''Is Seán é, atá ann.'' It ought to be noted that this construction is generally limited to the northern half of the country. This isn't just limited to the verb 'to be': it's also used with 'to have' when used as an auxiliary, and with other verbs the verb 'to do' is used. This is most commonly used for intensification. * This Wintel box suck, so it does. * I've finished debugging, so I have. Similarly, somebody who can speak a language, 'has' a language - a very rural construction. * She doesn't have Irish. ''Níl Gaeilge aici.'' Another idiom is this thing or that thing described as 'this man here' or 'that man there', which also features in Newfoundland English in Canada. *This man here. ''An fear seo.'' *That man there. ''An fear sin.'' The reported clause is also often preserved in its direct form, for example 'John asked me to buy a loaf of bread' becomes 'John asked me would I buy a loaf of bread'. == Preservation of older English usage == In old-fashioned usage, "it is" can be freely abbreviated "'tis", even as a standalone sentence. This also allows the double abbreviation "'tisn't", for "it is not". The word "ye" or "yous", otherwise archaic, is still used in place of "you" for the second person plural. The verb "mitch" is common in Ireland indicating playing truant from school. This word appears in William Shakespeare, but is seldom heard these days in British English, although pockets of usage persist in some areas (notably South Wales, Devon, and Cornwall). For influence from Scotland see Ulster Scots language. ==Turns of phrase== "Am not" is abbreviated '''amn't''' by analogy with "isn't" and "aren't". This can be used as a tag question: * I'm making a mistake, amn't I? or as an alternative to "I'm not": * I amn't joking. and the double negative is also used: * I'm not late, amn't I not? Reduplication is not an especially common feature of Irish; nevertheless in rendering Irish phrases into English it is occasionally used: * ''ar bith'' corresponds to English ''at all'', so the stronger ''ar chor ar bith'' gives rise to the form at all at all **''I've no money at all at all.'' * ''ar eagla go...'' (lit. ''on fear that'') means ''in case ...''. The variant ''ar eagla na heagla'', (lit ''on fear of fear'') implies the circumstances are more unlikely. The corresponding Hiberno-English phrases are ''to be sure'' and to be sure to be sure. In this context, these are not, as might be thought, disjuncts meaning 'certainly'; they could better be translated ''in case'' and ''just in case''. Nowadays normally spoken with conscious levity. ** ''I brought some cash in case I saw a bargain, and my credit card 'to be sure to be sure'.'' Casual conversation in many parts of Ireland includes a variety of colourful turns of phrase. Some examples: *Yer man (your man) and Yer wan (your one) are used in referring to an individual known by the party being addressed, but not being referred to by name. The phrases are an unusual sort of half-translation of a parallel Irish-language phrase, "mo dhuine" (literally 'my person'). The nearest equivalents in colloquial English usage would be "whatsisname" and "whatsername". *a soft day – referring to a rainy day with that particular soft drizzle, and an overcast sky, but yet relatively bright. This is a translation of the Irish "lá bog". *Fecking is a mild abusive equivalent in force to "bleeding" or "darned." It is not a parallel of the English word "fucking", despite their similarity, and is generally less offensive. "Feck" is the corresponding expletive. The noun "fecker" is slightly stronger but not vulgar. These terms were lately introduced to Britain by Father Ted. In old Dubliner slang, "to feck' is also slang for "to steal", as in the phrase, "We went to the orchard and fecked some apples." It can also mean "to throw", especially if something is being thrown where it shouldn't, as in "We fecked his schoolbag into the river." *Yoke is typically used in place of the word "thing", for instance "gimme that yoke there". It's also used as an insult: "you're some yoke". *Now is often used at the end of sentences or phrases as a semantically empty word, completing an utterance without contributing any apparent meaning. Examples include "Bye now" (= "goodbye"), "There you go now" (= when giving someone something), "Ah now!" (= expressing dismay), "Hold on now" (= "wait a minute"), etc. This usage is universal among English dialects, but occurs more frequently in Hiberno-English. There are many terms for having consumed a drop too much drink, many are used elsewhere, but the Irish tendency is to attempt to find the most descriptive adjective yet on each occasion. Some examples: "scuttered", "locked", ''"langered"'', "mouldy" (pron. mowldy as in "fowl"), "polluted", "flootered", "plastered", ''"bolloxed"'', "well out of it", ''"wankered"'', ''"fucked"'', "binned", ''"gee-eyed"'', "buckled", ''"steaming"'', "messy", "sloppy", "wasted", "paratic" "full as a boot" "legless". (''Phrases in italics are more "colourful"'') Some turns of phrase are more localised and their meaning may not be widespread throughout the country, while others are more transient and fall out of use after a number of years. ==See also== *The lists at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sibling project: ** Wiktionary:Category:Irish language ** Wiktionary:Category:Irish derivations ** Wiktionary:Category:Scots language ** Wiktionary:Category:Scots derivations ** Wiktionary:Category:Scottish Gaelic language ** Wiktionary:Category:Scottish Gaelic derivations *Regional accents of English speakers *Ulster Scots language *Mid Ulster English *English speaking Europe ==References== *Dolan, Terence Patrick (Ed.) (1998). ''A Dictionary of Hiberno-English''. Gill & Macmillan (Dublin). ISBN 0-7171-2942-X *Sammon, Paddy (2002). ''Greenspeak - Ireland in her own Words''. TownHouse (Dublin) ISBN 1-86059-144-2; (N. Am.): 0-684-02015-7 Website (complements the book ''Greenspeak - Ireland in her own Words'') Sammon, Paddy: www.greenspeak.info (2003) English dialects Ireland Languages in the United Kingdom Languages of Ireland
==Mitch== ''Mitch'' with the same meaning is still used in the :Westcountry, even amongst my generation. User:Sjc ---- Is there any particular reason that "mitch," of all the vocabulary available, is the only example included in this artcile? I'm not familliar with the language, but perhaps it could be made clear that this is an example, as opposed to being a particularly important word, which is how it looks now. User:Barkingdoc ==Yoke== I'm no linguist, so I dont know where the following should be added to this article. My parents are Irish, and here are some expressions they use: :the word ''yoke'' is sometimes used where the word ''thing'' might be used in standard English. ::e.g. "''what's that yoke for?''" ==Mind== :the word ''mind'' is sometimes used for the word ''remember''. ::e.g. "''I mind when I was a boy''" :::User:Mintguy I've never heard that usage. It is used for "take care/of" - "Mind yourself crossing the street", though I'm not sure that's an exclusively Irish usage. -- User:Jimregan 16:20 22 Jun 2003 (UTC) :"mind" meaning "take care" is famously English. On the London Underground you continuously hear a recording of "Mind the gap" as you step on or off the train. User:Hippietrail 06:11, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC) ---- Article written by a CS student, so it was! ---- ==Feck== I can't figure out where to add to this article either, so here goes (should be familiar to British viewers of Father Ted): * ''ye'' is used for the second person plural * ''feck'', means steal, or rather "take without permission", and is used as a euphemism for the word "fuck" - The word ''feck'' does not mean ''to steal'' -- User:OFDM 02:26 Dec 22, 2004 (UTC) : I beg to differ: ''feck'' absolutely does mean ''to steal'' where I come from in Dublin, but connotes minor or petty theft. For example ''He fecked a bar of chocolate from the shop'' would be typical but ''He fecked a million quid from the bank'' would be contrary to normal usage. --User:EmmetCaulfield 19:46, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC) :: There is definitely a usage of ''feck'' meaning ''to steal'', and I believe this is the only one mentioned in the recent ''Dictionary of Hiberno-English''. However ''feck'' is also used to mean ''to throw'', i.e. "I fecked an apple over the wall". I haven't been able to detect any particular geographic distribution of these uses, but most people usually hold with one or the other --User:Ryano 17:43, 11 May 2005 (UTC) ==Lad and Eegit== * ''lad'' is used as a euphemism for penis * ''eejit'' is a mis-spelled, mis-pronounced version of ''idiot'' - While ''eejit'' has the same meaning as ''idiot'' this is not an accurate staement of its origin. -- User:OFDM 02:26 Dec 22, 2004 (UTC) : I've also heard it pronounced (in Cavan) with a ''g'' (as in golf) as ''eegit'' --User:EmmetCaulfield 19:46, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC) ==Sound of A in Father== * The "a" is ''father'' is generally pronounced ''fah ther'' or ''fah der'' rather than ''faw ther'' :This is consistent with Shakepearian english: ''Full fathom five thy father lies.'' [The Tempest]. The A in fathom and the A in father probably sounded the same for the verse to scan. * ''gobshite'' means fool * Many words also in use in Britain, such as ''arse'' for ass, ''bollocks'' for testicles, ''shite'' for shit User:Jimregan 13:46 Apr 26, 2003 (UTC) :Contrary to the assumption that "fah ther" is a particularly Irish pronunciation, "faw ther" is a particularly American pronunciation which is not used elsewhere. User:Hippietrail 06:11, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC) ::According to "The Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English" (Oxford University Press first published 2001) the American and British pronunciations are the same, except for a long vowel and of course the case of the rhotic at the very end. -- User:SS 22:25, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC) ---- ==Light L sound== This USA-ian is baffled by the sentence "Irish English also always uses the "light l" sound." - how about an example? - User:DavidWBrooks 14:10, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC) : The canonical example is "Film" which is pronounced as two syllables, almost fillum. (cf. Rhythm.) In RP english this is a monosyllable, almost fiwm. The w attempts to represent a dark l sound. Also "Bottle" keeps the light l by changing the t to a sound between t and k. Irish children often mispronounce this "bockle" when learning to talk. :: I know a ''lot'' of people who regard the (admittedly common) pronunciation of ''film'' as ''fillum'' as an abomination --User:EmmetCaulfield 19:46, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC) :::In "Esturine" English, "bottle" is a strangled tonsil sound, since the TT and the L are deeply glottalised :) ---- ==Present Tense== The present tenses example is wrong. An bhfuil is just the interrogative form of ta. The example I would use is "Tá tú anois" vs "Bíonn tú gach lá" - you are now vs you be every day. User:Alastair Rae 15:45, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC) ==Crack/Craic (but not cocaine)== Craic (Crack) may well be from Scots and Northern English. : I have removed the reference to "crack" because I believe it not to be derived from Irish ("craic", like "sessiún", is a recent gaelicisation). I think I have seen Jane Austen use "crack" in the sense of lively conversation, and there are usages like "wisecrack" in non-Hiberno English. It is, however, clearly a feature of Hiberno-English, just not of Irish-language origin. User:BrendanH 09:09, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC) ==After== In my experience of living with Irish expats in the last couple of years, the most stand-out Irishisms I notice are "after" as mentioned, plus "your man" to refer to any specific male person, and "the last day" to mean yesterday. User:Hippietrail 06:11, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC) == Amn't I? == Just to make a comment about everyday usage of Irish English that is not yet mentioned here: The often rhetorical phrase "Amn't I?" is widely used in everyday speech. It is a contraction of "Am not I?" or "Am I not?" and is generally a used to reinforce a statement of fact or opinion. -Where have you been? -Doesn't matter, I'm here now anyway, amn't I? or -look at me, mammy, I'm really getting tall, amn't I? In standard English this is usually spoken as "aren't I?" However note that the use of "aren't I?" is generally particularly grating to Irish ears. Why this difference exists is unknown (to me) but may be due to the illogicality of placing a singular subject (I) with a plural verb (are). :If this be true, seems like the Irish got this right. "Amn't I" or "ain't I" appears more appropriate than "aren't I". User:Paedia | User talk:Paedia 15:26, 2004 Apr 29 (UTC) I remember, if I used this contraction as a child, my mother, who was ever-so-slightly Anglo (her family had only been in Ireland since the 16th century), would always correct me with the phrase "an almond is a nut". ;-) User:Blorg 11:33, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC) === Amn't I? (2) === Interestingly, it's also very common in Dublin (mostly in working-class areas) to use "amn't I not?", ie a double negative, instead of "Am I?" Example: I'm not working tomorrow, amn't I not? --User:Attila the Pooh 09:42, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC) :''. "Dubliners."'' In theory, there could be entire sections on Dublin and Cork Hiberno-English! Also some Limerick terms, "sham" (mate?), "c'mere I want ya" (in a nasal whine), "I'll bust the head/chops off ya"/"c'mere I'll bust ya", "You lookin' at me?"/"What you lookin' at". Charming Hiberno-English. I'll add it later - or someone else can. User:Zoney 12:56, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
: I've never heard "amn't I not": admittedly most of my 8 years in Dublin was not spent in working-class areas. It sounds like a childish blunder (i.e. how the rest of the world views "amn't I"). Does this also mean "aren't you not" and "isn't it not" are found? In which case it's a separate subheading. User:Joestynes
===Aren't I? ?????===
Agreeing with Paedia, I don't recognise any basis for the statement: ''' ["Aren't I" is considered to be perfectly grammatical in Ireland, however.]'''.
This almost looks like vandalism to me. Is there any disagreement to my removing it? If nothing by 11/4, I'll do so. --User:Red King 20:33, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
== Irish (English) ==
True, 'Irish' almost always refers to Irish Gaelic. However, American references [http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=irish&x=11&y=22 Merriam-Webster Online] and [http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Irish American Heritage Dictionary (4th ed.)] list as Gaelic or English. If [http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/irish Oxford] is the authority in Ireland, then we maybe could exclude 'Irish'. Cheers, User:Paedia | User talk:Paedia 15:16, 2004 Apr 29 (UTC)
== Them for those ==
What about a reference to the use of "them" instead of "those"? "Look at them houses over there"
And the use of the word "lamp" to mean look? "Lamp dem houses over dere like." Ok, perhaps lamp is only a Cork thing.
:...I suspect you're right. The variety of accents and lingo around Ireland is nothing short of insane. I was down in Kerry recently, and attempted to have a conversation with a local - both of us had quite a hard time understanding one another! I'd have found it no less effort to interpret, were he speaking Irish. User:Zoney 23:43, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
== Yer man/wan ==
'' Yer man (your man) and Yer wan (your one) are used in referring to an individual known by the party being addressed, but not being referred to by name. The nearest equivalents in colloquial English usage would be "whatsisname" and "whatsername". ''
Or maybe "you know who"? -- User:SS 15:49, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
:"You know who" would have a "talking behind their back" connotation. "Whatsisname/whatsername" are more accurate, as like the terms introduced, they merely are used when one doesn't know the name or can't instantly recall it. User:Zoney ♣ User talk:Zoney 14:12, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
== Page move ==
Any particular reason for the page move from Hiberno-English to Hiberno-English language?
User:Zoney ▓ ▒ User talk:Zoney 12:04, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
:User:Gilgamesh has done this to all the "major English dialects" and is discussing it with others who don't agree on his talk page. I don't think I like it myself, after all, all these dialects are not independent languages in themselves but dialects, and so the page titles really don't sit well IMHO. User:Blorg 12:42, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
== Whenever ==
Another peculiarity I've noticed in Northern English is the use of "whenever" instead of "when". In the South "whenever" implies a continuing reaction or emphasis, for instance "Whenever I went out without an umbrella, it always rained". But in the North you hear things like "The roads were safer whenever I was young". --User:Attila the Pooh 10:58, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
== C'Mere to Me ==
Is this weird usage of "Come here to me" refering to "continue listening to me" or "start listening to me" Ireland only? Don't want to add it without checking... User:Kiand 13:43, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
:Also "C'mere I want yeh" in Limerick - though this is more to get someones attention. User:Zoney ♣ User talk:Zoney 15:27, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
== He turned around and said... ==
When relating events, to "turn around and" (do s.t.) is a common idiom. It usually seems to indicate that what is about to be related is out of the ordinary, as in "He turned 'round and thumped me!". It is often used to indicate (possibly exaggerated) assertiveness on the part of the speaker, as in "I turned 'round and told him to get lost" --User:EmmetCaulfield 19:46, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
== Neutrality? ==
The page says that there's a neutrality dispute about this entry, but I can't see any discussion of it here. What exactly is the objection in this entry? Is it merely the text about the supposed similarity between working-class accents in Dublin and Liverpool? If so, why doesn't someone simply remove the offending sentences?
--Josiah Rowe, confused Wiki newcomer
:I don't know either. As there's no notice on the talk page, I'm removing the tag. --User:Dante Alighieri | User talk:Dante Alighieri 22:48, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)
== Rurality ==
There seem to me to be many things in the article that are asserted to be "rural" that are commmonplace in Dublin. Being a newbie, I'm reluctant to change them --User:EmmetCaulfield 19:46, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
:It's kind of complicated. There's the fact that a large amount of Dublin's population are from elsewhere (and indeed often further than Navan, Louth, Kildare or Wicklow). And there's no one type of Dubliner. Common-speak for a Northsider from Ballymun, or someone from Tallaght will differ from D4-speak. Certainly much of the yuppie lah-di-dah Dubliners probably would not use have as many truly Irish colloquial terms.
:On the other hand, there are for sure Dublin conventions that you will not hear a Limerickman or Corkonian come out with.
:Incidentally, is the Limerick term for runners/trainers here? i.e. "tackies". User:Zoney ♣ User talk:Zoney 10:42, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
== mathematics: plural or singular? ==
In the section ''Preservation of older English usage'',
User:82.6.178.123 tacks onto the paragraph:
:"mathematics" (and maybe other -ics words?) is, in old-fashioned usage, treated as a plural noun, taking a plural verb and substituted with a plural pronoun.
::''My son thinks mathematics are interesting, and he's good at them.''
:Not a single person in Ireland would use the above phrase, opting for the abbreviation "maths" and treating it as a singluar ''[sic]'' noun.
::''My son thinks maths is interesting, and he's good at it.''
Can we resolve the disagreement and remove the blatant contradiction from the entry? My two cents: As an American, I've always thought of the random pluralization of "obviously" singular nouns to be a generally British-Isles thing: "the football team ''are'' playing in the playoffs this year," for example.
—ajo, 25 Feb 2005
:The "team" example is entirely different, as the plural comes from the fact of substituting "team" for "team members". Generally a group is referred to using plural in English here. User:Zoney ♣ User talk:Zoney 01:58, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
== Ulster exceptionalism ==
I've deleted the claim that Hiberno-English doesn't appear in Ulster. That is plain daft. However, it is clear that among the significant regional differences on the island, the linguistic contribution of Scots in the northeast is one of the most important. This is clearly acknowledged in the body of the article, but perhaps more examples of northern speech could be added to the article (or to the stub on Ullans). User:BrendanH 21:30, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)
== This probably relates to the "c'mere to me" section above ==
:I grew up in Stoke-on-Trent, lived in Sheffield, Colchester and Dublin. I've only ever heard these phrases in Dublin:
:"Come here and I'll tell you..."
:"Come here while I tell you..."
:"Come here 'til I tell you..." etc.
I used to walk up to people when they said this, thinking maybe they were about to whisper something secret, but they never did. This would even be used during phone calls. I presume the meaning is pretty much 'Listen to this...', sometimes 'You won't believe this, but...'. If you've been talking about somebody's unusual/bad behaviour, and someone there has a story or anecdote about them, they'll usually precede it with "come here..."
User:Jenks 19:05, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
== "Now" ==
:''Now is often used at the end of sentences or phrases as a semantically empty word, completing an utterance without contributing any apparent meaning. Examples include "Bye now" (= "goodbye"), "There you go now" (= when giving someone something), "Ah now!" (= expressing dismay), "Hold on now" (= "wait a minute"), etc.''
Is this really specifically Irish usage? I don't know how universal it is among English speakers, but we certainly have it in the United States. It's not particularly common, but it's not uncommon. Certainly I'd think nothing unusual upon hearing ''any'' of the phrases above and I'm entirely unfamiliar with Hiberno-English. Come to think of it, I've heard it enough in British productions, too. What English-speaking dialect ''doesn't'' have this usage? - User:Furrykef (User_talk:Furrykef) 00:39, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
==cheerio==
Is 'cheerio' not an Hiberno-English way of saying 'goodbye'?--User:Feline1 12:04, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
: Doubt it. Though its use has rather died out in England: mainly heard now only in pre-1960 era movie dialogue. --User:Red King 13:21, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Oh well - it's very ubiquitous in Ulster, and I remember local comedian Jimmy Young's TV show (which featured him doing a lot of parody charicatures of Ulster stereotypes) had a wee wumman who always went "Cheerio now" --User:Feline1 14:19, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
: I wouldn't disagree with that. The question for this article, though, is whether it is distinct dialect (Irish or Ulster Scots words or grammar transposed into English), or just a figure of speech that is popular in a particular area. Cheerioo nai! --User:Red King 19:09, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
#REDIRECTHiberno-English
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
Words begining with Hiberno-English:
Hiberno-English
Hiberno-English
Hiberno-english
Hiberno-English_language
Hiberno-English_language
Hiberno-English
Hiberno-English is the form of the English language used in Ireland. Hiberno-English is also called Irish English and rarely Anglo-Irish. The basis for the type of English spoken in Ireland is the grafting of types of English and Scots English, that were brought to Ireland during the English and Scottish colonisation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, onto an Irish language / ''Gaedhilge'' stem. The linguistic interference of the Irish language on the English spoken in Ireland is most clearly seen in those areas where Irish is still spoken as a mother tongue or where it has survived until recently. The standard spelling and grammar are the same as UK English, but especially in the spoken language, there are some unique characteristics, due to the influence of Irish language on pronunciation. == Pronunciation == Hiberno-English retains many phonemic differentiations merged in other accents of English. Phonetic transcriptions are given using International Phonetic Alphabet. * 'r' is pronounced wherever it occurs in the word, making Irish English a rhotic and non-rhotic accents dialect. * The distinction of ''w'' and ''wh'' , as in ''wine'' vs ''whine'' is preserved. * Merger of the vowels in ''father'' and ''bother'' in Southern Irish English; and . * In some varieties and [t], and and [d] merger, making ''thin'' and ''tin'' and ''then'' and ''den'' homonyms; and . * The distinction between and in ''horse'' and ''hoarse'' is preserved. * The distinction between -- in ''herd-bird-curd'' is preserved. * "l" is clear wherever it occurs in a word, as in French * 'Pure' vowels: "boat", in a traditional accent, is pronounced , and cane is pronunced * The "i" in "night" may be pronounced . * The "u" in Dublin may be pronounced . * In County Cork, some vowel sounds are often altered. An "e" sound becomes an "i" ("well" becomes "will"). Also "Cork" is locally pronounced as . * An accent unique to Dublin known as the Dublin 4 intonation (referring to the local Dublin postal districts) is an urban/suburban middle class feature. This is an oft derided posh dialect that renders words such as 'car' as 'core' and 'far' as 'fore'. Dublin 4 speakers often end a sentence with the high rising terminal 'Do you know what I mean?' contracted and pronounced rapidly as 'Dja kneww whad I min?' * Similarly the working-class Dublin accent is a unique urban feature resembling the blue-collar accents of Manchester and Liverpool in England. This dialect includes phrases such as 'What's the story, Bud?' meaning 'How are you, friend?' pronounced 'Wats de stary bud?' and 'Mad out of it!' pronounced 'Mad ou vih!' meaning drunk or high. * In some old-fashioned varieties, words spelled with ''ea'' and pronounced with in RP are pronounced with , for example ''meat'', ''beat''. == Grammar derived from Irish == Irish has no words which directly translate as "yes" or "no", instead the verb in a question is repeated in an answer. People in Ireland have a tendency to use this pattern of avoiding "yes" or "no" when speaking English: * "Are you finished debugging that software?" "I am." * "Is your mobile charged?" "It is." Irish verbs have two present tenses, one indicating what is occurring at this instant and another used for continuous actions. For example, 'you are now' is ''tá tú anois'' (literally 'are you now'), but 'you are every day' is ''bíonn tú gach lá'' (literally 'be you each day'). Irish speakers of English, especially in rural areas, use a "does be/do be" (or "bes", although less frequently) construction to indicate this latter continuous present: * "He do(es) be coding every day." * "They do be talking on their mobiles a lot." * "They bes doing a lot of work at school." (rare) Irish has no pluperfect tense: instead the idiom for "I had done X when I did Y" is "I was after doing X when I did Y", modelled on the Irish usage of the compound prepositions ''i ndiaidh'', ''tar éis'', and ''in éis'': ''bhí mé tar éis/i ndiaidh/in éis X a dhéanamh, nuair a rinne mé Y''. This can most commonly be heard used by Dubliners. * "Why did you hit him?" "He was after insulting me." A similar construction is seen with the 'hot news perfect', used to express extreme excitement at something which has happened recently: * "Jaysus, I'm after hitting him with de car!" * "Would ya look at yer one — she's after losing five stone in five weeks!" Less explosively, using what might be termed the 'warm news perfect', the Irish perfect can indicate a recent action of less stellar importance: * "I have the computer rebooted." ''Tá an ríomhaire atosaithe agam.'' * "I have me breakfast eaten." ''Tá an bricfeasta ite agam.'' Mirroring the Irish language and almost every other European language, the plural 'you' is distinguished from the singular, normally by using the otherwise archaic English word 'ye' (the word 'yous' also occurs, but primarily only in Dublin and north Ulster, from Donegal across to County_Antrim.): * "Did ye all go to see it?" Also in some areas in South Leinster the hybrid word 'ye-s' pronounced 'yis' may be used. In rural areas the reflexive version of pronouns is often used for emphasis or to refer indirectly to a particular person, etc., according to context: * "Was it all of ye or just yourself?" * "'Tis herself that's coming now." ''Is í féin atá ag teacht anois.'' - where 'herself' might, for example, be the boss or the woman of the house. Note also the indirectness of this construction relative to, for example, 'She's coming now' and the use of "'Tis" rather than the more standard contraction "It's". It is also common to end sentences with 'no?' or 'yeah?' * "He's not coming today, no?" ''Níl sé ag teacht inniú, nach bhfuil?'' * "The bank's closed now, yeah?" ''Tá an banc dúnta anois, an bhfuil?'' Irish English also always uses the "light l" sound, and the pronunciation of the letter 'h' as 'haitch' is standard. When describing something, rural Hiberno-English speakers may describe this as something that is 'in it', which can also be translated into English as 'so it is', or for comical effect 'that it be'. * The day that is in it. ''An lá atá ann.'' * That's John, so it is. ''Is Seán é, atá ann.'' It ought to be noted that this construction is generally limited to the northern half of the country. This isn't just limited to the verb 'to be': it's also used with 'to have' when used as an auxiliary, and with other verbs the verb 'to do' is used. This is most commonly used for intensification. * This Wintel box suck, so it does. * I've finished debugging, so I have. Similarly, somebody who can speak a language, 'has' a language - a very rural construction. * She doesn't have Irish. ''Níl Gaeilge aici.'' Another idiom is this thing or that thing described as 'this man here' or 'that man there', which also features in Newfoundland English in Canada. *This man here. ''An fear seo.'' *That man there. ''An fear sin.'' The reported clause is also often preserved in its direct form, for example 'John asked me to buy a loaf of bread' becomes 'John asked me would I buy a loaf of bread'. == Preservation of older English usage == In old-fashioned usage, "it is" can be freely abbreviated "'tis", even as a standalone sentence. This also allows the double abbreviation "'tisn't", for "it is not". The word "ye" or "yous", otherwise archaic, is still used in place of "you" for the second person plural. The verb "mitch" is common in Ireland indicating playing truant from school. This word appears in William Shakespeare, but is seldom heard these days in British English, although pockets of usage persist in some areas (notably South Wales, Devon, and Cornwall). For influence from Scotland see Ulster Scots language. ==Turns of phrase== "Am not" is abbreviated '''amn't''' by analogy with "isn't" and "aren't". This can be used as a tag question: * I'm making a mistake, amn't I? or as an alternative to "I'm not": * I amn't joking. and the double negative is also used: * I'm not late, amn't I not? Reduplication is not an especially common feature of Irish; nevertheless in rendering Irish phrases into English it is occasionally used: * ''ar bith'' corresponds to English ''at all'', so the stronger ''ar chor ar bith'' gives rise to the form at all at all **''I've no money at all at all.'' * ''ar eagla go...'' (lit. ''on fear that'') means ''in case ...''. The variant ''ar eagla na heagla'', (lit ''on fear of fear'') implies the circumstances are more unlikely. The corresponding Hiberno-English phrases are ''to be sure'' and to be sure to be sure. In this context, these are not, as might be thought, disjuncts meaning 'certainly'; they could better be translated ''in case'' and ''just in case''. Nowadays normally spoken with conscious levity. ** ''I brought some cash in case I saw a bargain, and my credit card 'to be sure to be sure'.'' Casual conversation in many parts of Ireland includes a variety of colourful turns of phrase. Some examples: *Yer man (your man) and Yer wan (your one) are used in referring to an individual known by the party being addressed, but not being referred to by name. The phrases are an unusual sort of half-translation of a parallel Irish-language phrase, "mo dhuine" (literally 'my person'). The nearest equivalents in colloquial English usage would be "whatsisname" and "whatsername". *a soft day – referring to a rainy day with that particular soft drizzle, and an overcast sky, but yet relatively bright. This is a translation of the Irish "lá bog". *Fecking is a mild abusive equivalent in force to "bleeding" or "darned." It is not a parallel of the English word "fucking", despite their similarity, and is generally less offensive. "Feck" is the corresponding expletive. The noun "fecker" is slightly stronger but not vulgar. These terms were lately introduced to Britain by Father Ted. In old Dubliner slang, "to feck' is also slang for "to steal", as in the phrase, "We went to the orchard and fecked some apples." It can also mean "to throw", especially if something is being thrown where it shouldn't, as in "We fecked his schoolbag into the river." *Yoke is typically used in place of the word "thing", for instance "gimme that yoke there". It's also used as an insult: "you're some yoke". *Now is often used at the end of sentences or phrases as a semantically empty word, completing an utterance without contributing any apparent meaning. Examples include "Bye now" (= "goodbye"), "There you go now" (= when giving someone something), "Ah now!" (= expressing dismay), "Hold on now" (= "wait a minute"), etc. This usage is universal among English dialects, but occurs more frequently in Hiberno-English. There are many terms for having consumed a drop too much drink, many are used elsewhere, but the Irish tendency is to attempt to find the most descriptive adjective yet on each occasion. Some examples: "scuttered", "locked", ''"langered"'', "mouldy" (pron. mowldy as in "fowl"), "polluted", "flootered", "plastered", ''"bolloxed"'', "well out of it", ''"wankered"'', ''"fucked"'', "binned", ''"gee-eyed"'', "buckled", ''"steaming"'', "messy", "sloppy", "wasted", "paratic" "full as a boot" "legless". (''Phrases in italics are more "colourful"'') Some turns of phrase are more localised and their meaning may not be widespread throughout the country, while others are more transient and fall out of use after a number of years. ==See also== *The lists at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sibling project: ** Wiktionary:Category:Irish language ** Wiktionary:Category:Irish derivations ** Wiktionary:Category:Scots language ** Wiktionary:Category:Scots derivations ** Wiktionary:Category:Scottish Gaelic language ** Wiktionary:Category:Scottish Gaelic derivations *Regional accents of English speakers *Ulster Scots language *Mid Ulster English *English speaking Europe ==References== *Dolan, Terence Patrick (Ed.) (1998). ''A Dictionary of Hiberno-English''. Gill & Macmillan (Dublin). ISBN 0-7171-2942-X *Sammon, Paddy (2002). ''Greenspeak - Ireland in her own Words''. TownHouse (Dublin) ISBN 1-86059-144-2; (N. Am.): 0-684-02015-7 Website (complements the book ''Greenspeak - Ireland in her own Words'') Sammon, Paddy: www.greenspeak.info (2003) English dialects Ireland Languages in the United Kingdom Languages of Ireland
Hiberno-English
==Mitch== ''Mitch'' with the same meaning is still used in the :Westcountry, even amongst my generation. User:Sjc ---- Is there any particular reason that "mitch," of all the vocabulary available, is the only example included in this artcile? I'm not familliar with the language, but perhaps it could be made clear that this is an example, as opposed to being a particularly important word, which is how it looks now. User:Barkingdoc ==Yoke== I'm no linguist, so I dont know where the following should be added to this article. My parents are Irish, and here are some expressions they use: :the word ''yoke'' is sometimes used where the word ''thing'' might be used in standard English. ::e.g. "''what's that yoke for?''" ==Mind== :the word ''mind'' is sometimes used for the word ''remember''. ::e.g. "''I mind when I was a boy''" :::User:Mintguy I've never heard that usage. It is used for "take care/of" - "Mind yourself crossing the street", though I'm not sure that's an exclusively Irish usage. -- User:Jimregan 16:20 22 Jun 2003 (UTC) :"mind" meaning "take care" is famously English. On the London Underground you continuously hear a recording of "Mind the gap" as you step on or off the train. User:Hippietrail 06:11, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC) ---- Article written by a CS student, so it was! ---- ==Feck== I can't figure out where to add to this article either, so here goes (should be familiar to British viewers of Father Ted): * ''ye'' is used for the second person plural * ''feck'', means steal, or rather "take without permission", and is used as a euphemism for the word "fuck" - The word ''feck'' does not mean ''to steal'' -- User:OFDM 02:26 Dec 22, 2004 (UTC) : I beg to differ: ''feck'' absolutely does mean ''to steal'' where I come from in Dublin, but connotes minor or petty theft. For example ''He fecked a bar of chocolate from the shop'' would be typical but ''He fecked a million quid from the bank'' would be contrary to normal usage. --User:EmmetCaulfield 19:46, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC) :: There is definitely a usage of ''feck'' meaning ''to steal'', and I believe this is the only one mentioned in the recent ''Dictionary of Hiberno-English''. However ''feck'' is also used to mean ''to throw'', i.e. "I fecked an apple over the wall". I haven't been able to detect any particular geographic distribution of these uses, but most people usually hold with one or the other --User:Ryano 17:43, 11 May 2005 (UTC) ==Lad and Eegit== * ''lad'' is used as a euphemism for penis * ''eejit'' is a mis-spelled, mis-pronounced version of ''idiot'' - While ''eejit'' has the same meaning as ''idiot'' this is not an accurate staement of its origin. -- User:OFDM 02:26 Dec 22, 2004 (UTC) : I've also heard it pronounced (in Cavan) with a ''g'' (as in golf) as ''eegit'' --User:EmmetCaulfield 19:46, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC) ==Sound of A in Father== * The "a" is ''father'' is generally pronounced ''fah ther'' or ''fah der'' rather than ''faw ther'' :This is consistent with Shakepearian english: ''Full fathom five thy father lies.'' [The Tempest]. The A in fathom and the A in father probably sounded the same for the verse to scan. * ''gobshite'' means fool * Many words also in use in Britain, such as ''arse'' for ass, ''bollocks'' for testicles, ''shite'' for shit User:Jimregan 13:46 Apr 26, 2003 (UTC) :Contrary to the assumption that "fah ther" is a particularly Irish pronunciation, "faw ther" is a particularly American pronunciation which is not used elsewhere. User:Hippietrail 06:11, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC) ::According to "The Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English" (Oxford University Press first published 2001) the American and British pronunciations are the same, except for a long vowel and of course the case of the rhotic at the very end. -- User:SS 22:25, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC) ---- ==Light L sound== This USA-ian is baffled by the sentence "Irish English also always uses the "light l" sound." - how about an example? - User:DavidWBrooks 14:10, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC) : The canonical example is "Film" which is pronounced as two syllables, almost fillum. (cf. Rhythm.) In RP english this is a monosyllable, almost fiwm. The w attempts to represent a dark l sound. Also "Bottle" keeps the light l by changing the t to a sound between t and k. Irish children often mispronounce this "bockle" when learning to talk. :: I know a ''lot'' of people who regard the (admittedly common) pronunciation of ''film'' as ''fillum'' as an abomination --User:EmmetCaulfield 19:46, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC) :::In "Esturine" English, "bottle" is a strangled tonsil sound, since the TT and the L are deeply glottalised :) ---- ==Present Tense== The present tenses example is wrong. An bhfuil is just the interrogative form of ta. The example I would use is "Tá tú anois" vs "Bíonn tú gach lá" - you are now vs you be every day. User:Alastair Rae 15:45, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC) ==Crack/Craic (but not cocaine)== Craic (Crack) may well be from Scots and Northern English. : I have removed the reference to "crack" because I believe it not to be derived from Irish ("craic", like "sessiún", is a recent gaelicisation). I think I have seen Jane Austen use "crack" in the sense of lively conversation, and there are usages like "wisecrack" in non-Hiberno English. It is, however, clearly a feature of Hiberno-English, just not of Irish-language origin. User:BrendanH 09:09, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC) ==After== In my experience of living with Irish expats in the last couple of years, the most stand-out Irishisms I notice are "after" as mentioned, plus "your man" to refer to any specific male person, and "the last day" to mean yesterday. User:Hippietrail 06:11, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC) == Amn't I? == Just to make a comment about everyday usage of Irish English that is not yet mentioned here: The often rhetorical phrase "Amn't I?" is widely used in everyday speech. It is a contraction of "Am not I?" or "Am I not?" and is generally a used to reinforce a statement of fact or opinion. -Where have you been? -Doesn't matter, I'm here now anyway, amn't I? or -look at me, mammy, I'm really getting tall, amn't I? In standard English this is usually spoken as "aren't I?" However note that the use of "aren't I?" is generally particularly grating to Irish ears. Why this difference exists is unknown (to me) but may be due to the illogicality of placing a singular subject (I) with a plural verb (are). :If this be true, seems like the Irish got this right. "Amn't I" or "ain't I" appears more appropriate than "aren't I". User:Paedia | User talk:Paedia 15:26, 2004 Apr 29 (UTC) I remember, if I used this contraction as a child, my mother, who was ever-so-slightly Anglo (her family had only been in Ireland since the 16th century), would always correct me with the phrase "an almond is a nut". ;-) User:Blorg 11:33, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC) === Amn't I? (2) === Interestingly, it's also very common in Dublin (mostly in working-class areas) to use "amn't I not?", ie a double negative, instead of "Am I?" Example: I'm not working tomorrow, amn't I not? --User:Attila the Pooh 09:42, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC) :''
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