Speech example

An example of a man with a non-local Dublin accent (Dara Ó Briain)

---

Problems playing this file? See media help.

Speech example

An example of a woman from Connacht with a supraregional Irish accent (Mary Robinson)

---

Problems playing this file? See media help.

Speech example

An example of a man with a non-local (advanced) Dublin accent (Donal MacIntyre)

---

Problems playing this file? See media help.

Hiberno-English^[a] or Irish English (IrE),^[5] also formerly sometimes called Anglo-Irish,^[6] is the set of dialects of English native to the island of Ireland.^[7] In both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, English is the dominant first language in everyday use and one of two official languages, along with the Irish language.

Irish English's writing standards, such as its spelling, align with British English.^[8] However, Irish English's diverse accents and some of its grammatical structures and vocabulary are unique, including certain notably conservative phonological features: features no longer common in the accents of England or North America. It shows significant influences from the Irish language and, in the north, the Scots language.

Phonologists today often divide Irish English into four or five overarching dialects or accents:^[9][10] Ulster or Northern Irish accents, Western and Southern Irish accents (like Cork accents), various Dublin accents, and a non-regional standard accent (outside of Ulster) whose features are shifting since only the last quarter of the 20th century onwards.

Middle English, as well as a small elite that spoke Anglo-Norman, was brought to Ireland as a result of the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in the late 12th century. The remnants of which survived as the Yola language and Fingallian dialects, which is not mutually comprehensible with Modern English. A second wave of the English language was brought to Ireland in the 16th-century Elizabethan Early Modern period, making that variety of English spoken in Ireland the oldest outside of Great Britain. It remains phonologically more conservative today than many other dialects of English.^[11][6]

Initially during the Anglo-Norman period in Ireland, English was mainly spoken in an area known as the Pale around Dublin, with largely the Irish language spoken throughout the rest of the country. Some small pockets of speakers remained, who predominantly continued to use the English of that time. Because of their sheer isolation, these dialects developed into later, now-extinct, English-related varieties, known as Yola in Wexford and Fingallian in Fingal, Dublin. These were no longer mutually intelligible with other English varieties. By the Tudor period, Irish culture and language had regained most of the territory lost to the invaders: even in the Pale, "all the common folk… for the most part are of Irish birth, Irish habit, and of Irish language".^[12]

The Tudor conquest and colonisation of Ireland in the 16th century led to a second wave of immigration by English speakers, along with the forced suppression and decline in the status and use of the Irish language. By the mid-19th century, English had become the majority language spoken in the country.^[b] It has retained this status to the present day, with even those whose first language is Irish being fluent in English as well. Today, there is little more than one per cent of the population who speaks the Irish language natively,^[14] though it is required to be taught in all state-funded schools. Of the 40% of the population who self-identified as speaking some Irish in 2016, 4% speak Irish daily outside the education system.^[15]

A German traveller, Ludolf von Münchhausen, visited the Pale in Dublin in 1591. He says of the pale in regards to the language spoken there: "Little Irish is spoken; there are even some people here who cannot speak Irish at all".^[16] He may be mistaken, but If this account is true, the language of Dublin in the 1590s was English, not Irish. And yet again, Albert Jouvin travelled to Ireland in 1668; he says of the pale and the east coast, "In the inland parts of Ireland, they speak a particular language, but in the greatest part of the towns and villages on the sea coast, only English is spoken".^[17] A Tour of Ireland in 1775 By Richard Twiss (writer) says of the language spoken in Dublin "as at present almost all the peasants speak the English language, they converse with as much propriety as any persons of their class in England"^[18]

Ulster English, or Northern Irish English, here refers collectively to the varieties of the Ulster province, including Northern Ireland and neighbouring counties outside of Northern Ireland, which has been influenced by Ulster Irish as well as the Scots language, brought over by Scottish settlers during the Plantation of Ulster. Its main subdivisions are Mid-Ulster English, South Ulster English and Ulster Scots, the latter of which is arguably a separate language. Ulster varieties distinctly pronounce:

• An ordinarily grammatically structured (i.e. non-topicalised) declarative sentence, often, with a rising intonation at the end of the sentence (the type of intonation pattern that other English speakers usually associate with questions).^[19]
• KIT as lowered, in the general vicinity of [ë~ɘ~ɪ̈].
• STRUT as fronted and slightly rounded, more closely approaching [ɞ].
• GOOSE and FOOT as merged in the general vicinity of [ʉ].
• MOUTH with a backed on-glide and fronted off-glide, putting it in the vicinity of [ɐʏ~ɜʉ].
• PRICE as [ɛɪ~ɜɪ], particularly before voiceless consonants.
• FACE as [eː], though nowadays commonly [eːə] or even [ɪːə] when in a closed syllable.
• GOAT, almost always, as a slightly raised monophthong [o̝(ː)].
• A lack of Happy-tensing; with the final vowel of happy, holy, money, etc. as [e].
• Syllable-final /l/ occasionally as "dark [ɫ]", though especially before a consonant.

Western and Southern Irish English is a collection of broad varieties of Ireland's West Region and Southern Region. Accents of both regions are known for:

• The backing and slight lowering of MOUTH towards [ɐʊ~ʌʊ].
• The more open starting point for NORTH and THOUGHT of [ɑːɹ~äːɹ] and [ɑː~ä], respectively.
• The preservation of GOAT as monophthongal [oː].
• /θ/ and /ð/, respectively, as [t~tʰ] and [d].
• In the West, /s/ and /z/ may respectively be pronounced by very conservative speakers as /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ before a consonant, so fist sounds like fished, castle like Cashel, and arrest like "arresht".^[20]

The subset, South-West Irish English (often known, by specific county, as Cork English, Kerry English, or Limerick English), features two additional defining characteristics of its own. One is the pin–pen merger:^[21] the raising of dress to when before /n/ or /m/ (as in again or pen). The other is the intonation pattern of a slightly higher pitch followed by a significant drop in pitch on stressed long-vowel syllables (across multiple syllables or even within a single one),^[22] which is popularly heard in rapid conversation, by speakers of other English dialects, as a noticeable kind of undulating "sing-song" pattern.^[23][24]

Dublin English is highly internally diverse and refers collectively to the Irish English varieties immediately surrounding and within the metropolitan area of Dublin. Modern-day Dublin English largely lies on a phonological continuum, ranging from a more traditional, lower-prestige, local urban accent on the one end, to a more recently developing, higher-prestige, non-local, regional and even supra-regional accent on the other end. Most of the latter characteristics of Dublin English first emerged in the late 1980s and 1990s.^[25]

The accent that most strongly uses the traditional working-class features has been labelled by the linguist Raymond Hickey as local Dublin English. Most speakers from Dublin and its suburbs, have accent features falling variously along the entire middle, as well as the newer end of the spectrum, which together form what is called non-local Dublin English. It is spoken by middle- and upper-class natives of Dublin and the greater eastern Irish region surrounding the city.^[26]

In the most general terms, all varieties of Dublin English have the following identifying sounds that are often distinct from the rest of Ireland, pronouncing:

• MOUTH as fronted or raised [æʊ~ɛʊ~eʊ].
• PRICE as retracted or centralised [əɪ~ɑɪ].
• GOAT as a diphthong in the range (local to non-local) of [ʌʊ~oʊ~əʊ].

Local Dublin English (or popular Dublin English) is a traditional, broad, working-class variety spoken in the Republic of Ireland's capital city of Dublin. It is the only Irish English variety that in earlier history was non-rhotic; however, it is today weakly rhotic.^[10][27] Known for diphthongisation of the GOAT and FACE vowels, the local Dublin accent is also known for a phenomenon called "vowel breaking", in which MOUTH, PRICE, GOOSE and FLEECE in closed syllables are "broken" into two syllables, approximating [ɛwə], [əjə], [uwə], and [ijə], respectively.^[28]

Evolving as a fashionable outgrowth of the mainstream non-local Dublin English, advanced Dublin English, also new Dublin English or formerly fashionable Dublin English, is a youthful variety that originally began in the early 1990s among the "avant-garde" and now those aspiring to a non-local "urban sophistication".^[29] Advanced Dublin English itself, first associated with affluent and middle-class inhabitants of southside Dublin, is probably now spoken by a majority of Dubliners born since the 1980s.^[25]

Advanced Dublin English can have a fur–fair merger, horse–hoarse, and witch–which mergers, while resisting the traditionally Irish English cot–caught merger. This accent has since spread south to parts of east County Wicklow, west to parts of north County Kildare and parts of south County Meath. The accent can be heard among the middle to upper classes in most major cities in the Republic today.

Supraregional Southern Irish English, sometimes, simply Supraregional Irish English or Standard Irish English,^[30] refers to a variety spoken particularly by educated and middle- or higher-class Irish people, crossing regional boundaries throughout all of the Republic of Ireland, except the north. A mainstream middle-class variety of Dublin English of the early- to mid-twentieth century is the direct influence and catalyst for this variety,^[31] coming about by the suppression of certain markedly Irish features, and retention of other Irish features, as well as the adoption of certain standard British (i.e., non-Irish) features.^[32]

The result is a configuration of features that is still unique. In other words, this accent is not simply a wholesale shift towards British English. Most speakers born in the 1980s or later are showing fewer features of this late-twentieth-century mainstream supraregional form and more characteristics aligning to a rapidly-spreading advanced Dublin accent. See more above, under "Non-local Dublin English".^[33]

Ireland's supraregional dialect pronounces:

• TRAP as quite open [a].
• PRICE along a possible spectrum [aɪ~äɪ~ɑɪ], with innovative particularly more common before voiced consonants,^[27] notably including /r/.
• MOUTH as starting fronter and often more raised than other dialects: .
• START may be [äːɹ] ^ⓘ, with a backer vowel than in other Irish accents, though still relatively fronted.
• THOUGHT as [ɒː].
• NORTH as [ɒːɹ], almost always separate from FORCE [oːɹ], keeping words like war and wore, or horse and hoarse, pronounced distinctly.
• CHOICE as [ɒɪ].
• GOAT as a diphthong, approaching [oʊ] ^ⓘ, as in the mainstream United States, or [əʊ] ^ⓘ, as in mainstream England.
• STRUT as higher, fronter, and often rounder .

The following charts list the vowels typical of each Irish English dialect as well as the several distinctive consonants of Irish English, according to the linguist Raymond Hickey.^[9][10] Phonological characteristics of overall Irish English are given as well as categorisations into five major divisions of Hiberno-English: Ulster; West and South-West Ireland; local Dublin; advanced Dublin; and supraregional (southern) Ireland. Features of mainstream non-local Dublin English fall on a range between what Hickey calls "local Dublin" and "advanced Dublin".

The following monophthongs are defining characteristics of Irish English:

• STRUT is typically centralised in the mouth and often rounder than other standard English varieties, such as Received Pronunciation in England or General American in the United States.
• There is a partial trap-bath split in most Irish English varieties (cf. Variation in Australian English).
• There is inconsistency regarding the lot–cloth split and the cot–caught merger; certain Irish English dialects have these phenomena while others do not. The cot-caught merger by definition rules out the presence of the lot-cloth split.
• An epenthetic schwa is often inserted between sonorants, e.g. film and form , due to the influence of the Irish language.
• The words any and many are often exceptionally pronounced with /æ/, i.e. rhyme with Annie and Danny.^[34]

Footnotes:

^1 In southside Dublin's once-briefly fashionable "Dublin 4" (or "Dortspeak") accent, the "/ɑː/ and broad /æ/" set becomes rounded as ɒː.^[35]

^2 In South-West Ireland, /ɛ/ before /n/ or /m/ is raised to ɪ.^[36]

^3 Due to the phenomenon of "vowel breaking" in local Dublin accents, /iː/ and /uː/ may be realised as ijə and ʊuwə in closed syllables.

Other notes:

• In some highly conservative Irish English varieties, words spelled with ⟨ea⟩ and pronounced with iː in RP are pronounced with eː, for example meat, beat, and leaf.
• In words like took where the spelling ⟨oo⟩ usually represents /ʊ/, conservative speakers may use /uː/. This is most common in local Dublin and the speech of north-east Leinster.

The following diphthongs are defining characteristics of Irish English:

• The MOUTH diphthong, as in ow or doubt, may start more forward in the mouth in the east (namely, Dublin) and supraregionally; however, it may be further backwards throughout the entire rest of the country. In Ulster, the second element is particularly forward, as in Scotland.
• The CHOICE diphthong, as in boy or choice, generally starts off lower outside of Ulster.
• The FACE diphthong, as in rain or bay, is most commonly realised as monophthongal [eː]. The words gave and came often have /ɛ/ instead, i.e. rhyme with "Kev" and "them".^{[citation needed]}

Footnotes: Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=English_language_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland
Text je dostupný za podmienok Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 Unported; prípadne za ďalších podmienok. Podrobnejšie informácie nájdete na stránke Podmienky použitia.