Hiberno English

paddyandy

People themselves decide how a language is spoken and it's very attractive most of the time .Wunnnnnerful is what it is .Who wud wanna souind like a bleedin' epidemic outa univer'ty .

vektarman

I'm waiting on instead of for a bus, I always picture people lying on the roof of a bus....:)

ChunkyLover_53

Turty Tree & a Turd (33 1/3)

trad

Here's a very useful book on Hiberno English
http://www.gillmacmillan.ie/reference/reference/a-dictionary-of-hiberno-english

Terry Dolan used to do a slot on Moncrief on Newstalk a few years ago and it was enlightening.

His dictionary of Hiberno English is a great dip in dip out book.

Mahou

Phone call a few months ago,

Me "I left the laptop in the press"
English woman "The what"
Me "The press"
English woman "The what"
Me "The press"
English woman "The what"
Me "The bleedin wooden thing with doors"
English woman "OOOh the cupboard"
Me " Yes, THE PRESS"

lividduck

Yizzer reckkin me buzz so yiz is:D

Spore

I did some sound recording work a while back, again in Kerry, and we accidentally left the tapes running one day and I picked up this chestnut (it's a man talking about an illiterate miser he knew that had died a few years ago, and was subsequently found to be loaded after his death):

"A neighbour of mine took me there, he was an old man, millionaire. Thirty-seven million he was worth when he died. Ten years ago. Thirty-seven million he was worth, in money.
Now when you die you’re worth nothing.
Which is something you know, because he could hardly write his name.
He was a small farmer here and he was very poor when he was growing up. He’d be about eighty-five now if he’d lived, he’s dead about six or eight years.
But, what he told me, he was injured in the railway, whether genuine or not, he drew a few pounds. This was sixty years ago. He bought a shack of a house. And he told me he knew so little about the house he could hardly lock the door.
But what he told me as well was don’t ever hire professional tradesmen because they’ll brake you. Go to the corner, he says, with the winos or whatever you’d like to call them and sober them up and don’t pay them until they finish the job. Give them porridge and give them soup and bring ’em on, and get them working."

44leto

lividduck wrote: »

Yizzer reckkin me buzz so yiz is:D

That's more the queens English Or Dublin northside speak, rather then Hiberno.

amdublin

Spore wrote: »

I did some sound recording work a while back, again in Kerry, and we accidentally left the tapes running one day and I picked up this chestnut (it's a man talking about an illiterate miser he knew that had died a few years ago, and was subsequently found to be loaded after his death):

"A neighbour of mine took me there, he was an old man, millionaire. Thirty-seven million he was worth when he died. Ten years ago. Thirty-seven million he was worth, in money.
Now when you die you’re worth nothing.
Which is something you know, because he could hardly write his name.
He was a small farmer here and he was very poor when he was growing up. He’d be about eighty-five now if he’d lived, he’s dead about six or eight years.
But, what he told me, he was injured in the railway, whether genuine or not, he drew a few pounds. This was sixty years ago. He bought a shack of a house. And he told me he knew so little about the house he could hardly lock the door.
But what he told me as well was don’t ever hire professional tradesmen because they’ll brake you. Go to the corner, he says, with the winos or whatever you’d like to call them and sober them up and don’t pay them until they finish the job. Give them porridge and give them soup and bring ’em on, and get them working."

I don't see what is "chestnutty" about this.

This sounds like the ravings of a lunatic IMO.

Spore

The guy was a gent, brilliant musician and sort of a local raconteur. Nothing lunatic like about him.

randylonghorn

randylonghorn wrote: »

"I used to go / do / whatever ..."

Directly lifted from the gnathchaite (habitual past tense) in Irish, and still often to be heard in the normal vocabulary of people whose great-great-grandparents were the last of the family to speak Irish as a first language.

Such a useful tense too; English is the poorer for its lack.

Every English speaker in the world uses 'used to' to talk about past habits. How was it lifted from Irish?

Ficheall

Spore wrote: »

"Yer man", "Yer one" - the first is obviously male, but how is "one" female?

Yer woman -> yer w'an -> yer one?

lividduck

44leto wrote: »

That's more the queens English Or Dublin northside speak, rather then Hiberno.

Lividduck closes the door quietly as he leaves with tail between his legs

My name is URL

Here our fella, throw them yokes in the hotpress and then go to the shop for some minerals and a sliced pan.

The King of Moo

Brillent dialect altogether.

Fart

Gissa shot of yer gash.

FinnLizzy

Me: "Go get some towels out of the hotpress"
English friend: "What the hell is a hotpress?"
Me: "Do you not have hotpress in your house?"
English friend: "No"
Me: "Then where do you keep your immersion?"
English friend: "WHAT THE **** ARE YOU ON ABOUT?"

shanered

Getta way outta that!
Your ****tin me!

mikemac1

Boss asks you where the expenses are
You point to the girls over in accounts "there, the lads have it"
It is perfectly acceptable to call a group of girls lads.
A Scottish manager of mine couldn't understand this


"He's a character" = is a nice way of describing the local drunk

My name is URL wrote: »

then go to the shop for some minerals and a sliced pan.

The messages, you forgot to go to the shop to get the messages

byhookorbycrook

the keen edge wrote: »

"Of a Saturday", emm quite.

What did he die of?He died of a Saturday!

deise go deo

Tell yer mother I was askin for her.

Cú Giobach

Begging yer pardon yer honour, I myself was after witnessing the defendant getting into his car, "but sure there's someone who does be after having drink taken I thought" so arrest him on the spot I did.

LordSutch

Is mucking up your TH pronunciations part of Hiberno English? or is something else at play here, like accent (or ignorance)? I am thinking specifically of words/place names like Thailand, Through, Thought, Taught or any word which may or (may not) have the TH sound. Words like these always cause problems for Irish people, and yet not for other Nationalities - But why? might the TH thing (ting) be part of Hiberno English? or just an excuse for laziness?

who the fug

LordSutch wrote: »

Is mucking up your TH pronunciations part of Hiberno English? or is something else at play here, like accent (or ignorance)? I am thinking specifically of words/place names like Thailand, Through, Thought, Taught or any word which may or (may not) have the TH sound. Words like these always cause problems for Irish people, and yet not for other Nationalities - But why? might the TH thing (ting) be part of Hiberno English? or just an excuse for laziness?

New Zealand has a problem with it as well

Craytur pretty common in West Cork as well

The King of Moo

LordSutch wrote: »

Is mucking up your TH pronunciations part of Hiberno English? or is something else at play here, like accent (or ignorance)? I am thinking specifically of words/place names like Thailand, Through, Thought, Taught or any word which may or (may not) have the TH sound. Words like these always cause problems for Irish people, and yet not for other Nationalities - But why? might the TH thing (ting) be part of Hiberno English? or just an excuse for laziness?

It's accent, but its prominence is really overstated.
I've never had a problem with it and don't know many people who have.
It only happens with certain individuals and accents.

Spread

LordSutch wrote: »

Is mucking up your TH pronunciations part of Hiberno English? or is something else at play here, like accent (or ignorance)? I am thinking specifically of words/place names like Thailand, Through, Thought, Taught or any word which may or (may not) have the TH sound. Words like these always cause problems for Irish people, and yet not for other Nationalities - But why? might the TH thing (ting) be part of Hiberno English? or just an excuse for laziness?

Leave Bertie and Celia alone. Don't try to derail the topic or you'll be jarred by a mooderator

Fulton Crown

Enkidu wrote: »

One of the weirdest ones for me is the case inflections of Old English are still in some Hiberno-English speech.
Both my parents' families say "childers" for children when talking about possession. For example:

The children are outside

but

That's the childers dinner.

Unsurprising since childer is the original genitive plural.

Are they still travelling or are they settled now ?

Wibbs

LordSutch wrote: »

Is mucking up your TH pronunciations part of Hiberno English? or is something else at play here, like accent (or ignorance)? I am thinking specifically of words/place names like Thailand, Through, Thought, Taught or any word which may or (may not) have the TH sound. Words like these always cause problems for Irish people, and yet not for other Nationalities

You must not have listened to many English speaking nationalities then.

The English themselves are very prone to dropping aitches, substituting it in some British accents with a F sound, or leaving it out entirely. EG "I fink everyfink is 'oribble". It's more common to hear too.

Actually that accent isnt too bad to my ear. The one that makes me want to smack people in the gob is when some English people add R to words ending with ahh sounds. EG idear instead of idea. WTF? I've actually seen that written down. Ditto for Drawring instead of Drawing. One that will melt the head of that accent speaker is "drawer". They can't add an R in the middle so get rid of the end R entirely; "Draw". I've seen that one written down too. Some english accents have difficulty with R's full stop. Even in a word like Pattern. Most southern English folks say "patten". Irish folks are more likely to say Pattrin. Few enough of either group will pronounce it "correctly".

Enkidu

LordSutch wrote: »

Is mucking up your TH pronunciations part of Hiberno English? or is something else at play here, like accent (or ignorance)? might the TH thing (ting) be part of Hiberno English? or just an excuse for laziness?

It's part of Hiberno-English, although not in all sub-dialects. Irish had no "th" sound. Not unusual as it is a very rare sound, most of the other Germanic languages lost the sound, except for icelandic.

As for ignorance or laziness, I am always surprised by these kind of comments. What would ignorance mean in this circumstance? Why do English speakers "muck up" the traditional Germanic strong verb inflection system, is it due ignorance or laziness?

Enkidu

Fulton Crown wrote: »

Are they still travelling or are they settled now ?

There is an association between using genitive plurals and being a traveller? Should be interesting to hear what it is.
Should also be interesting to hear how having retained the more complex inflectional rules of older English is a lower form of speech.

Alun

Toby Whining Backgammon wrote: »

Every English speaker in the world uses 'used to' to talk about past habits. How was it lifted from Irish?

I agree. It's perfectly standard English.

Wibbs

Wibbs wrote: »

You must not have listened to many English speaking nationalities then.

The English themselves are very prone to dropping aitches, substituting it in some British accents with a F sound, or leaving it out entirely. EG "I fink everyfink is 'oribble". It's more common to hear too.

Actually that accent isnt too bad to my ear. The one that makes me want to smack people in the gob is when some English people add R to words ending with ahh sounds. EG idear instead of idea. WTF? I've actually seen that written down. Ditto for Drawring instead of Drawing. One that will melt the head of that accent speaker is "drawer". They can't add an R in the middle so get rid of the end R entirely; "Draw". I've seen that one written down too. Some english accents have difficulty with R's full stop. Even in a word like Pattern. Most southern English folks say "patten". Irish folks are more likely to say Pattrin. Few enough of either group will pronounce it "correctly".

Not really a fan of the reverse snobbery here, Wibbs. English people don't have 'difficulty' with R's, it's just not pronounced in most regions because that's how the accent is. English isn't a phonetic language, full stop, so why would it bother you if some letters are pronounced or not pronounced? It's no more wrong or weird than Irish people pronouncing every R.

The 'r' sound you hear in 'drawing' is a normal feature of most English accents, which is using a consonant sound to break up two vowel sounds, the same as the 'w' sound between the two words when you say 'go away'. The vowel in 'draw' (which in British English is pronounced with rounded lips, just like in the word 'or') is quite different from the vowel most Irish people use (which is more like the 'a' in 'father') and it is very awkward to try to pronounce the 'i' in the second syllable without adding an r sound. It would be too easy for the vowels to mesh together and make a diphthong, creating a sound like 'droing'.

I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate an English person picking apart your accent and insinuating that you speak 'incorrectly' but that's essentially what you're doing here. I work in a language school and not many of my English colleagues would dare to tell the Irish teachers that their pronunciation or grammar is strange or irritating, but I hear plenty of it going the other way. Fair enough if you want to comment on what you find irritating in an accent, but why all this talk of correct and incorrect? Many (if not most) sounds in Irish English are completely different to the phonetic symbols found in the dictionary.

Spore

Toby Whining Backgammon wrote: »

Fair enough if you want to comment on what you find irritating in an accent, but why all this talk of correct and incorrect? Many (if not most) sounds in Irish English are completely different to the phonetic symbols found in the dictionary.

Too true, the beauty of language and accent is that it changes and it's even more intesting when it resists change or when we see a recessive feature crop up again in unusual places. Just reading Bill Bryson's 'The Mother Tongue' fascinating stuff (if a bit pedantic at times).

Wibbs

Toby Whining Backgammon wrote: »

Not really a fan of the reverse snobbery here, Wibbs. English people don't have 'difficulty' with R's, it's just not pronounced in most regions because that's how the accent is. English isn't a phonetic language, full stop, so why would it bother you if some letters are pronounced or not pronounced? It's no more wrong or weird than Irish people pronouncing every R.

The 'r' sound you hear in 'drawing' is a normal feature of most English accents, which is using a consonant sound to break up two vowel sounds, the same as the 'w' sound between the two words when you say 'go away'. The vowel in 'draw' (which in British English is pronounced with rounded lips, just like in the word 'or') is quite different from the vowel most Irish people use (which is more like the 'a' in 'father') and it is very awkward to try to pronounce the 'i' in the second syllable without adding an r sound. It would be too easy for the vowels to mesh together and make a diphthong, creating a sound like 'droing'.

I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate an English person picking apart your accent and insinuating that you speak 'incorrectly' but that's essentially what you're doing here. I work in a language school and not many of my English colleagues would dare to tell the Irish teachers that their pronunciation or grammar is strange or irritating, but I hear plenty of it going the other way. Fair enough if you want to comment on what you find irritating in an accent, but why all this talk of correct and incorrect? Many (if not most) sounds in Irish English are completely different to the phonetic symbols found in the dictionary.

Clearly you missed the point of my post, which was a rebuttal to LordSutch's post, a post that might find a better target for your arrows. You may on reflection also note I parenthesised "correctly" as far as pronunciation is concerned.

As for the accent part? I'm perfectly OK with that. Yes English is not a particularly phonetic language, however if one is speaking of deviations from what passes for the norm as some have been, subtracting or adding letters/sounds in the absence of same in the written word is clearly a deviation. Dropping Aitches or adding Ar's is but an example of this. LordSutch erroneously suggested that this was an exclusively Irish thing, I was merely educating him to the error of his ways.

stoneill

I'm after going to the shops for the messages.

We never had a hot press - we had a corporation press.

golden lane

Enkidu wrote: »

It's part of Hiberno-English, although not in all sub-dialects. Irish had no "th" sound. Not unusual as it is a very rare sound, most of the other Germanic languages lost the sound, except for icelandic.

As for ignorance or laziness, I am always surprised by these kind of comments. What would ignorance mean in this circumstance? Why do English speakers "muck up" the traditional Germanic strong verb inflection system, is it due ignorance or laziness?

english did not come from that tpe of german....

Paddy Cow

Ya = you singular
Ye = you plural

I'll be with ya/ye now, in a minute

StupidLikeAFox

Spore wrote: »

Thirty-seven million he was worth when he died.

37 millen??

Also saying sure (sher/shur?) before everything

"Sure I was only codding ye!"

"Sure its all just a bit o'craic!"

libnation

I hate Cork people say 'he f**ked me out of it'- which just means argue

confusticated

ColHol wrote: »

37 millen??

Also saying sure (sher/shur?) before everything

"Sure I was only codding ye!"

"Sure its all just a bit o'craic!"

I was trying to explain "sure" to a Moroccan friend recently, he's living here nearly 2 years and he'd always assumed it was meant like "certainly" at the start of a sentence, like the usual pronunciation of sure (shoor).

Another one is era, arragh, from "dhera" as Gaeilge, hard to directly explain that one I find. Or saying "ah sure" where an English person might say "oh well".

LordSutch

Wibbs wrote: »

Clearly you missed the point of my post, which was a rebuttal to LordSutch's post, a post that might find a better target for your arrows.

LordSutch erroneously suggested that this was an exclusively Irish thing, I was merely educating him to the error of his ways.

Thank you Wibbs, but in fairness to me I simply asked a series of questions re Hiberno English and the possible inclusion (or exclusion)? of the TH sound, so no need for any more arrows or rebuttals thank you very much. Anyway, thanks to your good self and one or two other posters the TH/Hiberno English question has now been answered. English people and their Rs (or aiches) is another topic.

WesternZulu

confusticated wrote: »

I was trying to explain "sure" to a Moroccan friend recently, he's living here nearly 2 years and he'd always assumed it was meant like "certainly" at the start of a sentence, like the usual pronunciation of sure (shoor).

Another one is era, arragh, from "dhera" as Gaeilge, hard to directly explain that one I find. Or saying "ah sure" where an English person might say "oh well".

Arragh is a great one. Think it's more of a West of Ireland thing and 'yerra' then for Cork and Kerry.

Another one from the West is putting 'een' at the end of a word....dogeen, girleeen, ladeen, houseeen.
It works with any word!

DebDynamite

I was freezing so I was.
I'm from Ireland so I am.

Carawaystick

The een ending is a diminuitive ending meaning small
Like bothar/botharín
Same thing in Spanish with a ito ending

What annoys me is the use of an in front of words beginning with haitch by the Irish press. The Indo were at it a while but now the Irish times is at it too. Haitch is voiced in HibernoEnglish

Another trait from Irish is inserting vowels between consonants at the end/start of syllables
Chim-i-ny being a common example

Latchy

'' Hi there gorgis, yor looking noice tonight ,fancy a aul roide or wah ? ''

LordSutch

Carawaystick wrote: »

What annoys me is the use of an in front of words beginning with haitch by the Irish press. The Indo were at it a while but now the Irish times is at it too. Haitch is voiced in HibernoEnglish

'The Indo' now I guess that's real modern Hiberno English? The non Hiberno abbreviation being 'The Inde' as in INDEpendent.

fishy fishy

LordSutch wrote: »

Is mucking up your TH pronunciations part of Hiberno English? or is something else at play here, like accent (or ignorance)? I am thinking specifically of words/place names like Thailand, Through, Thought, Taught or any word which may or (may not) have the TH sound. Words like these always cause problems for Irish people, and yet not for other Nationalities - But why? might the TH thing (ting) be part of Hiberno English? or just an excuse for laziness?

a bit like how the engish cannot pronounce the word SIXTH - the word is SIXTH - not SICK. :rolleyes:

LeinsterDub

I'm on the mitch today

hairyprincess

WesternZulu wrote: »

Arragh is a great one. Think it's more of a West of Ireland thing and 'yerra' then for Cork and Kerry.

Another one from the West is putting 'een' at the end of a word....dogeen, girleeen, ladeen, houseeen.
It works with any wordeen!

FYP

hairyprincess

I'm starved with the cold and famished with the hunger