English As We Speak It in Ireland

words and phrases are deri

he Irish

ish and the dial

cal expressions have gradually grown up among our E

I have no doubt that many of these will be found, after further research, to be either Irish-Gaelic or Old English. It is to be also observed that a good many of the dialectical e

nce of

en the people began to exchange the Irish language for English, they did not quite abandon the Irish sounds of these two letters, but imported them into their English, especially when they came before r. That is why we hear among the people in every part of Ireland such vulgarisms as (for t) bitther, butther, thrue; and (for d) laddher (ladder), cidher (cider), foddher, &c. Yet in other positions we soun

o anyone excepting a born Englishman, and also excepting a small proportion of those born and reared on the east coast of Ireland. It ha

l characteristic; so that in the song of 'Lillibulero' the English author of the song puts this pronunciation all through in the mouth of the Irishman:-'Dere was an ould prophecy found in a bog.' It

d-for the other sound of th (as in bath):-'I had a hot bat this morning; and I rem

; and the people often-though not always-in similar combinations, bring this sound into their English:-'He gave me a blow of his fisht'; 'he wa

there is no such sound in the Irish language). Here the z gets the sound heard in the English w

ds are being adopted even in the English of the best educated people. There is no need to give many examples here, for they will be found all through this book, especially in the Vocabulary. I will instance the single word galore (plentiful) which you will now often see in English newspapers and periodicals. The adoption of Irish words and phrases into English nowadays is in great measure due to the influence of Irishmen resident in England, who write a large proportion-indeed I think

perly dwelt upon by Miss Hayden and Professor Hartog in their recently written joint paper mentioned in the Preface. Most of these idiomatic phrases are simply translations from Irish; and when the translations are literal, Englishmen often find it hard or impossible to understand them. For a phrase may be correct in Irish, but incorrect, or even unintelligible

ally that of Tyrone and eastern Ulster; but he has very little idiom, the p

ly pictured the dialect of Donegal (of which

Irish expression (in English words of course) in some English magazine article, obviously written by one of my fellow-countrymen. Here I ought to remark th

d to Anglo-Irish phrases imported direct from Irish

greatest number of our Anglo-Irish

Old English a

ied with them, great numbers of them learned to use the Irish language; while the natives on their part learned English from the newcomers. There was give and take in every place where the two peoples and the two languages mixed. And so the native Irish people learned to speak Elizabethan English-the very language used by Shakespeare; and in a very considerable degree the old Gaelic people and those of English descent retain

and such words as sliver, lief, afeard, &c.-all of which will be found mentioned farther on in this book. It may be said that hardly any of those incorrect forms of speec

sbyterians from Scotland, the old Catholic owners being turned off. These settlers of course brought with them their Scotch dialect, which remains almost in its purity

lish-speaking people-it is not necessary to make any special observatio

none of us are free from it, no matter how well educated. This does not mean that we speak bad English; for it is generally admitted that our people on the whole, including the peasantry, speak better English-nearer to the literary sta

tion of our peculiar words and phrases are vivid and picturesque, and when used with discretion and at the right time, give a sparkle to our conversation; so that

to the fore. Some days after the publication, a lady friend who was somewhat of a pedant and purist in the English language, came to me with a look of grave concern-so solemn indeed that it somewhat disconcerted me-to direct my attention to the error. He