English As We Speak It in Ireland Part 1

English As We Speak It in Ireland.

by P. W. Joyce.

PREFACE.

This book deals with the Dialect of the English Language that is spoken in Ireland.

As the Life of a people--according to our motto--is pictured in their speech, our picture ought to be a good one, for two languages were concerned in it--Irish and English. The part played by each will be found specially set forth in Chapters IV and VII; and in farther detail throughout the whole book.

The articles and pamphlets that have already appeared on this interesting subject--which are described below--are all short. Some are full of keen observation; but very many are mere lists of dialectical words with their meanings. Here for the first time--in this little volume of mine--our Anglo-Irish Dialect is subjected to detailed a.n.a.lysis and systematic cla.s.sification.

I have been collecting materials for this book for more than twenty years; not indeed by way of constant work, but off and on as detailed below. The sources from which these materials were directly derived are mainly the following.

_First._--My own memory is a storehouse both of idiom and vocabulary; for the good reason that from childhood to early manhood I spoke--like those among whom I lived--the rich dialect {vi} of Limerick and Cork--and indeed to some extent speak it still in the colloquial language of everyday life.

I have also drawn pretty largely on our Anglo-Irish Folk Songs of which I have a great collection, partly in my memory and partly on printed sheets; for they often faithfully reflect our Dialect.

_Second._--Eighteen years ago (1892) I wrote a short letter which was inserted in nearly all the Irish newspapers and in very many of those published outside Ireland, announcing my intention to write a book on Anglo-Irish Dialect, and asking for collections of dialectical words and phrases. In response to this I received a very large number of communications from all parts of Ireland, as well as from outside Ireland, even from America, Australia, and New Zealand--all more or less to the point, showing the great and widespread interest taken in the subject.

Their importance of course greatly varied; but many were very valuable. I give at the end of the book an alphabetical list of those contributors: and I acknowledge the most important of them throughout the book.

_Third._--The works of Irish writers of novels, stories, and essays depicting Irish peasant life in which the people are made to speak in dialect. Some of these are mentioned in Chapter I., and others are quoted throughout the book as occasion requires. {vii}

_Fourth._--Printed articles and pamphlets on the special subject of Anglo-Irish Dialect. Of these the princ.i.p.al that I have come across are the following:--

'The Provincialisms of Belfast and Surrounding District pointed out and corrected,' by David Patterson. (1860.)

'Remarks on the Irish Dialect of the English Language,' by A. Hume, D.C.L.

and LL.D. (1878.)

'A Glossary of Words in use in the Counties of Antrim and Down,' by Wm.

Hugh Patterson, M.R.I.A. (1880)--a large pamphlet--might indeed be called a book.

'Don't, Pat,' by 'Colonel O'Critical': a very good and useful little pamphlet, marred by a silly t.i.tle which turns up perpetually through the whole pamphlet till the reader gets sick of it. (1885.)

'A List of Peculiar Words and Phrases at one time in use in Armagh and South Donegal': by D. A. Simmons. (1890.) This List was annotated by me, at the request of Mr. Simmons, who was, at or about that time, President of the Irish National Teachers' a.s.sociation.

A Series of Six Articles on _The English in Ireland_ by myself, printed in 'The Educational Gazette'; Dublin. (1890.)

'The Anglo-Irish Dialect,' by the Rev. William Burke (an Irish priest residing in Liverpool); published in 'The Irish Ecclesiastical Record' for 1896. A judicious and scholarly essay, which I have very often used. {viii}

'The Irish Dialect of English; its Origins and Vocabulary.' By Mary Hayden, M.A., and Prof. Marcus Hartog (jointly): published in 'The Fortnightly Review' (1909: April and May). A thoughtful and valuable essay. Miss Hayden knows Irish well, and has made full use of her knowledge to ill.u.s.trate her subject. Of this article I have made much use.

Besides these there were a number of short articles by various writers published in Irish newspapers within the last twenty years or so, nearly all of them lists of dialectical words used in the North of Ireland.

In the Introduction to the 'Biglow Papers,' Second Series, James Russell Lowell has some valuable observations on modern English dialectical words and phrases derived from Old English forms, to which I am indebted for much information, and which will be found acknowledged through this book: for it touches my subject in many places. In this Introduction Mr. Lowell remarks truly:--'It is always worth while to note down the erratic words or phrases one meets with in any dialect. They may throw light on the meaning of other words, on the relations.h.i.+p of languages, or even history itself.'

Of all the above I have made use so far as served my purpose--always with acknowledgment.

_Fifth._ For twenty years or more I have kept a large note-book lying just at my hand; and {ix} whenever any peculiar Irish-English expression, or anything bearing on the subject, came before me--from memory, or from reading, or from hearing it in conversation--down it went in the ma.n.u.script. In this way an immense ma.s.s of materials was acc.u.mulated almost imperceptibly.

The vast collection derived from all the above sources lay by till early last year, when I went seriously to work at the book. But all the materials were mixed up--_three-na-haila_--'through-other'--and before a line of the book was written they had to be perused, selected, cla.s.sified, and alphabetised, which was a very heavy piece of work.

A number of the Irish items in the great 'Dialect Dictionary' edited for the English Dialect Society by Dr. Joseph Wright were contributed by me and are generally printed with my initials. I have neither copied nor avoided these--in fact I did not refer to them at all while working at my book--and naturally many--perhaps most--of them reappear here, probably in different words. But this is quite proper; for the Dialect Dictionary is a book of reference--six large volumes, very expensive--and not within reach of the general public.

Many of the words given in this book as dialectical are also used by the people in the ordinary sense they bear in standard English; such as _break_:--'Poor Tom was broke yesterday' (dialect: dismissed from employment): 'the bowl {x} fell on the flags and was broken in pieces'

(correct English): and _dark_: 'a poor dark man' (dialect: blind): 'a dark night' (correct English).

This is essentially a subject for popular treatment; and accordingly I have avoided technical and scientific details and technical terms: they are not needed.

When a place is named in connexion with a dialectical expression, it is not meant that the expression is confined to that place, but merely that it is, or was, in use there.

P. W. J.

DUBLIN: _March, 1910_.

ENGLISH AS WE SPEAK IT IN IRELAND.

CHAPTER I.

SOURCES OF ANGLO-IRISH DIALECT.

Our Anglo-Irish dialectical words and phrases are derived from three main sources:--

_First_: the Irish language.

_Second_: Old English and the dialect of Scotland.

_Third_: independently of these two sources, dialectical expressions have gradually grown up among our English-speaking people, as dialects arise everywhere.

In the following pages whenever a word or a phrase is not a.s.signed to any origin it is to be understood as belonging to this third cla.s.s:--that is so far as is known at present; for 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 expressions given in this book as belonging to Ireland may possibly be found current in England or in Scotland or in both. But that is no reason why they should not be included here.

_Influence of Irish._

The Irish language has influenced our Irish-English speech in several ways.

To begin with: it {2} has determined the popular p.r.o.nunciation, in certain combinations, of three English consonants, _t_, _d_, and _th_, but in a way (so far as _t_ and _d_ are concerned) that would not now be followed by anyone even moderately well educated. The sounds of _English t_ and _d_ are not the same as those of the _Irish t_ and _d_; and when 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_, _b.u.t.ther_, _thrue_; and (for _d_) _laddher_ (ladder), _cidher_ (cider), _foddher_, &c.

Yet in other positions we sound these letters correctly, as in _fat_, _football_, _white_; _bad_, _hide_, _wild_, &c. No one, however uneducated, will misp.r.o.nounce the _t_ and _d_ in such words as these. Why it is that the _Irish_ sound is retained before _r_ and not in other combinations--why for instance the Irish people sound the _t_ and _d_ incorrectly in _platter_ and _drive_ [platther, dhrive] and correctly in _plate_ and _dive_--is a thing I cannot account for.

As for the English _th_, it may be said that the general run of the Irish people never sound it at all; for it is a very difficult sound to anyone excepting a born Englishman, and also excepting a small proportion of those born and reared on the east coast of Ireland. It has two varieties of sound, heard in _bath_ and _bathe_: and for these two our people use the Irish _t_ and _d_, as heard in the words given above.

A couple of centuries ago or more the people had another subst.i.tute for this _th_ (in _bathe_) namely _d_, which held its place for a considerable time, and this {3} sound was then considered almost a national characteristic; so that in the song of 'Lillibulero' the English author of the song puts this p.r.o.nunciation all through in the mouth of the Irishman:--'_Dere_ was an ould prophecy found in a bog.' It is still sometimes heard, but merely as a defect of speech of individuals:--'_De_ books are here: _dat_ one is yours and _dis_ is mine.' Danny Mann speaks this way all through Gerald Griffin's 'Collegians.'

There was, and to a small extent still is, a similar tendency--though not so decided--for the other sound of _th_ (as in _bath_):--'I had a hot _bat_ this morning; and I remained in it for _tirty_ minutes': 'I _tink_ it would be well for you to go home to-day.'