Hiberno-English

The English spoken in Ireland:

Lexical, grammatical and

phonological features

Loanwords from Irish

• Amadán
• Craic (or crack)
• Garsún / gasúr
• Lúdramán
• Sláinte
• Gob

Derived words

• Arra

/ yerra

Ara / A Dhia

• Devil

Diabhal

• Devil

Diabhal

• Gansey

Geansaí

• Guards

Garda Síochána

• Give out

Tabhair amach 

• Soft day

Lá bog 

• Whisht

Fuist (quiet) or Éist (listen)

Survivals from mediaeval English

• Amn't

Am not

• Childer

Child

• Sliced pan

(Sliced) loaf of bread

Miscellaneous

•

Acting the maggot

•

Banjaxed

•

Bold

•

Chiseler

•

Cod acting

•

Culchie

•

Feck

•

Jackeen

•

Minerals

•

Press

•

Runners

•

Wet the tea

Reduplication

• the Irish 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."

Yes and No

• "Are you coming home soon?" – "I am."
• "Is your mobile charged?" – "It's not."

Perfect tenses

• "Why did you hit him?" – "He was after giving

me cheek."

• A similar construction is seen where

exclamation is used in describing a recent
event:

• "I'm after hitting him with the car!" 
Táim tar éis é a bhualadh leis an gcarr!
• "She's after losing five stone in five weeks!"

Less emphatic perfect tenses

• "I have the car fixed." 

Tá an carr deisithe agam.

• "I have my breakfast eaten." 

Tá mo bhricfeasta ite agam.

Reflection for emphasis

• “Sheʼs coming now.”
Cf.

• "'Tis herself that's coming now." 

Is í féin atá ag teacht anois.

• "Was it all of ye or just yourself?" 

An raibh sé sibh go léir ná tusa féin?

• "This is strong stuff, so (it is)."

• "We won the game, so (we did)."

Prepositions denoting possession

• "Do you have the book?" – "I have it with me."

• "Have you change for the bus on you?"

• "He will not shut up if he has drink taken."

• Somebody who can speak a language "has" a

language, in which Hiberno-English has borrowed

the grammatical form used in Irish.

She does not have Irish. Níl Gaeilge aici. literally

"There is no Irish at her".

• "Is it yourself that is in it?" An tú féin atá ann?

• "Is there any milk in it?" An bhfuil bainne ann?

This / that

• 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. (cf. the

related anseo = here)

• "That man there." An fear sin. (cf. the

related ansin = there)

Conditionals

• "John asked me would I buy a loaf of

bread."

Habitual present

• "He does be working every day." 
Bíonn sé ag obair gach lá.
• "They do be talking on their mobiles a lot." 
Bíonn siad ag caint go leor ar a fóin póca.
• "He does be doing a lot of work at school." 
Bíonn sé ag déanamh go leor oibre ar scoil.
• "It's him I do be thinking of." 
Is air a bhíonn mé ag smaoineamh.

T-V distinction

• The word ye, yis or yous, otherwise

archaic, is still used in place of "you" for
the second-person
plural. Ye'r, Yisser or Yousser are the
possessive forms, e.g. "Where are yous
going?"

“To be absent from school without

permission”

• The verb mitch is very common in Ireland,

indicating being truant from school. This
word appears in Shakespeare, but is seldom
heard these days in British English, although
pockets of usage persist in some areas
(notably South Wales, Devon, and Cornwall).
In parts of Connacht and Ulster the mitch is
often replaced by the verb scheme.

Imperatives

• Another usage familiar from Shakespeare is

the inclusion of the second person pronoun
after the imperative form of a verb, as in
"Wife, go you to her ere you go to
bed" (Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene IV).

• This is still common in Ulster: "Get youse

your homework done or you're no goin'
out!" In Munster, you will still hear children
being told, "Up to bed, let ye" [lɛˈtʃi]

ʻNowʼ tag

• "Bye now"
• "There you go now"
• "Ah now!"
• "Hold on now"
This usage is universal among English

dialects, but occurs more frequently in
Hiberno-English.

• “Now”

Pronunciation (1)

• Rhoticity
• With some local exceptions, /r/ occurs postvocally,

making most Hiberno-English dialects rhotic. In
Dublin English, a retroflex [ɻ] is used (much as
in American English). This has no precedent in
varieties of southern Irish English and is a genuine
innovation of the past two decades.

• Mainstream varieties still use a non-retroflex [ɹ] (as in

word-initial position). A uvular [ʁ] is found in north-
east Leinster. /r/ is pronounced as a postalveolar
tap [ɾ] in conservative accents

Pronunciation (2)

• /t/ is not pronounced as a plosive where it

does not occur word-initially in some Irish
accents; instead, it is often pronounced as
a slit fricative [θ̠] or sibilant fricative.

• WAIT

Pronunciation (3)

• What, which, when

/hw/

• Distinction between /ɒː/  and /oː/ in horse and 
hoarse is preserved

• Distinction between [ɛɹ]-[ɪɹ]-[ʌɹ] in herd-bird-curd is

preserved

• /l/ is never velarised, except in (relatively recent)

South Dublin English

• The vowels in words such as boat and cane are

usually monophthongs outside of Dublin: [boːt],

and [keːn]

Pronunciation (4)

• The /aɪ/ in "night" may be pronounced in a

wide variety of ways: [əɪ], [ɔɪ], [ʌɪ] and [ɑɪ]

• The /ɔɪ/ in "boy" may be

pronounced [ɑːɪ] (i.e. the vowel
of thought plus a y) in conservative accents

• In some varieties, speakers make no

distinction between the [ʌ] in putt and
the [ʊ] in put, pronouncing both as the latter

Pronunciation (5)

• In some highly conservative varieties, words

spelled with ea and pronounced with [iː] in RP
are pronounced with [eː]: meat, beat.

• Any and many is pronounced to rhyme

with nanny, Danny by very many speakers, i.e.
with /a/.

• /eɪ/ often becomes /ɛ/ in words such

as gave and came (becoming "gev" and "kem")

Pronunciation (6)

• Consonant clusters ending in /j/ often change.

– /dj/ becomes /dʒ/, e.g. dew/due, duke and duty sound like "jew",

"jook" and "jooty".

– /tj/ becomes /tʃ/, e.g. tube is "choob", tune is "choon“

Irish English also always uses the alveolar or "light" L sound, as

opposed to other English dialects which use a velar or "dark" L in

word-final position. WALL, BALL

• The naming of the letter H as "haitch" is standard, while the

letter R is called "or", the letter A is often pronounced "ah", and the

letter Z is often referred to as "e-zed" in working-class Dublin

accents or parodies of same.

• Some words like the English word for movie "film" become "fillum"

in Irish speech.

Main features

• “How to do an Irish accent”

• “The Snapper”: Note the pronunciation of the

following words and phrases –

• Pole, know, out, shit, baby, what, anyway, who,

remember, slut, coming, poor, (al)right, anyone, idiot,

like, toilet, Jesus, thing

• Not at all

• Give a little, helps a lot

• She drinks a nifty pint

• After getting herself up the pole

• Move it, will yis