South-West Irish English

Green approximately marks the South-West Irish English dialect region.

South-West Irish English (also known as South-West Hiberno-English) is a class of broad varieties of English spoken in Ireland's South-West Region (the province of Munster). Within Ireland, the varieties are best associated with either the urban working class of the South-West or traditional rural Ireland in general, and they are popularly identified by their specific city or county, such as Cork English, Kerry English, or Limerick English.

Phonology

Among speakers in the South-West alone (famously Cork, Kerry, or Limerick), the vowel of DRESS raises to [ɪ] when before /n/ or /m/ (a pin–pen merger) and sentences may show a unique intonation pattern. This intonation is 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), which is popularly heard in rapid conversation, by other English-speakers, as an undulating "sing-song" quality.

Among older speakers, /s/ and /z/ may respectively be pronounced as /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ before a consonant and so fist sounds like fished, castle like cashle, and arrest like arresht.

Certain South-West features may also exist in Ireland outside that region but typically only in rural areas. An example is the backing, slight lowering, and perhaps rounding of MOUTH towards [ɐʊ~ʌʊ~ɔʊ], so that, to a Dublin or General American speaker, about nears the sound of a boat. The consonants /θ/ and /ð/ (as in thick and those), which are typically dental in other Irish English varieties, are traditionally alveolar: [t] and [d], respectively (thus, thick and those merge to the sound of tick and doze). GOAT and FACE are preserved as long monophthongs: [oː] and [eː], respectively. Those varieties are all rhotic, like most other Irish accents, but the /r/ sound is specifically a velarised alveolar approximant: [ɹˠ]. (Among some very traditional speakers, other possible /r/ variants include a "tapped R", the alveolar tap [ɾ] , or even a "uvular R", the voiced uvular fricative [ʁ] , in rural south-central Ireland.)

Features shared with both rural Irish English and working-class Dublin English include the vowels in LOT, CLOTH, NORTH and THOUGHT having a more open starting point and lacking a rounded quality: [ɑ~ä]. Furthermore, for all of those varieties, PRICE and CHOICE may also lack a rounded quality, the lexical set START is very fronted ([æːɹ]), the /h/ may be dropped before /j/ (hue pronounced like you), a distinction remains between tern and turn, and <w> and <wh> remain separate sounds.

Grammar

South-West Irish English allows the use of a do be habitual aspect. Examples include I do be thinking about it or she does be late and replace Standard English constructions of those sentences: I think about it (often) or she is late (usually).

Non-canonical constituent order is also possible, in which a sentence may be arranged as Thinking to steal a few eggs I was (rather than I was thinking to steal a few eggs) to give the first clause salience or emphasis.

Sources

• Hickey, Raymond (2007). Irish English: History and Present-Day Forms. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-85299-9.