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Hiberno-English is the form of the English language used in Ireland. Also called Anglo-Irish or Irish English.
The basis for the type of English spoken in Ireland is said to be a mixture of the language of Shakespeare and the Irish of the Gaelic earls, as Modern Irish English does bear the marks of two major historical events. First we have the various types of English and Scots that were brought to Ireland during the English and Scottish colonisation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Secondly there is an early hybrid jargon which arose as a result of the contact between the Irish and English languages. The linguistic interference of the Irish language on the English spoken in Ireland is most clearly seen in those areas where Irish is still spoken as a mother tongue or where it has survived until recently. However, this merging is minimal (but still absolutely in evidence in Dublin where cultural influences (news media, music, television) from the US and the UK have been more readily assimilated, due to exposure in the modern age. This influence can be seen in the typical Dublin working-class accent, which is closer to a Liverpool or Manchester accent than anything found in Ireland. The similarity of accents here is due largely to the effects of emigration from the Dublin region to Liverpool during the famine. (An edit is required here, the original statement is not remotely factual).
The standard spelling and grammar are the same as British English, but especially in the spoken language, there are some unique characteristics, due to the influence of Irish on pronunciation.
Like other Celtic languages, Irish has no words for "yes" and "no", instead the verb in a question is repeated in an answer. People in rural Ireland have a tendency to use this pattern of avoiding "yes" or "no" when speaking English:
Irish verbs have two present tenses, one indicating what is occurring at this instant and another used for continuous actions. For example, 'you are now' is tá tú anois (literally 'are you now'), but 'you are every day' is bíonn tú gach lá (literally 'be you each day').
Rural Irish speakers of English use a "does be/do be" (or "bes", although less frequently) construction to indicate this latter continuous present:
Irish has no pluperfect tense: instead the idiom for "I had done X when I did Y" is "I was after doing X when I did Y."
In Hiberno-English this construction is nowadays often used for the perfect tense as well as the pluperfect:
Alternatively, Hiberno-English can follow the syntax of the Irish perfect :
Mirroring the Irish language and almost every other European language, the plural 'you' is distinguished from the singular, normally by using the otherwise archaic English word 'ye' (the word 'yous' also occurs, but only in Dublin dialect - an example of the Dublin accent moving away from standard Hiberno-English):
In rural areas the reflexive version of pronouns is often used for emphasis or to refer indirectly to a particular person, etc., according to context:
- where 'herself' might, for example, be the boss or the woman of the house. Note also the indirectness of this construction relative to, e.g. 'She's coming now' and the use of "'Tis" rather than the more standard contraction "It's".
It is also common to end sentences with 'no?' or 'yeah?'
Irish English also always uses the "light l" sound, and the pronunciation of the letter 'h' as 'haitch' is standard.
When describing something, rural Hiberno-English speakers may describe this as something that is 'in it', which can also be translated into English as 'so it is', or for comical effect 'that it be'.
It ought to be noted that this construction is generally limited to the northern half of the country. The isn't just limited to the verb 'to be': it's also used with 'to have' when used as an auxiliary, and with other verbs the verb 'to do' is used. This is most commonly used for intensification.
A person or place may be described as being 'where it's at', as this is the translation of the verb to have:
Similarly, somebody who can speak a language, 'has' a language - a very rural construction.
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.
The reported clause is also often preserved in its direct form, e.g. 'John asked me to buy a loaf of bread' becomes 'John asked me would I buy a loaf of bread'.