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Hiberno-English. Vocabulary Derived From Irish * Banshee (from bean s, 'literally 'fairy woman') * Cant (from caint) talk * Colleen (from ciln) girl (usually Irish) * Crack (from craic) fun, a good time. He's good crack. * Galore (from go leor) plenty, enough
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Vocabulary Derived From Irish * Banshee (from bean s, 'literally 'fairy woman') * Cant (from caint) talk * Colleen (from ciln) girl (usually Irish) * Crack (from craic) fun, a good time. He's good crack. * Galore (from go leor) plenty, enough * Gob (literally beak) mouth * Poteen (from poitn) hooch, bootleg alcoholic drink * Smashing (from is maith e sin) that's good * Smithereens ('from smidirn) little pieces * Whiskey (from uisce beatha literally 'water of life')
Phonology • Most Hiberno-English dialects are rhotic. • /t/ is not plosive where it does not occur word-initially; instead, it is often pronounced as a slit fricative [θ̠] • The distinction between w /w/ and wh /hw/, as in wine vs. whine, is preserved. • The distinction between /ɒː/ and /oː/ in horse and hoarse is preserved, though not usually in Dublin or Belfast. • A distinction between [ɛɹ]-[ɪɹ]-[ʌɹ] in herd-bird-curd may be found. • The vowels in words such as boat and cane are usually monophthongs outside of Dublin: [boːt], and [keːn].
The /aɪ/ in "night" may be pronounced in a wide variety of ways, e.g. [əɪ], [ɔɪ], [ʌɪ] and [ɑɪ], the latter two being the most common in middle class speech, the former two, in popular speech. • The /ɔɪ/ in "boy" may be pronounced [ɑːɪ]. • /eɪ/ often becomes /ɛ/ in words such as gave and came (becoming "gev" and "kem"). • /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".
Grammar Derived From Irish • 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 Ireland have a tendency to use this pattern of avoiding "yes" or "no" when speaking English: • "Are you finished debugging that software?" "I am." • "Is your mobile charged?" "It is." Irish speakers of English use a "does be/do be" (or "bes", although less frequently) construction to indicate this latter continuous present: • "He does be coding every day." • "They do be talking on their mobiles a lot." • "They bes doing a lot of work at school."
Characteristic expressions - Arra which may be translated as "alright, yes/no". - Come here to me now and Come here and I'll tell ya something are used to mean "Listen to this" or "I have something to tell you". - To give out to somebody is to scold that person. - Will is often used where English English would use "shall" ("Will I make us a cup of tea?"). - A soft day: referring to a rainy day with that particular soft drizzle, and an overcast sky, but relatively bright.
- Fecking is an all purpose expletive slightly less offensive than the English word fucking. In old Dubliner slang, to feck is also slang for "to steal". - Yoke is typically used in place of the word "thing". It is also a slang term for an ecstasy tablet.