Talk:Mid Ulster English

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Contents 1 craic 2 Majority of vocabulary 3 Bake 4 Corrections 5 dannèr 6 Walking 7 Ach! 8 Voiced consonants 9 Proposed corrections 10 MID Ulster? 11 Political Boundaries

[edit] craic

Why anyone would use an Irish spelling of an English loan-word in the context of writing English will, I assume, remain a mystery.

It is a mystery, but it is in common use in Ireland, and thus should remain on the article. D.de.loinsigh (Talk) 21:48 05 May 2008 —Preceding comment was added at 20:48, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Majority of vocabulary

"The majority of vocabulary found in Mid-Ulster English (but not standard English) comes from Scots and Gaelic. Some examples are shown in the table below."

The majority of vocabulary will no doubt be shared with standard English, including those items with distinctively MUE pronunciations.

I assume you mean 'non-standard vocabularly'. Any sources for the claim that the majority comes from Scots and Gaelic. How much of it is also of English descent (often shared with Scots) but now archaic in standard English? [new poster] Strange, it gives us the spellings of the words even though Mid-Ulster English is basically just a collection of slang; in any document, essay etc. it's regarded as stupid to ever use these "non-standard words". Oh, and it depends where you are - there are many who do not use the word "bake" etc. It really depends, if you want to get beaten up, you use "big words" and normal langugae, otherwise you use this for oral communication. 82.18.181.78 22:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bake

Bake is simply a phonetic spelling of beak. The /e/ realisation is explained in the article under vowels. The examples are simply colourful extentions of meaning.

[edit] Corrections

I have no idea where you are getting this information from, but as someone who has lived in Ulster my whole life, the so-called "corrections" are scarily nonsensical.

1. "Craic" is used as often as "crack". There are no phonetic differences, but if you look at signs outside pubs, etc., it is spelt both ways.

"Craic" is an Irish language spelling of the word "crack" borrowed from English. You are right that 'craic' is commonly used - it assumedly represents Irishness better than crack.

2. Of course the majority of Mid-Ulster vocabulary is going to be from Gaelic and Scots. There's hardly a wee bit of ambiguity here. Nevertheless, I have not corrected this, as this makes sense as well.

I have the feeling you are not including vocabulary shared with other varieties of English as Mid-Ulster vocabulary - if it is habitually used by speakers of Mid-Ulster English then it is MUE vocabulary. Or do speakers of MUE have a restricted vocabulary?

This list is by no means complete: there is obviously a myriad of vocabulary used by Ulstermen and women which is not listed here. If you want to add more words, there's nothing stopping you. Furthermore, could you please sign your comments, so I don't feel like I'm talking to a machine. - 19:01, 13 January 2006 (UTC) The Great Gavini what about ye?

3. "Beak" is very misleading. It is not just phonetic: I have taken this spelling from the Scots word "bake", meaning face, although the more common word would be "fizog". In a rare instance where it would be written, it would most likely be spelt "bake". - 19:05, 12 January 2006 (UTC) The Great Gavini what about ye?

Its still the word beak the MUE realisation is [bek], as it is in many Scots dialects. The spelling bake or baik may well occur in dialect writing in order to indicate the non-standard realisation, but to imply it is a different word is telling porkies. Fizog is a shortened form of Physiognomy used in colloquial speech. A literate person may perhaps spell it phisog.

Telling porkies? What the...? OK, first and foremost, the Scots language is not dialectal writing: read the first sentence of Scots language for proof. Additionally, "beak" is not generally (if ever) used to render "face" in English: that's why I included it here. The idea of this table is to include words which may not make sense to the average anglophone. "Thon" could well come from Old English "þon", yet I have included it here. There is always going to be some overlap here.- 19:01, 13 January 2006 (UTC) The Great Gavini ^{what about ye?}

^{[edit] dannèr}

^{Scots traditionally doesn't have grave accents as in dannèr. They were adopted in the 1990s by Ulster Scots enthusiasts wanting parity of esteem with Irish. If Irish has accents so must Ulster Scots. For the Scots forms see the SND.}

^{[edit] Walking}

^{Dannèr is spelt with an accent in Ulster-Scots, but I don't see the harm it makes to spell it the accented way. - 19:15, 12 January 2006 (UTC) The Great Gavini what about ye?}

Since the 1990s a few enthusiasts spell danner with an accent. It was never used in traditional (Ulster) Scots literature. It perhaps does no harm to spell it that way but in an encyclopedia it may give the impression that it has some pedigree. It does not, it is unnecessary and plain daft.

• It does not have any "pedigree" but I don't think it's plain daft. It reflects the "danther" pronunciation. You could of course simply spell it "danther".

How the unititiated are expected to recognise that the grave accent in the spelling dannèr is supposed to represent a dental consonant (is it a dental t or d?) in daunder will remain a mystery. The roman alphabet not having a particular symbol for such a realisation. Replacing the acute with the digraph th is equally confusing since people unfamiliar with the dialect (although this is more a feature of accent) are likely to interpret th as the voiced dental fricative /ð/, perhaps even the voiceless dental fricative /θ/, and those with a dental realisation of /d/ would realise it as such any way without any orthographic prompting. Since the obtuse spellings dannèr and danther are unlikely to illicit anything resembling the target realisation they are orthographically useless and simply a devise to exaggerate a minimal difference in pronunciation to a perceived standard. That would perhaps explain their scarcity in traditional dialect literature. Their recent use is a ploy to bamboozle rather than enlighten. 89.50.12.10 22:42, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ach!

Ach! and och! are unlikely to be from Irish ach though reinforcement is a possibility. Ach! and och! simply retain the velar fricative /x/ which has been lost in "standard" English Ah! and Oh!

[edit] Voiced consonants

Can anyone give me a source for mid-word consonant voicing for "k" and "p"? I'm not sure pepper is pronounced "pebber" and packet as "paggit". "Budder" for butter sounds correct, but I'm not sure where the other two come from, possibly anology with the voiced "t" but I'll not edit them out yet. - THE GREAT GAVINI {T-C} 13:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Try various stuff by John Harris about English in Ulster/Ireland.

But is that where the editor got it from? - THE GREAT GAVINI {T-C} 08:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed corrections

A few things I propose changing in the phonology section:

• IPA:/ɛrn/ earn -> /ərn/ earn
• IPA:/e/ fate -> /iːɪ/ fate

I'm not sure about the "pebber" and "paggit" pronunciations for "pepper" and "packet" either, but I suppose it depends what people think. -- the GREAT Gavini 19:45, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MID Ulster?

Sorry, but the middle of Ulster is Omagh; Belfast, Lisburn, Craigavon and Armagh are not at all Mid-Ulster. -- Pauric (talk-contributions) 06:29, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Political Boundaries

The article of Mid Ulster English should be combined with Hiberno English or made into an article on Ulster English to include all accents in Ireland which form a brouge. This would include Donegal, a large part of Monaghan and Cavan and parts of Louth and Leitrim. This article is drawing political boundaries with accents which in Ireland makes no sense. For example in the article it says that the Tyrone accent/dialect has similarities with Hiberno English. But surely this is in reference to the similarities to the Donegal accent, which itself is more simliar to the Belfast accent than it is to the accents in Mayo or Dublin. Accents in Ireland change gradually across the country, and have absoulutely nothing to do with the Political Bounaries as this article would seem to suggest.

I propose either combining this article with Hiberno English, widening the boundaries of Ulster English to areas in Ireland which pronounce the "th" correctly and not with a "d" sound, or dividing the article into seperate accents such as West Tyrone, Antrim, Belfast etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.143.28.202 (talk) 10:16, 22 December 2007 (UTC)