Ulster Irish

The Gaeltachtaí

The percentage of people in each administrative area in Ulster who have the ability to speak Irish. (Counties of the Republic of Ireland and District council areas of Northern Ireland.)

Ulster Irish is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the Province of Ulster. It "occupies a central position in the Gaelic world made up of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man". Ulster Irish thus has more in common with Scottish Gaelic and Manx than other Irish dialects do. Within Ulster there has historically been two main sub-dialects: West Ulster Irish and East Ulster Irish. The Western dialect was spoken in County Donegal and parts of neighboring counties, hence the name Donegal Irish. The Eastern dialect was spoken in most of the rest of Ulster and northern parts of counties Louth and Meath.

Irish was the main language spoken in Ulster from the earliest recorded times until the 17th century Plantation of Ulster by English and Scots speakers. Since the Plantation, Ulster Irish was steadily replaced by English and Scots. The Eastern dialect died out in the 20th century, but the Western lives on in the Gaeltacht region of County Donegal. In 1808, County Down natives William Neilson and Patrick Lynch (Pádraig Ó Loingsigh) published a detailed study on Ulster Irish called An Introduction to the Irish Language. Both Neilson and his father were Irish-speaking Presbyterian ministers. When the recommendations of the first Comisiún na Gaeltachta were drawn up in 1926, there were regions qualifying for Gaeltacht recognition in the Sperrin Mountains and the northern Glens of Antrim and Rathlin Island. The report also makes note of small pockets of Irish speakers in northwest County Cavan, southeast County Monaghan, and the far south of County Armagh. However, these small pockets vanished early in the 20th century while Irish in the Sperrins survived until the 1950s and in the Glens of Antrim until the 1970s. The last native speaker of Rathlin Irish died in 1985.

In the 1960s, six families in Belfast formed the Shaw's Road 'Gaeltacht', which has since grown. The Irish-speaking area of the Falls Road in West Belfast has recently been designated the 'Gaeltacht Quarter'.

Lexicon

The Ulster dialect contains many words not used in other dialects—of which the main ones are Connacht Irish and Munster Irish—or used otherwise only in northeast Connacht. The standard form of Irish is An Caighdeán Oifigiúil. In other cases, a semantic shift has resulted in quite different meanings attaching to the same word in Ulster Irish and in other dialects. Some of these words include:

• [ag déanamh] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is used to mean "to think" as well as "to make" or "to do", síleann, ceapann and cuimhníonn is used in other dialects, as well as in Ulster Irish.
• [amharc] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "look" (elsewhere [amharc, breathnaigh and féach] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help); this latter means rather "try" or "attempt" in Ulster)
• [bealach, ród] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "road" (southern and western [bóthar and ród (cf. Scottish Gaelic rathad, Manx Gaelic raad), and bealach "way"] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)). Note that [bealach] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) alone is used as a preposition meaning "towards" (literally meaning in the way of: [d'amharc sé bealach na farraige] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) = "he looked towards the sea")
• [bomaite] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "minute" (elsewhere [nóiméad, nóimint, neómat, etc.] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help))
• [cá huair] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "when?" (Connacht [cén uair] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help); Munster [cathain, cén uair] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help))
• [caidé (cad é) atá?] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "what is?" (Connacht [céard tá] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help); Munster [cad a thá, cad é a thá, dé a thá, Scotland dé tha] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help))
• [cál] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "cabbage" (southern [gabáiste] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help))
• [caraidh] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "weir" (Connacht [cara] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), standard [cora] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help))
• [cluinim] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "I hear" (southern [cloisim] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), but [cluinim] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is also attested in South Tipperary). In fact, the initial c- tends to be lenited even when it is not preceded by any particle (this is because there was a leniting particle in Classical Irish: [do-chluin] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) yielded [chluin] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Ulster)
• [druid] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "close" (southern and western [dún] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help); in other dialects [druid] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) means "to move in relation to or away from something", thus [druid ó rud] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) = to shirk, [druid isteach] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) = to close in)
• [eallach] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "cattle" (southern [beithíoch] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) = "one head of cattle", beithígh = "cattle")
• [eiteogaí] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "wings" (southern [sciatháin] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help))
• [fá] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "about, under" (standard [faoi] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Munster fé, fí and fá is only used for "under"; mar gheall ar and i dtaobh = "about")
• [falsa] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "lazy" (southern and western [leisciúil] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), fallsa = "false, treacherous")
• [faoileog] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "seagull" (standard [faoileán] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help))
• [Gaeilg, Gaeilig, Gaeilic] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "Irish" (standard and Western [Gaeilge] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Southern Gaoluinn, Manx Gaelg, Scottish Gàidhlig)
• [geafta] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "gate" (standard [geata] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help))
• [gamhain] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "calf" (southern [lao and gamhain] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help))
• [gasúr] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "boy" (southern [garsún] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), garsún means "child" in Connemara)
• [girseach] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "girl" (southern [gearrchaile and girseach] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help))
• [nighean] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "daughter" (standard [iníon] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help))
• [sópa] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "soap" (standard [gallúnach] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Connemara [gallaoireach] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help))
• [stócach] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "youth", "young man", "boyfriend" (Southern = "gangly, young lad")
• [tábla] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), "table" (western and southern [bord] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and [clár] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Scotland bòrd)
• the word [iontach] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "wonderful" is used as an intensifier instead of the prefix [an-] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) used in other dialects.

Words generally associated with the now dead East Ulster Irish include:

• ársuigh (tell)
• coinfheasgar (evening)
• corruighe (anger)
• frithir (sore)
• go seadh (yet)
• márt (cow)
• práinn (hurry)
• toigh (house)
• tonnóg (duck)

In other cases, a semantic shift has resulted in quite different meanings attaching to the same word in Ulster Irish and in other dialects. Some of these words include:

• [cloigeann] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "head" (southern and western [ceann] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help); elsewhere, [cloigeann] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is used to mean "skull")

• [capall] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "mare" (southern and western [láir] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help); elsewhere, [capall] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) means "horse")

Phonology

The phonemic inventory of Ulster Irish (based on the dialect of Gweedore) is as shown in the following chart (see International Phonetic Alphabet for an explanation of the symbols). Symbols appearing in the upper half of each row are velarized (traditionally called "broad" consonants) while those in the bottom half are palatalized ("slender"). The consonants /h, n, l/ are neither broad nor slender.

Consonant phonemes	Labial						Coronal						Dorsal				Glottal
	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Labio- velar		Dental		Alveolar		Alveolo- palatal		Palatal		Velar
Plosive	pˠ pʲ	bˠ bʲ					t̪ˠ	d̪ˠ			ṯʲ	ḏʲ	c	ɟ	k	ɡ
Fricative/ Approximant			fˠ fʲ	vʲ		w			sˠ		ʃ		ç	j	x	ɣ	h
Nasal		mˠ mʲ						n̪ˠ		n		ṉʲ		ɲ		ŋ
Tap										ɾˠ ɾʲ
Lateral approximant								l̪ˠ		l		ḻʲ

The vowels of Ulster Irish are as shown on the following chart. These positions are only approximate, as vowels are strongly influenced by the palatalization and velarization of surrounding consonants.

The long vowels have short allophones in unstressed syllables and before /h/.

In addition, Ulster has the diphthongs /ia, ua, au/.

Some characteristics of the phonology of Ulster Irish that distinguish it from the other dialects are:

• The only broad labial continuant is the approximant [w]. In other dialects, fricative [vˠ] is found instead of or in addition to [w]. No dialect makes a phonemic contrast between the approximant and the fricative, however.
• Often in Ulster dialects, [tʲ] can become [tʃ] as in "teach" (Pronounced as the English "ch"). Likewise [dʲ] can become [dʒ] as in "dearg" (Pronounced as the English "j"). This is particularly evident in younger speakers of this dialect. Such pronunciation of the slender "t" and "d" is also the case in Scottish Gaelic and Manx.
• There is a three-way distinction among coronal nasals and laterals: /n̪ˠ ~ n ~ ṉʲ/, /l̪ˠ ~ l ~ ḻʲ/, and there is no lengthening or diphthongization of short vowels before these sounds and /m/. Thus, while [ceann] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "head" is /cɑːn/ in Connacht and /caun/ in Munster, in Ulster it is /can̪ˠ/
• /ɔː/ corresponds to the /oː/ of other dialects. The Ulster /oː/ corresponds to the /au/ of other dialects.
• Long vowels are shortened when in unstressed syllables.
• /n/ is realized as [r] (or is replaced by /r/) after consonants other than [s]. This happens in Connacht as well.
• Orthographic [-adh] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in unstressed syllables is always [u] (this includes verb forms).
• Unstressed orthographic [-ach] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is pronounced [ax], [ah], or [a].
• According to Ó Dochartaigh (1987), the loss of final schwa "is a well-attested feature of Ulster Irish". This has led to words like fada being pronounced [fˠad̪ˠ].

Differences between the Western and Eastern sub-dialects of Ulster include the following:

• In West Ulster and most of Ireland, the vowel written ea is pronounced [a] (e.g. fear [fʲaɾˠ]), but in East Ulster it is pronounced [ɛ] (e.g. fear /fʲɛɾˠ/. J. J. Kneen comments that Scottish Gaelic and Manx generally follow the East Ulster pronunciation. The name Seán is pronounced [ʃɑːnˠ] in Munster and [ʃæːnˠ] in West Ulster, but [ʃeːnˠ] in East Ulster, whence anglicized spellings like Shane O'Neill and Glenshane.
• In East Ulster, th or ch in the middle of a word tends to vanish and leave one long syllable. William Neilson wrote that this happens "in most of the counties of Ulster, and the east of Leinster".
• In East Ulster, /x/ at the end of words (as in loch) tends to be much weaker. For example amach may be pronounced [əˈmˠæ] and bocht pronounced [bˠɔt̪ˠ]. Neilson wrote that this is found "in all the country along the sea coast, from Derry to Waterford".
• Neilson wrote that the "ancient pronunciation" of broad bh and mh as [vˠ], especially at the beginning or end of a word "is still retained in the North of Ireland, as in Scotland, and the Isle of Man", whereas "throughout Connaught, Leinster and some counties of Ulster, the sound of [w] is substituted". However, broad bh or mh may become [w] in the middle of a word (for example in leabhar).

Morphology

Initial mutations

Ulster Irish has the same two initial mutations, lenition and eclipsis, as the other two dialects and the standard language, and mostly uses them the same way. There is, however, one exception: in Ulster, a dative singular noun after the definite article is lenited (e.g. [ar an chrann] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "on the tree") (as is the case in Scottish and Manx), whereas in Connacht and Munster, it is eclipsed ([ar an gcrann] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), except in the case of den, don and insan, where lenition occurs in literary language. Both possibilities are allowed for in the standard language.

Verbs

Irish verbs are characterized by having a mixture of analytic forms (where information about person is provided by a pronoun) and synthetic forms (where information about number is provided in an ending on the verb) in their conjugation. In Ulster and North Connacht the analytic forms are used in a variety of forms where the standard language has synthetic forms, e.g. [molann muid] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "we praise" (standard molaimid, muid being a back formation from the verbal ending [-mid] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and not found in the Munster dialect, which retains [sinn] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) as the first person plural pronoun as does Scots Gaelic and Manx Gaelic) or [mholfadh siad] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "they would praise" (standard [mholfaidís] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)). The synthetic forms, including those no longer emphasised in the standard language, may be used in short answers to questions.

The 2nd conjugation future stem suffix in Ulster is [-óch-] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (pronounced [ah]) rather than [-ó-] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), e.g. [beannóchaidh mé] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) [bʲan̪ˠahə mʲə] "I will bless" (standard [beannóidh mé] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) [bʲanoːj mʲeː]).

Some irregular verbs have different forms in Ulster from those in the standard language. For example:

• [(gh)níom] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (independent form only) "I do, make" (standard [déanaim] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) and [rinn mé] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "I did, made" (standard rinne mé)
• [tchíom] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) [t̠ʲʃiːm] (independent form only) "I see" (standard [feicim] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Southern chím, cím (independent form only))
• [bheiream] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "I give" (standard [tugaim] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), southern bheirim (independent only)), [ní thabhram] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) or [ní thugaim] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "I do not give" (standard only [ní thugaim] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), and [bhéarfaidh mé/bheirfidh mé] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "I will give" (standard [tabharfaidh mé] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), southern bhéarfad(independent form only))

Particles

In Ulster the negative particle [cha] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (before a vowel [chan] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), in past tenses [char] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) - Scottish/Manx Gaelic chan, cha do) is sometimes used where other dialects use [ní] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and [níor] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). The form is more common in the north of the Donegal Gaeltacht. [Cha] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) cannot be followed by the future tense: where it has a future meaning, it is followed by the habitual present. It triggers a "mixed mutation": /t/ and /d/ are eclipsed, while other consonants are lenited. In some dialects however (Gweedore), cha eclipses all consonants, except b- in the forms of the verb 'to be', and sometimes f- :

Ulster	Standard	English
Cha dtuigim	Ní thuigim	"I don't understand"
Chan fhuil sé	Níl sé (contracted from [ní fhuil sé] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help))	"He isn't"
Cha bhíonn sé	Ní bheidh sé	"He will not be"
Cha phógann muid/Cha bpógann muid	Ní phógaimid	"We do not kiss"
Chan ólfadh siad é	Ní ólfaidís é	"They wouldn't drink it"
Char thuig mé thú	Níor thuig mé thú	"I didn't understand you"

Syntax

The Ulster dialect uses the present tense of the subjunctive mood in certain cases where other dialects prefer to use the future indicative:

[Suigh síos anseo aige mo thaobh, a Shéimí, go dtugaidh (dtabhairidh, dtabhraidh) mé comhairle duit agus go n-insidh mé mo scéal duit.] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)

Sit down here by my side, Séimí, till I give you some advice and tell you my story.

The verbal noun can be used in subordinate clauses with a subject different from that of the main clause:

[Ba mhaith liom thú a ghabháil ann.] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)

I would like you to go there.

See also

• Ulster Scots language
• Mid Ulster English
• Scottish Gaelic

External links

• Gaelic resources focusing on Ulster Irish Template:Ga icon
• A yahoogroup for learners of Ulster Irish