Talk:Yola dialect

First entry

I am a newby. I don't understad the star symbol and its meaning. I think is a good thing. Herodotus21

Comment moved from article

There are small errors here which a native of south Wexford can correct.
Drazed means 'scuffed'. The drawing of thread from wool was known as 'drazing'. A wound incurred after a fall is known as a 'draze'.
Keek is actually 'geak' or 'geek' - to take a geak at something, meaning to look at it; or geeking in the window. Obvious cognate of 'gawk' and 'gawking'.
Amain may be a rendering of Ammin' meaning 'ambling along'. Rare.
Fash stems from 'farsh'. Compare with the Yiddish for old and confused person 'farshimmeldt'.
--- No no no. Farshimmeldt = far+shimmeldt 'mouldy', schimmel is mould, as it is in Dutch. 84.53.74.196 23:44, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The other words mentioned must be extinct.

From Poole's glossary: Curkite could stem from a old Wexford Norse word for a badly behaved young dog - a 'cur'. Although it is more likely this is simply an variant version of a common expression in Wexford 'crookity' meaning twisted, not straight or square.

Other terms still commonly used:

Houghboy pronounced 'hoe boy' meaning a delinquent.
Rake is very commonly used to imply a large quantity, e.g. a rake of drink, there was a rake a people at the wedding, etc.
Cnat meaning a sly (usually young) person. A devious youth or petty criminal - Cnat is used more in Wexford town suggesting Norse rather Yola heritage. Similarly 'bolsker' (extinct) is almost certainly Norse. The 'Boker' in Wexford town is one of the earlist sites of norse settlement and 'bolsker' is possibly a rendering of someone (a viking settler) from the Boker' but that is pure speculation. A more likely possibility is that 'bolsker' or 'bolskar' is a fogotten placename. For instance, 'Esker' and 'Tuskar' both are place names of coastal areas, the latter for the Tuskar Lighthouse.

User:Jonisrael 15:39, 20 December 2006

As a native of south Wexford, (and a hebrew speaker), I would like to point out that in my experienece of the Carne, Kilmore and Hook areas (which encompass the Baronies of Forth and Bargy) several of the words in Diarmuid O'Murithe's list are completely unknown to me. But let's not trip over my inductive reasoning.

In the case of Jacob Poole, the collector of allegedly Yola phrases, it must be emphasised that he was not a lexicographer - despite his enthusiasm - nor was he a comparative philologist. Consequently, the relative 'ages' of the lexical items he recorded are close to conjecture.

Secondly, no one has ever verified the accuracy of Poole's rendering of Yola. Less than a handful of Yola documents exist and most of these are from the 18th century raising the possibility that the originals (if they ever existed) were massaged into something quasi-intelligible in the English of the time. One plausible explanation for the absence of written materials (one must note that the Templars founded a large abbey in the area - so an awareness of learning was extant) is that after the 'second wave' of Norman invaders came, Dublin became the center of commerce and trade, leaving the settlements of the first wave to flounder. It is likely that the merchants decamped leaving farmers and fishermen behind. The destruction of the Templars further diminished the status of the area and gradually it became a relatively insular community. At the time of the first consolidation of Forth and Bargy, the Jews in Norther France were being persecuted and sought refuge in either the papal statres or areas away from direct French Court influence. A search through patronomyics of many of the surnames in south Wexford using French genealogy resources, shows that many are not French names - or certainly not French Christian surnames. It is plausible that a proportion of the original settlers were French Jews, who wrote in the Hebrew alphabet and spoke Judeo-French (Zarphatic). Once those with writing skills left, only oral traces would have remained. I will return to the linguistic evidence later.

Yola - Scots common words

A couple of words listed here as Yola are, from my personal experience, also common in Scots [see Scots Language], specifically in Fife where I lived but I'm sure more widely, namely neape = turnip (spelt neep, as in the popular dish "tatties an' neeps") and fash = confusion (in the sense of mental confusion or worry, as in the frequent exortation "Dinnae fash yesel."). I'm not sure what this implies but someone more expert may be able to make something of it. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 12:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about "fash", but in the case of "neape/neep" it's a case of an archaic word that has died out in the standard language being preserved in dialects. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 18:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Another word which I used to often hear my aunt from Wexford Town use was "fornenst": "It's out there fornenst you" meaning "It's out there in front of you". I remember a man I know from Belfast saying he had heard it there and claimed it was Scots but owing to the relative conservatism of some features of Hiberno-English, such features are probably just survivals from Middle English. My aunt would always say "lacen" for "laces" and "ashen" for "ashes", clearly on the same pattern as ox-oxen, child-children in English. An Muimhneach Machnamhach (talk) 17:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've often heard lacen (also as a verb) and ashen too but I couldn't find them in my sources. User:geraldkelly 9 April 2008 —Preceding comment was added at 21:59, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Questions on sources

I’m moving this to the Discussion Page in order to deal more satisfactorily with the issues of sources. I have queried the sources used for some recent changes. I deal with these below. If sources cannot be provided for these additions I suggest they be removed.

On sources in general, I have confined myself to quoting from ó Muirithe and Dolan (1996) because they conducted a scholarly and professional survey of all the source material and included in their book what they thought was worth including. Leaving out much what they considered unreliable - which includes much of Barnes's material.

Vocabulary

I have checked Poole’s Glossary as published in ó Muirithe and Dolan (1996). I can find no mention for the following words: weisforth, londe, daie, yersel, vriend

Please provide a source for these words.

Pronouns

The reference to “Poole 1867” means, I presume, the book written by William Barnes in 1867 and entitled Glossary of the Dialect of Forth and Bargy, which reprints Poole’s Glossary. On page 133 (which is a quote from a speech given to the British Association by the Very Reverend C W Russell, DD, President of St Patrick’s College Maynooth) there is a discussion of pronouns and a general comparison with modern English. However, I cannot find any reference to the information, specifically the forms of cases for personal pronouns, as laid out in the table.

This book can be downloaded from Google Books. Geraldkelly (talk) 09:57, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Re: Pronouns

If you take the care to read through all of the sources, including the Yola Zong and read the translation, all of the pronouns become obvious. I don't really feel like citing every single pronoun (there are multiple spellings) in every single story but I suggest you look through the book before deleting them again. Αεκος (talk) 20:48, 5 June 2009 (UTC)