Тетяна Петрова
(Кам’янець-Подільський національний університет імені Івана Огієнка)
UNIQUENESS OF HIBERNO-ENGLISH LEXICON
Hiberno-English, as the oldest national variety of English, displays a number of unique features. Some of them reflect the interacting influences of settlement from England and Scotland, some represent the Gaelic elements from Irish language. Some features of this mix have continued from early times to the present, others have died out with the increasing homogenisation of Irish English, and new elements, from internal change and other linguistic influences, continue to develop the language.
Distinguishing characteristics of the Irish English lexicon arise from its historical development, and are usually classified in three groups: a) words which have been incorporated from Irish; b) words from English and Scottish dialects or words from British English which have become obsolete or otherwise restricted in Britain; c) innovations which arise internally or from other language sources.
The examples of borrowing from Irish into Irish English are seen in the earliest records. The pace of language shift made its impact not just by limited borrowings, which frequently fill lexical gaps for which there is no word in other varieties of English, but by the importation of Irish words in the continued use in the new language. We could give the following examples of words organised into themes: 1) people: amadán ‘fool’; bodhair Uí Laoire, literally ‘deafness of Laoire’, used to refer to a person who hears only what they wish to hear; flahoolagh ‘generous, good-hearted’; 2) food and drink: boxty, a food made from grated potatoes, eggs, flour, and salt, fried or baked on a griddle; crubeen, a boiled pig’s trotter; drisheen, commonly used to refer to a boiled meat pudding, narrowed in meaning from Irish drisín ‘intestine’; 3) miscellaneous words: bata ‘stick’ (especially, as used in schools before corporal punishment was abolished); bacaidí ‘lame, unsteady, crooked’, applied to people as well as inanimate objects, mi-ádh ‘bad luck’; ráiméis ‘nonsense’, also ‘talk nonsense; plámás ‘smooth talk, flattery’; and traneen ‘a straw’, and by extension ‘something worthless, of no value’[1].
The English sub-lexicon of Irish English started to distinguish itself from the founding dialects of Britain. Some English words of Old English or French etymology occur only in Irish English texts; others known more generally are first recorded in Irish English. Words of this kind include horyness ‘filth’ (based on hory ‘foul, filthy’; swagger; and voucheous, possibly meaning ‘boastful’ or ‘arrogant’. Though many words of this period became obsolete as Irish English modernised, they can be found in the 19th century dialect glossary: attercop ‘a spider’, hence also a ‘small, insignificant person’, poustee ‘power, ability, bodily strength’, and hachee ‘cross, ill-tempered’.
The modern period brought with it new sources of English dialectal material. The Plantation of Ulster naturally introduced many new linguistic elements, though, much of the Ulster lexicon, reflects more general affiliations to Scotland and the North of England. Considering it, we may use some categories to illustrate the words of common usage: 1) people: chisler ‘child’; latchico ‘disagreeable, unpleasant, untrustworthy person’; mot ‘girlfriend, girl’; 2) food and drink: coddle or Dublin coddle (a stew made by boiling sausages, bacon rashers, onions, and potatoes together); gur cake (a cake made with fruit and cake scraps baked between two layers of pastry); stirabout ‘porridge’; miscellaneous words: airy ‘lively, fond of pleasure’; boke ‘vomit’, ferntickles ‘freckles’, skelf ‘splinter’, and thole ‘endure, tolerate, suffer’, stroke ‘appetite’; cog ‘cheat in school, examinations’; eccer ‘homework, school exercise’. Other words with English etymology demonstrate innovative meanings, such as yoke, which core meaning refers to a device for joining animals together for ploughing, but which in Irish English is widely used to refer to ‘a thing in general’ or as a mildly derogatory term for a person [3].
Some words of the Irish English lexicon have an identity in both languages, making etymology complex. A word like fooster ‘bustle; act in a fussy, ineffectual manner’, for example, can readily be related to Irish words such as fústrach ‘fussy, fidgety’ and fústaire ‘fussy, fidgety person’, thus suggesting an etymology from Irish. But the general sense and geographical distribution of that item could also suggest an English etymology for the Irish English term. The other words with similar dual etymologies include gombeen, which absorbs the meanings ‘fool’, a ‘profiteer’, and a ‘piece of something, especially a lump of tobacco’ from a variety of sources; crack/craic ‘talk, conversation, fun, news’; blather/bladar ‘nonsense, talk nonsense’; bother ‘deafen with noise’; and grig/griog ‘make envious’, ‘irritate’[2]. Loan translations sometimes give new meanings from Irish to words that are otherwise well known in English.
Finally, some words in the Irish English lexicon come from other sources, unknown etymologies, and novel coinage. For example, grush, gushie ‘scramble for money, food, or other small items or gifts’, is a word with an unknown etymology. Tallyman appears at first to be a regular English word referring to a person who tallies, but in the Republic, this word refers specifically to someone who observes the counting of ballots in elections and is typically called on to make predictions as the count proceeds.
REFERENCES
- Hickey R. Irish English: History and Present-day Forms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 504 p.
- Joyce P. W. English as We Speak it in Ireland. Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1991. 309 p.
- Kallen, J. L. The English Language in Ireland. International Journal of the Sociology of Language. Vol. 70. P. 127-142.