Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/18

CH. I.] sound was then considered almost a national characteristic; so that in the song of 'Lillibulero' the English author of the song puts this pronunciation all through in the mouth of the Irishman:—'Dere was an ould prophecy found in a bog.' It is still sometimes heard, but merely as a defect of speech of individuals:—‘De books are here: dat one is yours and dis is mine.’ Danny Mann speaks this way all through Gerald Griffin's ‘Collegians.’

There was, and to a small extent still is, a similar tendency—though not so decided—for the other sound of th (as in bath):—'I had a hot bat this morning; and I remained in it for tirty minutes': 'I tink it would be well for you to go home to-day.'

Another influence of the Irish language is on the letter s. In Irish, this letter in certain combinations is sounded the same as the English sh; and the people often—though not always—in similar combinations, bring this sound into their English:—'He gave me a blow of his fisht'; 'he was whishling St. Patrick's Day'; 'Kilkenny is sickshty miles from this.' You hear this sound very often among the more uneducated of our people.

In imitation of this vulgar sound of s, the letter z often comes in for a similar change (though there is no such sound in the Irish language). Here the z gets the sound heard in the English words glazier, brazier:—'He bought a dozhen eggs'; tis drizzhling rain'; 'that is dizhmal'' news.'

The second way in which our English is influenced by Irish is in vocabulary. When our Irish forefathers began to adopt English, they brought with them from their native language many single Irish