Where do the different Irish accents comes from?

mr_fegelien

I've been living here for 11 years now and don't know why North Dublin has a harsh accent while going to Stillorgan, you meet people who sound English. Wasn't the whole of Dublin (formerly the Pale) completely controlled by the English? Shouldn't most people have an Irish/English twang?

LaFuton

they come from the space between the teeth of a comb beyond the ninth wave.

Pinch Flat

Ger outta dat

TuringBot47

mr_fegelien wrote: »

Where do the different Irish accents comes from?

The vocal chords.

LaFuton

very vocal dem cords

Ubbquittious

In the good old days they had 'accent clubs' where bland-speaking folk got together to form a new accent. Initially they'd agree on a few rules then theyd meet up every week and practice for a few hours. Eventually they started speaking like that all the time and they would go into competition with neighbouring clubs. If they had kids at home they'd be brought into it as well.

When the government got wind of it they were of course horrified and came up with elocution classes to counter the movement

IAMAMORON

It is phenotypical.

RMAOK

How many threads is that today op?

Are you on some sort of commission for each thread you start?

Your Face

I cant say that the Stilllorgan area accent sounds like any English accent.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

It's the same everywhere. Any city will have several distinct accents. Even in the town near us you can tell which of at least four areas somebody is from by their accent.

The linguistic reasons are complicated but accents and dialects develop and find influence from other nearby accents, dialects and languages, and populations develop their own speech traits that are unique to them. This can happen over a relatively small area.

But you probably don't care about that and want a class, or socio economic, reason.

This is it

Your ma

bodhrandude

If you go up North, North West the accent seems to be influenced by Scotland, especially if you go down Antrim way as the Scottish coast is closest there. The same with Cork and Kerry near the Welsh coast the accents can have a similar sound but apart from that, I can't tell why other dialects can be so different.

Ipso

bodhrandude wrote: »

If you go up North, North West the accent seems to be influenced by Scotland, especially if you go down Antrim way as the Scottish coast is closest there. The same with Cork and Kerry near the Welsh coast the accents can have a similar sound but apart from that, I can't tell why other dialects can be so different.

Or both had the same influence.

Church on Tuesday

mr_fegelien wrote: »

I've been living here for 11 years now and don't know why North Dublin has a harsh accent while going to Stillorgan, you meet people who sound English. Wasn't the whole of Dublin (formerly the Pale) completely controlled by the English? Shouldn't most people have an Irish/English twang?

Well, no.

Ireland was colonised by the English (and invaded by others prior of course) so naturally the native Irish, whilst adapting the English language purely to survive and get by, would retain their natural speaking accents in another language.

Now Americanised inflections in certain peoples speech these days, that's another matter...

uch

I love Stillorgan, because if you translate it to Irish its called Mickey Marbh

Ipso

uch wrote: »

I love Stillorgan, because if you translate it to Irish its called Mickey Marbh

Hoigh Foive

uch

Ipso wrote: »

Hoigh Foive

jaxxx

Where does your need for all these questions come from.. .. ..

saabsaab

Deja Boo wrote: »

They come from Cork... like

Cork doesn't really have an accent except for a few areas.

Capt'n Midnight

Adenoids.

At least in Dublin as legend would have it.

Wibbs

saabsaab wrote: »

Cork doesn't really have an accent

ye wha? Ehh, yes it does.

igCorcaigh

saabsaab wrote: »

Cork doesn't really have an accent except for a few areas.

Has a few of them.
They even found their way to the carribean.

machaseh

Well, as far as the Irish language goes (or any indigenous language to an area for that matter), it must have always had different dialects from time immemorial as in the past, travelling to different areas was much harder than it is now so different dialects also develop. Then when the brits came to Ireland, people who were speaking different Irish dialects must have influenced their english differently according to their dialect.

Secondly, people from different parts of England must have settled different areas in Ireland and brought their own dialects with them.

Thirdly, and in the context of Dublin most importantly, social class is a very big influence to dialect. People in South dublin who are generally more affluent must have been way more influenced by posher and higher-class English dialects than working class people in North Dublin. It could have also been that people in working class areas in north Dublin switched from Irish to English later than upper class people in South Dublin.

Where I am from in the Netherlands, every province has its own traditional dialect, some of which (like the one I speak aside from standard Dutch) are hardly intelligible for people who only speak Standard Dutch. And within the provinces you can often hear which village people are from based on the dialect.

We had a visitor in the house last September who lived in an area of Toronto with a large Caribbean community. I had the All Ireland football final on in the other room, and at half time Pat Spillane was giving his analysis of the game. After a minute she shouts in from next door, 'why is there a guy from Trinidad being interviewed?'


To answer your first question OP, the accent from county Louth the whole way down the coast to Waterford is influenced by the Vikings, with the exception of South county Dublin, and North county Wicklow, which was heavily influenced by the British accent. This is often referred to as Colonial Lag.

For example, the southern states of America have a distinctive drawl which has survived from the first British settlers 400 years ago. This was the Elizabethan English that many of the first settlers would have spoken. (Elvis, George Bush etc) The letter 'a' would be placed before a verb eg. 'a running'..... 'a hunting' etc.

Also, the word 'bug' is used with regard to sickness or flu. This has survived from Elizabethan times in the southern states, whereas the accent and phrases in the mother country (Britain) has long since completely changed.

Capt'n Midnight

saabsaab wrote: »

Cork doesn't really have an accent except for a few areas.

Oh wow.

Even the locals can't understand the lads from the mountains

It's not english with some accent. It's accent with some english.

MoashoaM

Waterfords accent comes from de normalos and the subsequent anglo/frenchie groups that escaped from the continent.
or so the germans would have us believe.

forzacalcio

Always wondered why the Cork accent had a similar twang to Caribbean accents with some words.

riclad

People in middle class area,s tend to have a neutral accent ,not a dublin accent,theres also the dart accent.
theres a few dublin working class accents .
i heard actors in interviews, saying when they went to oxford,
they dropped their working class accent, and adopted a more upper class neutral accent.
cork has its own accent, theres a few different northern irish accents.

Cromwell allegedly sent thousands of Irish to the Caribbean as slaves in the 1600's, but I see some websites 'debunking' this myth. Im sticking by what I was always told, Irish were sent as slaves to the Caribbean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfip96k1cE0

many of you will have seen this already

saabsaab

What I should have said is that the educated Cork has a neutral accent. Other Irish accents are plus and minus on its sound.

LostinBlanch

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Oh wow.

Even the locals can't understand the lads from the mountains

It's not english with some accent. It's accent with some english.

Just to prove a point. It gets really interesting about 42 seconds in.

saabsaab

LostinBlanch wrote: »

Just to prove a point. It gets really interesting about 42 seconds in.

To be fair elderly farmers with missing teeth and a few pints are hard to understand everywhere. The man at the end is clear.
They are near the Kerry border and sound very like some Kerry people too.