History of Dublin English

briany

There's a great channel on Youtube from Simon Roper, who breaks down the history of various regional accents across the UK. There's a great one, for example, where he uses textual sources (I assume) to glean how the London accent gradually changed between 1346 - 2006.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lXv3Tt4x20

Are there any historical sources that we could similarly learn how Dubliners would have sounded over a similar time scale? We know that there have been influences of Old English dialects and Norse and all that, but what I mean is there any way, like textual sources, we could get a precise picture of how someone from the city of Dublin would have sounded in the 18th century such that we could reconstruct the accent as Simon does? It would be fascinating to see how exactly the dialect has changed and see exactly what vestiges of Old English and Norse and even Norman French remain etc.

Probably the most pressing question I have is at what point could we say that a Dublin accent that would be recognisable as one today begin to emerge? For Simon's London one, the Cockney accent seems to appear in the late 1800s.

magicbastarder

not necessarily going to help, but i read/heard a few years ago that there's a theory that the reason the glasgow, dublin, belfast etc. accents can sound harsh is that that accent is easier to hear in a noisy dockland setting, and that there would have been a lot of cross pollination of the accents due to migration.

i'll see if i can remember and find the source, it could be pure hokum.

pinkypinky

The Dublin accent has changed dramatically in the last 100 years.

Sometimes my mother talks about a different type that is gone now - usually when watching Reeling in the Years or any old documentary footage.

The “working class” accent has become a lot more harsh and guttural. When you look at old videos from the RTE Archive about Ballymun, Drug Addiction, Moore Street etc then you hear an accent that is still unpleasant, but not the absolute abomination you hear today.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120412067#Comment_120412067

OK, but I don't want this thread to tip into one complaining about the modern Dublin accent. I'm looking for information, if it exists, on the history of the dialect, what it sounded like over the course of English being spoken in that area, and, as stated previously, an identification of how and when a dialect that would be recognisable to modern ears emerged.

Now, is it possible that what would be recognisable as a modern Dublin accent had emerged by the early 1800s. The Wikipedia on the Dublin street poet 'Zozimus' records that he began his performances with this short verse:

"Ye sons and daughters of Erin,

Gather round poor Zozimus, yer friend;

Listen boys, until yez hear

My charming song so dear."

The words 'yez', as a spelling of 'yous', and the apparent rhyming of 'hear' and 'dear' would give an indication that a variant did exist at that time, and even in the present time you will get older Dubliners who pronounce 'hear' (here) and 'dear' in a way that rhymes, just as you will get older Dubliners who pronounce 'book' (buke) and 'fluke' in a rhyming way.

Mick Tator

The recordings of balladeer/collector Frank Harte would be worthwhile. He was very good on dialect . Zozimus, - I always remember the 'land of the Pharoh, contagious to the Nile'

Beechwoodspark

OP - would strongly recommend you look at YouTube videos of Dublin: A Personal View presented by Éamonn Mac Thomáis - he has many interviews in the show with vintage Dubs and their accents are wonderful to hear

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120412409#Comment_120412409

Yeah, thanks for that, but this is still getting a little bit away from what I'm driving at. I'm not looking for what a Dublin accent sounded like in the 1970s or whatever. We know generally what it sounded like in the 20th century because there is much sound recording from this period. I'm looking more for information that gives us a historical account of what how Dublin English evolved from the high middle ages up to the modern period (19th century onward).

Were there any great 'shifts' in its history and what accounted for these?

What would an English-speaking resident of Dublin city have sounded like in 1650?

Would would one of Fingal have sounded like?

What would account for the differences, if any?

Would there have been much of a change in these categories from 1500?

At what point in history could we say that something recognisable as a modern Dublin accent emerge?

How and why does this emergence come about?

sprucemoose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120411913#Comment_120411913

that sounds like one of blindboys theories that are seemingly so plausible but not worth believing without actual proof

it would make alot of sense though

Manach

For a broader history of languages in Ireland, I'd recommend the following:  Doyle's, (2015), “A history of the Irish language” which while centred on Irish, shows also the influences and growth of English in the Pale.

rock22

Was brought up in South county Dublin in the fifties and I remember very different and distinct accents in the county and city. I also remember that the north county and south county accents were different. I would suspect that the accents differed in many parts of Dublin. Certainly the accents in the liberties and Rathgar would have been different. So you might need to distinguish different Dublin accents and treat then separately.

(As a personal aside, I recently watched an old RTE archive featuring my father speaking, in the sixties. I was surprised at what little memory i had of the accent then. And that is only sixty years ago. )

Jellybaby_1

Accents are picked up easily, particularly by younger people, i.e. whatever TV programme they watch at present. We didn't have that exposure quite so much in the 50's when I was a child. I knew people who spoke 'posh' because they felt they lived in a better area or they had gone to the right school! I knew the ordinary Dublin accent, I walked down Moore Street every week with my mother so I may have picked up some of that at the time, I also had a teacher from Donegal and my brother once told me that I had a NI accent when I was in school. I think Dublinese in the 50's was a very rich accent which is almost gone. I can't even understand some of my younger family members when they speak now due to speech being garbled!

kildarejohn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120414302#Comment_120414302

The difference in accent between different areas is something that was very pronounced back in the '70's/80's. It was not just a matter of class; I worked in an office where most might be classed as "middle class", but there were distinctive different accents from say Drumcondra, Sandymount, Clontarf, Rathmines.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120511868#Comment_120511868

The Liverpool accent arose, in part, because of the Dublin/Irish influence - "Dey do, doe, don't dey, doe?", or this is what is at least theorised by Youtube linguist Simon Roper (using textual sources), and if correct then this would mean that at least the phonology on the th's was in place by the mid-19th century when Liverpool experienced a huge wave of Irish immigration.

Let's drill down on this a bit and be more specific. When old school Dubliners would add extra sounds into words, such as "ird'n" for iron or "word'ld" for world, are there any theories to be put forward on how this kind of speech came to be?

briany

@Piskin

The actual scouse accent is from Norweigian sailors back in the day settling in Liverpool.

Maybe for the broader Lancastrian accent that would have been present in Liverpool before the mid 19th century, but the evidence Simon Roper found would heavily suggest that the modern Scouse accent is largely down to a mix of Irish, Welsh and Scottish immigration to the city.

Anyway, I started this thread to try and get some information on how the modern Dublin accent came about. And by modern I mean modern period from the 19th century on.