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What Irish accent is closest to the original Irish accent?
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29-09-2019 2:17am#1Of course if it was spoken in English from Irish. I'm going to rule out the obvious none contenders here. The Dublin accents were brought here by Anglo-Saxon Bristol traders and colonists when the Normans invaded and conquered Ireland. Bristol traders had contact with the major cities of Ireland at the time such as Cork, Waterford and Dublin, but the only accent as far as I can tell that comes from the Anglo-saxon Dublinieese, beyond the Pale had very little influence and English spoken out of the city of Dublin quickly fizzled away. Cork and waterford had Irish speaking populations, but I'm going to rule them out just because of the constant contact they had with English colonists. City accents as far as I know don't penetrate much into country side?
Of course we had English Tudor colonists from the North of England which clearly influenced some parts of Leinster, and we also had the Norman colonist such as the FitzMaurices, FitzGeralds, Burkes and Butlers most of which adopted Irish speech, but they must have had an influence on the Irish they spoke from Norman french proto English. Would you say the Midlands was mostly Irish speaking?
The northern Irish accents are from the Scots and northern English of course there was some Gaelic influence from the native Irish.
The region least effected by English invaders was Munster and connacht, where Irish speaking right up until the An gorta mór so I want to say Galway/Connemara and Kerry accents? perhaps the Cavan accent retained most of its speech patterns?
I had a quick look online in the Irish archive, which has various county accents of local Irish dialects.The people in the audio sound pretty old and the quality is pretty poor, but still not to bad.
Cavan https://www.doegen.ie/LA_1205d2 recorded on 23-09-1931
https://www.doegen.ie/LA_1205d1
Galway https://www.doegen.ie/LA_1144d1 recorded on 13-09-1930
https://www.doegen.ie/LA_1175g1
https://www.doegen.ie/LA_1103d1 recorded on 1867-?
Kerry https://www.doegen.ie/LA_1090d3
Obviously Accents can change pretty quickly and lose features and what not, but I think they sound pretty similar to the Irish accents spoken in Ireland today. What do you think?2
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Fighting leprechaun 20 wrote: »Of course if it was spoken in English from Irish. I'm going to rule out the obvious none contenders here. The Dublin accents were brought here by Anglo-Saxon Bristol traders and colonists when the Normans invaded and conquered Ireland. Bristol traders had contact with the major cities of Ireland at the time such as Cork, Waterford and Dublin, but the only accent as far as I can tell that comes from the Anglo-saxon west country accent is Dublinieese, beyond the Pale had very little influence and English spoken out of the city of Dublin quickly fizzled away. Cork and waterford had Irish speaking populations, but I'm going to rule them out just because of the constant contact they had with English colonists. City accents as far as I know don't penetrate much into country side?
Of course we had English Tudor colonists from the North of England which clearly influenced some parts of Leinster, and we also had the Norman colonist such as the FitzMaurices, FitzGeralds, Burkes and Butlers most of which adopted Irish speech, but they must have had an influence on the Irish they spoke from Norman french proto English. Would you say the Midlands was mostly Irish speaking?
The northern Irish accents are from the Scots and northern English of course there was some Gaelic influence from the native Irish.
The region least effected by English invaders was Munster and connacht, where Irish speaking right up until the An gorta mór so I want to say Galway/Connemara and Kerry accents? perhaps the Cavan accent retained most of its speech patterns?
I had a quick look online in the Irish archive, which has various county accents of local Irish dialects.The people in the audio sound pretty old and the quality is pretty poor, but still not to bad.
Cavan https://www.doegen.ie/LA_1205d2 recorded on 23-09-1931
Galway https://www.doegen.ie/LA_1144d1 recorded on 13-09-1930
https://www.doegen.ie/LA_1175g1
https://www.doegen.ie/LA_1103d1 recorded on 1867-?
Kerry https://www.doegen.ie/LA_1090d3
Obviously Accents can change pretty quickly and lose features and what not, but I think they sound pretty similar to the Irish accents spoken in Ireland today. What do you think?
I would imagine the Kerry accent would be one of the closest to the original type of accent we would have had (although still a million miles away from what we would have had before invasions). I’m from Limerick originally and struggle to understand certain Kerry accents0 -
Mayo?0
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blindside88 wrote: »I would imagine the Kerry accent would be one of the closest to the original type of accent we would have had (although still a million miles away from what we would have had before invasions). I’m from Limerick originally and struggle to understand certain Kerry accents
Well there were many different accents spoken in Ireland back then some less harsh then others. There was no one Irish accent just like today there is no one Hiberno-English accent. You can hear the recordings some of them don't sound like Kerry accent at all. The Kerry accent has this weird upto sound to it and feels exaggerated and more harsh by our modern ears, which the recordings to my ear don't have. The Munster and Connacht regions had very little English influence from what I have read so the voice recordings are spot on , But if anyone has anything to add feel free.
I would say Kerry is generally going to win out because of the tap R sometimes, but it's very subtle in some of the recordings imo, apart from that I feel the other accents sound fairly similar. Of course didn't Ye olde English-Germanic roll their Rs back in the day? So I'm not sure. I'm not a linguistics professor, but I would say most Irish accents sound similar to the recordings especially older folk in the countryside. Of course as I said accents mutate pretty quickly overtime so who knows what this would sound like in English. I wonder how Irish would have developed if it has of been left alone to developed properly instead of being pushed to the fringes and outlawed. What's crazy is today Irish is less spoken in Ireland than Polish!0 -
Pineapple1 wrote: »Mayo?
I don't think so. The mayo accent has this shhhhh sound, which I don't hear in the recordings for mayo https://www.doegen.ie/LA_1120d1
If you go back hundred years in say English, American or Scottish they wouldn't sound all the same to today, so I can see how most Irish accents could have developed out of this stuff as it has a lot of similarities to my ears. I would say Munster, Connacht and good bit of the Midlands accents today mostly come from the Irish language.0 -
OP, a relevant element to your question is what have you in mind as to the time frame of the 'Original Irish accent'.
Ballpark suggestions say that Ireland first became inhabited with people about 9,000 years ago... Were they communicating though a verbal language?
I did find a suggestion that what became the Irish language arrived approximately 2,500 years ago.
I suspect that the language of today would bare little discernible relation to the language of 2,500 years ago (that is to say, if you didn't know that one originated out of the other, you would not say they were related).
It's an interesting topic however. I suspect languages evolved at a slower rate centuries ago given the vastly difference in movement and integration which we see today.
And, of course, everything I've just said has been about language whereas your question is about accents....0 -
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Tell me how wrote: »OP, a relevant element to your question is what have you in mind as to the time frame of the 'Original Irish accent'.
Ballpark suggestions say that Ireland first became inhabited with people about 9,000 years ago... Were they communicating though a verbal language?
It's an interesting topic however. I suspect languages evolved at a slower rate centuries ago given the vastly difference in movement and integration which we see today.
And, of course, everything I've just said has been about language whereas your question is about accents....
Current evidence we have for the first settlers in Ireland is 12,500 years ago no idea where you got 9,000 years from. Who is they?
The first Celtic languages could have arrived during the Bronze age, but Irish mutated into what is mostly recognizable today from Q Celtic in the 1st century AD. Before that it wouldn't have been anymore recognizable then say Anglo-Saxon is to modern day English.
Okay take for example English in the 1800s now compare it to posh English spoken today. It sounds very different a lot of features were lost. Compare that to 1650s English and it sounds more akin to Scottish. compare that to 1300s English and it would not have been even remotely similar to English spoken today you would be lucky to understand a single word of what they're saying. The point is Accent/dialect change very quickly less then 150 years and the accent of English sounds very different almost Alien and this is long before the invention of the airplane so there is no way that Irish in those recordings would have sounded like Irish 200 years earlier, but then again maybe it did because Irish didn't develop like normal languages due to English occupation for 800-500 years. Irish was always a dodo language pushed to regions that the English didn't conquer yet and speaking it was punishable by death in some cases. So very little outside influence or change.
I think my question was pretty clear, if those people in the recordings spoke in English how close would it be to the accents spoken in Ireland today?0 -
Fighting leprechaun 20 wrote: »Current evidence we have for the first settlers in Ireland is 12,500 years ago no idea where you got 9,000 years from. Who is they?
Just one place where general time frame is mentioned.The first people arrived in Ireland about 9,000 years ago (around 7000 BC). We now call them Stone Age people because they used stone tools for their farm work and for hunting. We know about these early settlers in Ireland because many of their tools and weapons survived and have been found by archaeologists.
They would be those people would they not?....Fighting leprechaun 20 wrote: »C
Okay take for example English in the 1800s now compare it to posh English spoken today. It sounds very different a lot of features were lost. Compare that to 1650s English and it sounds more akin to Scottish. compare that to 1300s English and it would not have been even remotely similar to English spoken today you would be lucky to understand a single word of what they're saying. The point is Accent/dialect change very quickly less then 150 years and the accent of English sounds very different almost Alien and this is long before the invention of the airplane so there is no way that Irish in those recordings would have sounded like Irish 200 years earlier, but then again maybe it did because Irish didn't develop like normal languages due to English occupation for 800-500 years. Irish was always a dodo language pushed to regions that the English didn't conquer yet and speaking it was punishable by death in some cases. So very little outside influence or change.
I think my question was pretty clear, if those people in the recordings spoke in English how close would it be to the accents spoken in Ireland today?
The first paragraph here shows just how much accents change. I think even those people who speak Irish have also spoken English for at least 100+ years or so and so that would have still influenced their Irish accent to some degree.
Question is, if those voices from the recording were speaking English, would it be English of their time, or a modern day version spoken with their original accent.
Of the recordings you included, only 3 and 5 sound like they are speaking naturally. One is singing, and 2 and 4 are reciting something so I suspect their accent is somewhat affected even then.
The 3rd accent sounded closest to a modern day accent to me but then it is likely less than 100 years old since the recording was made which would be significantly newer than any 'original' accent would it not?0 -
Tell me how wrote: »Just one place where general time frame is mentioned.
They would be those people would they not?....
The first paragraph here shows just how much accents change. I think even those people who speak Irish have also spoken English for at least 100+ years or so and so that would have still influenced their Irish accent to some degree.
Question is, if those voices from the recording were speaking English, would it be English of their time, or a modern day version spoken with their original accent.
Of the recordings you included, only 3 and 5 sound like they are speaking naturally. One is singing, and 2 and 4 are reciting something so I suspect their accent is somewhat affected even then.
The 3rd accent sounded closest to a modern day accent to me but then it is likely less than 100 years old since the recording was made which would be significantly newer than any 'original' accent would it not?
The earliest evidence of human presence in Ireland is dated at 10,500 BC, demonstrated by a butchered bear bone found in a cave in County Clare.[12] 10,500BC is 12,500 years ago.
"Earliest evidence of humans in Ireland". BBC News Online. British Broadcasting Corporation. 21 March 2016. Retrieved 21 March 2016.
No idea where you're getting your information from maybe do a little bit more research than just looking up some dodgy site online.
They're reciting folktales from memory it wouldn't affect the way they speech in the slightest. Again there were many different accents in Ireland there is no one Irish accent in Irish or English. The 3rd one doesn't sound the closest to me at all. The first one sounds pretty close to Cavan ulster Irish. The last one in the Kerry accent also sounds pretty close to today in some areas of the west of Ireland, but I would really like someone who understands linguistics to give me a run down here.0 -
Fighting leprechaun 20 wrote: »The earliest evidence of human presence in Ireland is dated at 10,500 BC, demonstrated by a butchered bear bone found in a cave in County Clare.[12] 10,500BC is 12,500 years ago.
"Earliest evidence of humans in Ireland". BBC News Online. British Broadcasting Corporation. 21 March 2016. Retrieved 21 March 2016.
No idea where you're getting your information from maybe do a little bit more research than just looking up some dodgy site online.
They're reciting folktales from memory it wouldn't affect the way they speech in the slightest. Again there were many different accents in Ireland there is no one Irish accent in Irish or English. The 3rd one doesn't sound the closest to me at all. The first one sounds pretty close to Cavan ulster Irish. The last one in the Kerry accent also sounds pretty close to today in some areas of the west of Ireland, but I would really like someone who understands linguistics to give me a run down here.
Wow but you're a welcoming sort aren't you. (Saw the 9,000 referenced in a number of locations btw, but I'm sure you're right.)
Disagree entirely that the recitals haven't effected their accents.
A number of years ago, Ray Darcy had some sort of competition trying to find the best accent in Ireland and what they had people from different regions volunteer to ring in and to read the same piece of text. What they ended up with was a load of people who sounded like they had been asked to read the news on RTE rather than representing the natural accent from their region.0 -
The cavan accent from the 30s sounds pretty similar to the current one. Although there are large variations in the county ranging from the traditional to the northern0
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Tell me how wrote: »Wow but you're a welcoming sort aren't you. (Saw the 9,000 referenced in a number of locations btw, but I'm sure you're right.)
Disagree entirely that the recitals haven't effected their accents.
A number of years ago, Ray Darcy had some sort of competition trying to find the best accent in Ireland and what they had people from different regions volunteer to ring in and to read the same piece of text. What they ended up with was a load of people who sounded like they had been asked to read the news on RTE rather than representing the natural accent from their region.
They're not reading from a piece of paper these are oral folk tales for the most part.0 -
careless sherpa wrote: »The cavan accent from the 30s sounds pretty similar to the current one. Although there are large variations in the county ranging from the traditional to the northern
I would agree with you here, so would you say the Cavan accent is mostly from Irish? I think there was a colony in Virginia and a few Norman/English hamlets, but I want to say that most where speaking Irish or at least bilingual.0 -
This kind of leads to an interesting thought I've had before, what is the oldest recorded audio of some one speaking ?0
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This kind of leads to an interesting thought I've had before, what is the oldest recorded audio of some one speaking ?
First from my limited research would be this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBL7V3zGMUA though it's not really comprehensible. Thomas A. Edison - Mary had a little lamb would be the first clear one. This is a recreation of Edison's original recording. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBXyuY2J20o0 -
Fighting leprechaun 20 wrote: »I would agree with you here, so would you say the Cavan accent is mostly from Irish? I think there was a colony in Virginia and a few Norman/English hamlets, but I want to say that most where speaking Irish or at least bilingual.
I knew someone years ago who did a study on phrases unique to different parts of the country. Cavan featured quite prominently as had a large number of phrases that were derived from different languages.
Most of the towns in cavan would be trading towns established during the plantations, noted for their extremely wide straight streets. The flax and linen trade made it one of the wealthiest areas in the country and it had close links to Belfast. The famine decimated the local economy and the population making it the area that experienced the sharpest population decline. As for the history of the iriah language in the area, I don't know. To my ears the clip you played certainly resembles the accent most associated with the county.0 -
apparently, there was a thing called a phonautograph which recorded the vibrations of sound waves onto paper, like a seismograph would record vibrations in the earth, only problem was there was no way to play them back...Several phonautograms recorded before 1861 were successfully played as sound in 2008 by optically scanning them and using a computer to process the scans into digital audio files
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonautograph0 -
careless sherpa wrote: »I knew someone years ago who did a study on phrases unique to different parts of the country. Cavan featured quite prominently as had a large number of phrases that were derived from different languages.
Most of the towns in cavan would be trading towns established during the plantations, noted for their extremely wide straight streets. The flax and linen trade made it one of the wealthiest areas in the country and it had close links to Belfast. The famine decimated the local economy and the population making it the area that experienced the sharpest population decline. As for the history of the iriah language in the area, I don't know. To my ears the clip you played certainly resembles the accent most associated with the county.
The towns in Cavan where not substantial compared to the vast majority of the people in the county, which where living on the poorer farmland and were speaking Irish not English. Cavan towns where heavily fortified and cut off from the surrounding areas with little interaction due to constant Irish and "wood-kerne," attacks. The majority of the colonists in Cavan would have been scots or English? as far as I know there is no linguistic similarities between Scottish and Cavan accents. Don't think there is any similarities between any English accents and Cavan ether. The view at the time would have been it was unsafe to leave the walls of the city or interact with the locals as the wilderness was filled with wolves and wild Irish. Most of Cavan was Irish speaking right up until the Famine and so the accent would mostly derive from that as opposed to English or Scots settlers like you see in Northern Ireland or Dublin. Even during the very early 11th century when during the Norman/Anglo-Saxon invasion of Ireland Cavan was mostly controlled by the kingdom of Breifne. So no real English interaction at all. There was probably free English traders who made frequent journeys there, but I doubt that had any influence the way they spoke due to the language barrier.
''Cavan featured quite prominently as had a large number of phrases that were derived from different languages''
Can you give me some examples?0 -
Fighting leprechaun 20 wrote: »The towns in Cavan where not substantial compared to the vast majority of the people in the county, which where living on the poorer farmland and were speaking Irish not English. Cavan towns where heavily fortified and cut off from the surrounding areas with little interaction due to constant Irish and "wood-kerne," attacks. The majority of the colonists in Cavan would have been scots or English? as far as I know there is no linguistic similarities between Scottish and Cavan accents. Don't think there is any similarities between any English accents and Cavan ether. The view at the time would have been it was unsafe to leave the walls of the city or interact with the locals as the wilderness was filled with wolves and wild Irish. Most of Cavan was Irish speaking right up until the Famine and so the accent would mostly derive from that as opposed to English or Scots settlers like you see in Northern Ireland or Dublin. Even during the very early 11th century when during the Norman/Anglo-Saxon invasion of Ireland Cavan was mostly controlled by the kingdom of Breifne. So no real English interaction at all. There was probably free English traders who made frequent journeys there, but I doubt that had any influence the way they spoke due to the language barrier.
''Cavan featured quite prominently as had a large number of phrases that were derived from different languages''
Can you give me some examples?
Also Slang terms in Hiberno-English is not the same as the way they're pronounced.0 -
Fighting leprechaun 20 wrote: »The towns in Cavan where not substantial compared to the vast majority of the people in the county, which where living on the poorer farmland and were speaking Irish not English. Cavan towns where heavily fortified and cut off from the surrounding areas with little interaction due to constant Irish and "wood-kerne," attacks. The majority of the colonists in Cavan would have been scots or English? as far as I know there is no linguistic similarities between Scottish and Cavan accents. Don't think there is any similarities between any English accents and Cavan ether. The view at the time would have been it was unsafe to leave the walls of the city or interact with the locals as the wilderness was filled with wolves and wild Irish. Most of Cavan was Irish speaking right up until the Famine and so the accent would mostly derive from that as opposed to English or Scots settlers like you see in Northern Ireland or Dublin. Even during the very early 11th century when during the Norman/Anglo-Saxon invasion of Ireland Cavan was mostly controlled by the kingdom of Breifne. So no real English interaction at all. There was probably free English traders who made frequent journeys there, but I doubt that had any influence the way they spoke due to the language barrier.
''Cavan featured quite prominently as had a large number of phrases that were derived from different languages''
Can you give me some examples?
I'm from Cavan and there are a huge number of Scots derived words used. There was a huge influx of Scottish Presbyterian settlers in parts of Cavan and they would have lived in the countryside alongside native Irish not in walled off towns.
Edited for examples: Sheugh for drain/ditch, wee, droowth as in I'm dying of the drooowth = I'm very thirsty. Slater for woodlouse. Skite can mean many things like to hit someone a skite = hit someone a glancing blow/slap. To skite something liquidy everywhere.eg. I dropped my porridge and it skited all over the walls0 -
Like some others, I'd agree that there were always several accents in Ireland. In Irish Ulster is most distinct from the rest, particularly due to different vowel sounds, specifically the U as well as two distinct Os (Eoin and Eoghan are pronounced differently to one another in Donegal Irish).
That said, if we are speaking of accents in English, I'd say the most original today is probably the way Travellers speak - they or at least some of them still use pronunciations that have disappeared in the past few decades from most settled people's English. Even Irish in the Gaeltacht is pronounced differently now to how it was in those recordings, and accent generally has become less distinctive almost everywhere.
But of course we have no idea what accents were like two or three hundred years ago, but I'd hazard a guess that language change in Ireland began a process of rapid accent change, and that in previous centuries I would imagine that the process was much slower.
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