Munster Irish

Munster Irish (, ) is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Munster. Gaeltacht regions in Munster are found in the Gaeltachtaí of the Dingle Peninsula in west County Kerry, in the Iveragh Peninsula in south Kerry, in Cape Clear Island off the coast of west County Cork, in Muskerry West; Cúil Aodha, Ballingeary, Ballyvourney, Kilnamartyra, and Renaree of central County Cork; and in an Rinn and an Sean Phobal in Gaeltacht na nDéise in west County Waterford.

History

The north and west of Dingle Peninsula () are today the only place in Munster where Irish has survived as the daily spoken language of most of the community although the language is spoken on a daily basis by a minority in other official Gaeltachtaí in Munster.

Historically, the Irish language was spoken throughout Munster and Munster Irish had some influence on those parts of Connacht and Leinster bordering it such as Kilkenny, Wexford and south Galway and the Aran Islands.

Munster Irish played an important role in the Gaelic revival of the early 20th century. The noted author Peadar Ua Laoghaire wrote in Munster dialect and stated that he wrote his novel '' Séadna'' to show younger people what he viewed as good Irish:

Peig Sayers was illiterate, but her autobiography, ''Peig'', is also in Munster dialect and rapidly became a key text. Other influential Munster works are the autobiographies ''Fiche Blian ag Fás'' by Muiris Ó Súilleabháin and ''An tOileánach'' by Tomás Ó Criomhthain.

Lexicon

Munster Irish differs from Ulster and Connacht Irish in a number of respects. Some words and phrases used in Munster Irish are not used in the other varieties, such as:
* (Clear Island, Corca Dhuibhne, West Muskerry, Waterford) or (Clear Island, West Carbery, Waterford) "at any rate" (other dialects (Connacht) and (Ulster)
* "under" (standard )
* "Irish language" (Cork and Kerry), (Waterford) (standard )
* "that...not" and "that is not" as the copular form (both in the standard)
* "also" (Connacht , Ulster )
* or "here" and or "there" instead of standard and , respectively
* In both demonstrative pronouns and adjectives speakers of Munster Irish differentiate between "this" and "that" following a palatalised consonant or front vowel and "this" and "that" following a velarised consonant or back vowel in final position: "this road", "that cow", "that cart", "this fence"
* the use of instead of in the extreme west of Corca Dhuibhne and in Gaeltacht na nDéise.
* the preposition "to, towards", common in Connacht Irish and Ulster Irish where it developed as a back formation from the 3rd person singular preposition ''chuige'' "towards him" is not used in Munster. The form ''chun'' (from Classical Irish ''do chum''), also found in the West and North, is used in preference.
* Munster Irish uses a fuller range of "looking" verbs, while these in Connacht and Ulster are restricted: "looking", "watching", "carefully observing", "look, watch", ''glinniúint'' "gazing, staring", ''sealladh'' "looking" etc.
* the historic dative form "house", as in Scots and Manx Gaelic, is now used as the nominative form (Standard )
* Munster retains the historic form of the personal pronoun "us" which has largely been replaced with (or in parts of Ulster) in most situations in Connacht and Ulster.
* Corca Dhuibhne and Gaeltacht na nDéise use the independent form (earlier , classical also ) "I see" as well as the dependent form ''ficim / feicim '' (classical ), while Muskerry and Clear Island use the forms ''chím'' (independent) and ''ficim''.
* The adverbial forms , in Corca Dhuibhne and "at all" in Gaeltacht na nDéise are sometimes used in addition to or
* The adjective is used adverbially in phrases such as "rather small", "fairly small", "quite large". Connacht uses and Ulster
* , , ''puinn'' and ''tada'' in West Munster, in Gaeltacht na nDéise, "I said nothing at all", "I have gained nothing by it"
* The interjections , , , "Indeed!", "My word!", "My God!" in West Munster and , in Gaeltacht na nDéise (''ambaiste'' = ''dom bhaisteadh'' "by my baptism", ''am basa'' = ''dom basaibh'' "by my palms", ''ambaic'' = ''dom baic'' "by my heeding"; ''amaite'' = ''dom aite'' "my oddness")
* "sudden" instead of in the other major dialects
* "potato", in Connacht and in Ulster
* "suitable", in Connacht and in Ulster
* , , , , . in Connacht and in Donegal
* Munster differentiates between "anyway", "anyhow" and "particularly", "especially"
* "soap", in Connacht and in Ulster
* is "difference" in Munster, and is a Latin loan: "there is no difference between them"; the Gaelic word ''deifir'' "hurry" is retained in the other dialects (cf. Scottish Gaelic "difference")
* or "hurry" whereas the other major dialects use

Phonology

The phonemic inventory of Munster Irish (based on the accent of West Muskerry in western Cork) is as shown in the following chart (based on ; see International Phonetic Alphabet for an explanation of the symbols). Symbols appearing in the upper half of each row are velarized (traditionally called "broad" consonants) while those in the bottom half are palatalized ("slender"). The consonant is neither broad or slender.

The vowels of Munster Irish are as shown on the following chart. These positions are only approximate, as vowels are strongly influenced by the palatalization and velarization of surrounding consonants.

In addition, Munster has the diphthongs .

Some characteristics of Munster that distinguish it from the other dialects are:
* The fricative is found in syllable-onset position. (Connacht and Ulster have here.) For example, "moved" is pronounced as opposed to elsewhere.
* The diphthongs , , and occur in Munster, but not in the other dialects.
* Word-internal clusters of obstruent + sonorant, + , and stop + fricative are broken up by an epenthetic , except that plosive + liquid remains in the onset of a stressed syllable. For example, "church" is pronounced , but "April" is (as if spelled ''Abrán'').
* Orthographic short ''a'' is diphthongized (rather than lengthened) before word-final ''m'' and the Old Irish tense sonorants spelled ''nn'', ''ll'' (e.g. "head").
* Word-final is realized as , e.g. "horsemen" .
* Stress is attracted to noninitial heavy syllables: "pot", "satchel". Stress is also attracted to in the second syllable when the vowel in the initial syllable is short: "rooster", "blessing", "lame" (pl.).
* In some varieties, long is rounded to .

Morphology

Irish verbs are characterized by having a mixture of ''analytic'' forms (where information about person is provided by a pronoun) and ''synthetic'' forms (where information about number is provided in an ending on the verb) in their conjugation. Munster Irish has preserved nearly all of the synthetic forms, except for the second-person plural forms in the present and future:

Some irregular verbs have different forms in Munster than in the standard (see Dependent and independent verb forms for the independent/dependent distinction):

Past tense verbs can take the particle in Munster Irish, even when they begin with consonants. In the standard language, the particle is used only before vowels. For example, Munster or "he broke" (standard only ).

The initial mutations of Munster Irish are generally the same as in the standard language and the other dialects. Some Munster speakers, however, use as the lenition equivalent of in at least some cases, as in "O king!" , "gave birth" , "they will not go" .

Syntax

One significant syntactic difference between Munster and other dialects is that in Munster (excepting Gaeltacht na nDéise), ("that") is used instead of as the indirect relative particle:

* "the man whose sister is in the hospital" (standard ''an fear a bhfuil...'')

Another difference is seen in the copula. is used in addition to .

Notable speakers

Some notable Irish singers who sing songs in the Munster Irish dialect include Nioclás Tóibín, Elizabeth Cronin, Labhrás Ó Cadhla, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Seán de hÓra, Diarmuid Ó Súilleabháin, Seosaimhín Ní Bheaglaoich and Máire Ní Chéilleachair.

Four of the most notable Irish writers ''as Gaeilge'' (in Irish) hail from the Munster Gaeltacht: Tomás Ó Criomhthain whose most well-known book is the autobiographical ''An tOileáineach (The Islandman)''. ''Peig and Machnamh Seanamhná (An Old Woman's Reflections)'' by Peig Sayers was a fixture on the secondary school Irish syllabus for several decades. The other two authors are Muiris Ó Súilleabháin with ''Fiche Bliain ag Fás (Twenty Years A-Growing)'' and Eilís Ní Shuilleabháin's ''Letters from the Great Blasket''.

References

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Literature

* olklore, Ring

* erry* hort stories, folklore, Limerick

* olklore, Cape Clear Island

* ingle Peninsula* ingle Peninsula

* oolea* erry* erry* erry* erry* erry* erry* erry* erry* erry/Blasket Islands*
* erry/Blasket Islands

* ipperary* erry/Blasket Islands*
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* Gaeltacht na nDéise, Co. Waterford]

External links

a blog and resources for the study of Cork Irish



Glór: CorkTigh Mhuiris: Documenting the Irish of Cléire

{{Dalcassians

Irish dialects
Irish