Felix the Cat
11-24-2009, 09:49 PM
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article501051.ece
THE language of young Dubliners is, y’know, totally dominating Hiberno-English. Spoken with a Dart accent, the new lingo is leading to a decline in religious expressions, Gaelic words and rural idioms in everyday speech.
Even the word “culchie”, meaning a person from rural Ireland, is on the way out, being replaced by the Dortspeak “bogger”.
Religious phrases such as “month’s mind” and “holy show” could be obsolete in as little as 10 years, according to Terry Dolan, author of the new edition of A Dictionary of Hiberno-English, to be published this week.
“As the country becomes more international, people do not want to be associated with rural, Celtic or even Christian Ireland,” said Dolan. “Younger people are changing the vocabulary and the pronunciation, and making it more international.
“Many expressions, especially old religious terms, are going out fast because the young generation are so confident about themselves. Their kids will speak as they do, and it is leading to a homogenisation of the language.”
Dolan believes that Dortspeak, as spoken by Ross O’Carroll Kelly, the fictional newspaper character, and AA Roadwatch announcers, is an Irish variation of estuary English, and it is young women who are leading its charge. They, in particular, have popularised saying “so”, with a long o.
“Dortspeak is not just in Dublin 4; we’ve found it as far afield as Roscommon,” said Dolan, an English professor at University College Dublin. “It is led by television, and series such as Friends. They show people who are stylish and successful, almost putting a designer label on language.”
The official definition of Dortspeak is given as “a sometimes derided variety of Hiberno-English which attempts, mainly in its pronunciation of vowels, to appear sophisticated and cosmopolitan, leaning towards an imitation of the Home Counties accent of England, without much success.”
His dictionary is designed to be “a laboratory as well as a museum”, assisting people in other countries to understand Hiberno-Irish expressions but also preserving words that are falling out of everyday use. Mass, confession, Angelus, holy water are all included, as are tallymen, who will become redundant as soon as electronic voting is introduced.
The expression “I’m after”, as in “I’m after having my dinner” is also dying out, according to Dolan. But there are some distinctly Irish quirks in Dortspeak too, such as using the suffix “er” in the coining of nicknames — the Doyler, Croker, Dalyer — and putting the letter “o” at the end of names — Dekko, Jayo, Gaybo.
“There is a noticeable decline in the number of words from the Irish language in daily use,” said Dolan. “This is because of the declining numbers of speakers from the generation who moved easily between Irish and English.”
The second edition contains 1,000 new words, including many new features of Irish life. The Bertie Bowl, industrial schools, Magdalene laundries are new entries, along with the Celtic tiger, which is said to have been coined by Kevin Gardner in the London office of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.
Other new entries include biddies and ould wans (disrespectful terms for women), and Biffos, which is said to be “bloody ignorant f***** from Offaly”, although in fact the first “b” stands for big. There is no sign of their ugly midlands cousin Buffalos, however.
LINGUISTIC LICENCE
Like — pronounced “loike”; used as a breather in sentences as in “I’m, like, so fed up.”
Totally — absolutely. “Are you into rugby?” “Totally.”
So — an expression popularised by Friends, but with a Dart accent the “o” sound is even longer. “I’m soooooo broke.”
I’m there — I said. As in: “He asked me if I wanted a drink and I’m there, ‘no way, creep’.”
Yeah, roysh - Ironic way of saying “I don’t believe you”. As in: “You were refused entry to Lillie’s? Yeah, roysh!”
THE language of young Dubliners is, y’know, totally dominating Hiberno-English. Spoken with a Dart accent, the new lingo is leading to a decline in religious expressions, Gaelic words and rural idioms in everyday speech.
Even the word “culchie”, meaning a person from rural Ireland, is on the way out, being replaced by the Dortspeak “bogger”.
Religious phrases such as “month’s mind” and “holy show” could be obsolete in as little as 10 years, according to Terry Dolan, author of the new edition of A Dictionary of Hiberno-English, to be published this week.
“As the country becomes more international, people do not want to be associated with rural, Celtic or even Christian Ireland,” said Dolan. “Younger people are changing the vocabulary and the pronunciation, and making it more international.
“Many expressions, especially old religious terms, are going out fast because the young generation are so confident about themselves. Their kids will speak as they do, and it is leading to a homogenisation of the language.”
Dolan believes that Dortspeak, as spoken by Ross O’Carroll Kelly, the fictional newspaper character, and AA Roadwatch announcers, is an Irish variation of estuary English, and it is young women who are leading its charge. They, in particular, have popularised saying “so”, with a long o.
“Dortspeak is not just in Dublin 4; we’ve found it as far afield as Roscommon,” said Dolan, an English professor at University College Dublin. “It is led by television, and series such as Friends. They show people who are stylish and successful, almost putting a designer label on language.”
The official definition of Dortspeak is given as “a sometimes derided variety of Hiberno-English which attempts, mainly in its pronunciation of vowels, to appear sophisticated and cosmopolitan, leaning towards an imitation of the Home Counties accent of England, without much success.”
His dictionary is designed to be “a laboratory as well as a museum”, assisting people in other countries to understand Hiberno-Irish expressions but also preserving words that are falling out of everyday use. Mass, confession, Angelus, holy water are all included, as are tallymen, who will become redundant as soon as electronic voting is introduced.
The expression “I’m after”, as in “I’m after having my dinner” is also dying out, according to Dolan. But there are some distinctly Irish quirks in Dortspeak too, such as using the suffix “er” in the coining of nicknames — the Doyler, Croker, Dalyer — and putting the letter “o” at the end of names — Dekko, Jayo, Gaybo.
“There is a noticeable decline in the number of words from the Irish language in daily use,” said Dolan. “This is because of the declining numbers of speakers from the generation who moved easily between Irish and English.”
The second edition contains 1,000 new words, including many new features of Irish life. The Bertie Bowl, industrial schools, Magdalene laundries are new entries, along with the Celtic tiger, which is said to have been coined by Kevin Gardner in the London office of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.
Other new entries include biddies and ould wans (disrespectful terms for women), and Biffos, which is said to be “bloody ignorant f***** from Offaly”, although in fact the first “b” stands for big. There is no sign of their ugly midlands cousin Buffalos, however.
LINGUISTIC LICENCE
Like — pronounced “loike”; used as a breather in sentences as in “I’m, like, so fed up.”
Totally — absolutely. “Are you into rugby?” “Totally.”
So — an expression popularised by Friends, but with a Dart accent the “o” sound is even longer. “I’m soooooo broke.”
I’m there — I said. As in: “He asked me if I wanted a drink and I’m there, ‘no way, creep’.”
Yeah, roysh - Ironic way of saying “I don’t believe you”. As in: “You were refused entry to Lillie’s? Yeah, roysh!”