Draft:Mid-Ulster English

Mid-Ulster English is a dialect of Ulster English and is closely related to Ulster Scots English. South Ulster English is another dialect related to MUE, which is a transitional dialect between Southern Hiberno-English and MUE.

During the Plantation of Ulster, many English-speaking Northern English people and Scots-speaker would move to Ulster, planting the west and east respectively.{{Cite web |title=IV. The Scots in Ulster |url=https://www.turnbullclan.com/features/places/turnbull-trails/276-the-scots-in-ulster |access-date=2023-07-06 |website=Turnbull Clan}}{{Cite web |title=Plantation of Ulster {{!}} Discover Ulster-Scots |url=https://discoverulsterscots.com/learning/education/primary/plantation |access-date=2023-07-06 |website=Discover Ulster-Scots}} Meanwhile, Ulster Irish remained in the more southern parts. With the influence of the three languages, the central dialect would become the 17th century Mid-Ulster dialect.{{Cite book |last=Hickey |first=Raymond |url= |title=Areal Features of the Anglophone World |date=2012-12-06 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-027942-9 |pages=69 |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=BBC - History - Wars and Conflicts - Plantation of Ulster - Ulster Scots |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/plantation/ulsterscots/index.shtml |access-date=2023-06-18 |website=BBC}}Maguire (2020), p. 10

As the central dialect spread around with immigration, it eventually expanded to most of the Ulster region.{{Cite book |last=Г |first=Ніколенко А. |url= |title=Лексикологія англійської мови – теорія і практика. [англ.].: Навчальний посібник для ВНЗ |publisher=Нова Книга |isbn=978-966-382-076-7 |pages=362–363 |language=en}} This expansion approximately went from the east of County Down, of Northern Ireland, all the way towards western County Donegal, of the Republic of Ireland.

The local rural Belfast and Derry dialects come from this dialect. Warren Maguire, a senior lecturer in the English language, has studied the dialect, specifically his local Southwest Tyrone dialect.{{Cite web |last=Maguire |first=Warren |title=Southwest Tyrone English |url=http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~wmaguire/SwTE/SwTEIntro.html |access-date=2023-07-06 |website=University of Edinburgh}}

The sounds of Mid-Ulster English are known to sound like a combination of Hiberno-English and Ulster Scots English.{{Cite book |last=Trudgill |first=Peter |url= |title=Language in the British Isles |date=1984-05-17 |publisher=CUP Archive |isbn=978-0-521-24057-4 |pages=129–130 |language=en}} As such, many features in Mid-Ulster English are combined, having influences from both varieties.{{Cite book |last1=Hogg |first1=Richard M. |url= |title=The Cambridge History of the English Language |last2=Blake |first2=Norman Francis |last3=Burchfield |first3=Robert |last4=Lass |first4=Roger |last5=Romaine |first5=Suzanne |date=1992 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-26478-5 |pages=174 |language=en}} Its phonology is a bit different to other English dialects in the isles.Maguire (2020), p. 15 The phonology of Mid-Ulster English is shown to have many features from other languages, with various different vowels and other features absent in different varieties of English.{{Cite book |last=Hickey |first=Raymond |url= |title=The Oxford Handbook of Irish English |date=2024-01-05 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-885615-3 |pages=212 |language=en}} The symbols below are those of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

• Rhoticity is present in the Mid-Ulster dialect, like in other Ulster dialects.
• Mid-Ulster has g-dropping, which means the gerund or present participle -ing, pronounced {{IPA|lang=en|/ɪŋ/}} in verbs such as running is pronounced {{IPA|lang=en|/ɪn/}}.
• The dialect also has lowering, which makes the speaker sound more low pitch.
• The phoneme {{IPA|lang=en|/x/}} as in ach is mostly realised as the uvular {{IPA|lang=en|/χ/}} instead of the velar {{IPA|lang=en|/x/}}. This sound is only used in loanwords and place names.
• In between {{IPA|/ɑ/|lang=en}} or {{IPA|/ɛ/|lang=en}} after {{IPA|/k/|lang=en}} or {{IPA|/g/|lang=en}}, a palatalised sound can be heard.{{Cite book |last=Wells |first=John |title=Accents of English |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1982 |volume=2 |pages=442 |language=en}}
• The dialect has a which-witch distinction, meaning that phoneme wh would be pronounced /ʍ/ instead of /w/.
• Before r or er, t and d would make interdental {{IPA|/t̪͆/|lang=en}} and {{IPA|/d̪͆/}} sounds respectably, as in painter {{IPA|[pen.t̪͆əɹ]|lang=en}}.{{Cite book |last=Adams |first=G. Brendan |title=Ulster Dialects. An Introductory Symposium |publisher=Cultra: Ulster Folk Museum |year=1964 |pages=2 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Macafee |first=C.I. |title=Concise Ulster Dictionary |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1996 |pages=xi |language=en}}
• Medial -pp-, -ck-, and -tt- are pronounced voiced instead of voiceless.

File:Mid-Ulster monophthong chart.svg

File:Mid-Ulster diphthong chart.svg

• The diphthong {{IPA|lang=en|/ɑʊ/}} in RP is pronounced more like {{IPA|lang=en|/əʉ/}}.
• {{IPA|lang=en|/ʊ/}} in "food" and {{IPA|lang=en|/u/}} in "boot" are pronounced like {{IPA|lang=en|/ʉ/}}.
• The epenthesis, or helping vowel, is used in some consonant clusters, for example film {{IPA|[fɜ.ləm]|lang=en}}.{{Cite book |last=Hickey |first=Raymond |title=Irish English: Phonology |publisher=De Gruyter |year=2004 |volume=1 |location=Berlin/New York |pages=81 |language=en}}
• {{IPA|/æ/|lang=en}} is lowered to {{IPA|/a/|lang=en}}.{{Cite book |last=Patrick |first=Peter L. |url= |title=Urban Jamaican Creole: Variation in the Mesolect |date=1999-01-01 |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |isbn=978-90-272-4875-6 |language=en}}
• The diphthong {{IPA|/eɪ/|lang=en}} is often shortened to {{IPA|/e/|lang=en}} most of the time. Few realisations pronounce this as {{IPA|/ɪ/|lang=en}}.
• The diphthongs {{IPA|/əɪ/|lang=en}} and {{IPA|/aɪ/|lang=en}} can be used interchangeably.
• RP {{IPA|/ɪ/|lang=en}} is often realised as {{IPA|/ɛ̈/|lang=en}}, {{IPA|/ɜ/}}, or {{IPA|/ə/|lang=en}}.
• {{IPA|/ʌ/|lang=en}} is instead realised as centralised {{IPA|/ɔ̈/|lang=en}}.

This sample text is the poem John the Liar by Rev. William Forbes Marshall.

:Well, it was freezin' hard.

::An' bitther cowl; an' min' ye I had play,

:(Yon mare's the deil for gettin' on hir en:)

::But there wos John, he had his two han's up, Scared like an peghin, with no hat or coat;

:A man's unaisy when he sees the like.

::"The Lord bliss me, sez I, 'what's wrong?' Sez he,

:'Be gomentays, I went an' killed two pigs, Ye niver seen the like of them two pigs, Throth they wor tarra; jist the five months oul".

::"The deil a hair I care, sez I, 'ye killed A score of pigs; stan' out the road!'

• Languages of Ireland
• Hiberno-English

• {{Cite book |last=Maguire |first=Warren |url= |title=Language and Dialect Contact in Ireland: The Phonological Origins of Mid-Ulster English |date=2020-09-21 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-1-4744-5293-9 |pages= |language=en}}

{{reflist}}

• [https://www.facebook.com/muesociety/ Mid Ulster English Society Facebook page]
• [http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/voices/atilazed/index.shtml A til Azed – a glossary of Mid-Ulster vocabulary at BBC Northern Ireland]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080613202220/http://www.students.ncl.ac.uk/w.n.maguire/swte_intro.htm South West Tyrone Dialect], [http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~wmaguire/SwTE/SwTEIntro.html South West Tyrone Dialect]

{{English dialects by continent}}

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:Category:British English

:Category:Dialects of English

:Category:Languages of Ireland

:Category:Languages of Northern Ireland

:Category:Ulster