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'Mid Ulster English' is the dialect of most people in the traditional province of Ulster in Ireland, including those in the two main cities. It represents a cross-over area between Ulster Scots and Hiberno-English.
It is an English-based dialect spoken across mid Ulster between the Lagan and Clogher valleys in areas historically planted by settlers, the majority of which came over to Ireland from the West Midlands of England. The dialect has enjoyed higher social prestige than the Ulster Scots dialects that have influenced it to varying degrees. The dialect is currently encroaching on the Ulster Scots area, especially in the Belfast commuter belt, and may eventually consume it.

Contents

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

Mid-Ulster English by region

Belfast

North, north-east and east Ulster

Derry

Tyrone

Vocabulary

See also

References

External links

Phonology

:''Main article: phonemic differentiation.''
Phonetics are in IPA.

Vowels

		feet				fight
		fate				shout
		bet				bit
		bat				but
		pot				bought
		boat				father
		boot				boy

★ Vowels have phonemic vowel length with one set of lexically long and one of lexically short phonemes. This may be variously influenced by the Scots system.

★ in after e.g. ''want'', ''what'', ''quality''.

★ and distinction in ''cot'', ''body'' and ''caught'', ''bawdy''. Some varieties neutralise the distinction in long environments, e.g. ''don'' = ''dawn'' and ''pod'' = ''pawed''.

★ ''like'', ''light'', ''meat'' and ''beard'' also with , , ,

★ may occur in such words as ''beat'', ''decent'', ''leave'', ''Jesus'' etc.

★ Lagan Valley before in ''take'' and ''make'' etc.

★ before velars in ''sack'', ''bag'', and ''bang'' etc.

★ Merger of - in all monosyllables e.g. ''Sam'' and ''psalm'' .

★ may occur before palatalized consonants, e.g. ''king'', ''fish'' , ''condition'', ''brick'' and ''sick''.

★ may occur before and in ''tap'' and ''top'' etc.

★ before in ''floor'', ''whore'', ''door'', ''board'' etc.

★ Vowel oppositions before , e.g. ''earn'', ''for'' and ''four''.

Consonants

★ Rhoticity, that is, retention of in all positions.

★ Palatalisation of in the environment of front vowels.

★ Clear in all positions.

★ Aspiration in words beginning with ''dr'' and ''tr'' for example ''drum'' and ''tractor''

★ for in words like ''pepper''

★ for in words like ''butter''

★ for in words like ''packet''

★ - contrast in ''which'' - ''witch''.

★ Dental realisations of may occur through Irish influence before , e.g. ''ladder'', ''matter'', ''dinner'' and ''pillar'' etc.

★ Lenition of in ''hand'' , ''candle'' and ''old'' etc.

★ Lenition of in ''lamb'' and ''sing'' , ''thimble'', ''finger'' etc.

★ and for ''th''.

★ for ''gh'' is retained in proper names and a few dialect words or pronunciations, e.g. ''lough'', ''trough'' and ''sheugh''.

Mid-Ulster English by region

Belfast

The urban Belfast dialect is not limited to the capital itself but also neighbouring cities and towns like Lisburn as well as towns whose inhabitants are mostly from Belfast (Craigavon further west in Co. Armagh). The dialect has influenced the way the rest of the province sounds through media (Radio Ulster, BBC Northern Ireland) and a growing number of young people are adopting the Belfast accent and vocabulary through these as well as commuting etc.
Features of the accent include several vowel shifts, including one from /æ/ to ( for "bag"). The accent is also arguably more nasal compared to the rest of Ulster.
Other phonological features include:

★ Long vowels are dipthongized in closed syllables, usually to . Hence "maid" is pronounced , while "made" is .

★ The phoneme in "pot" and "paw" is more greatly distinguished than other Ulster dialects, with short "o" often unrounded (i.e. "not" is , while "pawed" is (see "Vowel Lengthening" above).

★ The phoneme is typically pronounced . In strong dialects, the second vowle in this dipthong can become a [rhotic] consonant, so that "doubt" and "dart" are nearly merged to .
Some of the vocabulary used among young people in Ulster such as the word "spide" are of Belfast origin.

North, north-east and east Ulster

The dialect in some places here is similar, if not identical to the Belfast dialect, but (especially rural) places such as north Antrim are strongly Ulster Scots-influenced and Scots pronunciation of words is often heard.A good example would be in the county Antrim village of Carnlough where locals of that area speak with a very strong almost scottish like accent.
In the 1830s, Ordnance Survey memoirs came to the following conclusion about the dialect of the inhabitants of Carnmoney, east Antrim:
Interestingly, the County Antrim Ulster Scots accent (or rather that of politician Dr. Ian Paisley) was found in a recent BBC survey rather than a Mid Ulster accent to be the "least pleasant" by English, Welsh and Scottish participants but "acceptable" to participants in Northern Ireland, which sheds some light on outsiders' opinion of Ulster Scots English (or of course may also simply reflect people's opinions of the aforementioned person).

Derry

The speech of the inhabitants of Ulster's second largest city and the inhabitants around it is quite different to that of Belfast. There is a higher incidence of palatalisation after /k/ and its voiced equivalent /g/(eg. "kyar" for "car"), perhaps through influence from Hiberno-English. However, the most noticeable difference is perhaps the intonation, which is unique the the Derry City and Strabane area.

Tyrone

The speech in Co. Tyrone is again influenced by Hiberno-English, but still retains a large lexicon with many words from Ulster Scots and Irish.

Vocabulary

Much non-standard vocabulary found in Mid Ulster English and many meanings of standard English words peculiar to the dialect come from Scots and Irish. Some examples are shown in the table below. Many of these are also used in general Hiberno-English.

Mid-Ulster English	Standard English	Notes
Ach!/Och!	annoyance, regret, etc. (general exclamation)	Usually used to replace "Oh!" and "Ah!". "Ach" is Irish for "but", which is usually use in the same context.
aye	yes
bake	mouth	From Scots, extension of meaning from ''beak''. Many body parts are also from Scots: see below.
boke, boak	vomit	From Scots ''bowk'' with Ulster vocalisation to /o/.
cowp, cope	to tip over, to fall over	From Scots ''cowp'' with Ulster vocalisation to /o/.
crack	banter, fun, eg. "What's the crack (with ye)?" - "What's up?"	From Scots or Northern English and Irish Gaelic. Often ''craic'' the recently-adopted Irish spelling.
culchie	a farmer, rural dweller	either from "Kiltimagh" (KULL-cha-mah), a town in Co Mayo or from the ''-culture'' in "agriculture".
dander	walk (noun or verb)	Almost always a noun in (Ulster) Scots (''daunder''), its use as a verb is English influence.
duke, jouk, juke	duck, dodge	from Scots ''jouk'', "to dodge".
gob, gub	mouth	Perhaps from Scots ''gab'', but also Scottish Gaelic and Irish ''gob'', mouth.
gutties	plimsolls	Note also the phrase "Give her the guttie" - "Step on it (accelerate)". From ''Gutta-percha, india-rubber'', Also used in Scotland.
hallion	a good-for-nothing	From Scots.
(to have) a hoak, hoke	to dig, to look around in e.g. "Have a wee hoak"	From Scots ''howk'' with Ulster vocalisation to /o/.
jap	to spill	From Scots ''jaup''.
lug	ear	Scots, almost certainly from a Scandinavian source, eg. Norwegian ''lugg'', a tuft of hair.
oxter	armpit	Scots
poke	ice-cream	From Scots ''poke'' a bag or pouch.
scunnered, scundered	embarrassed (esp. Belfast area), annoyed (around Tyrone)	From Scots ''scunner''.
sheugh	Pronounced a small, shallow ditch.	From Scots ''sheuch''.
thole	tolerate, put up with	From Scots, even appears in Gothic texts.
thon	that	From Scots, originally ''yon'', the ''th'' by analogy with ''this'' and ''that''.
throughother	untidy, like "something the cat dragged in"	Throughother was used to describe houses that you had to pass through one room to get to another, which was untidy. And so throughother came to be used to describe anything that is untidy.
wee	little, but also used as a generic diminutive	Cognate with German ''wenig'', meaning "a little", although more closely related to English ''weigh''.

Furthermore, speakers of the dialect conjugate many verbs according to how they are formed in Scots, eg. ''driv'' instead of ''drove'' as the past tense of ''drive'', etc.

See also

★ Ulster Scots language

★ Hiberno-English

★ Ulster Irish

★ West Midlands dialect

References

# Here an Irish film critic describes the nasal Belfast accent that American actress Gillian Anderson put on for the film ''The Mighty Celt'' as "nothing short of the real thing".
# From p 13 of ''Ulster-Scots: A Grammar of the Traditional Written and Spoken Language'', by Robinson, Philip, published 1997.
# BBC Your Voice poll results
# Elmes, Simon ''Talking for Britain: A Journey Through the Nation's Dialects'' (2005) (ISBN 0-14-051562-3)
# See this lexicon of south-west Tyrone for examples
# See [1] for more information on the Belfast dialect.

External links

★ A til Azed - a glossary of Mid-Ulster vocabulary at BBC Northern Ireland

★ South West Tyrone Dialect