1 - Introduction

Summary

The aim of the present book

The English language has existed in Ireland since the late Middle Ages and has experienced phases of prosperity and decline during some 800 years. Even a cursory glance reveals that English in Ireland involves many subtypes, traceable to the origin of those settlers who carried English to the country. This is most obvious in the linguistic and political division between the north and south. However, the linguistic diversity within Ireland is much more subtle than this basic split suggests. Ulster shows major differences in varieties, above all that between Ulster Scots and Ulster English (see chapter 3). The south of the country has a long-standing distinction between forms of English spoken on the east coast (the oldest in the country) and those found to the south and west, which show greater evidence of the shift from Irish to English which largely took place in the last 300 years or so.

For the development of English at locations outside Europe, varieties spoken in Ireland are of importance as many of England's former colonies were populated by deportees and settlers from Ireland who provided input to incipient forms of English at overseas locations. This lasted from the early seventeenth century in the Caribbean to the nineteenth century in the United States, Canada and the southern hemisphere. This diffusion of Irish English has been considered by many linguists as relevant to the genesis of overseas varieties (see Rickford 1986 as a typical example) and is given separate treatment in chapter 6.