The linguistic situation in Ireland over the last few centuries is examined from the rise of Irish dialects of English to the present. Four aspects of this history are examined: factors affecting the emergence of Hiberno-English dialects beginning in the seventeenth century, including opportunity for learning English, patterns in literacy and…

A study examines the language contact phenomenon of Irish in which a native morpheme combines with a borrowed morpheme that has become, over time, fully assimilated. One variety of this blending in Gaeltacht Irish is the substitution of "-eir" for the English-bound "-er/-ar/-or," which is then combined with nativized borrowed…

This paper examines the written use of the "be after V-ing" construction since the reintroduction of English into Ireland. Information comes from publications beginning in 1670, including 193 works by 87 authors providing 1,316 tokens of the construction. Results support Filppula's (1999) view of historical change in the use of this…

Possible origins for the use of "sorrow" as a negation in Hiberno-English are considered. Much of the evidence examined here comes from English literature. It is concluded that the uses of "sorrow" as negator and as euphemism probably reflect Celtic substrate influence. Structural evidence indicates that "sorrow"…