Last year I was on a beach on the Beara peninsula of West Cork. Until recently, the local accent was regarded as particularly strong. Beside me were two women speaking in the local dialect. Further away was a group of children, who I assumed were from Dublin. Then one of the women called them and I realised that the children were in fact local. Within one generation, the local speech had been replaced by the metropolitan variety.
A depressing quotation from a very interesting essay on the decline of Hiberno-English.
As the essay points out, the decline of the Irish language is a familiar lament, but the loss of Hiberno-English is rarely mentioned. However, I'm increasingly worried about this as well. I'm currently reading a novel written in 2000, by an Irish writer born in 1926. It's full of dialect words and turns of speech which are already archaic.
I think everyone is obliged to push against cultural homogenization however they can. Personally I have started peppering my everyday speech with Irish language words. It's a bit awkward and I've only made a tentative start, but I'm determined to keep it up.
I'm sick of fatalism. I think everyone should be doing something. Perhaps not to do with the Irish language, or Hiberno-English, but with the protection and promoting of some sort of endangered tradition. Learn and sing an old song, revive an old game, observe a lapsed holiday such as Oak Apple Day or St. John's Eve, do something.
And if you are already doing something (and you probably are)...well done!
Are the various colloquialisms in Yeats poetry considered to be Hibernian English?
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to think of colloquialisms in Yeats, but I can't! I think he was always thinking of an international audience, for all his use of Irish myth and material. I might be wrong. Interesting question.
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