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You can take your 'y'alls', 'baseds', 'innits', 'yeah, nahs' and chuck em in the bin. Irish-English (Hiberno-English) is more poetic, more humorous, more beautiful than any other form of English.
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Only in Ireland can you use the phrase “ah sure jaysus, you know yourself, like” and it be perfectly acceptable.
Ive never really fully comprehended what it exactly means. Does it come from "you know (how it is) yourself"?
‘is it what it is’ or ‘what can ya do’ basically
This is it..
Shur you know yourself
Irish uses reflexive verbs more than English. For people who don't know, they're verbs that you have to do to someone. You don't say I wash me, you wash yourself. If you have an accident you say "I hurt myself". In Irish when you're addressing someone it's very common to say yourself instead of just you. "Oh it's you!" becomes, "Ó tú féin atá ann!". Gets brought back across to English as "It's yourself so it is!" So instead of just, "Ah, you know!" which can be used in context to mean a few things in English- like, an American would probably understand that to mean "same old, same old", or something along those lines- but here we add the self just because of the influence of the Irish language.
You know yourself, sure
Isn't it himself
Himself and myself were out there the other day
None of them really make much sense without the influence of Irish.
Wow......nicely explained, it makes so much more sense to me now
Ah, 'tis yourself!
Fascinating! Thanks for explaining!
It's exactly what it says on the tin.
"[I don't need to elaborate because] you know yourself"
Yes
Ah go on, go on,
Also completely normal in Newfoundland!
Welcome to the rock where we come from away
Ah but sure, you know like, isn't Newfoundland only just the Waterford of the Americas? It shouldn't really bend my mind so much to hear your accents.
I'd like to understand how it stayed so in tact. I live a province over now in Nova Scotia and I say things thst they don't understand on a regular basis. How did they lose it all and we kept it? I'm sure studies have been done haha.
One that gets all the mainlanders is if you ask them "What's after happening now?"
I'd guess it's just a case of geographical isolation and them not mixing with other accents as a result.
That said, I haven't even the vaguest of historical knowledge, fact or detail to base that on, but fuck it, this is Reddit.
I recommend checking out Michael Fortune/folklore.ie on Facebook. He's an Irish folklorist (obviously) from Wexford and has made and continues to make many trips to Newfoundland, specifically Branch, to research and document the Newfie Irish.
Wexford I believe, not Waterford 😉 (apparently it was all Wexford fishermen who settled there. At least according to folklore.ie)
Equally there are phrases you could hear in any other country that are pretty unique to that place so let’s not fellate each other just yet.
Expressing shock and/or doubt at someone's achievement.
"Did he fuck..."
"He did in his hole" is my favorite version of this.
My favourite example of this ever was the gift grub where Shane Ross is cluelessly trying to negotiate with the bus union.
"He said he would call off the strike!"
"Oh really? What did he say exactly?"
"Well, I asked him to and he said, 'I will, yeah!'"
Ireland is the one place in the world where the weather can be "Fierce mild"
Soft day means it’s raining
wicked mild so it is
I always see Dylan Moran "AH WOULD YA LOOK, IT'S FIERCE MILD".
Can't remember exactly what stand up it's from(Monster, maybe), but he cracks me up with that.
There's a fierce aul bite in the cold
The Hiberno-English article on Wikipedia is a great read. Lots of bits in our way of speaking I assumed was “normal”, or more widely used.
“I’m after losing my keys” is one.
Just gave it a browse. I liked how Hiberno-English is the dialect with the one of the least usage of ‘Yes’ and ‘No’
We tend to repeat the verb used in the question in the positive or negative instead.
Eg “Are you coming?” “I am/I’m not”
Might explain why I find it so hard to say no to people.
This has certainly a route in our Irish heritage.
This is actually an influence of Gaeilge on Hiberno-english!
“Táim tar éis an dinnéar a dhéanamh” “I’m after making dinner”
Yeah, as an American when I say "I'm after" it means "I'm looking for", but I learned living in Ireland that it literally meant I am after doing this. Love that little expression.
Differences in dialects are amazing. In the US, I was going to the cinema, and asked a bunch of people "Are you queueing?". Had to repeat it several times - thought I was going mad - before I said "Is this the line?"
I was just as surprised when my friend from New York said she was waiting on line for the theatre, instead of in line. I'm still finding new differences in dialects all the time.
So I said to him says I, I says
“Colm, this is no day for a do.”
They wanted to borrow the oul van
“Colm, they didn’t borrow your van! They STOLE your van!”
Sez I to him, sez he to me, sez I to meself....
“Now in a minute” is something we say that baffles my non Irish mate. He is always like “which is it?”
"Yeah, I'll do it now!"
Drivws my foreign girlfriend mental when I haven't done anything for an hour
"Didn't I say I'll do it now?"
Are you doing it or not?
Yeah, no I am.
I will, yeah
ah now well if you're gonna be like that I'll just do it meself.
Tell him it means imminently
For me it means that I will probably forget about but I do intend on getting up in the next 15 mins and doing it. I might do it. Get off my back.
Perfect answer 👌
Even better tell him it means presently which means soon-now
Yet still indeterminate
'now' is quite a popular word for not actually meaning 'now' in multiple languages.
The South Africans are quite fond of using "I'll do it just now" - actually meaning that it might happen later, or might not.
Further up the same continent where Swahili is used, the word 'sasa' means now, but rarely really means it, which is why the modifier 'sasa hivi' can be used, to change the meaning from 'now, but not really now, maybe later' to 'this particular now, right now, and not some other now thats actually quite a way off'
Thankyou for coming to my TED talk.
I have been educated on the South African ways. It’s now, now now and now now now. Each additional now makes the actual time closer. So now is like later on today, now now is in about 15 mins and now now now being right now.
I remember hearing of some european who worked in africa and eventually agreed to use “now now” instead of just “now” when they actually wanted it now. (“I need that now” vs “I need that now now”)
I'm just after having a lovely cup of tea.
Or saying "yeah, no, I'm grand thanks". Had waiters be like "so was that a yes or a no?"
“I’m after doing that” 😂 “I’m after hanging out the washing”
I grew up in Nova Scotia, and my Irish college roommate and I devised the following system:
“Now” meant “yeah in a bit”
“A-nis” meant “actually now”
It worked well enough, that and the buying yourself out of your dishwashing nights with beer.
You probably already know this but A-nis comes from the Irish Anois (a-nish) which means now.
Aye, she speaks Irish Gaeilege and I speak broken Scottish Gàidhlig. A-nis is the same in both.
We actually slowly created a weird pidgin language that confused and annoyed the other roommates. We called it “craicish”.
Ye is my favourite irishism.
You singular and you plural? Feck off, we can fix this for ye
I have no idea why it isn't "official" english when it's one of my most top ten useful words and makes total sense.
I had never heard it used until i came to Ireland in 98
It is. It's just the older (Elizabethan) version and we kept it in current usage.
Except for us Dubs, who went with yiz/youse/yizzer instead.
I say ye/ye're all the time now, but I was contaminated by 4 years in Galway for college 😉
Sure look
Isn't that it.
Sin an méid.
So it is.
It’s funny reading these. You really have to snap your brain out of understanding and read them really literally, to get why other people wouldn’t understand them. It takes a bit of work!
This is it
You know yourself
Come here, g'way.
Geddawayoutada'
Gidupoudaaaa
Howyagettinon?
Ah stop.
What are ya like
So I turned around to her and said c'mere, gwan outta dat.
This is it
That's more of it now
Grand so. When I heard this the first time I was like "so...?"