Irish accents have captivated me

What a treat to watch a historical drama and hear another dialect of English as a bonus.

I'm thinking of the TV series "Peaky Blinders," now in its third season on Netflix from the BBC.

One of the main characters in the first two episodes is Major Chester Campbell who plays a detective from the Royal Irish Constabulary, sent from Belfast, Northern Ireland to subdue a criminal gang in Birmingham, England (the "Peaky Blinders").  Major Campbell is a character I grew to despise as the series progressed, and I did not mourn when he was sent to his just reward.  I must admit though I did love it every time he came on the scene because of his lyrical, captivating Irish accent, even when he said truly horrible things. 

Major Campbell is played by the actor Sam Neill.  I read that Mr. Neill enlisted the help of two Northern Irish actors, James Nesbitt and Liam Neeson to coach him in using an Ulster Irish accent; however, Mr. Neill had to tone down his accent because the series was going to be distributed for American audiences.  What a shame!  As long as closed captioning remains available, I would have been intrigued by a "full strength" Irish English accent.

See if you can pick out Major Campbell's accent in the following YouTube trailer.

Another connection I have to Irish English is an interest in Irish Gaelic, which I get a daily dose of on the language learning site Duolingo.  Irish English is also known as Hiberno-English, a set of dialects spoken in the different regions of Ireland. And some of the features of Hiberno-English can be traced to Irish Gaelic.

Irish Gaelic does not use separate words for "yes" and "no" when answering questions.  Rather, a Gaelic speaker answers with the verb of the question, using a negative form of the verb if needed. As a result, Hiberno-English speakers use the words "yes" and "no" less frequently than speakers of other English dialects. Examples would be  "Are you leaving soon?  I am." "Is your car fixed?  It isn't."

Another difference in Hiberno-English and Standard English is the use of the verbs "bring" and "take."  (I must admit to finding these words confusing.)  In Standard English, direction is the deciding factor of which verb to use.  Going from here to there?  Use "take."  Coming from there to here?  Use "bring."  In Hiberno-English, "take"  is only used to describe transfer of possession from one person to another.  "Bring" is used in all other circumstance, whether coming or going.

Have you ever wished English had a plural form for "you"?  Irish English has one, based on the influence of Gaelic, which has both a singular you, "tú" and a plural you, "sibh."  The form is "ye" or sometimes "yous" or "youse."  (We Texans are just as inventive as the Irish with our "y'all.")

Great history.  Great language lessons.  Great entertainment.  The series "Peaky Blinders" provides it all. 

Do you need an excuse to watch Netflix?

I have discovered a justification for my somewhat decadent habit of watching British mystery series on Netflix.  If I spend a portion of viewing time analyzing British dialects along with trying to solve puzzles, surely I am furthering my knowledge of Linguistics, wouldn't you think?

"George Gently" is the latest crime series on Netflix that is encouraging me to consider English dialects of Great Britain.  The drama is set in the 1960's in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, located in Northeast England.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne

The two main characters are Detective Inspector George Gently and Detective Sergeant John Bacchus.

Gently  (left) and Bacchus (right)

George Gently is from London, but John Bacchus is a local boy who speaks a dialect of English called Geordie, especially when he is interviewing townspeople or speaking informally. Sometimes George has to rely on John for a translation of Geordie into Standard English in order to proceed with the investigation. I enjoy both characters; however, Bacchus' unusual accent adds to his charm (or could it be his Beatles-style haircut?)

The first difference I noticed in Geordie dialect was the use of rising intonation, with the speaker's voice going up at the end of sentences. This feature remindes me of melodic Scottish English, which I look forward to hearing when travels take me to Scotland.

I began to notice special vocabulary words used by Bacchus and other local residents, such as "nowt" (rhymes with "out') for the standard "nothing."  A female character on last night's show told Gently she had lost everything - her husband and her means of support - and now she had "nowt." And she was expecting a "bairn" (baby). Bacchus often uses a term of endearment, "pet" when addressing females (especially attractive ones!). I suppose "pet" would translate to "hon" or "honey" in Texas dialect.

The most striking feature of Geordian grammar I have observed so far is the use of the plural pronoun "us" in place of the singular pronoun "me" when referring to oneself.  John had made an illegal entry into a farmhouse to secure evidence when a young man arrived on a motorcycle and discovered his presence.  John later confesses to Gently, "They saw us in the house."  When I discussed the scene with my fellow Netflix-watcher and husband, Wayne, he said that he couldn't figure out why John had said "us." He thought maybe John was referring to the entire investigation. Amazing how one small word can lead our minds down different paths.

Although the Geordie dialect was virtually banned on British television until the 1960's and 1970's, a 2008 newspaper survey by The Scotsman found it to be "the most attractive in England."  And I would have to agree.

I look forward to spending more quality time watching BBC programs and learning more about British dialects.  And thank goodness for closed captioning to help me in my research!

Finding New Words in Old Books

Do you ever find yourself bored with using the same old words and expressions?  I do.  One of the joys of teaching a recent short course in "Golden Age Mysteries" was discovering words and expressions not common to modern American English. 

The Golden Age of Mystery writing occurred approximately between the two world wars of the 20th century, so the language used by Golden Age writers is almost a century old.  In these writings, language change as a gradual process is readily observable; after all, we can still read old mysteries with ease. But a few delightful words and expressions pop up in the writing that remind me that I am reading British literature of the early 20th century. And I may decide to incorporate some new ways of speaking into my modern American English, just for the novelty of it.

"Beastly."  What a potent adjective to describe our dislike of something or someone.  In Edgar Wallace's The Daffodil Mystery, Thornton Lyne is trying to seduce Odette Rider by referring to his poetry book.  "Most of it was written before I came into this beastly shop...." I may find "beastly" useful in complaining about the very unpleasant spring dust storms in my home town, and, even more important,  the expression may satisfy my need to use a stronger, less ladylike adjective.

"Rotten little bounder." Agatha Christie, in her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles,"   has John Cavendish so describe Alfred Inglethorp, an interloper who has married John's wealthy seventy year old stepmother.  Surely I can use "rotten little bounder" often to describe someone in my life who has done something I don't approve of.

"Peckish."  Now that is a word I'm sure I will use to describe my snacking habit near bedtime.  The memorable character Mr. Lugg in Margery Allingham's Look to the Lady offers food to Val Gyrth, a down and out young man, adding, "I always get peckish about this time o'night myself." 

"Sacked."  A strong alternative to "fired from a job."   Author Anthony Berkeley in Trial and Error has Ferrers tell Todhunter how morale is down in his publishing company because of many recent dismissals of personnel.  "Sacked!  Poor old Ogilvie's been sacked, to put it frankly...,"  And Todhunter is so impressed that he plans a murder! 

"Pinch."  A descriptive word for the crime of stealing.  "Pilfer" would be a synonym.  Dorothy L. Sayers makes humorous use of multiple meanings of pinch by having Pym's Advertising Agency reject the advertising slogan to accompany the image of a girl moving a cushion in a train compartment with the warning, "Don't let them pinch your seat." 

Language offers infinite possibilities to express ourselves in speaking and writing.  Why should we be confined to language of our present decade?  Creative use of language, drawing from many sources (yes, even slang) , encourages our minds to travel to new places and different eras.

The X in Mexico

La Equis

"La Equis" (the X) is a  public art project located in Ciudad Juárez, México.  The gigantic, almost 200 feet tall red X is visible for miles around.  Recently, my husband Wayne and I discussed the X as we were driving on the highway that borders our home town of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez. What was the significance of the X, we wondered?  And why is the name of our southern neighbor, Mexico, spelled with an "x" in the middle that is pronounced with the sound of the Spanish  "j"?  I distinctly remembered seeing "México" spelled  as "Méjico" sometime in my studies of the Spanish language.  I decided to investigate.

"La Equis" is brimming with artistic symbolism.  It was created in 2013 by Sebastián, an artist from Chihuahua, Mexico. The sculpture commemorates the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Chamizal Treaty, hailed as a model of international cooperation when in 1963 the United States returned a portion of land to Mexico.  The ownership of the land had been under dispute because of erratic changes in the path of the Rio Grande River. 

Even more symbolism can be read into this enormous red structure.  The population of Mexico is a fusion, or cross of Spanish and indigenous roots.  The fusion of the Christian cross and an Aztec religious symbol can also be imagined.  

But how did the letter "x" end up in the name of the country?  The answer is that Benito Juárez,

Benito Juárez

the first indigenous president of Mexico, changed the spelling of his country's name in the late 1800's to more accurately depict the roots of the Mexican people. And here is where the story gets complicated linguistically.

The "x"in Old Spanish represented a sound similar to an English "sh." Later, the sound evolved into a harder sound now usually represented by the Spanish letter "j" ( somewhat similar to an English "h"). But the letter "x" has been retained in certain words, especially those of foreign or indigenous roots, such as México (Aztec), Oaxaca (Nahuatl) and Texas (Caddo).

So where have I seen "Méjico," written with the letter "j" instead of an "x"?  Probably in writings from Spain, where the Royal Academy of Language gives the "j" spelling as the first spelling. 

Public art and linguistic history have combined in "La Equis" to offer a memorable symbol of the birth of Mexico, a New World nation.

Are you frustrated with language learning?

I have been feeling a little frustrated recently about language learning.  Do you know the sensation? You really want to make progress in a certain language, but it is just not happening for you.

Irish Gaelic is the language that is currently making me chew my fingernails when I sit down at the computer. Irish is the only foreign language I have studied that is not in the Romance family of languages.  And I chose Irish on purpose for that very reason - I wanted a challenge.  And did I ever get what I asked for!

Currently I am trying to acquire Irish Gaelic on two different programs. Let's call them Program 1 and Program 2. Both are web-based.  I'm not going to slander them, because both programs are well formulated and well presented.  But the fact that I am very frustrated doing Program 2 leads me to analyze what's going wrong for me personally. The answer may lie in the language skills that each program chooses to present first.

The traditional language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing are well known.

Although all four language skills can be interrelated, each skill has unique aspects as well.   Two of the most sought after language skills are listening and speaking, you know, so you can actually have a face-to-face conversation with someone.  The reading and writing skills are important for such mundane communication as text messages or emails, and also, of course, for reading and writing great literature.

One of the many debates in the field of language acquisition is which skill or skills to learn first.  Or should there be a first skill?  Should all skills be learned simultaneously?

Program 1, which I have been doing daily in Irish for about a year now, has yet to require me to speak Irish.  I have to read Irish, write Irish, and translate Irish, but I have not yet been asked to speak Irish. I know from working in other languages in the same program that after you reach a certain level, questions that require an oral response to be recorded are included. But a whole year without speaking?  There may be a method to their madness.

Program 2, which I have been doing for only several weeks, almost immediately required that I listen to phrases, repeat them, and then formulate my own sentences.  And I couldn't do it!  After a few minutes, I clicked off the computer and walked away, feeling very guilty.  Sound familiar?

Although the perfect language learning experience has yet to be discovered, one well-known approach is to allow learners to have a "Silent Period," during which language is presented for understanding, but no immediate response is required.

When working with Program 2, I would have enjoyed a more gradual introduction to Irish, where I could concentrate on understanding what was being said, rather than immediately being asked to perform all the tasks that speaking requires - remembering the vocabulary, arranging the words in the right order, and making the correct sounds, some of them familiar and others not.  Whew!  No wonder we language learners tear our hair out!

Now that I have ranted and raved, I may log on to Program 2 one more time, just to see if it caught me in a bad mood last time around.  But I am really looking forward to working in Irish in Program 1 again, where I can relax and take my time with the language.  But I can't order a Guinness in Dublin in Irish as yet!

   

Why I study languages I may never speak

Studying World Languages

The Holy Grail of language acquisition is the ability to speak another language.  And I have no quarrel with that.  Communicating in a new language is, I think, pretty thrilling.

But recently I was questioning why I continue to study Irish Gaelic, faithfully devoting time to it each and every day.

Maybe our family travels will take me to Ireland in the near future. Maybe I will be able to read a sign or two in the Dublin Airport.  Or maybe I will understand a snatch of conversation as I crowd in with other tourists to view the Book of Kells at Trinity University.

But my true motivation in studying Irish Gaelic is none of the above.  The truth is I like the effect that even a small amount of this Celtic language has on my brain.  Let me explain.  My daily routine is to practice four languages on my favorite web-based language program, Duolingo.

Duolingo Owl

When I practice French, Portuguese, and Spanish, which are all Latin-based languages that I have studied formally, I can answer Duolingo's questions pretty much on automatic pilot.  Sometimes I even daydream and make silly typing mistakes.  But I always leave Irish Gaelic practice to the end, because I know this language will require me to actually THINK.

The first challenge is the structure of the Irish sentence.  After years of thinking of a normal English sentence as a subject, a verb, and an object, in that order, I have to make a conscious effort to construct an Irish sentence with a verb, a subject, and an object, in that order.

English:  He loses his cat every night.

Irish (literal) Loses he his cat every night. (Cailleann sé a chat gach oiche.)

And this small change is not as easy to internalize as one might think. I can't tell you how many times I have been bleeped by the Duolingo Owl for an incorrect response by failing to put the verb first in the Irish sentence.

The same Irish sentence (Cailleann sé a chat gach oiche)  also presents another brain challenge - keeping languages straight in the mind.  The third Irish word, "a," meaning "his" is the same word as a word very familiar to me in Portuguese - "the" as in a gata- the cat. So Duolingo has another chance to bleep me for mistranslating "his," a possessive pronoun for the definite article "the."

An even bigger brain challenge in Irish that is new to me is the "prepositional pronoun," that is, a combination of a preposition and a pronoun.  An example is uaithi, meaning "on her." My mind is still trying to cope with the Irish translation of "She wants food" as Tá bia uaithi, literally, "food is on her."

One hears much talk these days about the importance of keeping one's brain active and flexible. Crosswords I enjoy; Sudoku I don't; but analyzing other languages, even if I never achieve fluency, makes my brain add new pieces of learning.  And that must be doing something positive for my brain health.

         

Musings on Language Errors

Do you want to be corrected when you are speaking a foreign language?  If I ask a group of adult language learners that same question, the majority will vote yes for receiving correction.  And many learners are absolutely adamant that they need and want correction. How else will they ever learn to produce error free speech, they plead. It sounds so logical, doesn't it? Make a mistake, get corrected, say everything right the next time.  Step 1, step 2, step 3. Too bad learning a foreign language is not that straightforward.

Here is the argument against error correction.

When you are participating in a conversation in a foreign language, your mind is extremely busy, trying to pronounce sounds, choose words, and put phrases and sentences together.  Your goal is to communicate meaning.  If someone (generally with the best of intentions) corrects your language, in most cases your mind cannot process the information.  Your personal grammar making machine located in your mind can't absorb the information quickly enough to make your language more correct in the future.

If you are still with me, thinking through this thorny issue, the next logical question is, "Okay, if correcting my language errors does not lead to a more accepted version, how will I ever improve my language skills?" And most people, given the choice, really do want to speak more correctly.  The solution is for the learner to listen to and read enough standard language that the brain begins to compare your evolving second language with the more standard pronunciation, word choice, and phrase and sentence structure of native speakers.  Complicated?  Not really,  Children learn their first language by this method all the time.

Now, that being said, I was reflecting recently about the role of error correction in my favorite online language learning program, Duolingo. When I make an error, Duolingo definitely brings it to my attention by a bleeping sound, an X , and the correct solution.

And I believe that I do indeed profit from the correction of my errors, because when I'm given another chance by the patient computer program, I often can produce the correct response. That realization led me to consider the difference between language learning on Duolingo and face-to-face conversations.  

The first difference that comes to mind is that on Duolingo, I am not hurried.  I can carefully consider my error, read other people's comments about the question, or even defend my answer by reporting a problem to Duolingo.  Therefore, I can internalize the information much better than in a conversational exchange where I have to consider the presence of another person, keep the conversation going, and even possibly overcome my embarrassment at having made the error. After all, Duolingo doesn't care if I make an error; it just rewards me for getting the right answer by making a cheerful sound and moving a bar forward so that I can earn points.

My conclusion is that many kinds of language experiences are valuable for language acquisition, but the experiences call for different language learning techniques.  As for me, I'll continue to remind my live conversation partners that I don't want to be corrected, just understood.  But I'm looking forward to conquering some obscure grammar rules on Duolingo by taking its corrections to heart.