The Irish and the definite article

 “Of course you’re bound to have the cough when you live in Limerick because this is the capital city of the weak chest and the weak chest leads to the consumption.”

—Angela’s Ashes

One of the most striking feature of Hiberno-English – or Irish English depending on your terminological preferences – is the use of the definite article, the “the”, if you will. While some varieties of English use “a” and “the” with noun phrases to expres quantity, countability and familiarity, Hiberno-English overwhelmingly marks with the definite article.

Thus you get a diverse range of sentences such as:

  • I had a bout of the covid recently
  • Where are the two of them?
  • He’s home for the Easter.
  • She likes the life in Dublin
  • Do you like milk in the tea?

The prevalence of the word “the” in Hiberno-English is due to the long development period of this variety of English in the multilingual landscape of Ireland. The other language spoken widely in Ireland is Irish: a Celtic language that has only the one article. Across centuries, Hiberno-English has developed many unique syntactic patterns that reflect the centuries of speakers who had Irish on the brain.

And while these uses of the definite article are often referred to as “non-standard” or “idiosyncratic”, or even as being “overused”, they are actually products of systemic Hiberno-English grammar, equal to any taught in books. So “I’ll ask the Ma” and “the Sister Beatrice” are not merely quirks of language, they convey specific and nuanced meaning.

@mathewssonya

#stitch with @Sarah Moran Irish English is a term that comes in line with other global Englishes. Also the history of the term hiberno english is colonial and sad. So scholars say Irish English these days, but hiberno english is still in common parlance. #hibernoenglish #irishenglish #definitearticle #globalenglish #irish #ireland #allenglishisgoodenglish

♬ original sound – Sonya