In Scotland Wales and Ireland (UK bit)

Jazz, the dialects of Scots vary so much because of the different linguistic influences of the regions. In the north, they had previously been Pictish speakers, then Gaelic before they spoke Scots, with a heavy Old Norse influence (i8E314 is right in their observation above). This made their Doric dialect very different from the Lallans dialect in the south, e.g. Edinburgh, where the previous language was Cumbric, Gaelic was at least a second language for many, so that when Old English came along it was rapidly heavily flavoured with words from these languages, as well as Dutch, Flemish, and French due to our trading alliances with Northern Europe. This is where Scots diverged from Old English and went on to evolve in its own, unique way.

Some maintain that Doric should be considered a separate language from other dialects, but I'm not convinced the differences are sufficient to justify it.

There are also distinct Shetlandic and Orkney dialects who previously spoke Norn, as well as a south-west dialect where they previously spoke Cumbric and Galwegian Gaelic, a very distinct Gaelic dialect that was almost another language in itself.

The last branch of Scots is Ulster Scots, sometimes called 'Ullans', which came about with the influx of Scots speakers to Northern Ireland during the plantations, and again evolved in its own way.

Irish slaves myth debunked here by Liam Hogan. It's a favourite myth of white supremacists and its alarming how it's making its way into the mainstream.

Penal Laws were abolished by the Gov of Ireland Act? Really? Which ones? Not so sure about that...

O'Connell's great success was with Emancipation in 1829. Which repealed the most substantive remaining Penal Laws. After that he turned his attention to repeal of the Act of Union (which is not a Penal Law) - that's what he spent the most of the rest of his life campaigning for.

Oh God, the Irish slaves thing. A lot of rubbish is spoken on that subject.

There's a guy called Liam Hogan who has debunked a lot of the 'Irish slaves' myth.

MaudGonneMad

There were no Irish slaves. There were convicts and indentured servants, not slaves.

The Irish slave trade began when 30,000 Irish prisoners were sold as slaves to the New World. The King James I Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies. By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves. Ireland was the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually Irish and from there (also) comes the term Black Irish

And the penal laws date from the 1600s, not the 1800s - in fact they were largely repealed by the time of Catholic Emancipation in 1829.

The Penal Laws were almost completely eliminated with the Government of Ireland Act 1920. Daniel O'Connell (who died in 1847) Spent most of his life fighting and campaigning against the Penal Laws.

People from Shetland sound more Scandinavian than Scottish.

There were no Irish slaves. There were convicts and indentured servants, not slaves.

And the penal laws date from the 1600s, not the 1800s - in fact they were largely repealed by the time of Catholic Emancipation in 1829.

i8E314

I think those with the Doyle surname might disagree with the American seeing as they are the black Irish by name.

Black Irish was also a term for those Irish shipped off in Penal Ships as punishment by the British, to be slaves, for the supposed crimes they commited. Or the black Irish immigrants who left during the Black47 or the Black Irish planters who settled in Ulster and the term Black is still used as an insult to them (as in "he's as black as yer boot" to describe someone from Scottish descent whose ancestors were settlers. )

It's a pity seeing as those Irish who emigrated in America were called "Black Irish" by the "native" American population at the time. Maybe the poster who is ignorant of her history and not you..................

steviebuns that sounds interesting, the Quine for women, bears some similarity to Kvinde (Danish for woman, pronounced something like kveenuh). I love languages. [nerd]

Exactly, nobody can know everything!

i was once severely reprimanded by an American poster for not knowing that Irish were not classified as white back, I don't know, 200 years ago. I was being very literal in my response to that statement of hers, saying what do you mean, the Irish are amongst the palest people in the World? and she told me I was ignorant of my country's history. But it wasn't really, it was another country's perception of its poor immigrants.
Anyway, i remember feeling that the reason I didn't know was because nobody had ever told me/taught me, and now that somebody had told me, I knew it. So please don't make me feel ignorant

JazzAnnNonMouse the Orange Order are a sectarian group who base their beliefs on religion more than anything else. Catholics are not allowed to join, members are not allowed to marry Catholics and I know of Orange men invited to Catholic weddings and who RSVPed no because they aren't allowed to associate with Catholics or set foot in Catholic Churches.

They (not all of them) use the 12th of July as a "bigotfest" to impose their hatred on the Catholic (and therefore for them) Nationalist community. Including stopping outside Catholic Churches and areas playing sectarian songs and antagonising the Catholic Community. Have a google of the Garvaghy Road protests and riots from the 1990's and more recently the Ardoyne protests from 2013 (which has cost the taxpayer, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish and British over £21 million ). You'll also see how they burn effigies of Catholics, suicide victims, the Pope and of a 16 murder victim of sectarian violence Michael McIlveen (as far as I remember this effigy was on a bonfire in close proximity to the McIlveen family home).

Be careful. You could also be flamed by an "important" Loyalist campaigner for not knowing your history. The same campaigner who wasted police and public resources when he saw a flag flying outside a primary school and claimed said school was an "IRA training camp" because of the flag

Pity said school was part of a EU cultural project and said flag was not the Irish Tricolour but the Italian Flag.....................................

ah yes the ITV weather. I know people who stopped watching the ITV weather because they don't draw the border on the map of Ireland

I must admit that my gast was very much flabbered at a British person not knowing which region of Ireland was part of the UK.

Top tip: It's written on the cover of your passport

But the most interesting thing on the thread to me was your ignorance.

I have a pretty good understanding of what I don't know, but thanks for your concern.

I live in NI and have a good understanding of the issues surrounding the Irish language and some of the history behind why people choose the names they do.

My Grandmother was also one of the last native speakers of her almost dead language.

So what I learned from this thread is that there maybe an issue with the coverage given to more recent British and Irish history and geography in schools and just in general.

treaclesoda

Exactly, the same ones who still cry in the fetal position at the end of 'stormont I' no doubt, when the commoners knew their place and had no rightsuch, gerrymandering was the normalisation and you could be interned on a rumour.

Jazz There were regional dialects /sublanguages for each county in other news ireland and now the standard is donegal irish.

Orange heritage is the 'heritage' of those who identify with the orange order in Ireland, the orange order is present all over the island but a minority in the 6 counties seem to think that membership to the orange order means that they are able to offend, disrespect and do what they want, where they want. They are usually uneducated people (no offence to those who actually know their history) and completely ignore the fact that modern day republicanism was founded by protestants, who were seen as 'dissenters' by the British government and therfore fell foul of the penal laws which banned themy from voting, owning property etc

Don't worry I'll spend the rest of the day coming to terms with feeling fine that people who live in the same country as me have no idea that I actually live in the same country as them.

It is something I do find a little bit ironic about northern Irish unionism, it's so loud proud and British, there are people prepared to give their lives to be part of the U.K. and yet the rest of the union can barely remember they exist.

Or am I not allowed to say that because I'm late to the thread 😏

I don't know about northern Irish as a particular type of the Irish language, as I am not knowledgeable enough on the Irish language.

But on the language as a whole, there is a big push to have Ulster Scots recognised as an actual language, rather than just a dialect. But again a lot of that could well be policital i.e. 'well they have a language, so we need one as well'.

Unfortunately due to our grim history, even our very language and culture become loaded with politics, instead of just 'ooh, this is interesting, wouldn't it be lovely if everyone learnt about the history of how we speak here'.

I can be completely shocked by your lack of knowledge about your own country if I want to be, it's probably not your fault but that doesn't make it less WTF.