Newfoundland English is the group of English dialects native to the island of Newfoundland and parts of southern Labrador in Atlantic Canada, shaped by English, Irish and French settlers who began arriving in the early 17th century and by a major 19th-century wave of Irish immigration drawn overwhelmingly from the southeastern counties of Ireland. The island's geographic isolation and its many scattered outport fishing communities allowed distinctive speech patterns to persist and diverge from mainland Canadian English well into the 20th century. Among its best-known features are th-stopping, which turns that into dat, the Irish-derived after-perfect construction, as in I'm after telling him, and a local vocabulary including b'y, pond and the Indigenous loanword tabanask for toboggan.
Facts
Regionthe island of Newfoundland and parts of southern Labrador, in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, with some presence in Quebec's Basse-Cote-Nord 1 Speaker Communitydescended from English, Irish and French settlers who arrived beginning in the early 17th century, with a major wave of Irish immigration in the early 19th century drawn overwhelmingly, about 85 percent, from the southeastern counties of Ireland; the island's geographic isolation and its scattered fishing communities reinforced distinctive local speech 1 Distinguishing Featuresth-stopping, converting eth and theta to d and t, so that becomes dat; the after-perfect construction borrowed from Irish, as in I'm after telling him for I have just told him; retention of the archaic plural pronoun ye; local vocabulary such as b'y as a form of address, pond for what would elsewhere be called a lake, and the Indigenous-derived tabanask for toboggan 1 Classification
Variety Kind Connections
Descends From
Source Wikipedia: Newfoundland English
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Newfoundland English
Wikimedia FoundationPhonology, Th-stopping section
For example, 'that thing over there' becomes 'dat ting over dere.'
Variety kind, Newfoundland English entity page
Newfoundland English is the group of English dialects native to the island of Newfoundland and parts of southern Labrador in Atlantic Canada, shaped by English, Irish and French settlers who began arriving in the early 17th century and by a major 19th-century wave of Irish immigration drawn overwhelmingly from the southeastern counties of Ireland.
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