Yola dialect - WikiHQ

Yola, more commonly and historically the Forth and Bargy dialect, is an extinct dialect of the Middle English language once spoken in the baronies of Forth and Bargy in County Wexford, Ireland. As such, it was probably similar to the Fingallian dialect of the Fingal area. Both became functionally extinct in the 19th century when they were replaced by modern Hiberno-English. The word means in the dialect. In modern times, there have been efforts to revive the dialect.

thumb|Yola hut refurbished in [[Tagoat, County Wexford, Ireland]]

History

Origins

The dialect was spoken in County Wexford, particularly in the baronies of Forth and Bargy. This was the first area English speakers came to in the Norman invasion of Ireland, supporting the theory that it evolved from the Middle English introduced in that period. As such it is thought to have been similar to Fingallian, which was spoken in the Fingal region north of Dublin. Middle English, the mother tongue of the "Old English" community, was widespread throughout southeastern Ireland until the 14th century; as the Old English were increasingly assimilated into Irish culture, their original language was gradually displaced through Gaelicisation. After this point, Yola and Fingallian were the only attested relicts of this original form of English.

Modern English was widely introduced by British colonists during and after the 17th century, forming the basis for the modern Hiberno-English of Ireland. The new varieties were notably distinct from the surviving relict dialects.

Use after the mid-19th century

Though the Forth and Bargy dialect ceased to be used as a means of daily communication after the mid-19th century, it continued to see significant usage as a liturgical language, and some personal usage within the linguist community of Ireland, such as Kathleen Browne's letter to Ireland dated to 10 April 1893. Browne was a fluent Yola speaker and wrote a number of articles including "The Ancient Dialect of the Baronies of Forth and Bargy" in 1927. In 1952 N.A. Hudlestone observed that inhabitants of the area still continued to use some of Yola vocabulary and phrases

County Wexford native Paddy Berry is noted for his condensed performances of the piece "A Yola Zong", which he has performed for various recordings, the latest of which was in 2017. Various Yola rhymes, passed down from generation to generation, can be heard spoken by a Wexford woman in a documentary recorded in 1969 on the present usage and rememberers of Yola in the former baronies of Forth and Bargy.

Yola Farmstead, a community-operated reenactment of a Forth and Bargy village as it would have been during the 18th century, delivered a speech and performance of a song in Yola at their opening ceremony, featured Yola phrases in their advertisements, and hosted events where participants could learn some of the dialect from linguists and other experts on it. The Yola Farmstead also hosted a memorial event dedicated to Jack Devereux of the Kilmore Choir, which once used Yola extensively in their Christmas services. Devereux was a preservationist of, and well-versed in, Yola; locals considered him to be an expert on the dialect, and a rendition of the Lord's Prayer translated into Yola was read at his memorial.

The Yola Farm has since closed down but since 2021 there have been efforts to reopen it. Wikitongues also has a section dedicated to Yola on its website which hosts language documentation and revitalization resources.

Phonology

As in the Dutch language, in southwestern varieties of English and (to a lesser extent) in German, most voiceless fricatives in Yola became voiced. The Middle English vowels are well-preserved, having only partially and sporadically undergone the changes associated with the Great Vowel Shift.

One striking characteristic of Yola was that stress shifted to the second syllable of words in many instances: "morsel", "hatchet", "dinner", "reader", "wedding", etc.

Orthography

An exact spelling system for Yola has never been codified, beyond general trends listed in Jacob Poole's writings. Most of the spellings are meant as comparisons to standard English ones of his day and the pronunciations are largely reconstructed. The following are listed here:

{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible"

|+Yola orthography

!Yola spelling

!Phoneme (IPA)

!Example

!Notes

|, (unstressed)

| "angered", "below"

!aa

| "any"

!ai, aai, ay, aay

| "barrel"

!au, aau, aw, aaw

| "care"

| "brain"

|, (before )

| "comfort", "lace"

|soft c used mainly in analogies to English words

!ch

| "chough"

|also used for

| "dead"

!dh

| "thunder"

|, (unstressed)

| "ass, donkey", "else"

|silent at the end of a word, but not in unstressed syllables

!ea

| "eel"

!ee

| "iron"

!ei, eei, ey, eey

| "just now"

!eou, eow

| "cow"

!eu, ew

| "few"

|, (word-initial)

| "fleece"

|, (before )

| "grace", "bridge"

|soft g used mainly in analogies to English words

!gh

|, (word-initial)

| "faith", "pranks"

|never silent

possibly also

| "horn"

|silent in consonant clusters not listed here

| "in"

!ie

|, (word-final)

| "eyes", "where"

| "judge"

| "cover"

!kh

| "to teach"

|also used for

| "lace"

| "meadow"

| "next"

| "of"

|rarely used alone

!oa, o...e

| "one"

!oee

| "joy"

!oo

| "our"

!ou, oou

| "gun"

!ow

| "hoe (gardening tool)"

| "pray"

!ph

| "when"

|used mainly as an analogy to English words spelt with or

!qu

| "quern"

|used mainly as an analogy to English words spelt with

| "rouse"

|, (word-initial)

{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible"

|+ Yola personal pronouns

! rowspan="3" |

!colspan="2"| 1st Person !! colspan="2" | 2nd Person

! colspan="4" |3rd Person

! rowspan="2" | Singular !! rowspan="2" | Plural !! rowspan="2" | Singular Informal !! rowspan="2" | Plural/ Singular Formal

! colspan="3" |Singular!! rowspan="2" | Plural

!Feminine

!Masculine

!Inanimate

! Nominative

| || || || || || || ||

! Oblique

| || || || || || || ||

! Genitive

| || || || || || || ||

! Reflexive

| || || || || || || ||

Articles

The definite article was at first or , which was later replaced by .

Verbs

Yola verbs had some conservative characteristics. The second and third person plural endings were sometimes or as in Chaucerian English. The past participle retained the Middle English "y" prefix as .

Nouns

Some nouns retained the plural of ME children, such as 'bees' and 'trees'.

Vocabulary

The glossary compiled by Jacob Poole provides most of what is known about the Forth and Bargy vocabulary. Poole was a farmer and member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) from Growtown in the Parish of Taghmon on the border between the baronies of Bargy and Shelmalier. He collected words and phrases from his tenants and farm labourers between 1800 and his death in 1827.

Although most of its vocabulary is Old English in origin, Yola contains many borrowings from Irish and French.

All the Yola etymons are Middle English unless stated otherwise. Yola words derived from a non-standard Middle English form list the variant first, followed by the variant in parentheses.

Interrogative words

{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible"

|+Yola interrogative words

! English

! Yola

!Yola etymon

! West Riding Yorkshire

! Scots

! West Frisian

! Low Saxon

|- valign="top"

|how

|wou how

|haa

| (Doric Scots)

|- valign="top"

|what

|whad (what)

|what

| (Doric Scots)

|- valign="top"

|when

|whanne

|when

| (Doric Scots)

|- valign="top"

|where

|whider

|wheer

|

|- valign="top"

|which

|whilch

|which

|- valign="top"

|who

|hwā (Old English)

|who/whoa

| (Doric Scots)

|- valign="top"

|why

|wherto (why)

|why

| (Doric Scots)

Prepositions

{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible"

|+Yola prepositions

! English

! Yola

!Yola etymon

! Yorkshire West Riding

! Scots

! West Frisian

! Low Saxon

|about

|abouten

|abaat

|above

|abuven

|aboon

|against

|ayens

|agean/agen

|among

|amang

|around

|araand

|at

|ed (at)

|at

|before

|avore (afore)

|afoor, befoor

|below/beneath/under

|alow

|below/beneeath/under

|beside

|beside/aside

|between/betwixt

|betwix

|between/atween/betwixt/atwixt

|by

|by/bi

|for

|vor (for)

|for

|from

|vram (fram)

|fra/thra/throo

|next, next to

|next

|in

|in/i

|out

|aat

|over

|ovver/ower/o'er

|through

|thrugh

|through/thrugh

|upon

|upon/upo'

|with

|wi

Determiners

{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible"

|+Yola determiners

! English

! Yola

!Yola etymon

! West Riding Yorkshire

! Scots

! West Frisian

! Low Saxon

|all

|any

|any aught

|ony

|each, every

|everich

|eeach, ivvery

|few

|few, a two-or-thry

|neither

|nóhwæþer (Old English)

|nawther

|none, nothing

|naught, nothing

|noan, nowt

|other

|another

|other

|some

|sum

|some

|that

|this

Other words

{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible"

|+other Yola words

! English

! Yola

!Yola etymon

! Yorkshire West Riding

! Scots

! West Frisian

! Low Saxon

! Irish

| day

|day

| day

| fear

|fǽr (Old English) feerd

| fear

| friend

|frind (frend)

| friend

| land

|lond (land)

| land

| old

|eold (Old English )

| owd

| sun

|synne (sunne)

| sun

| thing

|thing

| thing

| go

|goan

| go/goa

| (go), (go away), (go along)

| Wexford

| (Old Norse)

| Wexford

Cardinal numbers

{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible"

|+Yola cardinal numbers

! #!! Yola

!Yola etymon!! West Frisian

! 1

|oane||

! 2

|tweyne||

! 3

|thre||

! 4

|vour (four)||

! 5

|vyve (five)||

! 6

|siex (Old English six)||

! 7

|seven||

! 8

|eahta (Old English)||

! 9

|nine||

! 10

|ten||

! 20

|twonty (twenty)||

! 30

|thirty||

! 100

|hundred||

Modern South Wexford English

Diarmaid Ó Muirithe travelled to South Wexford in 1978 to study the English spoken there. His informants ranged in age between 40 and 90. Among the long list of words still known or in use at that time are the following:

: 'going on amain' = getting on well
: an unfriendly person
: a little
: threadbare
: confusion, in a fash
: to peep
: to sunbathe, to relax in front of the fire
: very, extremely
: seaweed

Amain is a Norman word which means 'of easy use'.

Examples

A Yola song

The following is a song in Yola with a rough translation into English.

Address to Lord Lieutenant in 1836

Congratulatory address in the dialect of Forth and Bargy, presented to the Earl of Mulgrave, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, on his visit to Wexford in 1836. Taken from the Wexford Independent newspaper of 15 February 1860. The paper's editor Edmund Hore wrote:

"The maiden of Rosslare"

This following is a Yola poem from an original document containing accents to aid pronunciation;

"A song of Barony Forth"

This following is a Yola poem taken from Kathleen Brownes glossary of Forth and Bargy

"Three old maidens"

This following is a Yola poem taken from Kathleen Brownes glossary of Forth and Bargy

Notes

References

Poole's Glossary (1867) – Ed. Rev. William Barnes (Editorial 'Observations')
Poole's Glossary (1979) – Ed. Dr. D. O'Muirithe & T.P. Dolan (Corrected Etymologies)

External links

Yola Wikisource on Multilingual Wikisource
A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland. Formerly collected By Jacob Poole, of Growtown, Taghmon, County of Wexford: And now edited, with some Introductory Observations, Additions from various sources, and Notes, By William Barnes, B. D. Author of a Grammar of the Dorsetshire Dialect. London, 1867: Internet Archive, Google Books
from RTÉ:
Songs sung in the Yola language on RTE, i.e. archives (under Kilmore Christmas carols)
Yola – Lost for Words – an RTE documentary by Shane Dunphy
A People Apart In Wexford 1969 – an RTE television documentary
Jacob Poole of Growtown – And the Yola Dialect
Yola on An Tuath Noa from TG4