Draft:Mid-Ulster English

Mid-Ulster English, also spelled Mid Ulster English, (, Béarla Lár Uladh), also called Standard Northern Irish,, Éireannach Tuaisceartach Caighdeánach) often abbreviated to MUE, is a subdialect of Ulster English. It is spoken in some parts of Northern Ireland and Donegal. The term Mid-Ulster English sometimes means English in Northern Ireland not derived from Scots. Despite its name, Mid-Ulster English is spoken in most parts of Ulster. It is spoken in every county in Northern Ireland plus County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland.

Classification
Mid-Ulster English is a dialect of Ulster English and is closely related to Ulster Scots English. South Ulster English is another dialect related to MUE, which is a transitional dialect between Southern Hiberno-English and MUE.

17th century and the Plantation of Ulster
During the Plantation of Ulster, many English-speaking Northern English people and Scots-speaking Southern Scottish people would move to Ulster, planting the west and east respectively. Meanwhile, Ulster Irish remained in the more southern parts. With the influence or the three languages, the central dialect would become the 17th century Mid-Ulster dialect.

Expansion
As the central dialect spread around with immigration, it eventually expanded to most of the Ulster region. Because of this expansion, Mid-Ulster English started to be claimed as the standard Ulster dialect. This approximately went from the east of County Down, of Northern Ireland, all the way towards western County Donegal, of the Republic of Ireland.

Modern day
The local rural Belfast and Derry dialects come from this dialect. The most spoken dialect in the Ulster region, the expansion helped it to get more speakers. Groups like the Mid Ulster English Society were founded to protect and promote the dialect. Warren Maguire, a senior lecturer in the English language, has studied the dialect, specifically his local Southwest Tyrone dialect.

Phonology
The sounds of Mid-Ulster English are known to sound like a combination of Hiberno-English and Ulster Scots English. As such, many features in Mid-Ulster English are combined, having influences from both varieties. Its phonology is a bit different to other English dialects in the isles. The phonology of Mid-Ulster English is shown to have many features from other languages, with various different vowels and other features absent in different varieties of English. The symbols below are those of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Consonants

 * Rhoticity is present in the Mid-Ulster dialect, like in other Ulster dialects.
 * Mid-Ulster has g-dropping, which means the gerund or present participle -ing, pronounced in verbs such as running is pronounced.
 * The dialect also has lowering, which makes the speaker sound more low pitch.
 * The phoneme as in ach is mostly realised as the uvular  instead of the velar . This sound is only used in loanwords and place names.
 * In between or  after  or, a palatalised sound can be heard.
 * The dialect has a which-witch distinction, meaning that phoneme wh would be pronounced /ʍ/ instead of /w/.
 * Before r or er, t and d would make interdental and  sounds respectably, as in painter.
 * Medial -pp-, -ck-, and -tt- are pronounced voiced instead of voiceless.

Vowels



 * The diphthong in RP is pronounced more like.
 * in "food" and in "boot" are pronounced like.
 * The epenthesis, or helping vowel, is used in some consonant clusters, for example film.
 * is lowered to.
 * The diphthong is often shortened to  most of the time. Few realisations pronounce this as.
 * The diphthongs and  can be used interchangeably.
 * RP is often realised as, , or.
 * is instead realised as centralised.

Sample text
This sample text is the poem John the Liar by Rev. William Forbes Marshall.


 * Well, it was freezin' hard.
 * An' bitther cowl; an' min' ye I had play,
 * (Yon mare's the deil for gettin' on hir en:)
 * But there wos John, he had his two han's up, Scared like an peghin, with no hat or coat;
 * A man's unaisy when he sees the like.
 * "The Lord bliss me, sez I, 'what's wrong?' Sez he,
 * 'Be gomentays, I went an' killed two pigs, Ye niver seen the like of them two pigs, Throth they wor tarra; jist the five months oul".
 * "The deil a hair I care, sez I, 'ye killed A score of pigs; stan' out the road!'