Language X within scope of language Y

[Jon Hanna]

Oh there's certainly differences, and I often get asked if I'm Scottish on the basis of how my accent sounds to Dubliners' ears (more rarely, American, Australian and once Canadian). Peter is right in saying there are similarities in accent between Belfast and Liverpool also. Vocabulary-wise though I'd have more in common with people in the Republic than anyone in Britain (though in Yorkshire some words are retained that are also retained in my dialect, but no longer found in much of Britain). For that matter some other Northerners would perhaps have more in common with the Scots that those in the Republic (if they'd been heavily influenced by Ulster-Scots). Of course there are variations within Northern Ireland (and even idiolects vary in influences, in my home town I was once pegged as English by someone from the same town, go figure).

This is just the observations of one person who grew up speaking a Northern Irish form of England rather than anyone whose done comparative research, and it could just be my biases as someone who primarily identifies as Irish rather than as British that make me think I have more in common with the former than the latter.

Regards,
Jon Hanna
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