Product Description

Over the last 350 years, Ireland has sent a constant stream of
emigrants to North America. Estimates range from six to ten million. Each
emigrant spoke English, Irish, or Ulster Scots. Many indeed used two of
these tongues. One of the most formative chapters in this fascinating
story is the often-overlooked arrival of perhaps 200,000 people from Ulster
in the colonial era, specifically in the sixty years before the American
Revolution. This book recounts the lasting impact they made on the
development of the,English language of the United States from the
eighteenth century to the present day.

It documents nearly four hundred terms and meanings, each with quotations
from both sides of the Atlantic, that were contributed to American English
by these eighteenth-century settlers from Ulster. Drawing on letters they
sent back to their homeland and on other archival documents associated with
their settlement, including local fiction and poetry, it shows that Ulster
emigrants and their children, who settled mainly in the American interior,
gave as much to regional American English as any other group from the Old
World. Its pages contain many pleasant surprises: readers will find terms
both instantly recognisable and unfamiliar. The numerous quotations not
only bring alive the speech of earlier days on both sides of the Atlantic
but also extend our understanding of the culture, mannerisms and life of
those pioneering times and, through the spoken and written word, poignantly
link the past with the present.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2338151 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .0 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 210 pages

About the Author
Michael Montgomery is Professor Emeritus of English and
Linguistics at the University of South Carolina. For the past twenty years
he has read widely in the archives and museums of Ireland, Scotland and the
U.S to find the material for this book. His has written widely on Irish
and Scottish links to American English as well as on the English of his
native southern United States. His most recent book is Dictionary of Smoky
Mountain English (2004). He is Honorary President of the Ulster-Scots
Language Society.