The Ongoing Influence of Lowland Scots, Irish and Ulster English on the Developing Varieties of Ulster Scots

1. INTRODUCTION. Within a contact-linguistic framework, this paper will assess the linguistic influence of Lowland Scots and Irish as it is manifested in two regionally specific varieties of Ulster Scots (North-Eastern Ulster Scots and Donegal Ulster Scots). It will also evaluate the influence of Ulster English within supra-regional 'urban' varieties of Ulster Scots (Standardised Ulster Scots). In the first section of this paper, patterns of immigration into Ulster will be outlined so as to determine the demographic and linguistic composition of Ulster during the initial settlement period. This is necessary as it focuses our attention on the varying constitutions of different parts of Ulster, foundations which have impacted on the formation of varieties of Ulster Scots seen today. Secondly, the innovative influence of Lowland Scots will be illustrated with reference to features introduced into North-Eastern Ulster Scots. The absence of these innovations in Donegal Ulster Scots will be tied to the respective distances between Donegal Ulster Scots and other western varieties, and South-West Scotland. This can arguably be interpreted as evidence of linguistic conservatism in western varieties. However, the next section will follow with a contrasting line of discussion: innovative Irish features are more conspicuous in the west than the east, and can be related to the Donegal Gaeltacht's proximity. In the final section, the Ulster English influence will be addressed. This seems to lack any particular regional focus, instead exerting an influence over varieties of Ulster Scots found in urban areas throughout Ulster. This might appear to undermine the notion that particular historic language centres have influenced varieties of Ulster Scots according to their proximity to this source, as found with the North-Eastern and Donegal varieties. However, it will be argued that the urban Ulster English influence illustrates exactly this. Ulster English's historic language sources are the multiple urban centres throughout Ulster, because these are the very locations where it emerged as a variety in itself. 2. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT: SETTLEMENT, DEMOGRAPHY AND LANGUAGE IN ULSTER. 2.1. POPULATION CONTRIBUTIONS AND NEW-DIALECT PROCESSES. Ulster Scots (1) is a dialect (or set of dialects) of Scots. The development of Ulster Scots, however, is best perceived in terms of not one, but three formative stocks--Scots, English and Irish (Montgomery and Gregg 1997: 605). As such, it can be seen as a product of the Ulster context, where speakers of these languages frequently lived alongside each other in the same geographic areas, albeit in varying proportions. As Braidwood (1964: 5) submits, all three groups commingled '[. ] with pockets of Scots among the English [. ] and the Irish practically everywhere'. Therefore it will be assumed that speakers of Scots, English and Irish would have been in contact, once settled in Ulster. But why would this have contributed to the development of Ulster Scots? For an answer to this, we can direct our attention to the reasoning of Labov (2001) and Trudgill (2008), who say that the formation of new-dialects is largely determined by patterns of contact and 'interlocutor frequencies' (Labov 2001: 191). Labov's (2001) principle of density indicates that the diffusion of linguistic change results from interlocutor frequencies: it is '[. ] purely a matter of who interacts most often with whom--a matter of density of communication' (Trudgill 2008: 251, my emphasis). An underlying assumption in this view is that language contact necessarily results in dialect mixture: Trudgill (2008: 243) argues that in cases of dialect contact, different features for the same linguistic variable will mix together. This is largely attributed to the innate process of mechanical face-to-face accommodation between speakers. Commenting on the direction of this accommodation, Trudgill (2004:148) submits that: [. …