Talk:Newfoundland English

message: "Another interesting verb form is almost certain to have been taken from Hiberno-English, which, influenced by the Irish language avoids using the verb "to have" (Irish doesn't have a verb "to have" per se). Many Newfoundlanders from all areas will form past participles using "after" instead of "have" so for example "I'm after telling him to stop," instead of "I told him to stop," or "I have told him to stop." Another interesting feature is the pronounciaton of the letter "o" before "i" in words or names, the name "Mike" for example, sounds like "moike"."
This is clumsy and was evidently written by someone uneducated in linguistics.  I'd suggest replacement with something based on the far more accurate version in the article on Hiberno-English
--<BR>
Another peculiar aspect that I've noticed is the tendancy to add "month" after the name of a month. If you went somewhere in May you were "Gone somewhere in May month". If your birthday is in February, it's in "Feberay Month". I've also noticed a shift in the use of the word "evening". If you were going somewhere this afternoon, you may be going somewhere "this evening". I'll have to get in contact with my parents for more examples, as I wasn't raised in Newfoundland. Another (rather vivid) word I've heard used is "puss gut" for one who overeats. These may be particular to the Notre Dame Bay area, or more general, as I'm not entirely familiar with other regions. --Craig Hawco
*Vocabulary, pronunciation and accent vary wildly from town to cove to bay to city. Some rural areas show a distinct Irish influence, while in others the English heritage stands out. I've never heard the phrase "puss gut"; but when I was younger, if I was gorging myself at the table, or eating too many sweets, my mother would call me a "greediguts", actually an archaic term in the rest of the Anglo world but with currency at least in St. John's. Check out the dictionary of Newfoundland English. I believe the word entries usually mention which particular geographic area they come from.SigPig 6 July 2005 01:47 (UTC)
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in Newfoundland "that play was right boring" and "that play was some boring" both mean "that play was very boring"
:This isn't just limited to Newfoundland. In my hometown in Nova Scotia we used the same adverbal-intensifier, e.g. "That was some good." --Stephen Gilbert
I've also heard right some boring in Nova Scotia --User:Coasting
:Yep, forgot about that one. I never used the two together, but "right good", "right boring" were quite common. --Stephen Gilbert
Also, I'm not a linguist, but the English spoken on Cape Breton Island seems very close to the Newfoundland dialect. Maybe if I ever become a linguist, I'll look into that... --Stephen Gilbert
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The syntax of this dialect allows constructs unique to Newfoundland, such as "Throw grandpa down the stairs, his hat", in which the hat makes the trip, not the grandfather.This isn't unique to Newfoundland, this is done in New Zealand English too. "that play was right boring" as well.
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Not just in Canada - it's considered to be a hallmark of the English spoken in Woonsocket, mainly among first and second-generation Franco-Americans.  The stereotypical phrase for it is "throw me down the stairs my shoes". --134.117.200.178 (talk) 13:25, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It also was a common construction among Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants to America when attempting English.  So I'd suggest removing the word "unique". Tvoz/talk 20:10, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Put the disputed tag here. There's no citation or reference, and this theory seems more outlandish than any that have attached themselves to the etymology of one brass monkey's balls. All the Google hits are verbatim reflections of this article. The Dictionary of Newfoundland English only gives the derivations of b'y from "boy" and maid from "maid(en)". This smacks of either original research or an elaborate hoax. However, I am not averse to being proven wrong; barring that, if this cannot be supported, then delete it. SigPig 08:51, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "B'y" < "Byeboat"??

message: (And in some communities on the island's northeast coast, you (singular), you (plural), and they become dee, ye, and dey, respectively.)
What and where?  I've never heard of dee for you when I lived there, nor among the Newfoundlanders I meet now.  I experienced that ye was used for you (plural), dey was a replacement for 'they', and dee replaces 'the' with long e.  The first is different, the last two fit under the part about voiceless fricatives.--WPaulB 16:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Northeastern "You" 

message: There are way too many special notes/exceptions enclosed in () in this document.  There has to be a way to clean it up so it flows better with only one topic per paragraph.--WPaulB 16:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  () 

message: No mention is made on this page on the "luh" version of "look."  It is used as a replacement of "Look!" or "Pay attention/Take note!".  It is either used alone or at the end of a sentence, whereas look usually begins one.  It doesn't replace look in verb form in the middle of a sentence.
"Luh!" - "Look!"
"I already said that, luh!" - "Pay attention; that's what I said before."
"There's a bunch of birds, luh!" - "Look!  A bunch of birds!"
But it wouldn't be conjugated as a verb replacing look.--WPaulB 16:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm from Wexford in south-eastern Ireland, and I definitely remember "luh" being used as an alternative to "look" in the cases you mentioned. An Muimhneach Machnamhach (talk) 18:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Luh / Look 

message: Even if it wasn't original research (and it is), it's far too detailed of an explanation of one word for an article on a dialect.  It's out.  OZLAWYER  talk  14:35, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I stated above, it also was a common construction among Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants to America when attempting English, and others have commented about other dialects/locales using this construct,  so I have removed the word "unique". Tvoz/talk 17:30, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing the B'y stuff 

message: There were several changes made to this article which I have reverted. one was the mishmash somebody made of the first paragraph explaining the dialectic distinctiveness of Newfoundland English. Another was the random deletion of the section describing the verb to have, and the last were the entries seeming to attempt to describe Newfoundland English as a dialect of the Canadian dialect of English. This is not the case. Newfoundland English, while it may be a dialect of english spoken in what is now Canada, is not a dialect of Canadian English any more than it is a dialect of Irish English or British English, it is separate and equal as a dialect to Canadian English, British English, American English, and so on...
:No, it isn't.  Canadian English means "English as used in Canada," not "English as used in Canada except Newfoundland."  British English, for example, refers to a whole bunch of dialects that can be *very* different from one another.  Although Newfoundland English *is* conspicuously different than English as spoken in the rest of Canada, Newfoundland English vs. mainland Canadian English does make more sense than Newfoundland English vs. Canadian English.  
: The sentence It would be reasonable to say that for many speakers of American English, Newfoundland English dialects are among the most difficult English dialects to understand is unsourced and speculative. JackLumber.  14:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Canadian English is often taken to mean English as spoken in Canada except Newfoundland, because Canadian speech is very uniform in Canada, if compared to the idiosyncratic dialect spoken in Newfoundland.  But Newfoundland English vs. Canadian English is a little confusing, at least in a contemporary context.  I personally have no trouble understanding a Newfoundlander.  Some English dialects in East Africa, West Africa, India, and even England,  are much, much more difficult to understand.  JackLumber.  14:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

text: OK---Probably mainland Canadian vs. Newfoundland is not the best tradeoff, but was used by Boberg .  Anyway, do as you please... as long as you keep the article WP:NPOV-compliant.  JackLumber.  15:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: reverted random, unjustified changes

message: Removing "Nissan X Trail Bonavista Edition Commercial" from external links. 87.114.4.149 (talk) 23:23, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  unexplained link 

message: The article mentions "diddies" as meaning "nightmare" and says it is of unknown origin. In Wexford in southeastern Ireland, "diddies" is slang for women's breasts, although largely confined to children and teenagers. There is little doubt that the word as used in Wexford is a corruption of the Irish language word dide /didə/(plural didí /didi:/) meaning "nipple". Now, the Newfoundland use of the word might have a completely different etymology but I'm adding this much here in case the Wexford word somehow changed in its meaning when it reached Newfoundland, although it is difficult how breasts could metamorphose into something denoting a nightmare!
Also, I was completely taken aback to see the phrase "How she cuttin'?" which is common in Hiberno-English. "Boy", of course, is very common in Ireland, particularly so in the south and southeast. In Munster Irish, it is extremely common to address another man with "A bhuachaill"; "Conas tánn tú, a bhuachaill?", "How are you, boy?". "Boy" is only used with men, however, never in reference to women, although in Wexford, "the lads" can refer to either men or women. One would even ask of a group of women: "Well, how are the lads getting on?". In the singular, "lad" only ever refers to a man, a young man in particular: "He's a good lad, that fellow". Anyway, that's my two cent worth! An Muimhneach Machnamhach (talk) 18:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have always grown up (mostly in the Ottawa Valley) understanding that the word 'diddy' or 'diddies' referred to a song. Seems this word certainly has circulated!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.139.59.20 (talk) 01:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And diddy is a variation on ditty, which is based on French "dire" (to speak) and goes all the way back to Latin. (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ditty)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by WPaulB (talk • contribs) 06:12, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Diddies

message: I've noticed in recent years that there seems to be this bizzare blend of Newfoundland English and American Ebonics emerging among younger generations. Is there any research on this?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.103.221.52 (talk) 13:54, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not that I've heard recently, but I can always aks someone.--WPaulB (talk) 14:35, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

text: Given the IP's activity, I'd say this is a false claim.  Unless the Afro-American population of the province has increased in a major way in urban centres, I doubt this has happened.--WPaulB (talk) 06:09, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Our Afro-American population is really small.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.137.108.117 (talk) 22:50, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newfinese and Ebonics? 

message: Hmm, would an IPA table, as well as a list of phonemes in Newfoundland English, help with the article? ---Daniel Blanchette 16:55, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re "Phonological charateristics" 

message: I got a question here, where does old trout and silly goose come from? My mum is always saying both of those. Buffhistorian (talk) 12:03, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin and/or Meaning of phrase 

message: There are great differences in accents as well as words and various terms even between communities that are no more then a half hour apart. I am from the Irish shore and the word b'y is certainly gender neutral and does not mean boy though it can have different meanings depending on the context. For example "hey me b'y" does not mean "hey my boy" but instead translates over into the equivalent of saying "how are you doing my friend?" or "how's it going lad?". Or that's what it tends to mean where i live. the word b'y (that's how i spell it) is often used in a sentence in the manner of "go on b'y. I'm after telling him not to go at dat". Where i live on the southern shore words such as that, there and any other words that begin with th end up sounding like they start with a d. Hence why there sounds like dare and that sounds like dat. Another thing is the term me ducky seems to be used almost exclusively in st.johns as Ive never heard anyone from the shore use it at all. A townie accent sounds more like a English accent then a Irish one that's for sure.
Gaeilge Thalamh an Éisc or Newfoundland Gaelic appears to have been spoken mostly on the south eastern part of the Avalon Peninsula. It was supposedly much like Muster Irish which makes sense as that's where most of the people in that area would have came from. So it's not hard to understand why the accent from this region sounds alot like people from the SE of Ireland.
This article definitely needs a clean up but it's very hard to track down reliable sources for this. There are so many variations of the Newfoundland dialect stemming from many different languages all across the province that it would take alot of effort to explain the various different words and phrases used in Newfoundland English. Perhaps someone with more patience and a better access to reliable sources would like to have a go at cleaning up this article. Listing various sayings and words by region and what language they are thought to come from as well would be a very good idea in my opinion atleast. (Nomadic newfoundlander (talk) 18:10, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Differences between accents and words by region 

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thread_title:  External links modified (February 2018)