ON THE IRISH VARIETY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Abstract

The article traces the development of the English language in Ireland, both North and South. It offers an overview of the history and the present-day forms of the Irish variety of English. The nature of the interference and the language contact between a majority Germanic language and a minority Celtic language is considered in detail. The article puts an emphasis on the morphological, syntactic and lexical features of Hiberno-English and presents its most common words and expressions, used in various sociolinguistic domains.