0:00:08 > 0:00:11The way we speak is who we are.
0:00:11 > 0:00:14It tells us how we got to be where we are, what our history is,
0:00:14 > 0:00:17what our culture is, where we're from.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23This is a story of richness and heritage,
0:00:23 > 0:00:27a celebration of the diversity of our speech.
0:00:31 > 0:00:35The Concise Ulster Dictionary is a unique collection
0:00:35 > 0:00:38that reveals who we are through how we talk.
0:00:39 > 0:00:41It will be our guide
0:00:41 > 0:00:44as we learn about those who have preserved our languages,
0:00:44 > 0:00:49uncover the sources that have influenced how we speak today,
0:00:49 > 0:00:53and celebrate those who turn our words into art.
0:00:54 > 0:00:56It's a bit like DNA.
0:00:56 > 0:01:00You know, people like to have their DNA tested.
0:01:00 > 0:01:04They probably have a good idea of what the main threads are,
0:01:04 > 0:01:07but there might be some surprises, as well.
0:01:12 > 0:01:14It's something that we should take a great delight in,
0:01:14 > 0:01:17a great pride in, and seek to hang onto.
0:01:51 > 0:01:54Heard ye no tell o' Stumpy's Brae?
0:01:54 > 0:01:56Sit doon, sit doon, young freen'
0:01:56 > 0:01:59I'll mak your flesh tae creep the day
0:01:59 > 0:02:02An' yer hair tae stan' on enn.
0:02:02 > 0:02:05Young man it's hard to strive wi' sin...
0:02:16 > 0:02:20The Legend of Stumpy's Brae, a gruesome, dark tale
0:02:20 > 0:02:25about a farmer and his wife who have fallen upon hard times.
0:02:27 > 0:02:28When a tinker calls
0:02:28 > 0:02:31with what they believe to be a large fortune in his sack,
0:02:31 > 0:02:34they see the opportunity to increase their fortune.
0:02:34 > 0:02:37Erm, unfortunately this means murdering the tinker
0:02:37 > 0:02:38and burying him.
0:02:38 > 0:02:41However, it doesn't go as smoothly as planned.
0:02:54 > 0:02:56They wish to bury him in his own sack, but he's too tall,
0:02:56 > 0:02:59so the solution they have is to hack his legs off
0:02:59 > 0:03:01and put them in the sack separately beside him.
0:03:03 > 0:03:07Then, when they bury him, Stumpy comes back on his stumps, er,
0:03:07 > 0:03:10to wreak revenge upon the family,
0:03:10 > 0:03:13so, yeah, it's quite a dark sort of tale of revenge.
0:03:16 > 0:03:18It had stricken nine, just nine o' the clock
0:03:18 > 0:03:21The hour when the man lay dead
0:03:21 > 0:03:24There came to the outer door a knock
0:03:24 > 0:03:26And a heavy, heavy tread.
0:03:27 > 0:03:30The auld man's heid swam roun' and roun'
0:03:30 > 0:03:32The woman's blood 'gan freeze
0:03:32 > 0:03:35For it was no' a natural sound
0:03:35 > 0:03:38But like some ane stumping o'er the ground
0:03:38 > 0:03:40On the banes o' his twa bare knees.
0:03:43 > 0:03:48The story was recorded by Cecil Frances Alexander,
0:03:48 > 0:03:51the wife of the Bishop of Derry and Raphoe.
0:03:51 > 0:03:54It was a distinct departure from her more famous works.
0:03:59 > 0:04:02# All things bright and beautiful
0:04:02 > 0:04:07# All creatures great and small
0:04:07 > 0:04:10# All things wise and wonderful
0:04:10 > 0:04:15# The Lord God made them all
0:04:15 > 0:04:19# Each little flower that opens... #
0:04:19 > 0:04:22To the question, erm, who made the world,
0:04:22 > 0:04:25as a child might reasonably ask,
0:04:25 > 0:04:28she wrote the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful.
0:04:28 > 0:04:32# He made their tiny wings
0:04:32 > 0:04:36# All things bright and beautiful
0:04:36 > 0:04:41# All creatures great and small
0:04:41 > 0:04:44# All things wise and wonderful
0:04:44 > 0:04:48# The Lord God made them all... #
0:04:50 > 0:04:52It was just one of her many famous hymns,
0:04:52 > 0:04:55first published in 1848
0:04:55 > 0:04:59as part of a collection to teach children the Christian faith -
0:04:59 > 0:05:02and a world away from The Legend of Stumpy's Brae.
0:05:02 > 0:05:06# ..brightens up the sky
0:05:06 > 0:05:08# All things bright... #
0:05:08 > 0:05:10And through the door, like a sough of air
0:05:10 > 0:05:13And stump, stump, round the twa
0:05:13 > 0:05:16Wi' his bloody head, and his knee banes bare
0:05:16 > 0:05:18They'd maist ha'e died of awe!
0:05:21 > 0:05:27She just devolved her gift for word sculpting, I think,
0:05:27 > 0:05:30and applied it to the more secular side of things.
0:05:30 > 0:05:33But, I mean, she did a very good job of it.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38Cecil Frances Alexander was a great tender of the poor,
0:05:38 > 0:05:43and she raised a lot of money for various charities in the area,
0:05:43 > 0:05:46and probably it was whilst working amongst the poor people of the area
0:05:46 > 0:05:49that she encountered this poem orally.
0:05:50 > 0:05:52The fact that it is in the local dialect,
0:05:52 > 0:05:54in the Ulster Scots language,
0:05:54 > 0:05:57immediately places you in a certain location.
0:05:57 > 0:05:59We know we're in rural Ulster,
0:05:59 > 0:06:01we know we're talking to people of a certain social status.
0:06:01 > 0:06:03That's fantastic, that's what the language does,
0:06:03 > 0:06:07it immediately sets a context without needing anything else.
0:06:19 > 0:06:21This was the voice of her parishioners,
0:06:21 > 0:06:24this was the voice of the people she worked with,
0:06:24 > 0:06:27and very much her own poems would have been much more Anglicised
0:06:27 > 0:06:29and would have been her voice,
0:06:29 > 0:06:32but I always think perhaps that she wanted to record
0:06:32 > 0:06:35the voice of the people that she spent so much time with,
0:06:35 > 0:06:37and this may have been a way of doing that.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43Gin ye meet ane there as daylight flees
0:06:43 > 0:06:46Stumpin' aboot on the banes o' his knees
0:06:46 > 0:06:48It'll jist be Stumpy himsel'.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27The County Donegal town of Raphoe.
0:07:28 > 0:07:33It was close to here that the poet Sarah Leech was born in 1809.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36It was a life that began in difficult circumstances.
0:07:40 > 0:07:42She was, er, quite physically ill.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45She span every hour that God sent,
0:07:45 > 0:07:48because that's, erm, because her father had died young
0:07:48 > 0:07:50and he'd left a large family to support,
0:07:50 > 0:07:53and this was all she had to do to keep herself going.
0:07:53 > 0:07:57She had to leave school very young, and was self-taught,
0:07:57 > 0:07:59and she was sort of isolated,
0:07:59 > 0:08:01she was confined to this little cabin,
0:08:01 > 0:08:03she had no money, you know, she had no status,
0:08:03 > 0:08:05she had no standing in the world,
0:08:05 > 0:08:07she seems to have had no hopes of ever marrying.
0:08:07 > 0:08:09So, in a way, she was in such a low strata
0:08:09 > 0:08:13that no-one really cared what she said or did -
0:08:13 > 0:08:16and that's quite a powerful place to come from if you're a writer,
0:08:16 > 0:08:19because you can write exactly what you like, and she did.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28Nae mair I tune my rustic reed
0:08:28 > 0:08:31O'er hill and dale whare lambkins feed
0:08:31 > 0:08:34For I maun deck in mourning weed
0:08:34 > 0:08:35And sigh alane
0:08:35 > 0:08:38While tears pour forth like amber bead
0:08:38 > 0:08:40Since Kate is gane.
0:08:45 > 0:08:50She's got that fierceness and that complete lack of culpability
0:08:50 > 0:08:52that only teenagers can have. You know, they don't think...
0:08:52 > 0:08:56They think they're the first people to ever feel or think this way,
0:08:56 > 0:08:59they want to express it, they have no fear, erm, of repercussions
0:08:59 > 0:09:03in society because it doesn't quite matter when you're 19.
0:09:03 > 0:09:05So she's got a lot of that energy
0:09:05 > 0:09:08and that fearlessness that teenagers have when they write.
0:09:13 > 0:09:17And her poetry provides an insight into the languages of the area.
0:09:21 > 0:09:23Mostly she sticks to Ulster Scots in one poem
0:09:23 > 0:09:26and, you know, sort of standard English in the other,
0:09:26 > 0:09:28but it gives her this extraordinarily wide range
0:09:28 > 0:09:34because she's choosing from two very, very different universes.
0:09:34 > 0:09:38She's choosing from a Victorian English standardised
0:09:38 > 0:09:40lady in the drawing room, erm, sort of,
0:09:40 > 0:09:42All Things Bright and Beautiful,
0:09:42 > 0:09:46erm, you know, Mrs Alexander, who also wrote then,
0:09:46 > 0:09:48that standardised sort of thing.
0:09:48 > 0:09:51Then she has this Ulster Scots,
0:09:51 > 0:09:56which is the language of the hearth, which is uncensored, unfettered.
0:10:15 > 0:10:19Sarah gives us an insight
0:10:19 > 0:10:24into what life was like in Ulster, in Donegal at the time.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27You know the reality of what went on in people's hearts.
0:10:29 > 0:10:32You know, you could have the very clean, clear version
0:10:32 > 0:10:36of who-did-this and who-did-that, and what date they'd done it on,
0:10:36 > 0:10:39but with Sarah Leech, I think she gives us a...
0:10:40 > 0:10:43You know, like being in someone's house
0:10:43 > 0:10:48and hearing them speak their most private thoughts.
0:10:50 > 0:10:53How to her mither Kate will bawl
0:10:53 > 0:10:56To purchase her a scarlet shawl
0:10:56 > 0:10:58In hopes she may some gull enthral
0:10:58 > 0:11:00Who gapes for riches
0:11:00 > 0:11:04But six months wed she proves a brawl
0:11:04 > 0:11:06And wears the breeches.
0:11:10 > 0:11:13Her Address to Bachelors is sort of a warning
0:11:13 > 0:11:15to the men she sees around her.
0:11:15 > 0:11:17She's sort of standing back and looking at them and saying
0:11:17 > 0:11:21"Beware" because it's quite a grotesque picture
0:11:21 > 0:11:25she paints of these women who are, you know, dressed up, painted,
0:11:25 > 0:11:26you know, shrouded in veils,
0:11:26 > 0:11:30enticing these gullible men into marriage,
0:11:30 > 0:11:35and once they're married a switch is flung
0:11:35 > 0:11:40and the women become very, erm, aggressive.
0:11:40 > 0:11:44From a spinster teenager, it's quite contentious stuff.
0:11:48 > 0:11:52Her only collection of work was published in 1826.
0:11:52 > 0:11:56Sarah died just a few years later in her early 20s,
0:11:56 > 0:12:01her collection of poetry largely overlooked ever since.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06Her politics and religion are very closely connected,
0:12:06 > 0:12:08and I think this also may be a reason why
0:12:08 > 0:12:11she's not as widely read as she should be.
0:12:11 > 0:12:15She was a fervent supporter of the Brunswick Clubs of the time,
0:12:15 > 0:12:19which were set up, erm, to oppose Catholic emancipation,
0:12:19 > 0:12:23and her original book is dedicated to these men, the Brunswick Society.
0:12:23 > 0:12:26So right there is cutting her off from a huge amount of readers
0:12:26 > 0:12:29who would find that a little bit too much to stomach.
0:12:34 > 0:12:36Keep these examples in your view
0:12:36 > 0:12:39For happiness is doom'd to few
0:12:39 > 0:12:42But hark! The clock is striking two
0:12:42 > 0:12:44And time goes rinning
0:12:44 > 0:12:46So I'm obliged to bid adieu
0:12:46 > 0:12:47And join my spinning.
0:12:50 > 0:12:55I think inevitably she has been neglected
0:12:55 > 0:12:59because she has not been seen as central,
0:12:59 > 0:13:06and I refer to that both in terms of geographic marginality,
0:13:06 > 0:13:11because Donegal is not recognised
0:13:11 > 0:13:16as the heartland of the Ulster Scots speaking area,
0:13:16 > 0:13:24yet it was, simply because the very earliest Ulster Scots poetry
0:13:24 > 0:13:28comes from the Laggan district of Donegal.
0:13:28 > 0:13:30So it played a vital part
0:13:30 > 0:13:36in the development of the Ulster Scots literary tradition,
0:13:36 > 0:13:41and so it's important that we recuperate the work
0:13:41 > 0:13:44of people like Sarah Leech.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16I hadn't really heard of Archibald McIlroy
0:14:16 > 0:14:18till I happened to be looking through an old copy
0:14:18 > 0:14:21of the Ulster Journal of Archaeology
0:14:21 > 0:14:25for something entirely different, and I opened it at the back,
0:14:25 > 0:14:28and here were a double page spread of press reviews
0:14:28 > 0:14:31for, I think, When Lint Was In The Bell
0:14:31 > 0:14:36or one of the books, and I thought, you know, from the North of England,
0:14:36 > 0:14:40from Australia, from Canada, Irish papers, Scottish papers...
0:14:42 > 0:14:44Why haven't I heard of this man before?
0:14:48 > 0:14:52Archibald McIlroy from Ballyclare was an author
0:14:52 > 0:14:55whose novels and short stories about life in rural Ulster
0:14:55 > 0:15:00were hugely popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
0:15:01 > 0:15:04He created an affectionate portrait of rural communities
0:15:04 > 0:15:06observed from within,
0:15:06 > 0:15:11a style of writing that became known as the kaleyard tradition.
0:15:11 > 0:15:16Using Ulster Scots in the dialogue reflected the language of his youth.
0:15:17 > 0:15:19"It's wonnerful,"
0:15:19 > 0:15:23Mrs Glen continued in a distinctly disappointed tone of voice,
0:15:23 > 0:15:28"that oot o' they letters ye canna even find oot where his folk lives."
0:15:28 > 0:15:31"Does he never leave ony o' them lyin' aboot?"
0:15:33 > 0:15:35When you first lift one of his books
0:15:35 > 0:15:39in which there's a fair bit of the language reproduced,
0:15:39 > 0:15:41you have to read it slowly,
0:15:41 > 0:15:45you have to start using your tongue and reading it aloud
0:15:45 > 0:15:50so that you understand what actually is being said.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55And it's fascinating to just study that and see how he did it.
0:15:58 > 0:16:00He writes the narrative in English
0:16:00 > 0:16:04but some of the dialogue in Ulster Scots,
0:16:04 > 0:16:08though he says himself that he has to water it down,
0:16:08 > 0:16:11and he uses the term "water it down" literally cos he said,
0:16:11 > 0:16:14"Like certain other products of the countryside,
0:16:14 > 0:16:15"it has to be watered down
0:16:15 > 0:16:19"in order to be imbibed by those not familiar with it."
0:16:19 > 0:16:20What does he mean?
0:16:20 > 0:16:24Erm, so we may well be losing some of the richness
0:16:24 > 0:16:27and density of the Ulster Scots that he could have written,
0:16:27 > 0:16:30but for the benefit of the average reader,
0:16:30 > 0:16:32he made it simple, more simple.
0:16:34 > 0:16:38A couple of phrases and words early on in the reading...
0:16:38 > 0:16:41"Backed." I didn't... quite sure what "backed" was,
0:16:41 > 0:16:43but the Concise Ulster Dictionary helps us out there.
0:16:43 > 0:16:47It means "addressing a letter", and it comes from the days
0:16:47 > 0:16:51when you wrote the letter on one side, folded it up and sealed it,
0:16:51 > 0:16:54so that it then became a sort of package in its own right,
0:16:54 > 0:16:57and you addressed it on one of the blanks,
0:16:57 > 0:17:01which was the back of the letter you'd written on,
0:17:01 > 0:17:06and the term persisted even into the days of envelopes,
0:17:06 > 0:17:08that you could "back a letter".
0:17:08 > 0:17:13And also, erm, he uses the phrase "oul fashioned"
0:17:13 > 0:17:16where I think in an Ulster Scots context you would normally
0:17:16 > 0:17:19have used the term "oul farrant".
0:17:19 > 0:17:23And this may be McIlroy, as he always did, as these writers did,
0:17:23 > 0:17:28diluting the Ulster Scots to make it accessible to a wider audience.
0:17:33 > 0:17:36"I happened tae come across yin,"
0:17:36 > 0:17:40answered Becky hesitatingly, as if not wishing to reveal
0:17:40 > 0:17:43under what circumstances it came into her hands.
0:17:44 > 0:17:47"But no' an address was on't ava'."
0:17:52 > 0:17:57McIlroy was born into a farming family in 1859.
0:17:57 > 0:17:58A rural existence,
0:17:58 > 0:18:02its people, land and language the inspiration for his work.
0:18:05 > 0:18:08From an early age he was out in the fields, helping with the haymaking,
0:18:08 > 0:18:14for example, probably helping to feed the hens round the yard,
0:18:14 > 0:18:17lift a few eggs in the mornings, er, fresh,
0:18:17 > 0:18:19either for family use or to be sold, as well.
0:18:19 > 0:18:23He refers to that, he says the old folk in those days
0:18:23 > 0:18:25didn't coddle their youngsters.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28They believed in hard work in addition to oatmeal porridge
0:18:28 > 0:18:30and the shorter catechism!
0:18:31 > 0:18:33Which conjures up a lovely picture
0:18:33 > 0:18:37of the culture of Presbyterian life of the times.
0:18:40 > 0:18:45In talking about the Ulster Scots dialect that he was brought up with,
0:18:45 > 0:18:47McIlroy says this...
0:18:47 > 0:18:51"We in Ulster are very proud of our unique dialect.
0:18:51 > 0:18:53"We may at times be a little embarrassed
0:18:53 > 0:18:56"to express ourselves in it before the ignorant.
0:18:57 > 0:19:01"We think in it, however, and when we are excited,
0:19:01 > 0:19:04"it oozes from us like water from the rock.
0:19:09 > 0:19:13"We have a supreme contempt for poor creatures who have nothing
0:19:13 > 0:19:16"to fall back on but the pure English tongue."
0:19:18 > 0:19:21I think he's rather mocking himself and his community, there,
0:19:21 > 0:19:25I think, but there's no doubt about it that he...
0:19:25 > 0:19:26To have those two, I think
0:19:26 > 0:19:31he feels enriched by having that extra linguistic dimension.
0:19:36 > 0:19:38"Are they sealed?"
0:19:38 > 0:19:44"A bonnie wee red seal wi' a naked infant on't wearing wings."
0:19:44 > 0:19:47"Oh, that's Cupid," said Mrs Glen,
0:19:47 > 0:19:51she having seen the same on her daughter's Valentines,
0:19:51 > 0:19:52"and it means love."
0:20:05 > 0:20:09By 1912, McIlroy had published seven books,
0:20:09 > 0:20:11and, now living in Canada,
0:20:11 > 0:20:13his works had found international acclaim -
0:20:13 > 0:20:17but his life came to a tragic end when, in 1915,
0:20:17 > 0:20:20he boarded the Lusitania,
0:20:20 > 0:20:24which was sunk off the coast of Cork by a German U-boat.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29There's always this story that recurs
0:20:29 > 0:20:33that at the bottom of the ocean, in the wreck of the Lusitania,
0:20:33 > 0:20:35there's another novel by Archibald McIlroy.
0:20:35 > 0:20:39I don't think so, but it makes a very nice story -
0:20:39 > 0:20:40but a tragic end for him.
0:20:44 > 0:20:47This is a humorous quote from The Humour of Druid's Island,
0:20:47 > 0:20:51and, er, it's about the minister and Tammy,
0:20:51 > 0:20:54and Tammy used to do a bit of work around the manse,
0:20:54 > 0:20:57and two other men are talking about Tammy,
0:20:57 > 0:20:59and they're saying,
0:20:59 > 0:21:03"After he left the manse, he kept up an intimacy with a servant lass,
0:21:03 > 0:21:07"and yin dark nicht, as the minister was startin' awa for a meetin',
0:21:07 > 0:21:11"he met Tammy comin' up the avenue wi' a lantern in his hand.
0:21:11 > 0:21:12" 'Why, Tammy,' says he,
0:21:12 > 0:21:15" 'do you need a lantern when you go a-courtin'?'
0:21:15 > 0:21:18" 'When I was young and goin' after the mistress,
0:21:18 > 0:21:21" 'I never carried a lantern.'
0:21:21 > 0:21:25" 'No, I would say not,' said Tammy, 'judging by the mistress!'"
0:21:45 > 0:21:49Well, Micky, me boy, I hope you're no worse this morning.
0:21:49 > 0:21:52Not worse, sir, nor indeed am I anything better either,
0:21:52 > 0:21:54but much the same way.
0:21:54 > 0:21:58Sure it's I that knows very well that my time here is but short.
0:21:58 > 0:21:59Well, Mick, me boy...
0:21:59 > 0:22:02The Carleton Players read from an adaptation
0:22:02 > 0:22:06of The Party Fight And The Funeral by William Carleton.
0:22:06 > 0:22:10Look up, me boy, to God at once, and pitch the priests
0:22:10 > 0:22:15and their craft to Ould Nick, where they'll all go at the long-run.
0:22:15 > 0:22:18I believe you're not too fond of the priests, Mr Johnston.
0:22:19 > 0:22:23In a classic portrait of life at the time, a tenant farmer
0:22:23 > 0:22:26visits a dying farm labourer.
0:22:26 > 0:22:30Why, man, they're a set of the most gluttonous, black-looking
0:22:30 > 0:22:32hypocrites that ever walked on neat's leather,
0:22:32 > 0:22:35and ought to be hunted out of the country...
0:22:35 > 0:22:40You have a very rich and a very colourful language, er,
0:22:40 > 0:22:42filled with, er...
0:22:44 > 0:22:47..strange and wonderful scenes, and to me,
0:22:47 > 0:22:50when I listen to it and read it, you know, there's such a lilt
0:22:50 > 0:22:54and a great rhythm to the writing that it's almost, to me,
0:22:54 > 0:22:57like as if I'm listening to a beautiful piece of music.
0:23:01 > 0:23:06The Clogher Valley, County Tyrone - Carleton country.
0:23:06 > 0:23:09It was here that the writer was born in 1794.
0:23:11 > 0:23:15His most famous work, Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry,
0:23:15 > 0:23:18was published in 1830.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21It's a collection of stories and sketches of life in Ireland,
0:23:21 > 0:23:23people and their language.
0:23:25 > 0:23:31Carleton came from an Irish speaking background,
0:23:31 > 0:23:33and that Irish loan word aspect
0:23:33 > 0:23:40comes through in his writing, so he would have used the forms of address
0:23:40 > 0:23:43with the vocative particle,
0:23:43 > 0:23:45- like, you know... - SHE SPEAKS IRISH
0:23:45 > 0:23:47..in the dialogue.
0:23:47 > 0:23:51So, from that aspect it is very useful
0:23:51 > 0:23:53to the, erm, student of dialect
0:23:53 > 0:23:57to have a look at Carleton's writing,
0:23:57 > 0:24:01because the Irish loan words are there to a much greater extent
0:24:01 > 0:24:04than they are in most other writing.
0:24:04 > 0:24:08Mother, come home, and let me lay my head upon your breast,
0:24:08 > 0:24:10a ghraidh mo chridhe.
0:24:10 > 0:24:12I think it'll be the last time
0:24:12 > 0:24:15we lived lonely, avourneen, wid none but ourselves...
0:24:15 > 0:24:19Irish would have been spoken in many parts of Tyrone.
0:24:19 > 0:24:21It would have been spoken side-by-side with English,
0:24:21 > 0:24:23with Ulster Scots,
0:24:23 > 0:24:27the different dialects all existed side-by-side and intermingled,
0:24:27 > 0:24:29and most people were probably bilingual
0:24:29 > 0:24:32and could switch from one language to another
0:24:32 > 0:24:33depending on the situation,
0:24:33 > 0:24:35depending on who they were talking to.
0:24:44 > 0:24:49You have, if you like, the official, authorial English,
0:24:49 > 0:24:51which is quite Latinate,
0:24:51 > 0:24:55quite, what we might call, quite swanky, quite formal,
0:24:55 > 0:24:58and then on the other hand what you have is dialect.
0:24:59 > 0:25:03Now, it's not pure dialect, it's a bit edited,
0:25:03 > 0:25:06but he represents a different voice,
0:25:06 > 0:25:08so you have a kind of tension,
0:25:08 > 0:25:12often a comic tension, between these two sorts of...
0:25:12 > 0:25:15And what those two languages represent are two cultures,
0:25:15 > 0:25:19two ways of seeing, two ways of being, almost.
0:25:19 > 0:25:24A strange man that I never seen before came last night and tould me,
0:25:24 > 0:25:27if I'd see you,
0:25:27 > 0:25:31to say that you would get a visit from the boys this night,
0:25:31 > 0:25:33and to take care of yourself.
0:25:34 > 0:25:35Give me the hand, Mick.
0:25:35 > 0:25:39In spite of the priests, by the light of day,
0:25:39 > 0:25:40you're an honest fellow.
0:25:41 > 0:25:43You get the whole range of Irish words there,
0:25:43 > 0:25:45words that are still common,
0:25:45 > 0:25:48like "uisce beatha" and "duidin" and "spalpeen" -
0:25:48 > 0:25:52but then there's also words that have very special meanings.
0:25:52 > 0:25:55Erm, there's the word "griosach",
0:25:55 > 0:25:59for instance, I think that word is still to be heard in Tyrone.
0:25:59 > 0:26:04In English it's the word for the embers of the fire, the griosach
0:26:04 > 0:26:08is what you would stir in the morning to get the fire lit again.
0:26:08 > 0:26:11Of course, that word lasted as long as people had open fires,
0:26:11 > 0:26:13but now that open fires are gone,
0:26:13 > 0:26:15then that's a word that's going to disappear, as well.
0:26:18 > 0:26:22Carleton was a prolific writer, celebrated in Dublin and London.
0:26:22 > 0:26:26His work not only provides an insight into life in Tyrone,
0:26:26 > 0:26:31but crucially, a record of the rich linguistic diversity of the area.
0:26:37 > 0:26:41He reveals a world that is of course already changing,
0:26:41 > 0:26:45particularly after the 1840s,
0:26:45 > 0:26:50and the kind of cataclysmic changes that the famine brought about,
0:26:50 > 0:26:54including changes in terms of language.
0:26:54 > 0:26:57When the National School system is established,
0:26:57 > 0:27:03the language of the National Schools is English, not Irish,
0:27:03 > 0:27:10whereas in the head schools there would have been Irish, Greek, Latin,
0:27:10 > 0:27:14as well as a range of subjects like mathematics, surveying and so on.
0:27:14 > 0:27:19So English starts to become the curriculum language,
0:27:19 > 0:27:20the standard language.
0:27:22 > 0:27:26It was probably just a brief period of 20, 30, 40 years
0:27:26 > 0:27:30before the famine when everything was in flux,
0:27:30 > 0:27:33and the three languages were all playing off each other,
0:27:33 > 0:27:36and then the famine wiped so much of that out,
0:27:36 > 0:27:38and education wiped so much of that out,
0:27:38 > 0:27:42and, you know, the latter half of the 19th century
0:27:42 > 0:27:46then became a much duller place linguistically.
0:27:56 > 0:28:00Are you interested in finding out more about languages in Ulster?
0:28:00 > 0:28:01Go to...
0:28:05 > 0:28:08..and follow the links to the Open University,
0:28:08 > 0:28:10where you can watch further content
0:28:10 > 0:28:12about this rich and diverse heritage.