Writing With An Accent, Approximating Foreign Accents

[WizardofOwls]

In a story that I am working on, one of my main characters is an Irish woman living in America. I have a question concerning her accent/vocabulary...

Do the Irish use the words "lassie" or "laddie," or is that strictly a Scottish thing?

Here are a couple examples of my attempt at creating her accent, but I am much more familiar with Scottish accents than Irish ones. How do these look/sound to you?

"so what are ya gonna do now?" (ya rather than you)
"Hullo," she said, "are you alright?" (Hullo rather than hello)

Also, can anyone recommend some good online sites where I might find some good examples of a written Irish accent?

Any help you can offer in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

[stoirmeil]

This is only a suggestion . . . I think you might also want to consider the patterns of speech, the idiom and syntax differences, in addition to focusing on surface things like vowel shifts, which you could do for yourself by listening to, let's say, author's readings (the book on tape of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes and the sequel 'Tis, for example, with the author reading, both of which have had brilliant reviews). The syntax shifts especially are the ones that reflect the underlying gaelic usage.

Other than that, you need to get hold of some novels written by contemporary Irish writers, and see how they do it. I can give you an example of a different dialect ("geordie," which is the dialect of Newcastle-on-Tyne, that resembles lowland scots -- the dialect of the movie "Billy Elliot") that is a fantastic example of something that is painstakingly spelled out and genuine but doesn't get in the way. This book is called The Bonnie Lad, by Jonathan Tulloch. (Fabulous story -- gritty but full of heart). But there's probably conventions used by the Irish themselves in writing their assorted regional dialect variations, and I'd go to them. Plays would maybe be best of all, because it's all dialogue.

For a start, you could go to JM Synge (this is very old stuff; he died in 1909). Several of his plays are offered for free download on line through the Gutenberg project. Here is "Riders to the Sea":

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/rdrse10.txt

You will notice that there is very little attempt to bend the vowels to make the surface portin of the accent, but you get a rich representation of how the typical syntax and rhythm work. This is old rural usage; if you wanted modern Dublin, say, you would look for a contemporary novel or play.

Lass and lad are used, but I don't think lassie and laddie. I believe that's more scottish.

I'm going to try and get some recommendations from my two Irish contacts through ThinkPotter for you, if I can -- one is a Galway lad studying at Trinity, with the soft southern lilt, and the other is a Nordie from Tyrone. One of them ought to be able to recommend a source of modern dialect representation in print.

[Sekhmet]

However you choose to do it, do it with subtlety. Some very promising writers tend to go overboard with their depictions of regional accents, and the reader winds up spending more time trying to figure out what exactly was said rather than rolling with the story's flow. Don't get sucked into that.

If they speak another language entirely as their mother tongue, say for example they're native French speakers but the dialogue is currently in English, try sprinkling their speech with (very) short and easily understandable words of their own language (in this case oui, non, c'est ca, etc.) Exaggerating speech can make a character who is supposed to be somewhat exotic and interesting turn very quickly into a caricature and comic relief where you weren't planning on putting it.

Otherwise, I think Stormeil pretty much nailed it.

[WizardofOwls]

The lady that I am using is from the Donnegal Gaeltacht who also speaks fluent Irish, which will be a challenge for me since I speak NO Irish!

Thanks for the recommendations, ladies! I really appreciate your help!

[stoirmeil]

OK, Wiz. Here's Odhran's recommendations:

For Dublin dialects, he's spoilt for choice, I'd refer him to anything by Roddy Doyle for examples of classic Dublin working class dialects, or if he can find any of Paul Howard's Ross O'Carroll Kelly (available under either the author's name or the character pseudonym) for examples of contemporary Dublin upper class culture as well as occassional Dublin working class culture. For Galway he could do worse than Ken Bruen's crime novels, particularly his Jack Taylor series, The Guards, which is the first in the series, I'm quite sure is available on your side of the water. Most Irish authors give accurate accounts of the dialect they grew up in or live in.
For exagerated rural contemporary, the best examples are actually in stand-up and TV, particularly the work of John Kenny and Pat Short, who have work together as well as individually. Short's most recent TV series, Killinaskully, despite being parochial and rather average by any standards, presents a wonderful picture of a dying aspect of Irish society.
If he's after something specific, get back to me.

Odhran is one of our dearest old souls on ThinkPotter, a good scholar with a grand heart, and blessedly he also speaks Irish. Since you're a member too, I think you can communicate with him directly if you would still like some direction. He goes by "Godric" on TP, if you want to PM him -- just tell him aramantha referred you . He already knows about it, since I asked him for advice and he sent this message back.

[celticfire]

I just wanted to add:
If you haven't seen "The Secret of Roan Inish", try watching it with the English subtitles on. It really shows you an Irish accent would pronouce a sentence. As for "ya", I would try "ye" instead. Lie Stormeil said, Frank McCourt's books on tape are excellent references. Good luck

[WizardofOwls]

Thanks for the recs ladies! The lady I am writing about is from the Donnegal Gaeltacht, so that Gaelic accent might make it a little more difficult to reproduce, ye think?

[stoirmeil]

I think Sekhmet's on point here -- you don't have to reproduce the inflections as if you were trying to teach them accurately to someone; I don't think you can ever do that in print anyway, as any language textbook will tell you. If there is some special quirky feature that's peculiar to that dialect, and known to local speakers, you'd have to go for it. It would be part of the character development for that particular character.