Don't get me wrong.I'm of Irish stock,But one thing baffles me?

Question

Why is it that the Irish drop the letter aitch when using words such as : tink, instead of think,tree .....instead of three,etc
yet when it comes to the river Thames, they pronounce the aitch
whilst the rest of us drop it.
No offence,I love the Irish......well most of you.
It just puzzles me.
Maybe it's done simply to annoy the English

Answer 1

It's partly down to the way we speak, and party down to what your untrained ear can't hear. My 'th' sounds are very soft but no one from the West of Ireland would have any difficulty differentiating between my 'threes' and 'trees'. But to a foreigner both words might sound quite the same. Because I'm used to soft 'th' sounds, when a Cockney says 'three' I hear 'free'.

As others have pointed out there are huge variations in accents around the country - the dropping of the "haitch" (as we call it) varies by region, being most marked in Dublin and Kerry. In Kildare they keep or add in aitches, but drop the 't' ... 'water' becomes 'waher'. In Galway we add in aitches where none exist ... 'water' becomes 'wather' ... but given our soft 'th' sounds, you probably wouldn't notice our error.

If you truly want to know where all this originates, it has a lot to do with the Irish language. In Irish, 't' on its own is usually pronounced as a soft 'th', with a pure 't' or strong 'th' sound being very rare in the language.

Answer 2

Am not Irish although all my family are my mother of 82 still has her accent but I have never heard her say tree instead of three I think it must depend on where they come from some say I have a strange accent cause I don't say wot or init think it's just where you come from and the accent you are brought up with

Answer 3

Well not all Irish do it. It depend on what part of Ireland they come from. Funny you mention the H cockneys don't pronounce the h sound i.e ere instead of here. lol. Well we Irish love to put the wind up the English ☺

Answer 4

I'm Irish, and no-one where we live talks like that.
There are as many different accents in Ireland as there are in England, so it's wrong to generalise like that.
A Dubliner might talk like that, but someowne from Belfast would be extremely unlikely to.
Just like you'll hardly ever hear a cockney saying "Why aye man bonny lad" or "Ooh ar ooh ar, get thee orf moi comboined 'arvester".

Answer 5

When my aunt's new French husband was introduced to the rest of our (English) family, my Dad & his best mate decided it would be funny to tell Jacques that the river that flowed through London was called the "Tay-meez". It took Jacques a while to cotton on, but he did take it in good part!

I also knew an Irish teacher living in England who complained bitterly about those "little Turds" who made her life misery. Yep, she meant the 3rd years. Took me a while to work it out.

Sorry, not an answer to your question - which I don't know. You could add "why do the Irish also always pronounce a double T as a D sound"? ie better comes out as bedder, little as liddle. Bugs me no end.

Answer 6

Depends on where you're from in Ireland.

Answer 7

Ah no, not done to annoy the English hahaha. I think it is a regional thing as not all the Irish people speaks like that. I have heard some....only some....people in Dublin speak that way.

Ocram , where are your manners. (Dutchman in Dublin), aren't you a guest there.

Answer 8

it would b called an accent!!! people from all over the world pronounce words differerntly!! like when i was working the other day i had americans come in n one of them tried 2 get me to change the way we spoke because he couldnt understand what we were saying, in the end i had to put an american accent on to pronounce one pound!!

Answer 9

I've watched RTE news on the Internet and noticed the same ting.

Answer 10

Just accent, confusing but fun to listen to, once their is an adjustment