Abstract
Abstract Newfoundland Irish English (NIrE) is among the earliest and most conservative of transplanted overseas varieties of southern Irish English. Yet its contribution to the history of IrE has generally been overlooked. This chapter reviews the historical background of NIrE, along with its major phonetic and grammatical features. These are derived from two recent online projects involving some 40 traditional NIrE speakers, born as early as 1880. The Newfoundland data challenge various conclusions of the IrE literature, which is largely based on written sources, including emigrant letters. For example, NIrE indicates that short-vowel diphthongization, along with an onglided goose vowel, may have been more extensive in earlier southeastern IrE than the literature suggests. More importantly, NIrE questions the claim that earlier southern varieties of IrE were characterized by the Northern Subject Rule, and offers further evidence as to the date of emergence of habitual meanings of the verb forms do be and bees.
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