Historical distribution of Irish dialects.
by
dublin2001
This
is a rough guide as to the main historical dialects in Irish. Roughly
this corresponds to 3 out of the 4 provinces of Ireland – Ulster,
Connacht and Munster. Each of these is split in two, this seems to be
the most common thing done in Irish linguistics.I
marked most of Leinster in grey (those parts that didn’t speak Ulster
or Munster Irish), this doesn’t mean that it never spoke Irish, but that
it is not usually included in classifications of dialects as Irish
became extinct there first.This
map doesn’t include more local details such as Ulster influence in parts
of County Mayo, or the current Irish speaking areas in County Meath (or
indeed “Connemara” or “West Kerry” – those are all historically part of
much larger dialect groups). I previously made a pointlessly detailed
map of Irish dialects a number of years ago, but I wanted something much
simpler and less prone to errors.This map only deals with the choice of dialect for a given area, and doesn’t mean that the area in question spoke only Irish.