Irish English in emigrant letters

ABSTRACT The language of letters, especially from lower social strata, may provide some of the best data available for pre‐twentieth‐century language history from below, because it may accurately represent features of spoken language. To illustrate how much variation – and examples of ‘non‐standard’/vernacular usage – may be extracted from letters, this study reports on a survey of citations in an early historical study of Irish emigration based on letters. The survey of citations from a study by a historian reveals numerous features of potential interest to linguists working on earlier Irish English and its influence on other Englishes, thus indicating the wealth of vernacular features that may be found in collections and corpora of personal letters.