Conclusions

This chapter recaps the content of the book and summarises its main findings, that the dialect developed through New Dialect Formation as a result of contact between different dialects of English and Scots, and as a result of it being learned by adult speakers of Scots, who imposed aspects of their phonology on it. The language shift from Irish had minimal impact on the phonological development of the dialect. The importance of these findings for understanding the genesis of Irish English more generally and for expanding our understanding of new dialect formation in situations of settlement colonisation are also considered.