DISTRICT 9 - IN DUBLIN 9 ??
Feb 4th, 2010 by Sean Baite
[ Vikus Van de Merwe under the Muddership from IMDB Gallery ]
According to one of those pub myths (of the type The Brother might pass on to you) - no other than yer man Lenin spoke English with a pronounced Dublin accent. It could even be narrowed down to a Rathmines accent, due to the Rathmines-born English teacher who passed it on to him in the first place (or so sez de brudder). I had the eerie sensation I had been transported back to Dublin the other night through, of all things, watching ‘District 9′ on DVD.
This eerie sensation came from the film’s lead character Wikus Van De Merwe (played by Sharlto Copley) and his way of pronouncing every Dubliner’s (and apparently every Afrikaaner’s) favourite means of punctuation - the word fook
and believe me - during the course of the film Wikus pronounces the word more than once. Don’t just take my word for it - we can depend on YouTube, someone has had the necessary time on their hands to compile every single fook pronounced in the film into one vid - and it ends up lasting for over a minute :
I’ll leave it up to you, our 7 or 8 regulars, to complement my ear (or not) for language and confirm if it really is the Dublin way of pronouncing it. I find it floats somewhere between Dublin and Scouse - they could have cast Ronnie Whelan or Jan Molby in the role - apart from they would’ve had to let out the waist on Wikus’s trousers a bit… Bizarrely, none of the rest of Wikus’s sentences sound in any way Dub / Scouse etc. etc.
An explanation for this linguistic epi-phenomenon ?? The Dublin Fusiliers in the Boer War ? The handful of Irish volunteers on the other side of the Boer War ? Colin Farrell having done that TEFL course in South Africa before he hit the big time ?
Also to be noted - the pejorative term for the aliens in the film is prawns… Clearly, after being submitted to such a flow of verbal sewage, they’ll probably end up as Dublin Bay Prawns.
Who knows - but fook it in anywaze…
Regarding the Lenin story, it cropped up in The Irish Times in October 2009:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1023/1224257294631.html
Ta for having done more research than me, Jay… McInally must have his tongue firmly in his cheek describing Lenin as a fellow socialist of our beloved Bertie.
They’ll be claiming Lenin as a Man U fan next…
Myself and Ciarán Finnegan went to see District 9 in Cineworld on Parnell St and everytime Wikus said “fook” or “fooking ‘ell” we all just laughed in recognition. (The “we” being the audience).
Oh, the Lenin with a Rathmines accent comes from Roddy Connolly no less, son of James, who met Lenin in Moscow in 1920.
I haven’t seen District 9 yet. but that is very funny. It’s like over-hearing some Dublin lad who after a night out in the pub manages to break his key in his front door. “fook, fook, fook, fook, the stupid fookin’ fook……..FOOOOOK.”
hmmmmm best way to to tell is to compare it on an IPA chart.
There is usually a pronounced shift in the vowel sound from the back of the mouth to the front, or maybe a rounded vowel instead of an open vowel. Don’t even start with me on “t” droppage.
example 1. [f?k] - i think is the dublin dialect which from the back of your mouth and is rounded.
[fak] - would be the australian one with the sound coming from the front of your mouth and your lips unrounded.
Actually from the looks of the dialects chart on wikipedia, if it’s correct, and it probably isn’t, the actor got the word “wrong”. I say “wrong” because it’s always based on some sort of self-reflective sense of accent, which only those from a particular dialect can distinguish.
If you really are interested in this you should look up the idea of language. My favourite is the idea of ideolects, which are distinguished amongst dialects, which in turn distinguished by languages, and finally you have the basic grammar and structure which all languages are supposed to share: some form of subject, object, verb combination, syntax. Chomsky puts it for English in phrase structure rules - Subject -> NounPhrase VerbPhrase.
Anyway I enjoy the blog so I’m glad I got to go completely nerdy on something, helps the unemployment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_chart_for_English_dialects
Disgracedminister - I think I was spotted at a few linguistics lectures during my college years - but I’ve retained precious little of it. I think I’m fairly expert in the practice of “t” droppage and turning every “th” into a simple “t”. Have completely forgotten the IPA though, sadly.
Is Dublinese an ‘ideolect’ ?
Is there a link between ‘idiocy’ and ‘ideolects’ as, if so, I should be fairly proficient in ideolects also…
Strangely enough, in the District 9 clip, I’m not too sure if Copley gets it ‘wrong’ but I’m almost sure the nasty mercenary type character pronounces the word in question in the Aussie fashion (one of the examples you give).
Anyhow - glad to hear linguistics helps the unemployment. Am suffering from the same dose myself at the moment. Good luck in finding your way back into a cabinet somewhere
Conor - Roddy Connolly eh ?? So it was a case of ‘De son’ rather than ‘De brudder’….
The 27 Aug 1976 Irish Times article where Roddy Connolly mentions that Lenin spoke English with a Rathmines accent is available here:
http://www.irishlabour.com/dublinopinion/roddy-connolly-1976.jpg
I’ve underlined in red the part where the story is recalled.