THE WORLD’S DEBT TO THE IRISH 
and the gradual destruction of the records of their 
great work. 
In the more modern time the Irish brogue, that 
is the Irish mode of pronouncing English, has made 
them misunderstood by those with whom they came 
in contact. It was thought that they either were 
incapable of appreciating English pronunciation 
properly or through defective organs of speech 
could not quite compass the sounds that the English 
uttered. Hence a feeling of depreciation for them 
that grew up around them. Careful studies in the 
history of English pronunciation show that the Irish 
mode of pronouncing English is exactly that used by 
Shakespeare and which was the rule of language 
usage in the Elizabethan and Jacobean times. It 
was at that time that the Irish gave up the use of 
their native language and took to English and they 
have kept the pronunciation as it came to them 
though the English feeling their ownership in the 
language have seen fit to modify it. Exactly the 
same thing happened in Ireland as happened in 
Canada where the Canadian French have preserved 
the pronunciation of the classical period of French 
literature in Louis XIV’s time which was in vogue 
when their ancestors came to Canada. It has 
seemed worth while to emphasize this explanation 
of the Irish brogue in a special chapter in the 
Appendix of this volume in order to eliminate a 
rather serious misunderstanding of the Irish that 
occurs as the result of it. 
Many people wonder why the initiative of the 
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