Is the contraction "amn't" used anywhere but Ireland?

The title says it all. “I amn’t doing that”, “I’m a great guy, amn’t I?” etc. are common enough around these parts. Is this contraction used elsewhere?

I am pretty sure y’all are the only ones who use that particular word. I lived there for twelve years and never got used to hearing it! :slight_smile:

I can’t even say that without spraining my upper lip.

I remember my great-aunt using it. She was Australian born, but with an Irish family background.

I’ve heard it a few times in the midwest US.

Specifically in areas with folks of dutch ancestry.

That and “mayn’t”

We’ve got patches of Scots-Irish and German ancestry in my neck of the woods where I come from in NE Texas, and I know I recognized the “Amn’t” contraction when I saw it. And I’m pretty sure we have some Dutch as well.

[http://130.166.124.2/USpage1.html]Digital Atlas of the US, from a professor at CSUN. That uses the 1990 census, and may not be completely accurate, but the red circles on the Texas portion of the map look right to me – tons of Scots-Irish, Dutch, and German.

(wow. if you look at the percent German ancestry, the north central part of the US pretty much is a checkerboard covered in regular red dots)

I remember flatly insisting, at the age of three or four, that amen’t was too a real word, although my mother gently explained several times that it wasn’t a word that other people used.

My brother and I used it for several years, to be silly.

I have never heard it. PA, USA.

It was quite common here when I was growing up (60s & 70s) and I still hear it, and use it, occassionally.
I don’t hear it as much as I used to, though.

Not uncommon in early Modern English. Here’s a few cites from OED which show the progression from amn’t to an’t and eventually to ain’t.

*1691 Athenian Gaz. 11 May, If I amn’t mistaken, the pinch is here.

1701 G. FARQUHAR Sir Harry Wildair IV. ii. 34, I an’t to be believ’d.

1828 E, BULWER-LYTTON Pelham II. xxv. 260 A’n’t we behind hand?*

I have never heard it. What does it sound like? “A-munt”?

I would have guessed it sounded like “amt.”

AM-int. Like “aren’t” except “am” instead of “are” for the first syllable.

Edit: Assuming you pronounce “aren’t” in two syllables. I’m sure not everyone does that.

“Ah-mint”. It just occurred to me the other day that I’ve never heard an American or other English native speaker use it. I use it all the time. I pronounce “aren’t” one or two syllables, depending.

I’ve never heard it on the West Coast (OR, WA, ID, MT, WY, CA, NV).

Lots of people say it!!!

They just pronounce it funny: “ain’t”

Yes, that’s the derivation.

I take major offence at that article, as a resident of south-east England where the local dialect most certainly does retain ‘ain’t’! And ‘innit’ for ‘isn’t it’, and ‘do-it’ for ‘does it’. And so on. (Edit: and not the same ‘innit’ as Estuary English, either.)

Thet hint how we d’say 'er up here, bor. :stuck_out_tongue:

What exactly is offensive about it?