Amn't

Amn't (pronounced am-uhnt)

A non-standard (except in Irish & Scottish English) contraction of “am not”.

Circa 1600: Am is from the Middle English am & em, from the Old English eam & eom (am), from the Proto-Germanic immi & izmi (am) a form of the verb wesaną (to be; dwell), from the primitive Indo-European hiésmi (I am, I exist).  As a suffix, the contraction –n’t (not) negates the meaning of the clause in which it occurs (don’t, can’t et al).  In English, the suffix -n’t can be added only to auxiliary verbs (including dare and need in certain uses), as well as main verbs be (in almost all uses) and have (in some uses).  Indeed, in some dialects, not even all auxiliary verbs accept -n’t; for example, mayn’t is present in some dialects and absent in others.  Though verbs with -n’t are usually considered contractions of versions using the adverb not, grammatically they behave a bit differently; when subject and verb are inverted, "-n’t" remains attached to the verb, whereas "not" does not (compare: “Isn’t that difficult?” with “Is that not difficult?”)

Contractions

In English, other personal pronouns have two contracted forms that can be used in present-tense negative constructions, such as “we’re not” or “we aren’t”. The first person singular however has “I’m not” and “I amn’t” doesn’t exist.  That’s not wholly true because it’s long been in the dialectical English of Scotland and Ireland but it’s no longer part of Standard English because of shifts in pronunciation associated with a loss of favor generations ago.  Amn’t has a long history, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) citing an example from 1691, but it was almost certainly known earlier, it and many other shortened forms such as can’t, don’t and shan’t, seemingly arriving in the language circa 1600.  Amn’t however was never popular, most etymologists concluding there was some reluctance to “m” and “n” together in one syllable.  So, while centuries old, amn’t isn’t part of Standard English but is common in Ireland, used especially in colloquial speech though not limited to informal registers.  It’s also used in Scotland (alongside amnae and other variants) and, the OED notes, parts of northern England and the West Midlands with even the occasional instance in Wales.  How amn’t came to be so geographically limited is not clear.  Another variant, an’t, probably supplanted it in general usage, again because speakers wanted to avoid sounding an “n” immediately after a “m” so it was therefore a natural development to simplify the consonant cluster.  The final “t” made it more likely the simplification would go to “ant” rather than “amt”, and this is the form which emerged in eighteenth century texts, where it appears as an’t.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

An’t (also spelt a’n’t), although said to be “phonetically natural and the philologically logical shortening”, fell from favour, but not before morphing in two significant ways. It gave rise to ain’t, famous in its own right for reasons good and bad and also began being spelt aren’t (by “orthographic analogy” in one etymologist’s memorable phrase), which is pronounced the same as an’t in non-rhotic accents.  This certainly explains “aren’t I” which would otherwise seem a grammatical anomaly and its irregularity does sometime offend the fastidious but it has become accepted in much of the English-speaking world.  In that sense, the Irish and Scottish dialects are the exception in retaining and favouring its ancestor, “amn’t I” which James Joyce (1882–1941) used in Ulysses (1922) and the younger Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) certainly liked it although, later in life, he would come to abhor just about every contraction.

Because it’s so rarely heard outside of Scotland & Ireland, the form amn’t has never been as controversial as ain't (often written as aint and occasionally variously as ain', a'n't, arn't, & ar'n't).  According to the authoritative Etymology Online, the first known appearance in print dates from 1706 (in the sense of “am not”) and that’s how it was used until early in the nineteenth century when in the Cockney dialect it began to be used as a generic contraction for “are not”, “is not” etc.  That was the downfall of “ain’t” as respectable English because it was picked up by authors wanting to spice their text with the flavour of “authentic working-class speech” and in class-conscious England, that was enough to see ain’t “banished from correct English” though one interesting outlier was noted in the Dictionary of Americanisms (1848): “hain't” for "have not" recorded as “A contraction much used in common conversation in New England.”  However, while “ain’t lacked the support of the genteel, in the idioms of popular culture, it flourished: “it ain’t necessarily so”, “if it ain't broke, don't fix it” & “you ain't seen nothing yet”.

Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) had no doubts about ain’t, condemning it as “… merely colloquial, and as used for isn’t is an uneducated blunder and serves no useful purpose.”  Writing a century-odd ago, Henry Fowler long predated cultural relativism but one does wonder, were he writing today, noting the place ain’t has since claimed in popular song and idiomatic use, he might have been more forgiving.  He was however sympathetic to ain’t as a handy substitute for “am not” and lamented amn’t remained trapped in its Gaelic silo, decrying the “… shamefaced reluctance” of the English to adopt the form which “…betrays the speakers sneaking fear that the colloquially respectable and indeed almost universal “aren’t I” is “bad grammar” and that “ain’t I” will convict him of low breeding.”