Hello,

Let me start by saying I love the Irish language. I have been learning it for about two years now and I can only hope that its popularity and usage will continue to grow.

I recently took a vacation to Ireland and I couldn't help but marvel at all the road signs in the older Irish script. I have begun to study more and more about the history of Irish writing and I was curious as to why on earth anyone would just stop using such a beautiful script.

I started reading about the Colum Cille font developed in in the late 1920's by Colm O'Lochlainn, Stannly Morris, and Karl Uhlemann. It is by far, one of the most beautiful fonts out there, but it did not last very long. Even though it was pleasing to the eye and met the demands of the language...there wasn't a big demand for the typeface.

I was curious if anyone here knows more about the font. For instance, does anyone know if this font was ever created for the computer? Or does anyone know of publications written in the font and where to find them?

Also, I would love to find out about how people here feel about the older writing style? Does anyone here wish it were still in use? Or should be trying to update all those road signs?

My impression is that most people who love the language like to read it in the old script. I do.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PeterKGriffin1/muigheo.htm

You're probably already aware that these guys know about that kind of stuff:
http://www.evertype.com/
http://www.fainne.org/gaelchlo/index.html

quote:

My impression is that most people who love the language like to read it in the old script.

Is maith liom an cló Gaelach. Agus is fíor-mhaith liom an pheannaireacht sna seanlámhscríbhinní leis na noda uilig (féach http://quidnunc.net/~garyi/noda/notae.html ). Ach ní léim ceachtar acu chomh héasca agus a léim téacsana sa chló Rómhánach. Is dóigh liom gur saghas "gestalt" atá i gceist. Is é sin, ní léann muid litreacha ach focail agus grúpaí focal, agus is sciobtha a aithníonn muid na cruthanna a fheiceann muid go minic - cruthanna an chló Rómhánaigh i mo chás-sa - ná cruthanna cuanna nach fheictear go minic. Ceist do na teangeolaithe é seo! Lughaidh? Max?

I like it enough, but it's kinda hard to read, at least it was until I downloaded the Bunchló Ársa thing above, now I can finally tell the difference between s and r and b and t. I was reading An Claidheamh Soluis the other day, doing some research and it was more than a bit tricky figuring out all the stuff. But, just to clarify, it's not 'Gaelic' typeface, it's the Lation font that was used before the new charachters were brought in. The Irish monks were isolated and kept using the old style, even after the new style was brought in and it stuck as the 'Gaelic' typeface. The Latin typeface is certainly needed for computers at any rate, or at least it was. It would be interesting if someone published a newspaper or something in the old print.

By the way, is there any way to get the dot(the shéimhiú) above the letters in the Bunchló computer font without pressing Alt+whatever, I have a laptop and that way doesn't work for me.

Ní deacair liom an cló Gaelach a léamh ar chor ar bith, agus scríobhaimse Gaeilg i gcónaí sa chló Ghaelach, ’s mé ’scríobh le peann.
Bíonn na láimhscríbhínní níos deacra le léamh - go háiríd i Meán-Ghaeilg nó i Sean-Ghaeilg, siocair nach léimse na teangthacha sin gomh furast is a léim an Nua-Ghaeilg... agus níl na nodannaí uilig ar eolas agam (a’ chuid acu nach bhfuil róchoitianta).

the Gaeilge font for mac and a slew of others like seanclo bunclo fiorclo and more for pc (will work on macs too, for the most part)

it is also known as Latin Miniscule, and was used when writing margin glosses in illuminated manuscripts.

it was stopped, by and large, when printing was done with physical pieces of movable type. since printing, education and power in general were in english speaking hands in ireland from the time of the invention of the printing press, few Gaeilge typesets were manufactured.

the downside to this is that what is rightfully an accent mark (the séimhiú dot) became an 'h'...this has a tendency to confuse beginners to no end giving false recognition of common english sounds like ch sh and th, and seemingly 'impossible' sounds like dh bh mh gh etc.

over time people simply got used to seeing the new "Roman" letterforms, so to change back to old Ss and Rs and Gs and Ts would be visually confusing, but there is no reason we couldn't go back to using the dot...

now that most physical printing is done via computers - and the entire body of electronic media on the internet is - there is no good reason whatsoever to persist in using that ridiculous 'h' instead of displaying it as a proper accent mark, along with the Roman letters. More and more computers, programs and browsers are designed to be unicode compatible. I'm not going to get into unicode here, but it's fantastic. if you've no idea what I'm talking about go to www.unicode.org and click the link "what is unicode"...also some info here http://www.unicode.org/iuc/iuc10/x-ga.html ...

imagine being able to properly display every character in every written language built-in, without having to change settings or worry about fonts. The latest MS Word is compatible, as is Mac's 'Pages' and TextEdit and Adobe's latest Acrobat Reader. you can set your internet browsers' to default to unicode as well.

Wow,

I wasn't expecting so many responses so quickly...

I think that the older style of writing is hard to read because almost all of the writing was done by hand. If you compare texts written through the last few centuries you will notice that the writing was becoming more and more appealing to the eye. With the exception of the Book of Kells, which may be some of the most beautiful writing in the world, Irish was almost runic with straight lines and sharp angles which are perfect for handwriting. But with modern presses, the writing was becoming more rounded and closer to the Roman alphabet of modern day.

That's why I am such a fan of the O' Lochlainn's Colum Cille type used by the Three Candle's Press of the late 1920's. It was in my opinion the best typeset yet created because it was a bridge between the old systems and the new.

It is such a shame that they did not consider using it in the 1940's when the language revival efforts started going into full swing.

As for the comment about it causing confusion for people, it would cause some at first, but if a native English speaker can learn to use alphabets such as those used by Russian, Korean, or Lakhota...I don't think the letters "r" and "s" are going to be that big a deal. They are very similiar, but what made them so hard to tell apart was the fact they were written by hand. With computers, it is easy to make clearly defined letters.

Plus I kind of like the dots over the letters. I think it causes less confusion. Try telling someone that doesn't know anything about Irish that "máthair" and "mháthair" are the same word, and just see the confused expression on their faces. But if a person who doesn't know anything about Irish sees a dot over a the "m" they will not only be able to recognise the word "máthair," but they will be able to visiually see that there is something happening to that "m".

the confusion comes when one confuses s with r, g with s, d with o and t with c

in addition to the 'faux-amis' that are created from 'h' combinations i mentioned above

plus, you are astute in pointing out one of the most basic problems people encounter, the initial letter mutations. úrú is one thing...that is actually the addition of a letter, but putting an 'h' in there? c'mon, let's not make things any more difficult or counterintuitive than they have to be...

just as an aside...when i'm typing here, or someplace online where i can't guarantee that my readers will have unicode turned on on the browsers I use the 'h,' but in handwriting or typed things I use the dot with the modern roman letterforms. it looks just like people are used to, but with the dot.

just by way of a visual example, go here and select to "download to desktop" (there's a button there for it).
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/19728279/
it is a collection of faerie tales i've written in english, but incorporate irish words and phrases. I use the same font all the way through, but the dot instead of the H when it comes to the irish words...

it will download as a pdf and open with adobe. if it tries to open with something else, manually select to open it with adobe.

>>Ceist do na teangeolaithe é seo!

This question spans far beyond the scope of linguitics (involving cognition and perception amongst other things). And I don't know much about it...

>>Is é sin, ní léann muid litreacha ach focail agus grúpaí focal

I would say we see "letter clusters" (like "ing", "th", "ea", and larger clusters).
I know that we grow out of the "learning how to read" process when we actually stop deciphering the words letter by letter. Still, when we encounter an unknown word, we have to decipher it "graph by graph" (e.g.: teeth > t-ee-th).
Furthermore, we anticipate. That is: we don't wait until the end of a word (be it written or spoken) to recognize it, we make guesses. And the rarer are the sounds or letters with which a word begins, the quicker and surer is the assumption when encountering a word that begins with them (e.g.: simulate vs zygote)

>>is sciobtha a aithníonn muid na cruthanna a fheiceann muid go minic

Obviously yes. And speaking of "láimhscríbhínní", did you notice that among the languages which use the latin alphabet, each has its own and recognisable style(s).

>>ná cruthanna cuanna nach fheictear go minic.

If I correctly understand "cuanna" as "beautiful", then I can't help but think of calligraphy. Not calligraphy in the European sense but in the Chinese one: the utmost art, the one which surpasses all others.

'Tis said that lenition was first represented by an h placed after the consonant letter, and then by superscript h over the consonant, and this was later reduced to a dot. There's nothing ridiculous or counterintuitive about it: h by itself is a fricative, ch is the fricative counterpart of c, and so on.

No, uncial script was not invented by the Gaels of Ireland; and a "grandson" should be called a pettison, if "nephew" will no longer do. And I can't believe I'd written "do'n té a bhfuil suim ann" instead of "do'n té a bhfuil suim aige ann," and didn't notice it until today. Well, yes, I can. There, I have now hurried up and fixed it.

define "styles"...german gave up their distinctive style in the latter half of the 20th century...french uses the same typefaces english does, as does spanish, italian and just about every european language i can think of that uses a latin alphabet...they all maintain their distinct diacritical accent marks (except irish/scottish), but the letterforms are the same...

peadar - the dot did emerge out of some latin convention at the time which eventually solidified in gaeilge as the dot, but consider irish's situation:

1) the dot has been an accent mark (not the H) for 12-1500 years - vastly more than the entire life of modern irish and most of its literate history

2) it desperately needs to make headway in its own country, which means getting english speakers to speak it and pass it on to their children - at least as a second language. why resurrect a dark age convention which serves to confuse the very people gaeilge needs while acting itself as a concession to the Opressor culture by robbing Irish of one of the language's visual distinctions?

By the way, is there any way to get the dot (the séimhiú) above the letters in the Bunchló computer font without pressing Alt+whatever
Yup.
http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~oduibhin/mearchlar/windows.htm

κ > c (stop)
χ > ch (fricative)

π > p (stop)
φ > ph (fricative)

τ > t (stop)
θ > th (fricative)

"For the spirants (or fricatives) Latin offered only five symbols: s, f, and in Greek words ch th ph, all of which are used in Irish. The symbols f and ph have the same phonetic value; ph is normally used at the end of a syllable or where the spirant has arisen from lenition of p, f in all other cases...

"In the St. Gall Glosses, as well as in Mid.Ir. manuscripts, c t (p) with the suprascript sign of the Greek spiritus asper are sometimes written for ch th (ph)."

—Rudolf Thurneysen, "A Grammar of Old Irish"

"In the St. Gall Glosses, as well as in Mid.Ir. manuscripts, c t (p) with the suprascript sign of the Greek spiritus asper (├) are sometimes written for ch th (ph)."
—Rudolf Thurneysen, "A Grammar of Old Irish"

"The origin of the sign is thought to be the left-hand half (├) of the letter H, which was used in some Greek dialects as an [h] while in others it was used for the vowel eta."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritus_asper

Antaine,
I fail to see the problem with the use of 'h'.

'Confusing'? Well maybe to people you are trying to get interested in Irish, but to anyone who is really involved, the 'h' will make no difference. The dot will not get one more person to spreak Irish either.

Gavin,
" recently took a vacation to Ireland and I couldn't help but marvel at all the road signs in the older Irish script"

Where in Ireland? I ahve never seen a sign i gcló Gaelach anywhere on public signs. Do you mean shop signs?

(Message edited by Max on August 28, 2005)

>>define "styles"

I was refering to "láimhscríbhínní".
For instance: although everybody has his own and distinct way of shaping letters, a German hand-writing is generally recognizable (as opposed to a French or English one)... especially in way the Germans shape r, z and h.

thanks...that's definitely right...even french handwriting gets its own chapter in french 1 books and its own fonts for the comp



Where in Ireland? I ahve never seen a sign i gcló Gaelach anywhere on public signs. Do you mean shop signs?

i was there in june and was amazed myself at the number of signs in the old script (i had been told there would be none). there were none on the sheetmetal roadsigns, but tons of street signs (official ones) in dublin and other places and other signs around various towns (we went to cork, killarney, galway and several other small places along the way whose names escape me at the moment. some books in the bookstores, too, but many more signs than books...



"'Confusing'? Well maybe to people you are trying to get interested in Irish, but to anyone who is really involved, the 'h' will make no difference. The dot will not get one more person to spreak Irish either."

the difficulty is getting them to stick with it long enough to "really get involved"...virtually every complaint i've heard from beginners as to why they're giving up is because they just can't "get" the link between what's written on the page and the sound that's supposed to come out of their mouth. i've not had that complaint with one person i've started with using the dot. you and i both know that once you put in the effort to learn it either method can be decoded by your brain just as quickly as the other...but getting to that point is the trick.

if they work to learn something, and can show barely any - or no - headway after several weeks or months they will become discouraged and give up on it, and get on with their busy lives. english speakers have a real hard time wrapping their brains around irish, and phonetics is the main culprit. most never get as far as being confused by grammar because trying to learn to associate the phonetics with what's in their book is like endlessly banging their head against a wall.

and if gaeilge can't win large numbers of converts from the pool of english speakers then it will die out in its own home.

the irish are now largely english speakers. for the language to change (as all languages do) in small ways to facilitate its own children learning it (in this case, they are all english speakers) is entirely appropriate. the trick is to make it intuitive enough that the average irishman doesn't view it as either 1) impossible or 2) the investment not worth the return, while still remaining true to itself...

"virtually every complaint i've heard from beginners as to why they're giving up is because they just can't "get" the link between what's written on the page and the sound that's supposed to come out of their mouth"

I think U R been selective. The people you are delaing with should not be learning any tongue if they are not will ing to put in the time.

"trying to learn to associate the phonetics with what's in their book is like endlessly banging their head against a wall"

Well, the problem is a long standing one, but 'learning' Gaelic phonemics via endless circuits of vicarious quasi-rules ("Irish 't' is like 't' in 'tap', 'a' in 'apple' and so on) is no way to approache the L2 learner. That is one reason I have no time for language books. Frankly, they are bullshit.

"and if gaeilge can't win large numbers of converts from the pool of english speakers then it will die out in its own home"

There are secondry speakers in Ireland, and generally they are poor. One girl in Limerick interviewed by TG4 for a youth programme, turned up the tone at the end of every sentance as if she was Australian! English speakers are Anglo, are poor at second language aquisition, and their culture is pre-eminant at the moment. There is no reason to speak any other language. Precisly the wrong population to fish for converts.

"for the language to change (as all languages do) in small ways to facilitate its own children learning it (in this case, they are all english speakers) is entirely appropriate."

changing a tongue for second speakers is a risky undertaking. They will probebly change it into their L1 when it suits them...Besides, there will be no native population.

"the trick is to make it intuitive enough that the average irishman"

The average Irishman lives out the Anglo lifestyle, and sees no contradiction that his ancestors were slaughtered by proponents of that culture. If the gaeltacht were militant you would soon seem in in the Curragh with British security specialists employed to 'render' them.

More speciifcally, if you are not interested in the amateurs and second rate Brits that pass for the irish national soccar team, you can get attacked for 'been English' (and by readers of Rupurt Murdochs the 'Irish' "We love it!" Sun). Ireland is the wrong place to be betting the farm on.

If the reconstitution community realises that communities must be created that are Gaeilge only, and ignores the 'great unwashed' who are in their right to ignore it all, as is their wont, then time and energy can be focussed where they are needed. The revival community thinks everyone should be speaking irish. Why? Because they say so?

quote:

I ahve never seen a sign i gcló Gaelach anywhere on public signs.

I nGaillimh, mar shampla. Féach:

http://www.evertype.com/celtscript/corcaigh-gaillimh.html

quote:

scríobhaimse Gaeilg i gcónaí sa chló Ghaelach, ’s mé ’scríobh le peann

An scríobhann tú gach litir leis féin, ar nós na scríobhaithe sna LSS, nó an mbaineann tú úsáid as an scríobh reatha a bhíodh i réim sna scoileanna i lár an chéid seo caite? Just curious.

Does anyone know of on-line examples -- or better yet, a manual -- of cursive handwriting in Irish script, the sort that used to be taught back in the 30's? I see it mostly in handwritten notes in old books from that era.

Antaine & Dennis,
yes yiz are right. I forgot about the street signs.

Hello everyone,

Personally, I do not have a problem witht the "h" after the consonant. As I have said before I have been learning the language for about two years now and I am as used to the "h" as everyone else. I just think that it was a shame that the older printing style of Irish went away?

I mean side stepping the whole "ogham" debates, written Irish hasn't been round very long. It only started to appear in the last 500 years or so which isn't very long sice the Celtic languages have been in Isles for what 2000 years. That's only a quarter of the time...

Regardless of what it looked like, the lettering used to write Irish, was constant right into the 1930's. Then in the 1940's the spelling rules of the language were decided and it so goes the history of the language. Now I am not saying one is better, I was just thinking out loud about how unusual it must have been to just drop half a millennium of writing tradition and start something new. Especially when the technology was starting to come around that could correct a number of concerns the people were having with the lettering.

Now I am no linguist, I can not talk about symbology and phonetics. But I do know that the mind does not learn words letter by letter, rather by groups of letters. And that as long as the first and last letter are the same and the number of letters remain that same, then the brain can recognise the word...

Bileive me on tihs, this was porven in a rceent sudty dnoe in Eglnad. Jsut to prvoe my pniot.

But if you add a letter to the mix, the brain has a greater chance of not understanding the word. But like I said, I am no expert. Just something I heard about in a chain mail a few months ago.

Yes I was talking about shop signs and such. The road signs I saw were just outside of Gweedore.

I am the first to agree with the statement that if someone is willing to learn a language, then they are willing to learn the little quirks of it. I remember in the first few months that I started learning Irish, I felt like I was in school again because no matter where you go or what course you are learning from they always start of with the history of the language. I just think that the older lettering gives a person a connection to a language that was being spoken long before it was being written.

Gavin

Gavin,
I will poke around and get the reference to a study that threw up data that supported the point that the brain uses image recogniton to analyse words as a whole, not a linear symbol by symbol method.

As for your contention on written Irish, its wrong. Irish has the old written continual tradition in Western Europe, and one of the oldest existant in the world, beaten only by Greece, Isreal, India, and China. If you include Ogham, its is 16/17 centuries. If those copper plates found in Spain are anything to go by, then it could be pushed back nearly 2000 years. (Again I will ahve to find the URL).

>An scríobhann tú gach litir leis féin, ar nós na >scríobhaithe sna LSS,

Mar seo a scríobhaimse. D’úrt Lambert (údar 'Dictionnaire étymologique de l'irlandais ancien') liom go rabh mo scríobh cosúil le ceann Chéiteann ina chuid láimhscríbhínní - bhí mé bródúil :-) . D’fhoghlaim mé scríobh mar sin a’ cóipeáil cuma na leitreach as grianghrafannaí láimhscríbhínní do chuid an 17ú/18ú haois.

>nó an mbaineann tú úsáid as an scríobh reatha a bhíodh >i réim sna scoileanna i lár an chéid seo caite? Just >curious.

níl, níl seo chomh hálainn leis a’ dóigh eile.

quote:

written Irish hasn't been round very long. It only started to appear in the last 500 years or so

Not so. The earliest surviving manuscript texts in Irish language date mostly from the 8th century, although the Cambrai MS dates from sometime between 763 and 780, and it is clearly a transcription of an even earlier MS text. Other transcribed texts found in MSS now in Florence and Paris most likely go back to glosses first written around 700. So that gives us a good 1,300 years of writing in Irish, and that is conservative.

quote:

go rabh mo scríobh cosúil le ceann Chéiteann ina chuid láimhscríbhínní - bhí mé bródúil

Caithfidh tú cárta poist a chur chugam! Tig liom tcht r-phoist a chur chugat le mo sheoladh.

To put the question of the "ch", "th", etc. versus the "ponc" (lenition dot) in historical perspective, you might enjoy looking at the Reichenauer Schulheft, an Irish MS written in the second half of the 9th century. It contains the only copy of the poem "Messe ocus Pangur Bán". You can view the pages on line at:

http://www.uni-potsdam.de/u/lingtri/schulheft/

and the Pangur poem is on the page "1 verso unten".

If you cruise around the text, written in an elegant but informal hand, you'll see that "ch" and "th" are written with haitches, not with poncanna. "Ph" is not a common combination, but there is at least one example of it. And "gh, dh, bh" were not written in Old Irish, with either haitch or ponc.

(Message edited by dennis on August 28, 2005)

quote:

If I correctly understand "cuanna" as "beautiful", then I can't help but think of calligraphy. Not calligraphy in the European sense but in the Chinese one: the utmost art, the one which surpasses all others.

Aontaím leat, cé gur fearr liom an pheannaireacht a dhéannan na Seapánaigh. Tá cnuasach beag di sin agam. Tá ceann díobh le feiceáil ar an idirlíon ag:

http://www.remash.com/portfolio.php?slideshow=7

(an chéad ghrianghraf sa "Ballard Remodel" -- cónaí orm anois sa "Laurelhurst Remodel", mar a bhfuil grianghraf le feiceáil de phictiúr a rinne Mark Tobey le dubh sumi)

(Message edited by dennis on August 28, 2005)

(Message edited by dennis on August 28, 2005)

Hmmm,

I did not want to inglude Ogham for personal reasons. I am not a big fan of it. However if you are want to include it, I have always been told that it started to appear around the 3rd century. If this is time period is correct wouldn't that meen that Irish writing has only been round for some 1800 years plus or minus a few centuries. This still keeps me in my 2000 year window.

From what I understand about it, Ogham was only known by a select few, and to write things down was not highly favored by the culture of the times.

If I am understanding things correctly, it wouldn't be until the Christians came over around the 5th century that the Latin alphabet would be used. And then it was really only used for religious purposes and again not for the general public.

The Viking invasions during the 9th and 10th centuries would destroy most of the written works, which sounds reasonable since they would attack the rich monasteries for their gold. And it wouldn't be until later that the works would be re-written.

The majority of Irish texts come from the 11th century on. So that brings me to roughly 1100 good years for writing in Irish. But again, it wouldn't be until the printing presses starting coming out in the 1400's and 1500's that the general public would have the ability to use it for something other than politics and religion.

Which I think now puts me in my window of roughly 500 years plus or minus a century for the mass publication throughout Ireland. I know the numbers as a little more than 500, but I was rounding it off for simplicity.

Please let me know if I am I am horribly wrong here? I have been to museums in Dublin and I have seen writing dating from the 7th to 9th centuries. But there are not enough books to make me think that there was written word all over Ireland. So I say only 500 years because I feel that writing didn't make its way throughout Ireland until the printing press made it possible for the masses to have.

Gavin

quote:

So I say only 500 years because I feel that writing didn't make its way throughout Ireland until the printing press made it possible for the masses to have.

That applies to every language and country. It is like saying that only literate people write!
And it was a long, long time after Gutenburg that "the masses" became literate.

How many people today read poetry in any language? Does that mean no poetry exists?

quote:

Please let me know if I am I am horribly wrong here? I have been to museums in Dublin and I have seen writing dating from the 7th to 9th centuries. But there are not enough books to make me think that there was written word all over Ireland. So I say only 500 years because I feel that writing didn't make its way throughout Ireland until the printing press made it possible for the masses to have.

I think you're somewhat mistaken on two counts, Gavin, although there's nothing horrible about that. First, Irish manuscripts were geographically widespread, not just in Ireland and Scotland, but on the Continent. The irony is that the oldest *surviving* manuscripts are all found in Continental libraries. Books in Ireland itself were in constant use, and simply wore out. On the mainland of Europe, however, there were no longer any Irish speakers after the early waves, thus no readers for those books, thus they sat unused and did not wear out. In Ireland itself, there is ample evidence of large manuscript libraries, both personal and in religious institutions, from North to South and in all centuries.

The second point on which you're mistaken has to do with the impact of printing on Irish. For various reasons, mostly political, the printing of texts in Irish lagged way behind other Eurpoean vernaculars, and most of the printing that was done in the 16th and 17th centuries was actually done on presses outside Ireland. The result of this denial of the press was that the manuscript tradition survived longer in Ireland than anywhere else in Western Europe. People were still copying books by hand in Ireland in the 18th century, esp. romances and other non-religious works. So at a time when Londoners -- and probably enough of them to be called "the masses" -- were gobbling up fiction in the form of printed books, the Irish-speaking masses had no such access to popular entertainment in their own language. And remember that even though the Bible was printed in Irish by then, Catholic laymen, unlike Protestants, were not encouraged to read the Bible themselves, so the Irish Bible had a very limited impact on public literacy, unlike, for example, the Welsh Bible in that country.

"Precisly the wrong population to fish for converts. "

yes, but it is unfortunately the only population gaeilge has to gain speakers faster than the breeding abilities of those in the gaeltacht - and that is provided they are all passing the language along to their offspring as a first language, which we know they are not.

ireland has got to find some way to make it desireable and approachable to english speakers or it's a lost cause.

and yes, i did say that the earliest convention seems to be with the H and a later convention the ponc, but that later convention has been around for a long, long time...many centuries. I do believe it's a better system in general, better for gaining new speakers, and surrendered for all the wrong reasons...

http://www.univie.ac.at/indogermanistik/quellentexte.cgi?41

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botorrita_tablet

Q Celtic rather (Celtiberian). As I said if it were to be considered related to Irish that would be 2200 years old...but that is a stretch, so my mistake of jumping the gun

Dennis a chara,

I am no expert as I have said before, I have only a limited knowledge of Irish's history. This may be from the over simplification for the new learner.

What I guess I am curious about, or more to the point, the reason I first posted this thread...

Is if this older style of writing is as old as we say it is, if it was as wide spread as we say it was, then why did Ireland decide to just drop it and start something new when it was their goal to reclaim what they had almost lost?

I mean, isn't one of the major claims of the language revival efforts, that they are attempting to bring back a part of their cultural identity? If so, why not bring back the writing system that has been with their culuture from the start of its written history? I feel that this writing system is as much a part of the Irish identity as is the spoken language. But then I am just one person thinking out loud agian.

I will admit that when it is written by hand, someone who is not familiar with the script may get confused, but it just takes a little time and practice to get used to. The same with any langauge. As far as books, newspapers, documents, and every other printed media out there. We now have the abiltiy to make fonts to meet the demands of today's world.

to widely disseminate written material, you needed a printing press.

few manufactured gaeilge typesets = most publications in irish being forced to use the english typesets

by the time presses became obsolete and computers came on the scene making publishing a bit more democratic several centuries had passed. Most of the body of written gaeilge had been done with english typesets for many, many years, and it was what both students and literate native speakers alike were used to.

To change back to Seancló now would be very costly, requiring the replacing of every official bilingual sign in the country and confusion for both native speaker and students with the ancient letterforms. If successful, almost all printed books would also be made obsolete.

reintroduction of the ponc with the modern roman typeface would be a different story as the letterforms themselves would remain unchanged

and if I am correct, acquisition by students would increase, offering hope for spread of the language in the english speaking population of Ireland.

The development from various styles of handwriting, and the first printing presses which were close to handwriting, to simpler fonts was fairly universal all over Europe.

In the 1920's the Government, which was printing a lot of material, took an economic decision to use roman fonts - thereby reversing the original economic decision to use a diacretic for the h to save vellum.

I think this is shadow boxing, though. I don't think the font is truly the obstacle to people in Ireland learning Irish - far more important is the "Irish won't sell the cow" mentality.

And I hope EU status and the offical languages act are the start of that changing, since Irish will be required to sell at least some cows.

Antaine, are you seriously saying that replacing a h with a ponc will seriously make a difference as to the amount of people learning Irish? You've got to be wired to the moon to think that.