Mar eolas daoibh. Ó núachtán sa tSualainn.

Ar chóir le na hÉireannaigh na fadas a chaitheamh amach? An bhfuil barúil ag éinne?

quote:

"A parliamentary working group has proposed scrapping Sweden's 'complex letters' Å, Ä and Ö, citing globalization and technological competitiveness as the main factors.

The Swedish government will now launch an inquiry into the matter, with a full recommendation anticipated in the autumn.

"Language is constantly changing and we must be prepared to meet the linguistic challenges of the modern world," said the Centre Party's Åsa Bäckström, who chaired the working group.

"Communication barriers are a hindrance to competitiveness, so we should do whatever we can - within reason - to eliminate them," said Bäckström in a press statement.

The change will not be addressed by legislation, but the government is expected to attempt to phase out the use of the three letters over a period of five years with a series of economic incentives.

These will target the technology, media and publishing industries with reduced VAT for computer hardware and software, newspapers and books which stop using Å, Ä and Ö.

Instead, advised the working group, Å should be replaced by AA, Ä by AE and Ö by OE. Many international media already use these letter combinations when reporting on Swedish affairs, Bäckström pointed out.

The plan is supported by the Swedish Association of Technology Employers.

"When you look at the cost to Sweden of keeping these letters, you can see the benefit of scrapping them," said the association's chairman, Torbjörn Nilsson.

"To a large extent this process has already begun for individuals or companies that use the internet in their communication. Email addresses and web site addresses simply ignore these letters."

However, the move has not been welcomed by all. The Swedish Institute for Language and Learning in Ystad noted that other countries seem to be more inclined to stand up for their cultural and linguistic heritage.

"What we see in Germany and France, for example, is the complete opposite of this. Like them, we should be guarding our language, not giving it up," said press officer Göran Åklund.

Båstad council was also quick to reject the move.

"We already have enough trouble with English-speakers who think the name of our town is amusing. If the Å becomes a regular A it will just make things worse," said Social Democrat councillor Pär Öberg."

We couldn't scrap the fáda..
Translate "old" and "john" what do ya get...

well, domhnall, you could...but then you'd have a muddle like english, with identical spellings of different meaning and differently pronounced words (like read and read)

arguably, however, english doesn't suffer much for this as context usually takes care of any confusion.

still, a language's orthography is part of its identity, and distinctive features such as diacritical marks, unique letters etc are almost impossible to add once removed.

On the other hand we could go back to the old system of adding "dh" after the vowel in place of the fada, reverting my name to Meadhbh, etc.

quote:

the old system of adding "dh" after the vowel in place of the fada

Ní raibh a leithéid de chóras ann, dáiríre. Tá an síneadh fada le fáil in a lán áiteanna nach raibh 'dh' ann ar a lorg sa litriú clasaiceach, gan trácht ar litirú na Sean-Ghaeilge.

Could I trouble you for a translation there Dennis? I think you're telling me that the dh thing wasn't done in place of the fada as I thought it was, but I'm getting lost in your grammar somehow.

quote:

Ní raibh a leithéid de chóras ann, dáiríre. Tá an síneadh fada le fáil in a lán áiteanna nach raibh 'dh' ann ar a lorg sa litriú clasaiceach, gan trácht ar litirú na Sean-Ghaeilge.

Seo chugat é, a Mhéabh --


There wasn't that kind of a system, really. The fada is found in many places where there was not a following 'dh' in the classical spelling, not to mention the spelling of Old Irish.

If we drop the síntí fada, what would we use instead? Swedish people can use oe instead of ö, etc, but what would we do in Irish? double vowels (as they do in Finnish or in Dutch)? an apostroph after the vowel (as they do in Italian) ?

"Nii raibh a leitheeid de chooras ann, daairiire. Taa an siineadh fada le faail in a laan aaiteanna nach raibh 'dh' ann ar a lorg sa litriuu clasaiceach, gan traacht ar litriuu na Sean-Ghaeilge."

or

"Ni' raibh a leithe'id de cho'ras ann, da'iri're. Ta' an si'neadh fada le fa'il in a la'n a'iteanna nach raibh 'dh' ann ar a lorg sa litriu' clasaiceach, gan tra'cht ar litriu' na Sean-Ghaeilge."

There is often lengthening of vowels prior to consonants as per historic changes, too

Gabhaigí mo leithscéal, a dhaoine uasal, ach b'é an chéad lá de mhí Aibreáin aréir. Ní raibh an scéal seo fíor. Níl athrú litriú oifigiúil ar intinn ag na Sualannaigh.

D'éirigh go maith leat le do chleas - cheap mé gur fíorscéal a bhí ann!

quote:

Båstad council was also quick to reject the move.

"We already have enough trouble with English-speakers who think the name of our town is amusing. If the Å becomes a regular A it will just make things worse," said Social Democrat councillor Pär Öberg."

Ar léigh duine ar bith an pháirt seo thuas den alt? Cheap mé gur 'dead giveaway' a bhí ann.

quote:

"A parliamentary working group has proposed scrapping Sweden's 'complex letters' Å, Ä and Ö, citing globalization and technological competitiveness as the main factors."

Aɼ ṁaiṫ leat amadáin Aibɼeáin a ḋéanaṁ díoḃ?


Laɼſ

(Message edited by lars on April 03, 2007)

Is cuma linn, Lars. How do / did you get the old Irish script to work on your message? An bhfuil sé le fáil ar an súiomh seo? ---- Cuairteoir.

Yes, it's easy.
Go to http://www.daltai.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/daltai/discus/discus.pl?pg=formatting

You just need "\" and "gaelach" and "{text}" and you get text.

Lars

i have to say, the "r" looks like a perfect seancló "s" but the archaic "s" doesn't really fit with the older look for Irish.

Táthar abalta Gaeilc a scríobh anseo sa fhuinneog



Rabhadh! Rabhadh!

quote:

i have to say, the "r" looks like a perfect seancló "s" but the archaic "s" doesn't really fit with the older look for Irish.

But that dependſ on the font you uſe ...
And "ſ" iſn't moɼe aɼchaic than "s".

Laɼſ

hm...and I only meant archaic in the sense that we still use "s" but no longer the "quasi-f-'s'" which is how it appears for me. what font do i set my browser to in order to see it correctly?

I like Antaine's question...

There are a lot of uni fonts out there and they are all the creation of someone's imagination, unless someone scanned an actual text and creates a model from which all alphabets should be based...could any font be given any value over another?

And that doesn't rule out the option for accepting a modern adaptation which would blend the uni with the modern alphabet.

One of the major complaints I have heard about the uni alphabet is that the small "r, s, t, and c" tend to look a lot alike in handwriting. So why can't we just use the modern Latin "r, s, t and c"?

(Message edited by do_chinniúint on April 05, 2007)

I very much prefer the use of the modern latin alphabet with the ponc accent as well as the fada. I see no reason why such a thing should be regarded as an impossibility.

In english, I do like the internal-s-looking-something-like-f and use it in my handwriting, but Irish never used that letterform. Seancló is the Latin Miniscule used in illuminated manuscript margin glosses. I see no problem with the continued use of that font either.

However, my original objection was somewhat unfounded since I wasn't looking at the letters as the typer intended since my browser settings were wrong.

ps - what font should I have my browser set to in order to both see the daltaí posts properly as well as to be useful for english webpages?

Ca bhfuil an fada ar an mearclar ar aon nos?!

Oh,i see nevermind. Scrapping the fadas is one step closer to scrapping the language agus níl sin ag teastal uaimh.