Bilingual Road Signs in Ireland

Cathaoirleach

MYOB wrote: »

Something the currently unfit-for-purpose Dev Og ejaculation that makes up the OLA does not allow.

Is there any way you can have a discussion without reverting to childish jabs all the time? You seem to have a serious chip on your shoulder about Irish in general, which is fine, but there are plenty of other threads for that.

In relation to non-traffic signage, the use of colour is not specified in the Act. However, if it can be proved that the colours used make Irish less legible, then the signage is not compliant (as was the case with the Dublin Wayfinding scheme).

L1011

Cathaoirleach wrote: »

Is there any way you can have a discussion without reverting to childish jabs all the time? You seem to have a serious chip on your shoulder about Irish in general, which is fine, but there are plenty of other threads for that.

I have no chip on my shoulder about "Irish in general". I have a serious dislike of state money being utterly wasted. And the OLA is a poorly drafted law written solely for Eamon O'Cuiv's own personal advancement, which has caused utter wanton waste of state money. If you being unable to see that is a "childish jab" to you, it shows how little you actually can see about the OLA from an external viewpoint.

Cathaoirleach wrote: »

In relation to non-traffic signage, the use of colour is not specified in the Act. However, if it can be proved that the colours used make Irish less legible, then the signage is not compliant (as was the case with the Dublin Wayfinding scheme).

Yellow on green is far less legible than white on green.

The wayfinding signs were however *not* less legible, and the main complainant admitted on here that he complained solely because he could. Someone with a chip on their shoulder there, but about English, I think you'll find.

Cathaoirleach

Since you seem incapable of having a simple discussion about road signage without dragging in your own hang-ups about the Irish language, perhaps you should voice your opinions in another thread.

L1011

Cathaoirleach wrote: »

Since you seem incapable of having a simple discussion about road signage without dragging in your own hang-ups about the Irish language, perhaps you should voice your opinions in another thread.

You're the one who came in to the thread trying to get people to support extending the OLA, not me.

Unless the OLA is changed, there is no way that Irish can be changed to a different colour on road signage, and enhancing its provisions as you want it is not going to allow that. You're stuck with italics due to the incredibly badly written legislation, which was written to further O'Cuivs desires and nothing more.

Cathaoirleach

MYOB wrote: »

You're the one who came in to the thread trying to get people to support extending the OLA, not me.

Unless the OLA is changed, there is no way that Irish can be changed to a different colour on road signage, and enhancing its provisions as you want it is not going to allow that. You're stuck with italics due to the incredibly badly written legislation, which was written to further O'Cuivs desires and nothing more.

Again with your loaded comments. You just keep piping on about your disdain for Irish and the OLA, whereas we're meant to be having a discussion about the design of bilingual road signage.

Take it over to Politics, please.

L1011

Cathaoirleach wrote: »

Again with your loaded comments. You just keep piping on about your disdain for Irish and the OLA, whereas we're meant to be having a discussion about the design of bilingual road signage.

Take it over to Politics, please.

If you can find any single bit of "disdain for Irish" I've posted in this thread, show it, or else stop claiming it thanks.

Carawaystick

Cathaoirleach wrote: »

Brendan Howlin TD, then Minister for the Environment, was responsible for the Traffic Signs Manual:

Did Howlin consult any design professionals at the time? What self-respecting designer would ever recommend the use of forced italics and ALL UPPERCASE on a typeface that it was never designed for, especially for something as important as road signage for an entire country?

All I want to see is a review of the Traffic Signs Manual (TSM) in relation to the use of typeface. It would not cost much to edit the TSM and use the UK Transport typeface as it was intended: mixed case, no italics.

I think you're missing a bit here. There was no dept of Transport at the time Brendan Howlin was Minister for Environment. Bertie set up the dept of transport after he won his second election I think. Previous to this the dept of environment was responsible for roads.

Also it's normally the minister who "publishes" anything by a dept, but the content would be generated by the dept staff.
Same as the current minister for transport "owns" the shares in state transport companies.

I'm not saying the current situation is great or anything.
Also have you a link to research showing that Transport is the best font for signage, compared to Clearview or DIN Mittelschrift or what is used in Spain etc? If we were to change, then it's best to use the best currently available.

stoneill

That username is already in use. wrote: »

Proposed 2

I like proposal 2.
For this particular sign I would move the Northbound M50 sign over to the left.
Has anyone noticed that if you are in the inside lane as you are approaching the gantry the arrow seems to be pointing over that lane. However as you are almost under the gantry, due to the sweep of the road the arrow is now over the exit lane.
If you are unfamiliar with the road it can cause you to be in the wrong lane.

Cathaoirleach

Carawaystick wrote: »

Also it's normally the minister who "publishes" anything by a dept, but the content would be generated by the dept staff.

Also have you a link to research showing that Transport is the best font for signage, compared to Clearview or DIN Mittelschrift or what is used in Spain etc? If we were to change, then it's best to use the best currently available.

I know it's easy to point fingers at the minister, but Howlin hasn't provided any details as to which consultants and designers (if any) were involved in the publication of the 1996 Traffic Signs Manual (TSM) - not that he is obliged to, but he is the only one who could shed some light on the bizarre use of typeface for Irish.

I only recommended using the Transport typeface as it would be less work to update the TSM and would require minimal field tests. Personally, I would prefer Clearview.

I think at the moment there is the quick fix and the nuclear option:

It is either that we just review the TSM in relation to the use of the UK Transport typeface for Irish and English (mixed case for both), or we completely review the entire TSM in relation to placement and choice of destinations, colour and typeface size, and routeinfo (N2/Via M3/Distance, etc).

Regardless of bilingual signage, I feel that we are desperately in need of a complete overhaul of signage design in this country, and I think that the Official Languages Act can help us achieve that.

icdg

Cathaoirleach wrote: »

There's a good
There is an in depth discussion about it here (Google Translate), which has a lot more details than the other threads online.

Brendan Howlin TD, then Minister for the Environment, was responsible for the Traffic Signs Manual:

Did Howlin consult any design professionals at the time? What self-respecting designer would ever recommend the use of forced italics and ALL UPPERCASE on a typeface that it was never designed for, especially for something as important as road signage for an entire country?

.

They are after the wrong man. Howlin had nothing to do with the decision to change the Irish text to italics, which occurred in 1989, under the watch of Padraig Flynn and was implemented by Regulation 2 of the Road Traffic (Signs) (Amendment) Regulations, 1988:

Subject to the provisions of sub-paragraph (b) place-names on all informative signs provided after 1st January, 1989 shall be shown in italic letters in Irish and in Roman letters in English and where the spelling of a place-name is similar in both languages an Irish inscription in italic letters only need be shown on the sign

.

The history of this is, the original 1926 Regulations provided for the Irish text to be in Gaelic script (not explicitly stated in the Regulations, but made clear from the illustrations). The 1956 Regulations changed this to the form most older readers will be familiar with, the Irish text being in the Roman alphabet, all caps, but smaller than the English text. There are still quite a few of these signs in situ on rural roads (and even in Dublin city - there will a few in situ at the junction of Infirmary Road and the North Circular last time I checked) if you know where to look.

The "new" signs, based on the Warboys Committee designs from the UK, were introduced in 1977 under Sylvester Barrett and initially used mixed case Transport for the Irish text and all caps Transport for the English text. Why they capitalized the English, I'm not clear since this was obviously not part of the Warboys Committee designs, in which capitals should only be used for Superdestinations (compass points, like The NORTH, The SOUTH, or, oddly, SCOTLAND). The original signs were actually a lot closer to the UK design and part of me thinks the slight redesign they got in 1989 was simply to make them look less British. There were other tweaks made too, the borders (which were originally the same as the UK design) were changed to the weird framed version we use now and there were other design tweaks too.

The 1996 TSM did not make any changes as to how Irish was treated on road signs, although we did abolish superdestinations at that point. The biggest change at that stage was the introduction of the "Guildford Rules" (patching of destinations - before that only road numbers had been patched) although that had already been informally in use, I think the first road I saw it used on was the M4 Leixlip-Kilcock motorway at the terminal junctions and roads directly off it.

The 1996 TSM is very similar to the UK TSM of the same era, even the chapter numbers and headings are the same. They basically tweaked it for Irish use and I doubt many if any graphic designers were involved on the Irish side.

Cathaoirleach

Excellent info, thanks!

L1011

I'll take that as you being unable to find the "disdain for Irish" you accused me of, then.

SeanW

Cathaoirleach wrote: »

Regardless of bilingual signage, I feel that we are desperately in need of a complete overhaul of signage design in this country, and I think that the Official Languages Act can help us achieve that.

I've never had a problem with Irish road signage, in fact, the differences in casing between the English and "Irish" language versions, I fnd helpful because they allow me to filter out the irrelevant bull***t a lot easier.

The Irish language versions are useless, they're only there because of a handful of gaeilgoir moaners and Brit-bashers in the firstplace.

This entire thread is predicated on the lame idea that the Irish language versions are not prominent enough, despite them being first on all signs and the language itself making everything usually about 50% longer. Ergo, this thread by its very existance is an argument about the Irish language.

DJP

http://www.nearfm.ie/podcast/index.php?id=800

The last question is on road signage and he says that he and Michael Ring (the were both FG spokespeople on Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs with Michael being the senior spokesperson) are in favour of changing the Road Signage Guidelines (RSG) in the Dept. of Transport so that when future road signage is being erected that both the Irish and English language placenames are displayed in the same size!

DJP

http://soundcloud.com/darrenjmacanphriora/comh-naoise-muir-fine-gael

The last question in the above interview today is on road signage!

diarmuiddub

I like the Scottish design with equal size and same font, differentiated by colour.

Does anyone have a copy of the Irish transport font they could send me???

SeanW

Darren J. Prior wrote: »

http://www.nearfm.ie/podcast/index.php?id=800

The last question is on road signage and he says that he and Michael Ring (the were both FG spokespeople on Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs with Michael being the senior spokesperson) are in favour of changing the Road Signage Guidelines (RSG) in the Dept. of Transport so that when future road signage is being erected that both the Irish and English language placenames are displayed in the same size!

Wondeful, that will make it harder for me to use the signs, i.e. filter out the irrelavant crap and ascertain *QUICKLY* the information I need.

Isn't that the whole point of road signs? To inform people? Or did I just land here from another planet or something?

etchyed

SeanW wrote: »

Wondeful, that will make it harder for me to use the signs, i.e. filter out the irrelavant crap and ascertain *QUICKLY* the information I need.

Isn't that the whole point of road signs? To inform people? Or did I just land here from another planet or something?

You have already made this point, and indeed made it with such unnecessarily emotive language as "irrelevant crap". A concession from you that there are plenty of good reasons for Irish being used on our road signs, along with a toning down of your language, would do wonders for your argument, which is in fact very valid. The truth is that the vast majority of people use solely the English placenames for navigation, which is, as you rightly state, the primary purpose of road signs.

However you and I both know that the Irish placenames are not going anywhere. They are viewed by many (and by far more than the militant Gaelgóir contingent) as an important differentiating symbol of an independent Ireland and as a tool for keeping original Irish language place names alive. Erecting English-only road signs is a political impossibility. That's the reality, so please let's continue this conversation on that basis rather than continuing with the angry anti-Gaelgóir stuff, which is just polarising and unhelpful.

Personally, as I've said before, I take the view that the current standard should be changed simply because it looks stupid. Regardless of how much you shout that you prefer it, all caps is not good on signage. That is a widely recognised fact. And no, I don't have links. It just is.

One link I can provide you with is this one, a survey that found the majority of Irish English-speakers preferred mixed case with languages differentiated by colour to the current English in all caps, Irish in italics setup. If you will continue to argue that the current design is better, then please engage with these points and explain why you disagree with them.

Alun

Well, I don't know who they asked, or exactly what questions were asked (it's easy to 'lead' people's answers by using loaded questions) or any other details of this survey, since the details of it appear no longer to be accessible from that website. I presume it was carried out by the designer himself rather than some independent organization so there is some degree of skepticism required in interpreting these results.

All I can say is that using the colour scheme he proposes, my eye is drawn initially to the yellow text, which is of no interest or use to me personally, and I then have to make a conscious effort to refocus my attention on the white text. That to me is just downright dangerous. My wife says exactly the same.

gbee

Due to a recent EU Survey the second language of Ireland is .... ?

etchyed

Alun wrote: »

Well, I don't know who they asked, or exactly what questions were asked (it's easy to 'lead' people's answers by using loaded questions) or any other details of this survey, since the details of it appear no longer to be accessible from that website. I presume it was carried out by the designer himself rather than some independent organization so there is some degree of skepticism required in interpreting these results.

Point taken. The author on that site doesn't provide any info about methodology, so this survey obviously can't be taken as gospel. It does, however, demonstrate that it can't be automatically assumed that all, or even most, English-speakers find the current design clearer.

All I can say is that using the colour scheme he proposes, my eye is drawn initially to the yellow text, which is of no interest or use to me personally, and I then have to make a conscious effort to refocus my attention on the white text.

The first couple of times. Once you become aware that white=English then that's where your eyes will automatically go, just as they automatically go to the all caps text at present.

That to me is just downright dangerous. My wife says exactly the same.

This is a little over the top and disingenuous. A similar design has been in use in Gaelic-speaking areas of Scotland for years now. I don't recall hearing of any concerns that the signs cause danger to motorists there.

etchyed

Cathaoirleach wrote: »

There's a good analysis by Garret Reil about how the UK Transport typeface was effectively butchered on Irish road signs. (are you Garret?)

Have just seen this post on the previous page and realised that I never responded to it. I am not Garret Reil, I don't know him and I have absolutely no connection to him. I just stumbled across his site a couple of years ago and thought it was interesting.

Alun

etchyed wrote: »

This is a little over the top and disingenuous. A similar design has been in use in Gaelic-speaking areas of Scotland for years now. I don't recall hearing of any concerns that the signs cause danger to motorists there.

Similar, but on the Scottish signs the Scots Gaelic part is in a (to my eyes at least) much more subdued colour, more of an orangey yellow, which is less obtrusive.

To be honest, and I may be alone here, I find the Welsh signs better than the Scottish ones as the two languages are of equal size and colour. I find I can zoom in on the one I want more quickly than when they are different colours.

diarmuiddub

Alun wrote: »

Similar, but on the Scottish signs the Scots Gaelic part is in a (to my eyes at least) much more subdued colour, more of an orangey yellow, which is less obtrusive.

To be honest, and I may be alone here, I find the Welsh signs better than the Scottish ones as the two languages are of equal size and colour. I find I can zoom in on the one I want more quickly than when they are different colours.

Really? That's interesting. I can't stand the Welsh ones. I know the same font and colour is to promote equality, but I find it more difficult due to the lack of differentiation between the Welsh and English placenames.

L1011

etchyed wrote: »

A concession from you that there are plenty of good reasons for Irish being used on our road signs

Why would he concede something I'm pretty sure he doesn't agree with?

etchyed

MYOB wrote: »

Why would he concede something I'm pretty sure he doesn't agree with?

Because, like I said, it would do wonders for his argument. Conceding that there are reasons doesn't necessarily mean that you personally consider them valid. It just means acknowledging that there are people for whom they are valid and important.

Dismissing Irish as "irrelevant crap" is a pointlessly antagonistic and provocative thing to do. It makes the militant Gaelgóirs even more militant. I'm not saying SeanW is not entitled to do it, merely that his argument would be stronger if he didn't.

There are of course also plenty of valid reasons why the signs should be monolingual, many of which have been pointed out in this thread. Cost, legibility and the principle that cultural nationalism should be kept well away from practical, functional things like road signs are just a few I can mention.

There, see? I'm in favour of Irish being on road signs and I just acknowledged plenty of reasons why it shouldn't be. A bit of give and take in this debate would prevent it from descending into the usual mess that ensues whenever the Irish language is mentioned on Boards.

EDIT: Here's a constructive way of looking at this, from page 3. Still hasn't changed my mind completely but it got a hell of a lot closer to doing so than SeanW's post.

L1011

etchyed wrote: »

Because, like I said, it would do wonders for his argument. Conceding that there are reasons doesn't necessarily mean that you personally consider them valid. It just means acknowledging that there are people for whom they are valid and important.

You said "good reasons". If you don't think the reasons are valid, there is no chance you consider them "good" reasons.

etchyed

MYOB wrote: »

You said "good reasons". If you don't think the reasons are valid, there is no chance you consider them "good" reasons.

Well, maybe I shouldn't have put the "good" in there. But since you asked, what do you think of the overall point?

SeanW

Perhaps I should clarify. I am an Irishman but as far as I am concerned, my native language is English and I consider the Irish language no more a part of my heritage than an Italian person does with Latin.

That said I have no ideological objections to Irish language placenames on road signs as long as I (as well as tourists and visitors) can quickly retrieve the information that I/they need. I have no reason to believe that a redesign will make this easier.

The main reason for this concern is the Official Languages Act and the reality that any redesign would likely need to follow on from the principles laid down therein. Current policy causes many problems:

1. The OLA, while mandating that the Irish language versions of any sign be first, it also demands that the Irish language be of "equal" (or, more to the point, greater) prominence than the English versions, which are technically optional! Everything is covered, size, font, colour, there is no legal way to make an English version easy to read according to the provisions of the OLA.
2. Irish language placenames tend to be longer, sometimes spectacularly so, than their English language versions. Consider:
   MAINISTEAR FHEAR MAI
   FERMOY
   BAILE ATHA NA FIRDHEA
   ARDEE
   AN MUILLEAN GCEARR
   MULLINGAR
   BAILE ATHA CLIATH
   DUBLIN
   and so on, etc. etc.
   
   Hence, demanding "equal" billing for a version that tends to ramble somewhat past its "counterpart" is a de-facto demand for superior treatment. If you look at many of our existing road signs, the Irish language versions are as large or larger than the English language versions already, even after the change in size and in some cases abbreviation.

I have seeen absolutely nothing, whatsoever on this thread to suggest that it will be easier to read English language placenames after any of the proposed redesigns. In fact it appears to me to be all quite the opposite. Get rid of the Official Languages Act and allow clear differentiation between English and Irish versions (like there is now), then we can talk.

Edit: there is also the problem that multi-coloured signs likely cost more the more colours there are in it.

ardmacha

I am an Irishman but as far as I am concerned, my native language is English and I consider the Irish language no more a part of my heritage than an Italian person does with Latin.

I think Italian people are proud of their connection with Latin.
As you so anti Irish, why not change your username to JohnW?