Kinsale - Illiteracy Capital

Míshásta

Kinsale prides itself as being a Heritage Town as well as Gourmet Capital of Ireland (or Gluttony capital as some would have it). It has won prestigous awards in the Tidy Towns competition and the European Entante Floral. Its community school has turned out the Young Scientist of the year on a few occasions. The town boasts an arts festival, a drama society and a historical society. Many of its inhabitants belong to the wealthy class. It attracts tourists from all over the world.

Yet how is it that the town and environs are polluted with so many misspelt public signs - some are not only misspelt, they are complete meaningless gibberish.

Do you think it's acceptable that 80% of public signage is either misspelt or meaningless? Hasn't anyone noticed or complained? Probably not, and here's why. All the stupid misspellings and gibberish words are in Irish. A sample of those daft signs can be seen here:
http://chetwyndedowns.blogspot.com/2...ciotrunta.html

All over the town signs point in the direction of somewhere called "Dun Cathal". The educationally challenged designer of the sign probaly meant "Dún Chathail", but even that would not be correct. Charles Fort was named after King Charles II, known in Irish as Rí Séarlas II. In any case there is an old Irish name for the fort - Dún Rinn Chorráin.

One of the oldest parish Church's in the country is in Kinsale, the 13th century St. Multose, very well looked after by the local C. of I. community. Yet the local authority ahsn't been able to come up with the original Irish form of this local saint's name - "Eaglais Multose Naofa" is the nearest they can get.

The most amusing sign is probably for the Fíona Musaem. Guess who is the mysterious Fíona?

Those are only a few examples, nearly all the Irish language signs are incorrect.

Come on Kinsale people, what about it? Where's your pride? Does the title of Heritage Town have any real meaning?

(I hope I haven't made too many spelling mistakes myself)

Edit: As an exercise in absurdity I have retranslated some of the signs from Irish back to English:

"Welcome to Kins-ale's"

"Middle the town"

"Museum Wine's" (Wine Museum)

"Fart Call" (Charles Fort)

"Church of St. Somebody or other" (The Historical Society were on sick leave at the time of going to press)

I rest my case.

AlmightyCushion

Míshásta wrote: »

they are complete meaningless gibberish.

You mean like the Irish language itself.

[/shít stirring]

Sindri

If this is about the revision of the Irish language that has taken place and modernised it over the last century then I agree with you.

El Weirdo

Dr.B won't like this thread.

charlemont

Loads of them around the country are wrong, Its fairly pathetic just more of the "Who gives a **** " attitude.

krudler

OP must be a blast at parties

Doc Ruby

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

You mean like the Irish language itself.

Quiet you.

OP your link doesn't work.

TheZohanS

Schnakey spam...

Mr Benevolent

Irish, meh. It should be gotten rid of and a useful compulsory language put in its place.

Cicero

Ever see the prices in the restaurants? No wonder literacy isn't one of its strong points..;)

juan.kerr

Míshásta wrote: »

Many of its inhabitants belong to the wealthy class. It attracts tourists from all over the world.

Are these points relevant?

If most Irish people can't spot the typos then I doubt the tourists will.

I'd prefer we dumped most of the entirely redundant Irish signage altogether - just another made up job thanks to that twat Ó Cuív.

Even when I supported FF I hated that idiot.

Dudess

So incorrectly spelt Irish language signs make it the illiteracy capital?

kowloon

Getting the signs wrong is hardly surprising. The people doing them probably don't speak the language.

Míshásta

krudler wrote: »

OP must be a blast at parties

And Mr. Krudler no doubt is the life and soul of the party.

Deal with the issues raised or find yourself another party please.

And have a Happy Chinese New Year.

eternal

This is a load of ****e and the reason the prices are so high is because of the standard of the food.

Míshásta

Sindri wrote: »

If this is about the revision of the Irish language that has taken place and modernised it over the last century then I agree with you.

I'm afraid I don't understand - where in my post is there any reference, open or implied, to a 'revision' of the language? I think you may be missing the point.

Míshásta

Dudess wrote: »

So incorrectly spelt Irish language signs make it the illiteracy capital?

Well, just a little hyperbole to make a provocative title.

juan.kerr

Míshásta wrote: »

And Mr. Krudler no doubt is the life and soul of the party.

Deal with the issues raised or find yourself another party please.

And have a Happy Chinese New Year.

Etienne, is that you?

Yahew

"Eaglais Multose Naofa

Cant see the problem there, if Multose cant be translated, don't.

Namlub

Do you actually know what illiterate means?

For a moment there I thought Kinsale was actually full of illiterate people, which would have come as a surprise to me.

I'm sure loads of Kinsale people have a problem spelling Irish words and place names, just as loads of other people around the country do.

But at least they aren't deficient in their native language - now THAT would be worrying.

Mind you, I reckon illiteracy in English is on the rise, which is not good at all - and with all these cutbacks things are going to get worse.

Liam Byrne

El Weirdo wrote: »

Dr.B won't like this thread.

Had noticed the announcement re the acceptance of dumbing down alright.....ah well.....maybe another site will have acceptable standards, although obviously not in Kinsale!

Míshásta

juan.kerr wrote: »

Etienne, is that you?

Wha?

Etienne, Etienne, who the f--- is Etienne?

Míshásta

Yahew wrote: »

Cant see the problem there, if Multose cant be translated, don't.

Ahhhmm! Multose is an anglicisation of the original Irish. Of course there's an Irish form of the name.

Do you think 'Confucius' hasn't a Chinese form in the Chinese language, or 'Allah' a native form in Arabic?

Míshásta

kowloon wrote: »

Getting the signs wrong is hardly surprising. The people doing them probably don't speak the language.

It shouldn't be too difficult for the local authority to find someone with a basic understanding of the language to supply Irish translations. The town has many educational establishents, I'm sure they must be some Irish teachers.

Anyway all it takes for most of the signage is a few clicks of the mouse, there are many sources freely available on the web.

Míshásta

I have added the following edit to my original post:

As an exercise in absurdity, I have retranslated some of the signs from Irish to English:

"Welcome to Kins-ale's"

"Middle the town"

"Museum Wine's"

"Fart Call"

"Church of St. Somebody or other" (The Historical Society were on sick leave at the time of going to press)

I rest my case.

Fart

Míshásta wrote: »

"Fart Call" (Charles Fort)

Hehehehehe.

Yahew

Míshásta wrote: »

I have added the following edit to my original post:

As an exercise in absurdity, I have retranslated some of the signs from Irish to English:

"Welcome to Kins-ale's"

"Middle the town"

"Museum Wine's"

"Fart Call"

"Church of St. Somebody or other" (The Historical Society were on sick leave at the time of going to press)

I rest my case.

Hm, lar an baile can be translated as town center, or centre of town, which is fairly normal. Fíona Múseam is wrong but sometimes, the adjective can precede the noun, as in Fionn Uisce.

They do need to work out Charles' Fort though.

pickarooney

Is that the patron saint of hares or the patron saint of rabbits? I always mix up Multoses.

ejmaztec

pickarooney wrote: »

Is that the patron saint of hares or the patron saint of rabbits? I always mix up Multoses.

No, they're the roundy chocolate covered sweets.

Míshásta

Yahew wrote: »

Hm, lar an baile can be translated as town center, or centre of town, which is fairly normal. Fíona Múseam is wrong but sometimes, the adjective can precede the noun, as in Fionn Uisce.

They do need to work out Charles' Fort though.

Lár an Baile = Centre the town

Lár an Bhaile = Town centre

Lenition (seimhiú's) is important and changes things.

The simple way to word it would have been to use the simpler and widely used "an Lár"

'Fíona Musaem' is very wrong. Somebody went to the trouble of looking up the correct genitive case of 'fíon' but then got the word order back to front.

Except for a very few exceptions, adjectives, or nouns in the genitive acting as adjectives, follow the noun in modern Irish. However, nouns can be added together in the creation of compound words like 'carrchlós'

No charge for the lesson

Again, I have to re-iterate, I'm not moaning about some isolated typo. 'Lár an baile' would of course be readily understood even if not fully correct. Nearly all the signs I saw in Kinsale were wrong and some of them just bizarre.

juan.kerr

ejmaztec wrote: »

No, they're the roundy chocolate covered sweets.

You're thinking of Maltesers

Míshásta

Míshásta wrote: »

Again, I have to re-iterate, I'm not moaning about some isolated typo.

What are you moaning about? And why refer to "illiteracy"? Not knowing how to spell in your native language is illiterate. Not knowing how to spell in someone else's isn't.