Road signs & Gaelic - time for a change?

Pherekydes · 25-01-2007 12:15AM

Hagar wrote:

At least you didn't say chillax.:rolleyes:

It may have been obvious what you ment, but you didn't know that the French had bilingual signs of any type. Did you?

I did. They have them in Bretagne, too.

Hagar · 25-01-2007 12:24AM

And for the very same cultural reasons. A Celtic speaking nation long subjugated/absorbed by another more powerful neigbour.

Since you knew this why say there were no bilingual signs in France? I expect you were limiting the term bilingual to English/Gaeilge but since you brought in France why deliberately conceal a relevent fact?

Unpossible · 25-01-2007 12:35AM

JaysusMacfeck wrote:

Calling the language 'Irish' is only political.

Well I can't reffer to it as Irish when Im abroad, everytime I say "we also have a language called Irish" the person always pipes up and says something along the lines of;
"Oh right, like a dialect of English!"
or (the classic)
"Oh yeah, I can understand it. It sounds a lot like english"
(where I have to point out that I'm speaking english to them and not Irish)

Pherekydes · 25-01-2007 12:40AM

That was just it, I was limiting the term to English/French. It all goes back to my first post, which was deliberately facetious.

crosstownk · 25-01-2007 01:03AM

I've no problem with road signage in Irish as long as its correct. If you travel from the Mill pub in Tallaght towards the M50, at the roundabout that intersects the Ballycullen Road, you will see on the roundabout that "Ballycullen Road" is signposted with "Bothar Teach na Guise" (Firhouse Road) as the Irish translation. I informed an SDCC councillor of this a few years back - but the sign remains.............

StickyMcGinty · 25-01-2007 01:26AM

look, the way the country is now is so that both gael goers and english speaking inhabitants both have equal status.... your post gets delivered in both languages, you ring a government department and you have the option of getting a reply in irish, all official publications are printed in irish

i think you should be happy with the status of Irish as our official language and not to look for more, i cant speak irish so i wouldnt be happy with road signs being all in irish. not because i dont want to speak it, but because i cant.

the way things are now is fair enough. until irish becomes the first language of more than 0.02% of the population thats the way it should stay

magick · 25-01-2007 01:28AM

You complete dickhead. Have you a shred of shame in that airhead of yours. Irish is my first language and I am proud to be able to speak it.
I suppose you want the National Anthem changed as well.

I approve this message

OfflerCrocGod · 25-01-2007 01:41AM

It reminds me of the millions of euro the EU wastes every year translating everything and employing an army of translators for all the languages it officially recognizes - €140 million on translators. I realize that Ireland doesn't spend anywhere as much as the EU but there must still be wastage with the regulations for mandatory Irish translations which are needed by no one. It will never stop though; Irish might be spoken by 0.00000001% of the population in the future but we will still waste funds translating - it's a depressing waste as our native language is English not Irish.

StickyMcGinty · 25-01-2007 01:52AM

our native languae is irish, our spoken language is english

spening the money translating everything is futile, spending the money on tG4 etc would have more effect. i'll never pick up an irish publication. simple as. i cant understand it!

i dont think anyone here has come up with a decent suggestion for what 140 million could be spent on to promote the irish language... its a non runner really

embee · 25-01-2007 01:57AM

JaysusMacfeck wrote:

As a modern ex-British colony with very little Irish culture left, isn't it about time we reflect our current status as people?

Our current status?

I hadn't realised we had stopped being Irish. I never did get that memo

KamiKazi · 25-01-2007 02:18AM

we're leaving irish on the signs until the welsh take welsh off their signs.

we'll teach those feckers yet.

Keedowah · 25-01-2007 02:31AM

the majority of Irish people dislike Gaelic.

Does anyone else disagree with this?

I think there should be another option on the poll -

In the Gaeltacht it should have the place-name in Irish with the English translation below in smaller letters and in the rest of the country it should be the opposite.

my 2 cents.

InFront · 25-01-2007 02:34AM

2 people banned on a thread about roadsigns!

I don't see any reason to spend money on changing road signage, and I'm pretty sure that if the decision was made to do so, a good proportion of the ~45% of people in favour of it would be complaining about the needless cost.
I just don't see the point. Changing the font on road signage is not going to revive the irish language. If you want the language, speak it.

Duff · 25-01-2007 02:48AM

Ah sure leave em as they are, what harm are they doin'??

JaysusMacfeck · 25-01-2007 03:33AM

VinnyL wrote:

your post gets delivered in both languages

Look, this is NOT the case. MY Gaelic is ****e, it's what I remember from school.

Cuir mé glaoch ar An Post cúpla lá o shin, níl aon Gaeilge ar an cailín sin. Scíobh mé litír go mise mé fhéin twice, they never ever arrived. Chuaigh mé go dtí Oifig an Phiost Sheancill agus duirt sí "We don't know Irish addresses so that's why it don't go trew". Go híontacht, great.

AN POST CAN'T DELIVER MY MAIL IN GAELIC. TWICE

you ring a government department and you have the option of getting a reply in irish

Ahahah, what? I said WHAT?

I just rang my local Garda station in Shankill. I said "Tá mé ag lorg ceadúnas tiomána, cabhair liom math sé do thoil é", the Garda hung up. THE GARDA HUNG UP :eek: THE GARDA ON THE PHONE LINE HUNG UP ON ME.

Goverment services in GAELIC are RARE. Let's face it, it's in our constitution but the fekin lingo is dead.

Sorry guys.

InFront · 25-01-2007 03:37AM

JaysusMacfeck wrote:

I just rang my local Garda station in Shankill. I said "Tá mé ag lorg ceadúnas tiomána, cabhair liom math sé do thoil é", the Garda hung up. THE GARDA HUNG UP :eek: THE GARDA ON THE PHONE LINE HUNG UP ON ME.

Well it's 2.40am...

StickyMcGinty · 25-01-2007 03:39AM

JaysusMacfeck wrote:

Look, this is NOT the case. MY Gaelic is ****e, it's what I remember from school.

Cuir mé glaoch ar An Post cúpla lá o shin, níl aon Gaeilge ar an cailín sin. Scíobh mé litír go mise mé fhéin twice, they never ever arrived. Chuaigh mé go dtí Oifig an Phiost Sheancill agus duirt sí "We don't know Irish addresses so that's why it don't go trew". Go híontacht, great.

AN POST CAN'T DELIVER MY MAIL IN GAELIC. TWICE

Ahahah, what? I said WHAT?

I just rang my local Garda station in Shankill. I said "Tá mé ag lorg ceadúnas tiomána, cabhair liom math sé do thoil é", the Garda hung up. THE GARDA HUNG UP :eek: THE GARDA ON THE PHONE LINE HUNG UP ON ME.

Goverment services in GAELIC are RARE. Let's face it, it's in our constitution but the fekin lingo is dead.

Sorry guys.

believe me, theres someone in every office who'll be able to talk to ye in irish

send a letter to yourself with your irish address and see where it goes.

JaysusMacfeck · 25-01-2007 03:44AM

VinnyL wrote:

send a letter to yourself with your irish address and see where it goes.

I've done this twice already, it was returned to me via the English address attatched inside the sealed letter. The post office bat said "we don't know Irish addresses so it don't go trew" :rolleyes: :eek: :rolleyes:

I've tested these things, beleive me, Gaelic addresses are not honoured via "The Post" service. On PUST my arce.

JaysusMacfeck · 25-01-2007 03:48AM

InFront wrote:

Well it's 2.40am...

Ni thuigeann tú do theanga fhéin, tabhair dom an t-am i ngaelic nxt time. :rolleyes:

Jesus christ lads, I HATED IRISH GAELIC in school and YET i'm the only person using what I remember. This was well over 10 years ago.

That's pretty fcking bad. :eek:

Pherekydes · 25-01-2007 08:47AM

I've never had a problem getting my post delivered when it's addressed "as Gaeilge".

And it's either Gaeilge or Irish. It's not Gaelic, as someone has already pointed out.

25-01-2007 08:56AM

JaysusMacfeck wrote:

Ni thuigeann tú do theanga fhéin, tabhair dom an t-am i ngaelic nxt time. :rolleyes:

Jesus christ lads, I HATED IRISH GAELIC in school and YET i'm the only person using what I remember. This was well over 10 years ago.

That's pretty fcking bad. :eek:

Why do you persist in calling it Gaelic? Are you American or something?
It's Irish or Gaeilge...

Gurgle · 25-01-2007 09:15AM

Slow coach wrote:

Put another option in your poll:

Phase English out of all road signs

I don't recall France having bilingual signs.

I agree, (despite the intended facetiousness).

The places were named in Irish, what we use are anglisised spellings of Irish words.

You don't need to be able to speak a language to read place names, I got around Greece just fine, even with road signs using a different alphabet. I sure as hell can't speak or read Greek.

Whats more confusing is when maps and signs don't match. This double-name thing is counter-productive.

If we really wanted to spend a few million promoting the Irish language, this seems like an excellent place to start. It could bring back an ability to pronounce Irish words, without causing undue hassle for people with no knowledge or interest in the language.

connundrum · 25-01-2007 10:39AM

JaysusMacfeck wrote:

Please DO NOT ban "Coileach dearg", I did not take his post as a personal attack.

and

JaysusMacfeck wrote:

Please unban this user. I did not take any offense to his post.

LOL. Bring back Bubbles too while you're at it!

For what its worth, I never learned to speak Irish in school and always felt that it was a bit of a shame. Even though I can't understand the Irish writing on signs (obviously it translates directly into what is written below it

) I think it should be kept.

1. If removed, Ireland would take a further step towards becoming a European State, and not an independant republic as it is now.

2. Is it actually hurting anyone by being there?

WhiteWashMan · 25-01-2007 10:51AM

Unpossible wrote:

Well I can't reffer to it as Irish when Im abroad, everytime I say "we also have a language called Irish" the person always pipes up and says something along the lines of;
"Oh right, like a dialect of English!"
or (the classic)
"Oh yeah, I can understand it. It sounds a lot like english"
(where I have to point out that I'm speaking english to them and not Irish)

is like when i say to an irish person that im australian, and they ask me to speak some australian to them.

becuase the world knows australian is a language, right?

right?

personally i dont give a monkeys what language the roadsigns are in, as long as i can read them, and the name on the signs are the same as the names of where i am going.

as for people complaining about how they should be in irish only, plase, try and move up to the 21st centuty. sure you wish ireland was one nation and the ira are great yadda yadda yadda, but try and accept the world as it is today and not the ideology of youre great granddaddy.yeah?

Dutchology · 25-01-2007 10:55AM

I was born in Holland and came over here when I was five and a half years old. I went to Senior Infants, and took on Gaeilge. I kept it on throughout secondary school, despite having been given the option to give up on it considering my nationality. Even as a "foreigner" I opted to learn the language of the country in which I was living, out of respect.

Despite not remembering a whole lot of it even though I only left school four years ago, I still understand enough written and aural to get by in Gaeltacht areas. Road signs should certainly have the placenames in Gaeilge as they are Irish towns and cities. I can't understand how anyone would consider changing them. If there is a city called Baile Atha Cliath, that's what it should be, not Dublin. I don't call Den Haag - The Hague; no matter what language I'm speaking, a place should be called it's own name.

And now... An bfhuil cead agam dul go dti an leithreas le do thoil?

cornbb · 25-01-2007 11:07AM

JaysusMacfeck wrote:

Goverment services in GAELIC are RARE. Let's face it, it's in our constitution but the fekin lingo is dead.

Sorry guys.

You are entitled to get any government services you like in Irish. If you can't, you can complain to this guy: http://www.coimisineir.ie/index.php?page=baile&tid=1&lang=english

I used to think the language is dead but since moving to Galway and working in Connemara I realise its far from dead. Far from vibrant too I suppose but definitely very far from dead. Its just a pity so few people give a toss.

Sierra Oscar · 25-01-2007 11:08AM

It does not really bother me...

Gurgle · 25-01-2007 11:17AM

WhiteWashMan wrote:

is like when i say to an irish person that im australian, and they ask me to speak some australian to them.

Yeah, because us Irish are so totally ignorant of the rest of the world. Australia, thats some island off New Zealand, right?

WhiteWashMan wrote:

as for people complaining about how they should be in irish only, plase, try and move up to the 21st centuty. sure you wish ireland was one nation and the ira are great yadda yadda yadda, but try and accept the world as it is today and not the ideology of youre great granddaddy.yeah?

The places were named in Irish, long before anyone white even found your pointless little desert island off the coast of New Zealand and slaughtered all the natives. The English names were mostly contrived by spelling the place name in English as it was pronounced in Irish.

tbh, dragging the IRA etc. into a discussion about the Irish language shows exactly the ignorance you accuse us of with your bullsh1t about the australian language.

Dutchology wrote:

I can't understand how anyone would consider changing them. If there is a city called Baile Atha Cliath, that's what it should be, not Dublin. I don't call Den Haag - The Hague; no matter what language I'm speaking, a place should be called it's own name.

Actually, Baile Atha means 'Town Place' Cliath means hurdle or darn according to this dictionary. I think darn is an old word for a valley or something?

The original name was Dubh Linn, meaning Blackpool.

gucci · 25-01-2007 11:18AM

no point in gettin excited or worked up about it. they should be dual language with the irish perhaps in a more olde style font, not to show that irish is old fashioned but to show which language is more instilled in our heritage and used on this patch of earth for longest.

i hope the language never dies out.

diarmuidh · 25-01-2007 11:22AM

80% of Ireland's placenames are anglicisations of Irish words..they should be gaelicised if anything should be done!!! Why not Baile Amhlaoibh instead of Ballally etc...bililingual signs only for places like Arklow/Inbhéar Mór??

Road signs & Gaelic - time for a change?

Comments