Putting English language apostrophes in Irish language names

Múinteoir · 2009-02-05 19:35:09

TBH, this could go in the English or Irish forum, but I chose to put it here, since this is a mistake that is almost exclusive to English speakers and Irish language names are inevitably buried in a sea of English. Take a relatively famous Irish language name like Dara Ó Briain. For argument's sake, we can take it that the…

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#32 05-07-2009 11:48AM

Múinteoir

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Micilin Muc wrote: »

According to this interview with Dara, it was Dara himself that dropped the fada and put in an apostrophe for simplicity's sake.

"For simplicity's sake", or to pander to an English-speaking audience ignorant of Irish-language punctuation? I think it's fairly clear, even from that interview, that it was the latter. Also, if you look at the poster at the end of that YouTube interview you posted, he didn't even have the apostrophe in his name, as is standard practice when writing Irish O' names in English. All he did was omit the síneadh fada. Even then, he admits a certain regret for doing so, even if he does so in a very tongue-in-cheek manner.

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