Irish language gets new Rule Book
August 7, 2012
A new version of an official guide to standardised rules of grammar and spelling in the Irish language has been published- fifty four years after the original guide was printed.
The new revised standard, ‘An Caighdeán Oifigiúil Athbhreithnithe’ went on sale in shops earlier this week.
There will be some changes to the written language as a result, according to Vivian Uíbh Eachach, Chief Translator with Rannóg an Aistriúcháin, the official translation service for the Houses of the Oireachtas in Dublin.
The publication follows another Government-sponsored review of the official standard for the language; however it is the recommendations of the translation service that are contained in the new grammar guide.
“There had been a public review undertaken by a central government translation unit, but that ended when the unit was disbanded earlier this year. Those recommendations have been presented to us and we intend to include them in our next review”, says Vivian.
The translation service is charged with providing the official translations of Acts of the Oireachtas as well as providing a simultaneous translation service in Leinster House. It also provides guidance on the official rules of grammar and spelling in the Irish language.
The department is located in Kildare Street across from Leinster House and a staff of twenty one translators, including staff from the now disbanded central translation unit.
“The original publication of An Caighdeán Oifigiúil was an enormous feat for the Irish language at the time”, says Vivian.
To put it in to context, the original standard was published the year Peig Sayers died, at a time when Éamon De Valera was still Taoiseach, and years before the establishment of central Irish language media outlets such as Raidió na Gaeltachta or TG4. It is unsurprising then that the language has changed radically since as its use has spread outside of traditional Gaeltacht areas into more urban areas.
“ The Official Standard was originally published in 1958, and since then the department has noted that there were some rules that needed to be extended and perhaps that there were other rules which merited inclusion and were not present in the original edition, it’s on this basis that we went about the review”, he adds.
The new amended standard was published on July 30th and contains eleven chapters on various elements of the language. It includes new chapters on the copula, pronouns, adverbs and the definite article, but also gives further credence to dialectical variations when it comes to the dative case following the definite article.
One of the more substantial changes has occurred in the area of verbs according to Vivian. “I suppose there is some degree of change as we are now recognising variations still alive in the dialects such as the form muid (we or us)”.
“There is also more guidance on the used of numbers and in certain cases we have extended the rules when it comes to the use of the nominative case instead of the genitive case and there will be more instances where the nominative case is used”.
“For example it was the case that someone could say they were making a cup of tea ag déanamh cupán tae but going for a cup of tea Ag dul le haghaidh cupáin tae, but now the nominative will come into play in cases such as this so that ag déanamh cupán tae/ ag dul le haghaidh cupán tae will both use the nominative case.
This has brought the written language closer to the spoken language but at the same time there has been an effort to avoid accepting new structures which would be overly influenced by the English language.
Does he think that the changes will confuse people, when there are complaints the rules for the written form of the Irish language are already complicated?
“ Well I suppose there will always be those who say that the changes haven’t gone far enough and those who say that too much has changed”, he says diplomatically.
“ We tried to steer a course between the two arguments and we recognised that there many rules which needed more explanation such as the rules surrounding the copula.
“I guess that people will be happy as we haven’t forbidden the used of many forms and instead have added to the number of acceptable variations, for example the construction bhaineamar (we won) is still acceptable as is the new form bhain muid. We are constantly adding to the standard”, he adds.
An Caighdeán Oifigiúil- Caighdeán Athbhreithnithe will be available to buy from July 30th and is also available for download for free on the website of the Houses of the Oireachtas.
