=======================================================================
MAPS-L ** MAPS-L ** MAPS-L ** MAPS-L ** MAPS-L ** MAPS-L
=======================================================================
Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2005
From: "Alice Hudson" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: SFGate: Ireland Enacts Law Banning English on Maps
Gaelic required on W. Irish maps
Copyright 2005 AP
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate.
The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/03/28/international/i121952S03.DTL
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday, March 28, 2005 (AP)
Ireland Enacts Law Banning English on Maps
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer
(03-28) 12:19 PST DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) --
Tourists, beware: Your guide book may tell you the way to Dingle in County
Kerry, but all the road signs will be pointing you toward An Daingean in
Contae an Ciarrai instead.
In an age where many people bemoan English's growing global influence,
advocates of local languages scored a small victory Monday when Ireland
enacted a law outlawing English in road signs and official maps on much of
the nation's western coast, where many people speak Gaelic.
Locals concede the switch will confuse foreigners in an area that depends
heavily on tourism, but they say it's the price of patriotism.
"The change is nice for the locals, but if a stranger's coming in without
one of the new Dingle maps, it can be quite difficult," said Sarah
Brosnan, assistant manager of the Dingle Bay Hotel, which -- like
most things connected to the tourist trade -- won't be changing its
name.
In all, more than 2,300 towns, villages, fields and crossroads that
traditionally had both English and Gaelic names have had their previously
bilingual road signs changed to Irish only. The change chiefly affects
three far-flung regions of the western seaboard called the Gaeltacht,
which has long been nation's last stand in the battle against English
dominance.
There, English place names no longer have legal standing and may not be
used in government documents or on official Ordnance Survey maps. The
switch also applies in a few official Gaelic-speaking pockets of County
Meath, northwest of Dublin, and County Waterford in the southeast.
On the breathtakingly beautiful Dingle peninsula in northwest County
Kerry, signs with English spellings were taken down weeks ago, even in
cases where the English versions remain popular in local parlance. Local
villages still principally known as Ballydavid, Castlegregory and Ventry
are now called only Baile na nGall, Caislean Ghriaire and Ceann Tra.
Gaelic enthusiasts say such place names are redolent of local history and
eventually will prove less confusing for visitors -- so long as they
are armed with updated or Gaelic-friendly maps.
Locals like Brosnan, who went to an all-Gaelic school but speaks English
as her first language, say promoting Gaelic is a point of pride.
"I can't see them ever allowing English back on to the signs," she said.
The new law says the government-run Ordnance Survey mapping agency must
use only Gaelic names in the Gaeltacht area. The law does not apply to
independent producers of maps, although they are expected to follow the
policy.
The initiative has placed a new focus on the battle to preserve Gaelic in
Ireland, where the language faded from everyday use in the 19th century,
when Britain ruled the land.
Ever since Ireland won independence in 1922, successive governments have
pursued a policy of mandatory Gaelic in schools and made it a requirement
for many jobs, even though just 55,000 native Gaelic speakers remain in
this country of 3.9 million.
About 40 percent of residents identify themselves as fluent in Gaelic on
census forms, but in practice this doesn't seem to be anywhere near the
case.
The government's Irish language commissioner, Sean O Cuirreain, reported
this month that the state was spending $650 million annually on teaching
children Gaelic in elementary and high schools, yet too few students were
attaining "a reasonable command of the language" after 13 years and 1,500
hours of instruction. He called for an urgent review of how Gaelic is
taught.
English, in practice, permeates even government-funded projects to promote
Gaelic.
The state-run Gaelic radio network recently decided to begin broadcasting
popular music in English, while the state's Gaelic TV station runs
English-language films, often American cowboy movies. Other programs
include such distinctly non-Gaelic offerings as "SpongeBob SquarePants."
O Cuirreain noted that the government and opposition lawmakers, though
almost entirely pro-Gaelic in policy, were demonstrably pro-English in
practice -- less than 1 percent of parliamentary debates are
conducted in Gaelic.
Another impact of the law is that, for many places, the government has
settled eons of argument about what the locality's real Gaelic name should
be. Some villages and smaller rural entities called "townlands" have had
rival spellings -- and even totally competing names.
The town of Mountcharles in northwest County Donegal, for instance, has
often been known in its straight Gaelic translation "Moin Searlas," but
the government-approved list rejects this in favor of a more medieval name
"Tamhnach an tSalainn," pronounced as "townuck awn tallan" and meaning
"hill of salt."
___
On the Net:
Government department that promotes Gaelic,
Irish language commissioner,
Dingle guide to Irish place names,
Gaelic television station,
www.pobail.ie
www.coimisineir.ie
www.dingle-peninsula.ie/towns.html
www.tg4.ie/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2005 AP
|
