Irish as a 'foreign' language
“Italic is sometimes used for secondary information, as in France. I haven’t seen that anywhere else. More often it is a light [weight] beside a regular, or medium roman that is given this job. [See] Schiphol airport and several other airports, such as Reykjavik, Iceland.” Gerard Unger (Reil 2006)
Foreign language faux pas?
Unger’s comment about ‘secondary information’ is incisive, the Irish language appears devalued by setting in Italics. In general typographic use – italics are employed for very specific purposes – most commonly for a use of a foreign language expression.
The reduced status of Irish – made visible
Reduced status of Irish made visible.
In the context of the government’s statement on language, following are examples of how the current road sign design effects the reduced status of Irish relative to English…
The relatively larger size of upper case words…
Above: Illustrates the greater space occupied by the same legend set in all upper case.
A consideration in the light of government’s regulation and aspirations for the Irish language is the fact that words in upper case occupy 40% more area (Jury 2002) and are thereby more prominent than lowercase. While this achieves a level of differentiation with the Irish place name, it is at the expense of the relative prominence of the Irish.
It is hard to see how this can be argued to give equal status to Irish. It certainly is not in keeping with the spirit of the regulation…
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