This is probably a very silly question, but I'll ask it anyway!
Do all the same rules for punctuating writing in English apply to Irish? For example, if my opening sentence above were in Irish, would I include a comma before 'ach'?

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Some of it is, and some of it isn't.

For instance, the comma is the same in the situation you asked about.

However, Irish tends to place a space before a question mark or an exclamation mark where English no longer does. On the other hand, that may also be because many works of literature are quite old ...

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Wow! That's news to me (about English too). Ya live and learn.

Take a look at Buntús Cainte or Deoraíocht.


Is there an official "style guide" or "style manual" for Irish put out by the government or one of the official language bodies? Here's an explanation of what a style guide is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Style_guide

Redwolf may be able to correct me on this, but for American English, the Chicago Manual of Style was recommended to us as a guideline for punctuating American English of a general nature. (This recommends a single space after a full stop, but scientists prefer (an older tradition of) two spaces after a full stop for clarity. Publishers on the other hand, complain that using two spaces makes "rivers of space" down the page. And an American co-worker once quipped, "I'm not from Chicago." )

All official EU documents have to follow the EU style guidelines: http://publications.europa.eu/code/en/en-360400.htm, but that means using a decimal comma instead of a decimal point, etc., at least in multilingual documents.

Local language style manuals usually take over for specific languages. For example, each brand of English (UK, Australia, Canada) has at least one style guide, sometimes several, including some specialized ones for legal documents, etc. (Across the board, I think the only hard and fast rule is to be consistent within the same document - or be prepared to defend your choice against rampant editors. )

Which is why I asked if anyone knows of an official Irish language style guide at the top of this post.

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Very interesting

When I did a typing course after the Leaving Cert with Bean Uí Chonaire we were told to put two spaces after a full-stop. Typewriters back then . Much later when doing a computer course I was told it's only one space after a full-stop. But out of habit I still use the two spaces.

I can see how two spaces would look too much in a newspaper but the same two spaces make a letter look tidier.

I don't remember being taught different punctuation for Irish, but that could very easily be that I have forgotten it. My head is a sieve now.

Personally I think the exclamation mark in particular looks very brunched up without a space before it.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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This is exactly the same thing that happened to me. - typing course said two spaces, translation course said one space, patent translation client says use two.

I hate the way computer software (including the driver software for this forum ) interferes with the spacing I put in myself, especially when I want to adjust the layout using a fixed number of spaces. GRRR

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Modern software has eliminated the "rivers" of blank space that used to occur frequently in earlier versions, so that's no longer a reason not to have two spaces after a period (what you call a "full stop"). I think it makes it easier to read if there are two spaces. You can set Word (and WordPerfect, and I assume other types of software) so that it always does whatever you specify along those lines (I think the default is one space after a period).



Obviously you meant "space" there, not "comma", as Bríd understood. Just thought I'd mention it so no one else gets confused (I did at first).

One other thing you often hear in word-processing is that one should not use justified text, but no one seems to remember why. I use it all the time, because it looks cleaner and more professional, and because there is no longer any reason to avoid it (there hasn't been for years), except that it can produce odd spacing in email messages and in posts on sites like this (where I avoid it, or it gets ignored by the software anyway).

The reason for avoiding it had to do with two problems. One was the "rivers" mentioned above, which it could accentuate in older types of software. The other was that early OCR (optical character reading) software might jumble up text that had been justified, because it couldn't follow the irregular spacing. That is also no longer the case.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Just to confirm that Chicago is the gold standard here in the U.S., though individual publications typically have their own style guides as well. My first employer, for example, who produced financial newsletters, was absolutely rabid about no paragraph being more than three lines.

As far as the two spaces after a period/full stop goes, I learned to do it that way when I learned to type, so it's almost impossible for me NOT to double space at the end of a sentence when I'm touch typing (I was taught to do it after all terminal punctuation marks -- periods, question marks, or exclamation points -- as well as after a colon). All of the publications I've worked for until recently have followed that practice...to the point where it really looks ODD to me to see only one space at the end of a sentence.

Redwolf

Ah, yes, thanks for pointing that out and sorry for the confusion. Fixed above.

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Alan Titley (in his History of the Irish Language on YouTube) says that once the Irish had adopted writing, they then created the punctuation to go with it and spread the idea across Europe.