Some friends and I were arguing at a restaurant the other day about the new Caighdeán. Since none of us has read it completely, it was based on hearsay. Perhaps someone can clear this up?

We were arguing about how to say "at the end of October" in light of the new rules

A friend posited:
ag deireadh mhí Dheireadh Fómhair

I said, that's the old way--now shouldn't it be:
ag deireadh míosa Deiridh Fómhair

We all agreed the prior sounds good and the second sounds bad. But what it sounds like isn't what matters. What matters is what the Caighdeán Ildaite says faoi.

We also were not able to figure out whether it would be correct to say:
i Haváis, in Haváis, or sa Haváis to mean "in Hawaiian" as in, "In Hawaiian, ní usáidtear...."

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well, to me, what is correct is what native speakers say and said. What is in the CO doesn't matter at all, it's not a group of guys in an office who decides how the language should work...

Have a look at Tobar na Gaedhilge (to be downloaded for free) and search "deireadh" and "mí" and select the option "díreach i ndiaidh a chéile" and you'll get plenty of examples from the native Gaeltacht literature (mainly Ulster, but sometimes from other areas), and they all give "deireadh mhí + the name of the month" : i ndeireadh mhí na Bealtaine, i ndeireadh mhí Mheádhoin a' tSamhraidh, i dtrátha dheireadh mhí na Nodlag, etc etc.



I'd say "i Haváis". The "h" is a consonant so one wouldn't use "in" (at least in the caighdeán). And "sa" doesn't sound right here, just as one says "i nGaeilg", "i mBéarla", "i bhFraincis" much more than "sa Ghaeilg", "sa Bhéarla" and "sa Fhraincis".

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Thank you! I certainly didn't mean to suggest that what matters in real life is what the CO says; I meant that for the sake of our argument it's what matters. I trust you understand that this is simply a matter of curiosity.



This was my opinion exactly. However, my friend insists that in the CO non-native proper nouns always take "in" -- for example "in Tel Aviv" instead of "i dTel Aviv." He argued that even though Hawai'i has been Gaelicized to Havái, its initial h is proof of its non-nativeness and thus to him it is i Meicsiceo, sa Fhrainc, but in Havái. Is there any truth to this?

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What kind of hearsay suggests a roll back to such an extensive genitive usage?
No, genitive forms are even lesser used in the revised Standard than in earlier versions.

Féach: 3.3 Foirm an Ainmnigh in ionad an Ghinidigh, lch 44. http://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/med ... l_2016.pdf

Now that I've looked at your link it seems ridiculous, but a certain someone told us that "Compound nouns have been abolished and relationships between words must now be considered exclusively on an individual basis."


Thank you. This really is extremely helpful.
At first I was surprised by section (v) (ie: compound nouns including numbers cannot be declined) but now it seems obvious, as imagine this sentence:
Cá bhfuil tiománaí traenach 20?
How would one know whether it is train-driver 20 or the driver of train 20? According to the CO it is unambiguously the prior

I guess the same anti-ambiguity logic explains all of them.
Imagine Seo í eochair tí Gráinne -- without these rules that could mean either Gráinne's housekey or the key to Gráinne's house
The same with (ii)

Number (iii) seems to be just in the interest of consistency, as I can't see any room for ambiguity even if the rule didn't apply and redundant genitives were permitted.

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This is what Graiméar Gaeilge na mBráithre Críostaí says about "i" and "in":



So both are right, according to the CO. I don't know what they mean by "i gcásanna áirithe", what cases?

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

My guess what they mean by i gcásanna áirithe, nuair nach ceilt ar an mbunainm é is that using i can happen in cases when using i + urú doesn't make the place name unrecognizable. For example, if you're talking about Bonn, Germany, it might not be understood in Irish if you wrote (or especially said), "i mBonn" so they would advise "in Bonn" instead. I think in that case they would be happy to see i Havái or i Honolulu but look poorly at i dTianjin or i nDhaka

Do they have a similar proscription regarding people? Like "ag caint faoi Britney Spears" instead of "ag caint faoi Bhritney Spears"?

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I know nothing about grammar so I'm just speaking personally.

Odd that "in Tel Aviv" sounds normal to say it in English but to say it the same way in Irish sounds strange. I would say "i dTel Aviv". Same with "i mBonn". Nobody in Conamara would say "in Boston", a city well known to us here, it's "i mBoston". But like you said with place names not commonly heard it is probably better not to change them.

Although the Caighdeán probably frowns on it we do lenite common English names too, like "a Mhary" "a Mhichael" .. "a Bhritney". With less common names like Britney it probably depends on if the person is a celebrity or you know them personally. The caighdeán might like it to be but these rules are not set in stone.

I have always imagined this allows speakers of Irish more facility in speaking about people secretly in front of their faces

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