Madam, - I welcome the debate about making Irish more learner-friendly. I think there is a simple solution: to restore the Irish language to its true self, ie, to do away with the Roman script, the "Cló Románach", that in my view has made the language clumsy and ugly since it was introduced in the 1960s.
At that point the séabhú (dot) was abandoned and the shapes of all the words got lost in a cloud of Hs.
Almost every word was lengthened by one, two or even three letters, and I, for one, felt an aesthetic revulsion at the sight of it. In addition, the lovely script of the Irish letters, which gave the language a very handsome and distinct look and which was much easier to read, was lost.
Far fewer of the initial letters of words changed under that system, only the few that were eclipsed, and this made it much easier to read.
Now that computers have changed the way print operates, it would surely be easy to develop software to print this authentic script, which was originally abandoned for economic reasons to make Irish more type-writer friendly.
If we want to strengthen the position of Irish in our culture we should seriously consider the option of changing back to its original script, as it would make Irish more attractive, more authentic, more learnable and more livable. - Yours, etc,
HILDA GERAGHTY,
Corbawn Lane,
Shankill,
Dublin 18