Ireland : Review of grammar and spelling of Irish language under way
The Scope of the Process
• The subject of this review will be the written standard for the official public sector only - state documents, textbooks, legal documents. It is important in this context that the revised edition of An Caighdeán Oifigiúil facilitates the Irish language community in engaging with the written language in the fields of acquisition, scholarship and communication.
• Although An Caighdeán Oifigiúil will be reviewed according to grammatical fields, it is felt that a clarification of its scope would greatly enhance the process. In order to achieve this, the Steering Committee will focus on the issues in the following order of priority:
i. Certain points in An Caighdeán Oifigiúil itself (e.g. personal numbers, verbs)
ii. Inconsistencies between An Caighdeán Oifigiúil, Foclóir Uí Dhónaill and Graiméar Gaeilge na mBráithre Críostaí [1999]
iii. Areas such as "leis an + urú / séimhiú" - in which An Caighdeán allows for two differing versions. This is not to imply that a decision has to be made one way or the other on these questions; rather that they should be reviewed and amended accordingly where required.
• The criteria of the review process include the following:
o Simplicity
o Internal consistency
o Logic
