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**All 11 Chapters of the translated Caighdeán can befound here.** * * * ## Preface ### Background The publication of the Official Standard in 1958 was a pioneering move. The Translation Section had published _Irish Orthography: Handbook of the Official Standard_ in 1947 and _Irish Grammar – Standard for the Translation Section_ in 1953, but with the publication of _Irish Grammar and Orthography – the Official Standard_ in 1958, a comprehensive language resource was made available by the Section for the State and the people for the purpose of official writing, a resource that was already available for other official languages in Europe. In the preface to the Official Standard 1958, it was said that “teachers, writers and others are requesting, in public and in private, that a booklet be made available that provides a standard for Irish grammar, especially in matters of accidence” and the manner in which the Official Standard was accepted after its publication showed that what was said was accurate. ### Statutory Revision In 2012, the Translation Section provided a revised version of the Official Standard. This was done because it was time that a comprehensive revision was carried out, with over half a century past since the Official Standard was first published. Soon afterwards, a statutory view was taken of the Official Standard with the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Act (Amendment), 2013. There is a provision in this Act to periodically revise the Official Standard and, for the benefit of the observance and fulfilment of this statutory requirement, it was determined that the first statutory revision of the Official Standard according to the Act be done without delay. The Act provided that the Houses of the Oireachtas committee would consult the following ministers when dispatching a statutory revision: the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht; the Minister for Education and Skills; and the Minister for Justice and Equality. There is also a provision that any person with interest in the Official Standard is consulted as is appropriate for the Commission, as well as members of the public in general. Article 4(2) of the Act provides that the Commission be able to form a committee to assist in the completion of a statutory revision. As a result of the Act’s provisions, then, it was planned for there to be two parts to the revision – the consultation phase and the Advisory Committee phase. ### The Process The consultation phase was begun in September 2014 and submissions were sought of the public and the various parties referred to in the Act. At the same time, the Advisory Committee was set up to examine the points found in submissions and to collect recommendations. In October 2014, the Advisory Committee came together to start the adjudication. Included in this adjudication was a report from the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs that sprung from a revision organised by this Department in 2010. The Advisory Committee was formed of experts in a broad range of fields in which official Irish was used and all of the members had wide experience with using the official language in various fields. The Advisory Committee worked hard over a year and a half to acknowledge the issues and points for revision and to form recommendations in their favour. A support staff was established in the Translation section to help the Advisory Committee with their work and this staffed eased the process with respect to processing the submissions that came in and the recommendations of the Advisory Committee. Parallel to this work, the support staff redrafted the various chapters – a process based on recommendations of the Advisory Committee. ### Objective of the Revision The objective of the statutory revision was to examine the rules of the Official Standard with a view to improving them with respect to function and clarity. This examination consisted of assessing information on the rules and the illustrative examples accompanying them, seeing whether they could be expressed in a clearer way. Moreover, the Advisory Committee was asked to provide recommendations on issues that were not previously in the Official Standard. This meant understanding areas where it would help users of the Official Standard to have guidance available within the Official Standard itself. Recommendations were also welcomed from the Advisory Committee on layout and presentation of the rules. ### Function of the Official Standard The Act states that the Official Standard is the “official standard of Irish, as prepared by the Houses of the Oireachtas and as published under the copyright of the Government, to be used in primary legislation and secondary legislation and as the guidance for writing in Irish” and few people are unaware that an official standard is required if a language is to function clearly and precisely in the official fields of the State or the communities that use it to an official end. It is a tool of prime necessity to extract exactness of meaning in official documents – in legislation, in state documents, in textbooks, in examination papers, etc. – and to establish mutual understanding for precise communication between official units of the state and the people. It is not an official standard for speaking, nor does it denounce the richness of language in the various dialects. The following is said in the Preface to the Official Standard 1958: “This standard acknowledges particularly certain forms and rules but it does not invalidate, make taboo nor prohibit the use of other correct forms”. Thus, just because a form or variant is not in the Official Standard does not mean that it is not correct Irish. ### Choice Choice is used in the Official Standard in 1958 and again in 2012 to acknowledge more than a single variant or form or system. The purpose of this is to give options to users of the Official Standard in certain cases. Although this edition does not have the same amount of choice, as a result of the desire for clarity expressed in a large portion of the submissions, in certain instances in this edition we continue with choice, especially in Chapter 1 (The Article), where an option of two systems is given, and furthermore, an option within one of those systems. The users of the Official Standard – person or organisation – are the ones who choose which system and variants to adhere to. ### Thanks We would like to express our thanks to all the people and the organisations that sent in submissions as part of the revision. We would also like to express our thanks to the members of the Advisory Committee. Each of them did extraordinary work to ensure the success of the revision process to provide the best result. Most members were acting in a voluntary capacity but all of them generously gave their time and their expertise to help us to carry out a comprehensive revision of the Official Standard. We are thankful to the official bodies and the private companies that provided their expertise for the process. It is fair to give special thanks to the Chairman of the Advisory Committee, Dr Éamonn Ó hÓgáin, for the prudent chairmanship he carried out in meetings of the Advisory Committee to aid the members in accomplishing their work. Certainly, this alone is not the only responsibility to which the work of the Chairman was limited, and Dr Ó hÓgáin was available throughout the process to provide the support staff with help and advice. We are all obliged to him and to all the members of the Advisory Committee for the great work they did and the comprehensive work they provided. Also deserving of our thanks is the support staff. They maid sure that the work of the revision continued effectively throughout the whole period and they worked tirelessly to ensure that redrafting work went on parallel to discussions and meetings of the Advisory Committee. They worked wonders. We also thank the whole team of the Translation Section. We would also like to thank the Ceann Comhairle, Seán Ó Fearghaíl TD, and the Clerk of Dáil Éireann, Peadar Ó Fionnagáin. Vivian Uíbh Eachach, Principal Translator, Translation Section, April 2016. ## Preface to the First Edition Since the publication of _Irish Orthography – Handbook of the Official Standard_ , teachers, writers and others are requesting, in public and in private, that a booklet be made available that provides a standard for Irish grammar, especially in matters of accidence. They are quite sure as a result of their practice and their labour that there is a great necessity for equal practice in basic forms such as declension of nouns and adjectives, conjugation of verbs, and the rules regarding initial mutations to words, and that it would benefit the language greatly to give these things regularity as much as possible. For a long time backs were turned on forms and rules once practiced in the writing of the language. The main reasons for this are them having a certain archaism or abnormality, or being gone, or almost gone, from living speech of the Gaeltacht. For want of agreement on the forms and variations that would be accepted, instead people were making choices for themselves, and the disparity and uncertainty that accompanied them were becoming strong in the language. It is commonly recognised that a grammatical standard is required so that these plentiful traditions are not allowed to get out of hand, to establish agreement in place of discord, to give certainty to things that are currently uncertain, and to replace the inexactitude and untidiness resulting from this uncertainty and discord with exactitude and tidiness. The ease is clear for schoolteachers in teaching the same forms and basic variations as their colleagues, and it will reduce the difficulty in learning for the student because they will not be learning different forms and basic variations when they come under the care of a new teacher. It would be convenient for both student and teacher that school books agree with each other as much as possible within the basic framework of grammar. It was always clear that a standard of some kind was necessary for official business, and most Irish speakers are now convinced that proper progress cannot be made in the dramatic arts, in journalism, in writing, nor in the development of the Irish language for the Radio and films, without undertaking a certain coordination and balance of the grammar and vocabulary of the Irish language so that it would be able to compete with English and that it would be put on a corresponding course to languages of other learned peoples. In 1953 _Irish Grammar – Standard of the Translation Section_ was published with a view to gathering opinions and recommendations from the public to help the Section lay out a system of accidence that would be useful to adopt as a collective standard. After reviewing all of the opinions and recommendations found, the Section set to work improving this system and prepared a draft of an improved version that was submitted to people who were known to have a special interest in, and expertise in, Irish grammar. At the start of 1957 it was decided to review the original booklet and its improved version, and the opinions and recommendations found thereof. The matter was combed through, examined and refined and as a result a new draft was prepared. Helpful counsel was found from native speakers from each of the Gaeltachts, from teachers, and from other people with exceptional knowledge of the language, and it was agreed with the Department of Education that this booklet be published as a standard for official matters and as guidance for teachers and the general public. This standard acknowledges particularly certain forms and rules but it does not invalidate, make taboo nor prohibit the use of other correct forms. Those who adhere to the forms and rules set out in this booklet can be certain that the majority of those forms and rules will agree with the customs of the living language and that all forms and rules (except a few variations in numbers) will correspond to the usage of good Irish speakers in some Gaeltacht region. These are the basic principles that the standardisation followed: * As much as possible, not accepting forms or rules which are not authenticated in the living speech of the Gaeltacht; * Make choices between the most widely used variants in the Gaeltacht; * Give fitting importance to the literature and history of the Irish language; * Seek simplicity and regularity. It is often necessary to compromise between the principles above. Here is a brief clarification of the manner in which they were put into effect: ### Nouns The accepted declension system is one that has been in practice since a grammatical publication from Seán Ó Donnabháin over 100 years ago. In the First Declension there was a choice to be made between the slenderised plural and the strong plural found in some places for some nouns, e.g. _boinn, bonnaí, bonnachaí; capaill, caiple, capaillí; cuntais, cuntaisí; páipéir, páipéirí; tairbh, taraí_. For the sake of regularity and because it is the most widespread tradition, and best agrees with the literary tradition, the slender plural was chosen. There was also an agreement to be made for nouns such as _dochtúr, dochtúir; nádúr, nádúir,_ that are placed in the First and Third Declensions, as well as nouns such as _rásúr_ which is feminine with a genitive _rásúrach_ in certain places. It was decided that nouns relating to people, e.g. _dochtúir, táilliúir_ , would be placed in the Third Declension and the others in the First Declension. A similar decision was made for nouns like _siúinéir, siúinéar(a); lintéir, lintéar_ , that is, _-éir_ (Third Declension) for the nouns relating to people, and _-éar_ for the others. In the Second Declension, the main issue was to come to an agreement for the dative plural. The distinction between the nominative and the dative has long been going out of use and it is rare that the two are used side-by-side accurately in the Gaeltacht. It was decided to keep the nominative form in the dative for polysyllabic nouns. For monosyllabic nouns, lists of nouns were examined and if the dative form had become so strong in the nominative that there existed a plural based on it, this form was accepted for both cases. In the Third and Fourth Declensions, the strong plurals were accepted as much as possible so that, outside of the First and Second Declensions, there would only remain a tiny number of nouns for which the plural form is not the same in all cases. There are certain nouns that go back and forth between the Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Declensions. Effort was made to assign these to the declension that was most fitting, according to the basic principles explained above. ### Adjectives The First and Second declensions typical previously were combined into a single declension. The distinct form for the dative case, which is in almost complete disuse in speech, was disregarded. The simplest and strongest tradition was accepted for the form of adjectives and nouns agreeing with each other in the genitive plural. ### Numbers For numbers it was not possible to always adhere to customs of speech. A system was required that would be manageable for those dealing with arithmetic and mathematics. To this end it was necessary to resort to literature, and for fractions it was necessary to accept some artificial forms. The standalone numbers as they appear here are common knowledge and are well-attested. The customary tradition in grammar books of using the plural form of a noun with numbers was broken, for the reason that it was found, after examining the situation, that the singular was much more frequently used with them and thus it is easiest for the learner. There are examples available in old writings of the custom that is allowed, for the sake of convenience, for large numbers. _No attestation was found for variants such as ‘fiche a dó fear’, nor are they deemed neccessary or essential._ ### Verbs A joint decision was made on the form of the form for the Past Subjunctive Mood due to syntactical issues, and, although it was not left in as standard, the relative form was permitted due to it having a presence in two dialects. There was general satisfaction with the previously suggested choice between the synthetic and analytic forms of verbs and it was deemed best to leave them as they were. For the autonomous verb the most prevalent Gaeltacht tradition took precedence, that is, applying lenition as with other forms except in the Past Tense. There is a strong tendency in one of the major dialects to place syncopated verbs in the First Declension but the tendency in the other two major dialects is to place them in the Second Declension. Since the latter is better for regularity, there were two good reasons to place them in the Second Declension. In comparison with other languages, Irish is fairly free of irregular verbs, but since they are dealt with often, there is a large demand to simplify them. It was the most regular option to leave _deirim_ free of lenition always, and to omit the dependent forms _abraim_ (or _abraím_), etc. For _feicim_ there was a choice to be made between (a) _cím_ , etc. for the independent and _ní chím_ , etc. for the dependent form, (b) _chím_ or _tím_ , etc. for the independent form and _ní fheicim_ , etc. for the dependent form, and (c) _feicim, ní fheicim_ for both forms. The simplest and most regular choice was to take _feicim_ as the standard. The particular forms _déanaim, téim_ for the dependent form could not be disregarded because this would cause too much discrepancy with two major dialects. For verbal nouns, effort was made to bring the numerous affixes into regularity. For want of simplicity, and by request of teachers and others, the spelling change was abolished for the verbal adjective and the genitive of the verbal noun for verbal nouns of the Second Declension that end in _-ú_. In plurals of verbal nouns, however, _-uithe_ was kept. ### Lenition and Eclipsis It was deemed that the time had not yet come to definitively settle the competition between lenition and eclipsis following prepositions accompanied by the article. If one custom is widespread over and above another, it is too strange at the moment for the large number of Irish speakers for whom the other custom is native to them, or to which they are accustomed, to be expected to yield to the more popular custom. No further compromise between them was possible than leaving _d_ and _t_ bare, not placing _t_ before _s_ , not leniting an adjective unless it would be done in the nominative, and accepting lenition after _den, don, san_. In many cases in which lenition would be expected on a noun following another noun, non-lenition is common in the Gaeltacht. An attempt was made to lay out rules that explain this non-lenition but this is not understood to be a complete explanation of every single such case. A descriptive grammar for each one of the dialects would be necessary for this. In the second part of a compound word when _d, n, t, l, s_ come together, it is possible to find lenition, non-lenition and _t_ before _s_. The most regular and simple option is to have non-lenition as standard. Neatness and simplicity was sought in the rules for placing _h_ before a word. It was decided not to write _h_ after _ní_ except before the pronouns _é, í, iad, ea_. In the past tense of the autonomous verb, one can find, e.g. _Hardaíodh_ (or _hArdaíodh_), _Do hardaíodh_ and _ardaíodh_ in speech. It was deemed that the latter is the neatest form in writing. In certain cases with close connections to accidence, reference was made to syntactical issues. Translation Section, Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas, Leinster House, July, 1958.

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