RE: Linguistic precedence [was: (TC304.2313)

From: Séamas Ó Brógáin (leabhair@iol.ie)
Date: Fri Jun 16 2000 - 08:02:29 EDT


Marco Cimarosti wrote:

     ... the Irish Gaelic version of "REPUBLIC OF ITALY" has a
     lowercase "h" although it is all capitals.

The name of this language is "Irish"; there is no such thing as "Irish Gaelic".

I haven't seen the document you refer to, but I presume the term used is
"POBLACHT NA hIODÁILE". The <h> there is a prefix letter, representing the
way in which Irish avoids a hiatus between two vowels (rather like the way
English uses <n>, as in "an apple"); it is always lower-case, to reveal the
fact that the <I> is the real initial letter of the name.

Best wishes.

Séamas Ó Brógáin

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