Let’s hope we don’t get lost in translation too

MICHAEL Mernagh (Letters, December 30) is correct to voice concern with regard to the consequences of making Irish the first language of the State.

I am a returned exile having lived and worked (in the UK National Health Service, latterly as a senior nurse clinically and as a health service manager) in north Wales for many years.

This area is closely analogous to a Gaeltacht. I am struck by the parallels between the aggressive and self-destructive promotion of the Welsh language which pervades life in particular in north Wales, and the Government’s proposals for Irish. In the hospital in which I worked, every single document had to be translated into Welsh from English. Every sign, notice or press release had to be bilingual. The Welsh version had at all times to be given prominence.

The cost to the Health Service and to business was vast — literally double the paperwork plus the time and expense in sending everything for publication to the “official translator”. Our hospital employed two full-time individuals on this task. Public and in camera meetings of the hospital board had to utilise simultaneous translation equipment and personnel.

All of this might arguably be acceptable if the end result was a living and evolving language. However, the translations into Welsh of English are very frequently unintentionally hilarious. A famous instance was the road sign instructing cyclists to dismount which when rendered into Welsh and (crucially) translated back into English informed the astonished cyclist that they had a bladder infection all because the translation software spellchecker mistook “cyclist” for “cystitis”. Amusing as this may be, it had the very unamusing effect of bringing the language into disrepute.

Great care will need to be taken in any formulation and implementation of a language strategy as it would be desperately sad if we were to experience the problems of language promotion typified by Wales in an effort to increase the number people using Irish in daily life.

Mike Nash

Skibbereen

Co Cork