A chara, - Maurice Neligan finds the bilingual signs in the Mater Hospital risible, particularly "An Roinn Fisiteiripe/The Department of Physiotherapy" (Health Supplement, November 29th). The term is derived from the Greek physis and therapeia. Mr Neligan should take a rib-tickling European tour. In France, he could visit a physiotherapie centre.
In Germany he might see the odd centre of Krankengymnastik. In Spain and Italy, it would be fisiotherapia. He could have his leg pulled by a fysioterapeut in Copenhagen, by a fysiotherapeut in Amsterdam. The trouble is the foreigners are backward in spelling.
Similarly, your cardiolinguistic columnist finds "tacsaí" risible. "Taxi" is an abbreviation of the French taximetre. "Tacsaí" is a transliteration of taxi, and he would find the same phenomenon in Greece and Russia. Further afield, he would find the transliteration disintegrating into squiggles and funny letters. The scope for comedy is endless. Why don't they all leave the Tower of Babel and speak English?
Neither Maurice Neligan nor Sheila O'Flanagan (November 28th) could read a simple letter in Irish in The Irish Times. They attribute this to the shortcomings of compulsory schooling in Irish, but they are advancing an unsubstantiated hypothesis as fact. Post hoc is not invariably propter hoc.
Many less talented students than your two columnists learned Irish reasonably well under the same system. Native speakers of Irish attain high fluency in compulsory English. Clearly there are other factors involved. Your columnists could reflect on the school ethos, the unsuitable curriculum, the competence of their teachers as contributory factors to their wasted efforts.
Had they spent 1,500 school hours learning Mandarin or Acholi with negligible results, they would surely make more use of their formidable analytical powers to find out why. - Is mise,
PEADAR MAC MAGHNAIS, Bóthar Bhinn Eadair, Baile Átha Cliath.