Saoirse wrote:
Breandán wrote:
whether your friend can register a síneadh fada on the birth certificate or not may depend on whether they are in Éire or not, mightn't it? (I don't think it is possible in Australia, for instance.)

That's terrible. I thought lots of languages had things like that in them. Note the technical term 'things like that' - You can spot the linguist in me a mile off, can't you!

They do, but in predominately English-speaking countries (outside of Ireland, I guess) it can be hard to get any registry to accept diacritic marks (the technical linguistic thingy

). Most U.S. States won't put them on birth certificates or state I.D./Driver licenses. Heck, even the American Kennel Club refuses diacritic marks! It's annoying.
I was driving somewhere near San José the other day, though, and was tickled to see that the signs for the airport all had the accent mark! You don't see that much, even in California.
Redwolf