The Welsh language
 

Re: "The Welsh language
 

Touchy subject.However there is a north/south Wales divide over it.

Re: "The Welsh language
 

I would love to learn Welsh... it gives Wales and its people that special identity after all I believe it is one of the rare Celtic languages in existance. It is a shame the English Celtic language did not survive due to all the invasions in England's past history.

Re: "The Welsh language
 

The Welsh language is part of a national identity. My mother's first language was Welsh, I'm the only English born and bred in the family. Been visiting Wales for years, the amount of people speaking Welsh keeps increasing.

It's arrogant of English tourists to be offended by Welsh people speaking Welsh in Wales - but they often whinge on. I think we English are jealous because we don't have much of a national identity any longer.

Re: "The Welsh language
 

English is a beautifully expressive language and rightly deserves its international status. Welsh is the poetic language of the indigenous Britons. Both languages are part of our heritage and as such belong to us all.

We are to spend £m's preserving the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Stonehenge, Castles, burial sites and monuments; they are important to our history.

We should preserve our languages too for the same reason.

Re: "The Welsh language
 

Despite the fact that we now live in a country where everyone gets offended by everything, Ive never heard of this one.

I have heard of Welsh people speaking English, until some English people appear, then they switch to speaking Welsh.

Of course, that may not be true either. :erm:

Re: "The Welsh language
 

Now now Mr K stop generalising me dear.:nono::nono:

---------- Post added at 05:30 ---------- Previous post was at 05:28 ----------

More rubbish invented claims yet again.:nono::nono:

Re: "The Welsh language
 

Just look at the national days Den; St George's Day -does it mean anything to the people of England ? it's barely mentioned. Where as St. Davids, Andrews and Patrick's Day are widely celebrated in their own countries and beyond.

---------- Post added at 09:14 ---------- Previous post was at 08:49 ----------

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ist-board.html

What the tourists don't understand is that people genuinely speak Welsh in Wales. It's been compulsory in Welsh schools for over 25 years now and use of the language has become more widespread.

Re: The Welsh language
 

I wonder if people feel excluded by Germans who speak German in Germany or Spaniards who speak.......well, you get the idea.

Re: The Welsh language
 

I learnt some of the language of heaven when I was at uni in Wales (Neuadd Pantycelyn, Aberystwyth) but that was many moons ago and since I've not used it, I've lost most of it. Some students there Welsh was definitely their first language and some struggled in English. Many went to Aber and stayed in Pantycelyn to keep their Welshness.

Re: The Welsh language
 

Dydw i ddim yn gwybod a yw hyn yn gweithio, Fi jyst ei gyfieithu â google

Re: "The Welsh language
 

It's all just a load of tosh, in my view. Language divides us, leads to misunderstandings and isolates those who speak these minority languages (unless they are bi-lingual).

In a perfect world, we would all speak one language. I'm sure we would all get on better if we did and it would cease to be a trade barrier. I'm sure there must be many a small business who would trade abroad if only they could communicate with people in those countries.

As for all these saints days, they are only useful as excuses to have a Bank Holiday for most people. Sorry, generalising again!

Re: The Welsh language
 

Welsh is just Yiddish spoken by Scottish people.

Re: The Welsh language
 

Re: The Welsh language
 

Ymddengys bod cyfieithu Google yn gweithio'n iawn.

Re: The Welsh language
 

Hang on being in class E its going to take me time to take this all in.;):D

Re: The Welsh language
 

Dyna beth rydych chi'n ei feddwl!

Bydd yr edau hwn yn dod yn hunllef i safonwyr!

Re: The Welsh language
 

Yn enwedig os yw'n cael ei ddefnyddio i osgoi'r hidlo chwysu.

Re: The Welsh language
 

Whatever else happens, I hope someone remembers to tell the sheep. :D

Re: The Welsh language
 

We could just close it ;)

It seems that doesnt translate well, it doesnt appear able to translate "swear". :erm:

This works better : Yn enwedig os caiff ei ddefnyddio i osgoi'r hidlydd iaith ddrwg. :cool:


... and on that note, thats enough of the Welsh please. :)

As implied by Mr K, we cannot keep checking the translations, so any more will just be removed.

Re: The Welsh language
 

Spoilsport, we could have all become fluent in Welsh ;)

Re: "The Welsh language
 

They do? They don't when I visit south Wales.

Re: "The Welsh language
 

South Wales is a different country to West and North Wales.....

Re: "The Welsh language
 

They have a higher class of sheep down there. :erm:

Re: "The Welsh language
 

Which is why it attracts thousands of posh English students looking for love :D

Re: "The Welsh language
 

Oh l don't know as there are plenty of sheep on here old bean.;):D

Re: The Welsh language
 

That’s not quite the same - plenty of English people think Britain is just a different spelling of ‘England’ and get ticked off when some indigenous Britons have the audacity to speak a language not called English.

I’ve overheard some English people complain about our bilingual road signs too. All done just to annoy them obviously...

---------- Post added at 18:59 ---------- Previous post was at 18:57 ----------

Indeed. We’re REAL Wales down south :)

Re: The Welsh language
 

Embrace differences?
Dydd da. :D

Re: The Welsh language
 

If you've ever driven the endless, but nice journey from North to South Wales, you'll certainly learn one word of Welsh that is painted on the 12 billion bends 'Araf'.....

Best country in the World imho; they'd do well to do a Trump and build a wall on the England border.... They're self sufficient in water for a start ;)

Re: The Welsh language
 

I’m doing the south to Oswestry drive on Friday....getting my booster jabs on Monday...

Re: The Welsh language
 

They also sell water to England.

Re: The Welsh language
 

They're so ungrateful. Without bilingual signs they may still find Caerdydd, but perhaps not Casnewydd, Abertawe and Dinbych-y-Pysgod :) Hwyl.

Re: The Welsh language
 

Hey!
There is NOTHING wrong with 10B and that's it!:D

Re: The Welsh language
 

See? Different languages bring out the worst in people!

Re: The Welsh language
 

I always feel welcome in Wales..and it's absolutely beautiful country and the inhabitants are beautiful too.

Re: The Welsh language
 

+1

Re: "The Welsh language
 

Totally agree with this, whilst a Welsh colleague disagreed with me when I expressed this view some time ago.

I think it should be recorded for historical reasons though; also any parents not ensuring that their children speak English too are doing them a disservice.

Whenever I've been to Wales the people have been fine, but on any caravan or chalet sites they always seem to have their radios on really loud!

It's either BBC Radio Wales or a service in Welsh.

Re: "The Welsh language
 

They act like vegans a lot of the time "Listen to me I speak/understand Welsh!"

When it was just the annual Welsh language singing and poetry festival with the occasional druid thrown in, it was OK. You could ignore it if you wanted to.

But now they are trying to make it mandatory for all living in Wales.

And that causes resentment amongst many schoolkids and adults.

There has been a large influx of Welsh speakers from the low-industry north to the south. And they get jobs invented just for Welsh speakers. Jobs where all you have to be good at it speaking Welsh. And with them they brought their flavour of Welsh which has many differences with the local one.

Re: The Welsh language
 

Used to go to Rhyl and Towyn a lot as a kid.

Re: The Welsh language
 

Many wonderful memories one suspects.:)

Re: "The Welsh language
 

Fully explains north Wales

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Well who’da thunk it....:rolleyes:

Seriously, no English or non-Welsh person can expect to be taken seriously when making any comment that implies the Welsh language has little/no value and should not furthered or spoken as much in Wales.

Would you go in to someone’s house and tell them to not speak their own language? I doubt any of you would be as rude.

Apparently it seems like the vast majority of English people (or apparently someone they know) have walked in to a pub in Wales where English is being spoken but as soon as the punters or staff twig where they’re from, conversation immediately turns to Welsh - amazingly nobody seems able to name this inhospitable pub - if that indeed does happen then those changing from English to Welsh are displaying massive ignorance, arrogance and deserve any drop in trade their behaviour creates.

Re: "The Welsh language
 

Yes, I really have no problems with people speaking Welsh, but I do think children should also be educated in a common language so they don't feel isolated in later life.

Re: "The Welsh language
 

Isolated?

Re: "The Welsh language
 

From the rest of the world, Russ.

Re: "The Welsh language
 

Who in Wales feels isolatated due to them speaking Welsh?

Re: The Welsh language
 

I think the point he was making is that welsh people need to have english as well to interact outside of wales where very few if any people speak welsh. There are ignorant people everywhere amongst all languages it's not specific to any one group. While i think it's right that the government in wales does what it can to preserve the language and culture it shouldn't be forced on kids.

Re: The Welsh language
 

Is there really a perception that in Wales there are children growing up only speaking Welsh and not knowing any English at all?

Re: The Welsh language
 

The reality is that kids are being educated in Welsh, but switch back to English as soon as they walk out the school gates because their mates speak English, their computer games are in English, the films they see and the music they want to listen to are in English. And after their schooldays, most work is in English.

And no legislation is going to change that. Those that want the language to prosper should do so by winning the hearts and minds of people, not by making it law.

But political groups don't want that, they want allegiance to their cause by playing on nationalistic sentiment. And we all know what happened when that sort of mass brainwashing happened in Europe, and why many refer to Welsh language activists as language nazis....

Re: The Welsh language
 

Many Welsh kids I knew were comfortable in both languages. Having the ability to use more than one language is a huge advantage. Kids in England learn English and use that, then at some point they learn a "second" or "third" in school but many do not actually get to use it.

So let's promote the use of Welsh in schools, keep the language living. Kids will still pick up and use English.

Re: The Welsh language
 

I have no problem with people talking Welsh, even if i'm in a pub whilst they do it. I don't understand really having much of an issue there. In major cities you'll hear many different languages being spoken and so long as they're polite enough to speak English when specifically conversing with you then who cares how they talk to each other?

I don't understand schools teaching in Welsh though, the vast majority of the country speaks English so surely it's better to concentrate on that whilst having Welsh as an additional language you can learn in a specific class? I can understand schools teaching in another language if they're some sort of ex-pat school, i.e a French school in London whose pupils are largely intending to go back in France, but not for normal UK schooling....

Re: The Welsh language
 

But using Welsh is schools as opposed to simply teaching it enforces the language. You can learn it better and how it's used rather than enough to pass an exam or basic conversation. And Welsh is the language of Wales even if there are so many invaders that English is used more.

Re: The Welsh language
 

I am from North Wales, I speak Welsh (self-taught) and I have lived in Cardiff and I now live in Merseyside. I also have a degree in Linguistics and I am a secondary English teacher in a Welsh school. The perception of Welsh in South East Wales is vastly different to the approach we have in the North - nonsensical discussions on the 'purpose' of the language don't really happen up here. Our languages merely co-exist and flow together, whether you're from a bilingual family or English-only.

However I'd like to clear a few things up on the Welsh education system:

• All Welsh kids (in English medium AND Welsh medium schools) study English first language and most achieve GCSE English Language and GCSE English Literature.
  
• Those in English-medium schools receive Welsh second language and all must study at least the half-GCSE Welsh Second Language (short course). Many schools opt to do the GCSE Welsh Second Language (full course) as an option. These second-language courses are taught like any other modern foreign language.
  
• Those in Welsh-medium schools receive Welsh first language taught as an equivalent to English. Most kids are then entered for GCSE Welsh Language and GCSE Welsh Literature.

By law, all pupils in Wales must study Welsh until age 16 through one of the channels mentioned above. Disapplying a pupil from GCSE Welsh is the same procedure as disapplication from GCSE English and is rarely done.

Subsequently, those pupils who go to Welsh-medium schools have more GCSEs upon leaving secondary education. There have been many, many studies on the effects of bilinguialism, and the majority indicate (this is not specific to Welsh) bilingualism benefits language skills in both languages. Moreover, most of the world's population is multilingual, and much of the Anglophone world is in minority being monolingual. You will find that the majority of classes in Welsh-medium schools take a bilingual approach, especially with subject-specific jargon as we understand that the vast majority of higher education takes place in English ("sandwiching" is the educational term we use for bilingualism term introductions).

I always teach my pupils that English has an absolutely shocking spelling system (pidgin Anglo-Saxon-Latin-French-British) but incredibly easy grammar; Welsh on the other hand has exceptionally easy spelling (like Spanish), but more difficult grammar. Incidentally, I have come across pupils who are dyslexic in one language but not in the other. Languages, their social histories, their evolution and their psychological bases absolutely fascinates me. If we were purely going on language 'usefulness', why are we not all learning Mandarin Chinese, Arabic or Hindi, which indeed have far greater number of speakers than German or French? English is a lingua-franca; it is an essential skill in a globalised world, but we must not be complacent and accept that English is not the only (nor the largest) lingua-franca. People who have absolutely no understanding of the Welsh (or any other minority) language, its history and culture provide little credibility in language-bashing rants I'm afraid.

As for switching languages mid-conversation... this is called code-switching, which occurs in multilingual speakers of any language. It is an extremely complex (so much so it is hard to document and study) sociological-psychological phenomenon that is determined by a mixture of external factors. You will find most bilingual speakers speak to each person only in one language (the one in which they first met and talked). To change that is extremely 'odd', almost seeming taboo, and an almost unbreakable maxim. Codeswitching is so ingrained, bilingual speakers are often unaware they are doing it and it can occur in the strangest of moments. Where there are more people of one common language, people will of course accommodate to a shared code, but it is often difficult to sustain where two speakers share close and ingrained bonds in one language.

Re: The Welsh language
 

It was a light hearted comment about the volume of their radios. It doesn't bother me as it's not done late at night.

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Welsh is a UK language, but I do have a problem with the amount of foreign languages now being spoken in the UK overall, for which I blame unfettered immigration.

It causes practical problems and costs eg the police money on translation services that would be better spent elsewhere.

As well as the practical problems posed, it's a question of good manners too. When I was a young man I intended to move to Holland. The first thing that I did to prepare was to take lessons in Dutch. A friend who was already there worked in a hotel and (quite rightly) was told to learn Dutch as a condition of keeping his job. They gave him a maximum of 6 months, which he complied with.

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Good to know that Welsh children learn English as a matter of course. If this is attained, I don't suppose it's any different to learning French at school like I and many others did.

Re: The Welsh language
 

I didn't say they shouldn't be able to speak English, just that I'm not bothered if people speak another language to each other. Welsh or anything else.

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It would be crazy if they didn't learn English.

Re: The Welsh language
 

Very interesting and informative post. The switching from Welsh to English, I've noticed in the Welsh soap opera 'Pobol y cwm' (great entertainment if you get the chance on S4C ;) ). The fact it's something the Welsh do in common language is why maybe the English shouldn't get offended and assume it's something to do with them.

Re: The Welsh language
 

Who are these english who get offended that welsh people speak welsh in wales I've been to wales a few times and never gave it a second thought when some spoke in welsh. There might be a few who get put out and i do mean a few but every nationality has that few they are called idiots and occur in all nationalities.

Re: The Welsh language
 

Well, I'm tired of hearing foreign languages being spoken whenever I'm in urban areas (Welsh is different as it is in fact a UK language).

You'd be surprised how many foreigners speak no or very little English (especially when it's convenient to them).

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I've been to Wales many times and never come across this either. It wouldn't be good for Welsh businesses or tourism either if someone refused to speak in English* if able to do so to an English person.

* Which I would expect them to be able to do given that they learn English at school as a matter of course.

Re: The Welsh language
 

Spot on - but it always helps with the ‘persecude Englander’ complex a lot of them have.

Re: The Welsh language
 

I live in the middle of England. I primarily speak English. I can usually greet and do pleasantries in another language and ask for things.
I find that other countries are far more eloquent in my home language than I am in theirs.
I respect that.

Bore da all :)

Re: The Welsh language
 

Yes, but what point is there in learning a language which is of no practical use? We need fewer languages, not more, and I would love to see the day when the whole world speaks one language so that we can all understand each other and our different perspectives.

Having so many different languages is a barrier to understanding and serve no useful purpose in my view.

Re: The Welsh language
 

And that language would be French ? ;) Non ? Let me guess......

Re: The Welsh language
 

This is not a response specific to Welsh, but language is not a facet of practicality, it is one of culture. As Winston Churchill famously alluded, if one did not fight for their culture, then they have nothing to fight for. Seven billion people will never be monolingual, and I would never want to live in such a world. Look up Esperanto, the failed attempt to create a new lingua-franca. English is not a good example of a well-designed language, neither are other lingua-francas, plus they are too rooted in cultural and imperialistic connotations. English is also a relatively new language in comparison to others and as such is itself too much of a mixture of others. Welsh, a language far older than English, is one of those major influences on English vocabulary.

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I've only been to Wales once that I remember and one of the things I liked about it was in the pub the people on the table next to us stopped speaking Welsh and spoke English to each other, I don't know if it was a gesture to guests visiting their country to make them feel more comfortable or not but I always appreciated it as such.

Re: The Welsh language
 

Many mad decisions have been made over the years in the name of culture. :p:

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It doesn't really matter, as long as we can all communicate with each other.

A less controversial way of going about getting rid of the language divide is if schools worldwide taught one additional common language (whatever that would be) to the native language.

Re: The Welsh language
 

Bear in mind you’re talking about a culture that was in place before your own and has every right to be part of Britain as yours.

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+1

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+2. And who have every right to speak the mother tongue in their own Country whether or not people who don't speak the language are in attendance. Notwithstanding that in my experience Welsh speakers always switch to English in the presence of monoglots because they are friendly toward and united with their English neighbours and, indeed, their own non-Welsh-speaking compatriots.

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+ 3

Anglo Saxons go home I say, bloody immigrants !

Re: The Welsh language
 

1 it helps greatly with tourism and as a link to the culture of Wales

2 I dont know which children come out not speaking welsh as a father of two who have gone through welsh language schools i can say that every child i met was able to speak it as a First language and also speak english as a first language. The ones from the south mostly can do so with out you being able to tell they speak welsh when speaking english and vice versa.

3 Now this is where some of the activists are at fault ( IMHO ) the stations need to embrace the bi lingual ability of the new young speakers this is also something the eisteddfods should do too.

4 Yep that works for Latin .

---------- Post added at 18:04 ---------- Previous post was at 16:47 ----------

It is though mostly its the north walians ;) they get a shock when my kids are up there as we speak English ( i still cant get to grips with welsh lol ) the shop keepers talk in welsh then one of my two adds to a conversation just before we leave . It can be quite funny if they have been talking about us lol

Re: The Welsh language
 

Brilliant post - clever kids.

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[QUOTE=OLD BOY;35912958]Many mad decisions have been made over the years in the name of culture. :p:

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It doesn't really matter, as long as we can all communicate with each other.


I agree.
There are so many other ways to communicate other than verbally. Even in vocal inflections. Touch, facial expression, body language.
I guess it depends on the willingness of the giver and receiver to comprehend. :shrug:

BTW, French, German and Spanish have been taught, every week, in primary schools for at least a decade, in my local borough, to primary school children from the age of 7. I've done it meself.
But not the Welsh language.
Welsh-speaking people should embrace their home language but sometimes it won't be much use to the corporate world.

A true smile and kindness go a long way.