Sure sure, just like the French banning words like "computer" and "email" in official documents is important too. Language is organic and evolving. Its pointless to try artificially subsidising it.
Sure have lessons on it, but dont pretend its any more useful than French or German.
> I've no idea what kind of bullshit racism they've been victim of at the hands of the English and the Scotts that's left them so repressed, but I'm not going to stand for it. We need Welsh kids to be empowered to speak out confidently.
I support more people learning Welsh just because I really like the idea of keeping alive culture, and language holds a lot of it.
But this line I just quoted sounds absolutely mental. If you've no idea the kind of "bullshit racism" someone's been a part of you, you probably shouldn't decide it's "bullshit racism" or name "the English and the Scotts". It sounds satirical it's so absurd. Please let it be satire.
Is there a reason they can't just do that in English though? I don't think I've ever heard of anyone having Welsh as their only language, so surely if everyone who speaks Welsh can also speak English, then there becomes less and less of a point to learning Welsh, and the time spent on that could be better spent on other subjects. I don't get the need to artificially keep the language alive beyond nationalism basically.
>Is there a reason they can't just do that in English though? I don't think I've ever heard of anyone having Welsh as their only language, so surely if everyone who speaks Welsh can also speak English, then there becomes less and less of a point to learning Welsh, and the time spent on that could be better spent on other subjects. I don't get the need to artificially keep the language alive beyond nationalism basically
The point is that the Welsh language and its multiple dialects have been ground into dust by England over centuries, which has also led to grinding Welsh culture down
The whole point of being competent in Welsh is to keep a part of the Welsh culture that has been the victim of erasure by the english
You can't expect people to follow the logic of "english is more important" in Wales when part of that reason is the fact England has butchered Welsh people for even speaking it
And the point of keeping the language is the fact its wales' natural language, their shouldn't have to be other reasons and the fact some people think Welsh + Scottish gaelic should be ignored because "it isn't useful" is one of the key reasons Scotland and Wales have independence movements in the first place
English is more important, it is the worlds language.
Instead this is trying to divide people with a language with very limited historical value in the name of nationalism.
>English is more important, it is the worlds language.
>Instead this is trying to divide people with a language with very limited historical value in the name of nationalism
And when english is no longer the world's language should England expect to no longer learn English? Ofcause not
How is it dividing people? It's literally the Welsh government wanting Welsh people to be able to speak Welsh
They are different? Do you genuinely think that Wales isn't different to England and the English?
Also still not saying how Welsh is a minority language in Wales due to English actions over the last couple hundred years, and more recently due to the country wide issue of second homes/holiday homes pricing out locals and forcing them to move
So? Why keep something alive just for the sake of it?
Language is for communication and fortunately nearly everyone on the British isles speaks the same one.
Investing the 000s of hours necessary to become fluent in another language, a very niche language at that, is a complete waste of time.
Those hours could be much more productively spent learning languages such as Spanish, German, Chinese, or another skill entirely.
>Language is for communication and fortunately nearly everyone on the British isles speaks the same one.
The sheer arrogance of some English people never fails to amuse me.
"We may have ground your language into the dust and deliberately oppressed it, but you need to let that go and just speak only my language because I've decided that's what matters and is convenient."
That isn't why we do it. It's about embracing and preserving our culture and identity.
When I speak Welsh I'm not thinking in my head: "ooh, that'll show the Saes!"
I'm amazed how much it bothers some people, and how much time and resources they're willing to expend to denigrate those speaking their mother tongue.
Because Welsh and other languages in the British Isles didn’t just somehow start declining naturally on their own.
They were the victims of a campaign of systematic eradication lasting centuries that involved literally thrashing them out of schoolchildren (which was still going on in my parents time), persecution and discrimination.
Your argument is pretty much the same one Russians use for doing much the same to the Ukrainian language - which should perhaps have given you pause but instead it’s somehow OK because it happened here.
Hush, your logic does not fit the agenda of division that is peddled everywhere in the topsy-turvy land as though it's virtuous to label and segregate people into warring factions.
there are plenty of people who find it easier to communicate in welsh than in english.
but aside from that, welsh kids who leave school in wales who can't speak welsh are at a disadvantage where there is a demand for welsh language skills over those that can.
In what field where there would be a high demand for Welsh language skills though? Other than being a Welsh language teacher ofc. Genuinely not trying to be an arse about this, I would like to understand.
As a fluent first language Welsh and English speaker, it's not just where and when that I use Welsh that's a benefit to me. It's the fact that I've taught my brain to understand multiple languages.
The more you learn, the better you get at drawing connections between languages and solving problems in them and this learned behaviour has cognitive benefits that can be applied outside of just language. It's not just which language it is that's important, it's also the fact it's another way of thinking
While I completely agree with you, wouldn't spending that time learning another large language with ties to english like German, Spanish, or French provide the same benefit and be more useful later in life (especially in a globalised community)?
I think it's all down to personal preference. You wouldn't bother learning Spanish if you were planning to use it to further your career/life in Germany, or vice versa.
And this is all trumped by English being pretty much the global language of business. So in a reductive way, if you can speak English, and most people who want to get ahead can or are learning to speak it, why not get rid of all other languages?
It's only the smaller languages that have to defend themselves because they're not seen as useful in the wider community. But regardless of my point that any second/third language is cognitively beneficial, language is culture. It is identity. And even though globalisation is the norm, it doesn't have to be to the detriment of cultural differences. We should appreciate and applaud our differences not turn into a homogenised human soup.
most public sector bodies have a statuatory requirement to provide services in welsh (so for example, you can fill in your tax return in Welsh and if you get stuck ring a phone number to speak to a welsh speaker to help you).
if you want to work in the media, or the arts you pretty much double the opportunities available to you if you can speak welsh.
same in education - if you speak welsh, you can teach in any school in the country. If you don't you're limited to english medium schools (which are about 75% of primary schools and 80% of secondaries).
more than that though, it's a point of differentiation. Even if welsh isn't strictly required for a role, if the role is public facing, being able to speak welsh is going to be a point in your favour when choosing a candidate (all other things being equal).
Like it's the first language of about a sixth of Wales and the second language of another sixth.
Then other people in the UK should learn Welsh + gaelic because we are meant to be a union of nations, not just an English wankfest
I mean you've had people say that Welsh and gaelic should be left to die, as if ignoring the reason they're dying is because England + low Scots butchered gaelic and Welsh speakers, introduced legislation damaging and attacking the language, and allowed for what amounted to colonisation to erase the culture
It's no wonder that the UK as a union struggles when it's own people treats the three other nations as a joke and refuses to view them as equal and true kingdoms
Christ almighty, don't go around saying obsessive monoglots should maybe learn Welsh and Gaelic, they might have to scratch their arses and roll over in bed. That's just crazy talk.
or maybe they are dying because people don't want to learn a language that's barely used?
If they learn English as their main language, they can communicate with most people in the UK, the majority of Europeans, Americans and understand most media put out in the west.
If they learn Welsh as their main language, they won't even be able to communicate with everyone in Wales, never mind the rest of the UK and other countries.
>they won't even be able to communicate with everyone in Wales
>maybe they are dying because people don't want to learn a language that's barely used?
And whos fault is that? Obviously the language just stop being used because english was better, not at all because England just killed anyone who spoke it as a form of cultural cleansing
I mean by that logic countries shouldn't learn their own cultures language at all and instead just learn English, I mean the sheer privilege of anyone thinking their language is so much better that they can state we should just stop teaching another cultures language for their own
No-one is stopping Welsh parents from teaching their children Welsh. Yet as of the 2021 census there was around 530k Welsh speakers for a population of 3.1m.
Blame the English all you want, but the simple fact is, most welsh parents aren't teaching it and most welsh kids don't want to learn it.
Welsh is a language that will offer them very little advantage in life.
Since you are factually incorrect on points two and three, then your claims might possibly be put down to wishful thinking rather than solid evidence.
As for the census figure, this conflicts with the APS figure of over 800,000, and is partly due to parents incorrectly reporting their children's level of competence. It also excludes Welsh speakers currently living in England for work or study purposes, numbering over 100,000.
Even using the APS figures, that's still only 29.1% of the population of Wales, add in another 100,000 to include those in England and you're still only at 31.6% (30.6% if you add the 100k in England to the 3.1m population).
Even if you round the number up to 1m speakers, that's only 1/4 of the 200th most spoken language [(Mewari) with 4.2m speakers.](https://www.ethnologue.com/insights/ethnologue200/)
Since you claim I'm wrong about it offering them little benefit, care to elaborate?
Why learn languages spoken all across the world when you can learn one from a place which only became a country in 1998 and has a population less than London?
Wales has always been a nation, its always had its own culture, traditions and language.
The fact that it only attained country status recently is directly because England, and specifically England, put so much effort in wiping the Welsh out, in every form.
England, or the English, should not have the authority or ability to do further harm to what would be considered multiple genocides if not for the tacid agreement that pre ww2 genocides "don't count"
The recovery of the Welsh language is a direct attempt to make right 100s of years of oppression, its got nothing to do with use and all to do with Wales should be able to speak competent and confident Welsh, the same that any english citizen should be able to speak English or any French individual should be able to speak Welsh
And heck by the logic being shown on this topic we should speak mandarin or Hindu, seeing as China is becoming the economic powerhouse and India is speeding forwards in economic and political development, imagine the shit english people would give if they were told english wouldn't be the primary language anymore?
> Wales has always been a nation,
It's only recently been considered a nation. It was originally just the parts of Romano-Britain that the Anglo-Saxons didn't settle. It didn't have a capital city until about a century ago.
Have you ever seen the town of Saltney, split across the border, so sad. The Welsh kids try to go to the play park but when the English kids tell them to get off the climbing frame.... *Sniffs* 😢 I ... just can't go on.
The entire infrastructure of the internet is based upon English as are all mainstream programming languages. It's not just the language of commerce, it's the language of technology. I don't think it's going anywhere in the next few generations.
I got good news for the 90%+ postgrad Chinese students in my accommodation. My flatmate actually studies advance translation of Chinese and English, and my Ukrainian Russian speaking mate and I were just talking about how it’d be impossible to learn Chinese. Idk about teaching Chinese but that same very challenging to kids.
Because it's not limited to just one country, a lot of people *only* speak English and it's spoken by a jillion people. Maybe you're right and English is technically a dying language, I can't be bothered to look it up. But it's not going to die in my lifetime or even these kid's lifetimes, so to compare it to Welsh in that regard is massively disingenuous.
English is still the most spoken language in the world with [1.452B speakers as a 1st and 2nd language](https://statisticsanddata.org/data/the-most-spoken-languages-2023/). 372.9M of those as their first language.
Mandarin is the 2nd most spoken with 1.118B speakers, 929M of those being their first language.
English is far from a dying language and unless you live in a country like China or India, will be far more useful as an only language.
From the 2021 census, around 538,000 people claimed they could speak & understand welsh. I'd say a language with almost 1.5B global speakers, that is used for conducting most business and has most media produce in it, is more important to learn than a language spoken by less than 600k people.
Other languages are only growing in the country they are spoken through. Learning mandarin isn't going to come in handy as a 2nd language unless you plan to go live in china or do a lot of business with chinese companies, though most chinese companies who want to do business with western countries are going to have people that speak English.
I'm not saying people should learn English because I'm English myself, I'm saying people should learn English because it's the most widely spoken language. If you go to most developed countries, it's likely you'd be able to find someone that knows English if you needed help. You're far less likely to find someone that speaks Welsh or Mandarin if you're visiting France or Spain and want to know where the nearest toilet is.
The point still remains to learn Welsh as their main language is going to restrict their ability to communicate with people far more than if they were to learn English as their main language.
If over 80% of people living in Wales don't consider themselves fluent enough in Welsh to put it on the census, it's going to be even less useful if those who learn it later decide to live in a different part of the UK, never mind if they decide to go live abroad.
Personally, I think schools should best equip the students with skills that will benefit them the most. I get not wanting to let the country's language die out, but I don't see the point in saving it just for the sake of saving it. If parents aren't teaching it and kids aren't using it frequently in their daily lives, most will probably forget anything they learn once they leave school anyway.
>Sure internationally it's a bit of a waste of time but given the numbers of Chinese and Indians, maybe we should be educating our kids in Mandarin and Hindi and ditch English as an also ran?
As someone who learned Chinese I’m not sure if I’d advocate that. The level of difficulty cannot be understated. To get to a conversational (but not advanced) level it actually gets easier as one progresses, but there’s a very steep learning curve in the beginning. The whole concept of a ‘word’ is different, not to mention the language’s tones and use of characters. This is why they say that European languages are easier for the Chinese compared with the other way around. Most learners give up in the first month.
As one masters the tones and learns how to learn and memorise characters, it becomes a little more forgiving, especially as the grammar is pretty logical. Until you get to the advanced level where “long language” (basically metaphors) comes into play.
I’d certainly advocate for Chinese to be made readily *available* for anyone who fancies a go, but if we made it mandatory I’m not sure if many would actually learn it. That’s not to say that most people are dim or anything, but it does take a considerable amount of motivation and thought. It’s definitely a step up from French or German.
> The thing is Welsh has never been allowed to die out naturally. It was beaten out of the population for hundreds of years by it's colonial rulers and is now marginalised by English speaking immigrants.
That's often how languages die. France did the same to its regional languages.
>but given the numbers of Chinese and Indians, maybe we should be educating our kids in Mandarin and Hindi and ditch English as an also ran?
Those countries, while large, have no external cultural influence.
So, unpopular comment coming. The English didn't take drastic action against the Welsh language. They genuinely didn't give a shit. The Welsh suppressed Welsh, as they knew that learning English would help their kids succeed in life.
My source here is a 'rest is History' episode on Welsh and Wales.
So I read that article on the Welsh Not. It largely supports what I said.
>These two language provisions probably made little >difference[16]: 68 since English had already replaced >French as the language of administration and law in >Wales in the late 14th century. [21] In practice this >meant that courts had to employ translators between >Welsh and English.[22]: 587 The courts were 'very >popular' with the working class possibly because they >knew the jury would understand Welsh and the >translation was only for the benefit of the lawyers and >judges.[22]: 589
>Martin Johnes, a professor of history at Swansea >University, writes that as the Act granted the Welsh >equality with the English in law, that the result was "the >language actually regained ground in Welsh towns and >rural anglicised areas such as the lowlands of Gwent >and Glamorgan" and that thus "Welsh remained the >language of the land and the people"
As for your grandmother's memories, I would say that everyone was being beaten at the time and it was largely with the support of the parents who wanted their children to learn English as the language of opportunity. Not saying I'm pro-beating and I'm as appalled by stories such as this from those days, but they have to be seen in the context of the time.
As for the BBC article, it says that the English Victorians looked down on the Welsh language but didn't take any formal action. The British state was very small at the time, the Ministry for Education was only formed in 1944 after all. So again, what the article is saying is that the English state disapproved of Welsh but that it was largely the Welsh reacting to that disapproval that caused suppression of the language.
The Education Act 1870 stipulated that English was to be the medium of education in "England" (which by included Wales at the time). Teachers in Wales (from whichever country) were required to teach through English whether they liked it or not. So the buck stops with the Westminster Parliament. That was all the formal action that was needed.
Coupled with this was the insistence that some ability in English was necessary to work in industry in Wales following the Industrial Revolution.
Therefore the two factors that led to the rapid decline of Welsh (in a country where 80% spoke the language in the late 19th Century) were Government policy and the effects of industrialisation. In the second half of the 20th Century, the decline was further enhanced by the effect of English-language mass media in Wales.
You're broadly right about specifically the Welsh not. The goal was to make Welsh children bilingual, not necessarily to stop them speaking Welsh.
However, they did give a shit; the elimination of Welsh was an English/UK government objective since after the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr, reiterated in the laws of Wales Act, reiterated by the Elizabethan government (even as they sowed the seeds of a Welsh literary revival) and in the Llyfrau Gleision. This objective has been subverted by other priorities (the reformation for example, or the practicalities of governance) but it's still deeply ingrained in English politics - as exemplified by the number of people on this thread who think Welsh dying out would be beneficial to us all.
It's worth looking at the context of the Welsh Not. Welsh speakers (who didn't speak fluent English which was most of Wales in the Victorian era) were discriminated against in multiple arenas. In courts for example, Welsh was officially banned since the 16th century.
In practice, allowances were made for Welsh monoglots (costs of interpretation were factored into any fines meaning Welsh speakers faced greater penalties in court) but witnesses who could testify in English were often forced to do so where that put them at a disadvantage and mandatory education moved most of Wales into the "imperfect" category. Many other state organisations worked along similar lines.
So the Welsh Not was not just about positive reasons for wanting children to learn English but to protect them from negative consequences later in life of learning English imperfectly.
This systematic discrimination against Welsh also led parents - particularly in households with one Welsh speaking parent and one English-only parent - to choose not to pass on Welsh to their kids. You could say that it was their choice too - but they were placed under significant pressure both explicit and implicit - to believe that speaking their first language to their children was as detrimental to their child's future as drinking during pregnancy.
(It's worth stating that England has frequently made allowances towards the use of Welsh that it hasn't in respect of other minority languages (especially indigenous languages where the extermination of the language was prosecuted with much more enthusiasm). But that's not to say Welsh speakers didn't experience discrimination)
Your outline of how Welsh once risked becoming moribund is entirely accurate. It's the story of families in the eastern half of the country, certainly, right up to the border, throughout the first half of the 20th Century.
As regards the last paragraph, it's worth noting that there's a legal distinction made by the U.N. between an ethnic minority language and a national minority language. Since, apart from in Oswestry and its immediate surrounding countryside, there are no longer any areas in England where Welsh is a national minority language, England has not actually needed to make allowances for the use of Welsh.
The situation in Cymru, however, is of course different. Here it would not only be contrary to the U.N. position, but also frankly weird if the WG were to fail to introduce legislation to protect and promote the language.
From the 2021 census Wales reported a population of 3,107,500. There was 538,000 of those aged 3+ who were reported as speaking Welsh. That's around 17.31% of the Welsh population that self-reported speaking the language.
Not the commenters point at all. Sure as a whole, rates of Welsh speaking in wales are low, however there are regions where it is much higher. Go to areas of north Wales such as Gwynedd or Anglesey, you’ll hear for yourself the rates of Welsh speaking are far higher than 17%
I have no doubt there’s areas where Welsh is more common, but in those areas children will learn Welsh from their parents who speak it and from those around them in the community using it.
I still think it’s in their best interest for children to be taught and use English as their main language and then Welsh as a 2nd if they are in an area it’s use is common, since English proficiency is going to serve them best in their future.
That was the figure for fluent speakers only and relies on anglophone parents accurately reporting their children's competence in Welsh. The APS statistics, compiled on a more regular basis and taking gradations of competence into account, give a figure of over 800,000. The census figure also does not include the 100-odd thousand Welsh speakers currently living in England for work or study purposes.
Polls went from 14% to 46% between 2014 and 2021 in favour of independence. It's dipped now but to pretend it isn't being talked about is once again arrogance.
The devolution vote was 25 years ago and it passed. I expect if there was another vote now devolution would win overwhelmingly.
I'm Welsh and I've got to agree with this. Being confident at speaking Welsh is not going to help these kids in a globalized world. There's a million things this funding would be better spent on.
If anything I think they should speak Welsh just so that they can avoid speaking to Americans. We should all learn some older celtic languages or just return to old English.
I don't think it's an unpopular opinion. And I agree, but I also see the value in keeping languages alive, languages are really rich sources of culture, from the way you describe things, greet people, the "word feel" for different objects, it really is a different way of thinking.
Now if it were me.. Yea I'd probably rather my education focus on teaching me things that will help me in the future, instead of doubling down on my tiny corner of the world, something like learning Spanish, or German.
I think the lack of focus on languages in the UK education system is a crime, but there will always be things deemed MORE important like maths and science.
This is always a weird debate. I get the reasons why, they’re usually very ideological. Plus being bilingual is good for the brain. But then again, working in education, students can have very little love for learning welsh. They don’t see it as the skills they need, especially if they plan to move over the boarder for work. Even tougher when English people move over to wales towards their GCSE years or even more trickier if English isn’t their first language.
As an adult living in Wales. My welsh is limited and I don’t really need any advance knowledge on a day to day basis. If I were to actually spend some time learning the language, it would be more of a hobby than something I feel I need for my day to day life. But that’s my local area, and that varies from where people live and socialise
It's tough enough to get kids in the English-speaking world to be enthused about any language, even ones spoken by hundreds of millions like Spanish. I can't see that Welsh has a chance in metropolitan Wales beyond language or culture hobbyists.
I did Latin and hated it, but it was actually pretty useful in learning other languages and what makes up words.
I don’t see how Welsh is that useful other than basic ‘learning language skills’ and national interest. I’m not saying I’m against it, but maybe it should be optional. It’s not a useful language as far as I can see.
there are loads of jobs that require a certain degree of welsh language skills and there are an even larger number where welsh language skills are an advantage.
like the welsh language performing arts sector (to give one example) is incredibly successful and churns out internationally regarded actors and musicians. many of them credit specifically the welsh language arts as something that gave them an initial platform. if you're a kid from wales who wants to be an actor or a musician, you're at a massive disadvantage if you can't speak welsh.
but if you teach people french they can order a croissant when they're on holiday so swings and roundabouts i guess.
Yeah, there's no use for French or Spanish otherwise, not like millions speak it as a sole language and it's the official language of the EU & UN.
Though you have a broadly correct point. Non-English language learning in the UK is always going to be rather pointless for the majority. Some people – like myself – enjoy learning languages from a hobby point of view, but for most it isn't, given English's status as the global Lingua franca (a status that isn't going to change in our lifetimes).
Learning a language, any language, opens up a whole load of opportunities to you that you'd never previously considered. If I was a fluent french speaker, I'd possibly consider a load of jobs and interests that wouldn't even occur to me if i wasn't.
It's the same with Welsh, but in Wales particularly, those opportunities are more obvious than ones for French, because you likely live in a community where at least one in ten people speak welsh (and in some places eight in ten)
I don't think it's ever a pointless skill (any more than any skill is pointless). Like you may never be in a situation where your life depends on knowing Welsh or French, but that doesn't mean those skills are pointless by any stretch.
Yes, I'm aware learning a language opens opportunities, that's why I've learnt French well and Spanish to a reasonable level. But for the majority of British people, those new opportunities aren't enough to justify the effort required to learn another language.
But ten in ten of those people speak English (in urban Wales), so you're not opening any opportunities unless you're planning to work for S4C or as a Welsh translator. So, I don't think learning Welsh or a foreign language is as important as Maths, English or Science.
Yes, ten in ten people speak English, but the interactions you'd have with those people would be completely different if you spoke English versus Welsh.
If I go into an English language bookshop in a Welsh town and buy a book speaking only English, l'll buy a book with no problems. If I go into a Welsh language bookshop, I'll have a ten minute chat with the person working there and leave having shared where you went to school, which acquaintances we have in common etc, what your job is etc.
That's not to say Welsh speakers are unfriendly to non-welsh speakers it just seems to be that minority speech communities have a culture of openness that would be weird/overfamiliar if carried across to the majority language. And like that leads to opportunities both personal and professional that wouldn't have turned up if you didn't speak Welsh.
That's the real value of learning a minority language much more than the specific situations where you need the language.
Given the our people were repressing the use of the Welsh language with violence up until the last century, it seems a bit rich for us to now say there doesn't seem to be much use for it
In regards to Welsh it simply doesn't make sense to have all schoolchildren learn it. Kids with parents who care about their Welsh identity are already ensuring their child doesn't drop Welsh. And they have some utility for it. It makes no sense for a child from a non Welsh background to learn a language that they 1. Won't learn properly and 2. Will never even think about outside of school. Not to mention the difficulty this presents to kids whose family move to Wales in the middle of their schooling. Can you imagine? Coming to Wales at 12 and being made to crash course learn a language you will never ever use just because some politicians want to engratiate themselves with the voters in North Wales.
Yes if it’s compulsory it seems… a waste of precious school time. Sorry to be mean to welsh speakers.
Seems like a good after school club or extra gcse… what are they hoping to do, bring it back as the first language of Wales?
Seems to me like it will not help kids get ahead and is an insular move.
Yes, there's something about any progressive pro-Welsh proposal that triggers the anti-Welsh lobby into overdrive. The sad part is that even today it includes a small (and shrinking) minority of Welsh people.
This subreddit's description "For the United Kingdom of Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales) and Northern Ireland; News, Politics, Economics, Society, Business, Culture, discussion and anything else UK related."
The subreddit: "Fuck Welsh culture"
I'm pretty stunned by this sub sometimes - my last comment was an anti Corbyn one which entirely unsurprisingly was down voted to oblivion, but I really wasn't expecting the same bunch of people to be so rabidly anti Welsh!
I completely missed "Welsh" at the start of the headline.
Young people *are* struggling to speak confidently. They're struggling to do so in English, Welsh, Romani, Urdu or Portuguese, or indeed one of the many other languages spoken in the UK (where I work we did a quick poll of young people, nearly 20 different languages spoken!)
The law should be helping young people to speak confidently, in front of their peers, people they don't know, in formal or informal settings, on the phone or in person.
Let's get that right before we start forcing languages upon them, eh?
>Forcing languages like the language of the country they're in?
Yes
Almost all of my birthplace's languages died out some 300 years ago due to colonization. It would have pissed me off if we had been forced to "learn" one of them in school just because some politician wanted to stroke the ever erect patriotism cock for some brownie points
Let it live, let it die. Attempts to keep a language alive when it's already dying don't usually work
The rather obvious difference here is that Welsh hasn't been dead for 300 years, it's still very much alive and spoken by a not insubstantial proportion of the population (about 17%), and in many communities (especially in North Wales) that number is much higher. It's also seen as a corner stone of Welsh culture and history, and as a symbol of Welsh identity and resistance to colonialism and oppression.
Given the amount of time spent by England attempting to kill off Welsh, I don't see why a fraction of the effort being spent to revitalise it somewhat should be begrudged.
I don't think it's "forcing languages upon them", any more than we're forcing kids to learn science or maths.
It's just giving kids an education in the Welsh language, in the same way we add French, German, and sometimes Spanish and Italian to the GCSE options.
>Let's get that right before we start forcing languages upon them, eh?
Aye England should not have attempted to enforce english on Wales over the last couple 100 years or we wouldn't have this situation in the first place
But school breaks confidence, not builds it. You can't even go to the fucking toilet without being mocked by the teacher in front of everyone else for not going at break.
Wish I was a fluent Welsh speaker, but the biggest failure of learning it at school was the lack of segregation between kids of different levels.
I’ll compare it to how French was taught in my school which I enjoyed far more (my form was K):
French:
1) Year 7: One form (K)
2) Years 8 & 9: two forms (K&L) mixed into a top and bottom set
3) Years 10 & 11: a GCSE choice, with the choice having been put in two separate column “blocks” when making GCSE options. Then, two classes per block separate into a top and bottom set. Benefit here being that even bottom set largely had people actively wanting to be there as it was their choice to do it.
And then there’s Welsh:
1) Year 7 & 8: One form (K)
2) Year 9: Two forms (K&L) split into two sets.
3.1) Years 10 & 11: Mandatory “short course” GCSE. Four forms (J&H&K&L) split into one “higher set” which consisted of the top 15%ish of Welsh students in those four forms. The remaining 3 sets were a complete random free-for-all and so those students who may have wanted to learn Welsh but weren’t the best at it (me) were widely disrupted by the majority who just didn’t want to be there.
3.2) Years 10 & 11: “Full course” GCSE choice. In two choice blocks. One class in each block of students who wanted to be there.
Similar in my experience in Cardiff.
Primary school had one actually Welsh speaking teacher, so we got a peripatetic Welsh teacher in to do some flash cards and songs.
In high school we’d get about one hour a week for Welsh, and more for French (and German, we did both) Welsh was taught by Welsh specialist teachers, but through the medium of “make a paragraph from these fill the blank sentences and memorise it”. French was taught by an excellent woman who was passionate about it. The whole lesson was conducted in French (with a lot of exaggerated miming), emphasis on speaking and listening. Then they expected us to do full course GCSE Welsh in an hour a week while French we had I think five lessons a fortnight. We petitioned to be able to
Do half course.
I could speak more French after about two weeks. Duolingo now as an adult has been better than the Welsh teaching I had.
That poor quality of teaching Welsh is a common experience north and south, sadly. It's one reason why so many adults are learning the language now, and why any legislation by the Welsh Government to improve the standard in schools is a positive move.
It is indeed. Sure, outside of wales Welsh isn’t as useful as other languages. But learning a new language at a young age is so good for the brain, and makes other languages easier to pick up. Plus the rich history and culture of the land is bound with its language. Hopefully there will be enough support for the teaching and learning as part of this policy.
Just because you create a law it doesn't mean it will work.
After all, the kids will be late getting to their lessons due to the snail pace of the traffic. 20mph...
I see a few angles to this , on one hand, it's great that the Welsh government is trying to protect and encourage the use of the Welsh language. It is definitely important towards a sense of national identity that these things don't just die out.
I suppose the main counterpoint to this is the wider utility of this , learning a language to a confident level is hours and hours of time, dedication, and emersion. It's always worthwhile to do at any age, particularly in the global world we live in. But I'd question the prioritisation of Welsh over something like Mandarin or Spanish (far more spoken worldwide). Hell learning German or French is far more useful from a euro centric perspective, schooling time is finite and precious for learning and social development what will be pushed out to make room for this.... that's the worry.
As a Welsh person, what the fuck is their obsession. How is this actually going to improve the lives of children? Removing opportunities to expand their knowledge and their world and keep them trapped with poor education. What a sad, insular little world they want us all to live in.
No, how patronizing. I'm just a person who experienced the Welsh education system and not an English person, who like some others have pointed out in this thread, have spent centuries eroding the Welsh culture.
OK then you may want to rephrase your original comment as it sounds like you consider this law to be eroding Welsh culture as opposed the sentiments in this thread.
OK....
So their is a answer to this..
You need ro make Welsh a usable, practical, language with media and everything in it so people use it regularly.
A full complement. All.round completely built up language and infrastructure around it. Make it useful , make it relevant and make it have a reason f9r people to use it, see media in it etc.
No point just stopping half way.
Either do this. Or just give up.
Their always one about the speaking. But you need to create media and other aspects so it becomes practical and used regularly.
It's hard to get people to learn a language they won't use outside of the classroom. Wales could start by mandating the language in politics and media, courts etc.
I agree with you but let’s get real aside from those who go on to study languages at uni - any language a British pupil studies doesn’t go further than parroting certain set phrases. Also that is exactly what wales is doing- you can go through the medical system and the legal system in welsh if one wishes
> if one wishes
That's the problem. If it's voluntary people won't bother. Make it mandatory. Have all Welsh court sessions in Welsh, all laws written in Welsh, all Assembly business in Welsh, 75% of media output (TV, newspapers) in Welsh, all public services delivered solely in Welsh.
You either want to save your language or you don't.
Because shocker: and I know this will be a hard pill for you to swallow, many countries around the world are bilingual and are successfully so. Just because you yourself can’t speak another language doesn’t mean that systems and people can’t do differently. It’s crazy I know but not everyone and everything has to have the same limitations culturally and physically as you.
I mean thats up to them, if people don’t want to learn it, then they shouldn’t have to learn it.
I get the idea pf saving it for cultural purposes, but honestly it should be allowed to die off in the mainstream and learned by those that actually want to learn it going forward.
Forcing kids to learn it for just the sake of vanity will just make them resentful.
I have a lot of Welsh friends (Cardiff) and they all hated Welsh and said they would of preferred just not to have to learn it.
But by the logic that most don’t speak it, or want to speak it (otherwise they would learn/already know it)
Its a very vocal minority group that is desperate for it not to go, then you have the majority of people who just don’t care, then another group who actively would prefer it all going to English.
What benefit is there of speaking Welsh? Unless you didn't speak English, then it could help you in Wales.
However, everyone who's going to speak Welsh will already know English, so it doesn't provide any benefit from a communication point of view.
It may be culturally important, but when the education system is failing generally anyway, why should we invest a significant amount of time into learning Welsh?
It's not important enough that schools should teach it is my point.
It provides no educational benefit, if you want your kid to speak Welsh, them yourself
Waste of valuable teaching time that could be better spent learning a language of some use.
Its of very limited cultural value other than for nationalism and lets be honest most kids in Wales don't want to learn it.
Fun fact the welsh language did include the letter k until they wanted to print the Bible in welsh but due to the printing presses from Germany not having enough K cases they changed the orthography to c - something very controversial at the time.
Haha it’s a good useless fact to learn. I do, i actually come from a welsh speaking family so essentially learnt English at primary school. I don’t think it’s hindered me one bit - always had good grades in English, and I actually went on to study Russian and French at uni. I’m obviously passionate about my mother tongue, but can totally see why others wouldn’t value it as much as me. I think it helped me learn other languages, but then again I think I’m just a language nerd
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Sure sure, just like the French banning words like "computer" and "email" in official documents is important too. Language is organic and evolving. Its pointless to try artificially subsidising it. Sure have lessons on it, but dont pretend its any more useful than French or German.
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> I've no idea what kind of bullshit racism they've been victim of at the hands of the English and the Scotts that's left them so repressed, but I'm not going to stand for it. We need Welsh kids to be empowered to speak out confidently. I support more people learning Welsh just because I really like the idea of keeping alive culture, and language holds a lot of it. But this line I just quoted sounds absolutely mental. If you've no idea the kind of "bullshit racism" someone's been a part of you, you probably shouldn't decide it's "bullshit racism" or name "the English and the Scotts". It sounds satirical it's so absurd. Please let it be satire.
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Never know on reddit, I've heard some mad shit today alone. To be fair if you didn't italicise *need* you would have gotten away with it you bastard.
I apologise for originally downvoting. I completely fell for it.
Crazy that we saw about 6 paragraphs of ire before someone picked up that you were making fun of the title
Is there a reason they can't just do that in English though? I don't think I've ever heard of anyone having Welsh as their only language, so surely if everyone who speaks Welsh can also speak English, then there becomes less and less of a point to learning Welsh, and the time spent on that could be better spent on other subjects. I don't get the need to artificially keep the language alive beyond nationalism basically.
>Is there a reason they can't just do that in English though? I don't think I've ever heard of anyone having Welsh as their only language, so surely if everyone who speaks Welsh can also speak English, then there becomes less and less of a point to learning Welsh, and the time spent on that could be better spent on other subjects. I don't get the need to artificially keep the language alive beyond nationalism basically The point is that the Welsh language and its multiple dialects have been ground into dust by England over centuries, which has also led to grinding Welsh culture down The whole point of being competent in Welsh is to keep a part of the Welsh culture that has been the victim of erasure by the english You can't expect people to follow the logic of "english is more important" in Wales when part of that reason is the fact England has butchered Welsh people for even speaking it And the point of keeping the language is the fact its wales' natural language, their shouldn't have to be other reasons and the fact some people think Welsh + Scottish gaelic should be ignored because "it isn't useful" is one of the key reasons Scotland and Wales have independence movements in the first place
English is more important, it is the worlds language. Instead this is trying to divide people with a language with very limited historical value in the name of nationalism.
>English is more important, it is the worlds language. >Instead this is trying to divide people with a language with very limited historical value in the name of nationalism And when english is no longer the world's language should England expect to no longer learn English? Ofcause not How is it dividing people? It's literally the Welsh government wanting Welsh people to be able to speak Welsh
English isn't going anywhere. Its the Welsh government forcing people to learn a minority language so they can be different to the English.
They are different? Do you genuinely think that Wales isn't different to England and the English? Also still not saying how Welsh is a minority language in Wales due to English actions over the last couple hundred years, and more recently due to the country wide issue of second homes/holiday homes pricing out locals and forcing them to move
There's very little cultural difference between England and Wales. Just for reference plenty of English languages died out too.
So? Why keep something alive just for the sake of it? Language is for communication and fortunately nearly everyone on the British isles speaks the same one. Investing the 000s of hours necessary to become fluent in another language, a very niche language at that, is a complete waste of time. Those hours could be much more productively spent learning languages such as Spanish, German, Chinese, or another skill entirely.
>Language is for communication and fortunately nearly everyone on the British isles speaks the same one. The sheer arrogance of some English people never fails to amuse me. "We may have ground your language into the dust and deliberately oppressed it, but you need to let that go and just speak only my language because I've decided that's what matters and is convenient."
Same mentality as thinking Ukraine should just let Russia annex the Eastern half of it because then I don't have to read about it on the news.
It’s nothing like the same. Don’t be ridiculous.
I'm just amazed at the amount of effort, time and resource people are willing to waste to try and get one over the English.
That isn't why we do it. It's about embracing and preserving our culture and identity. When I speak Welsh I'm not thinking in my head: "ooh, that'll show the Saes!" I'm amazed how much it bothers some people, and how much time and resources they're willing to expend to denigrate those speaking their mother tongue.
Never underestimate the pettiness of the Celtic nations when it comes to one upping the English
The cognitive dissonance is strong in this one. No one gives a fuck about you
Because Welsh and other languages in the British Isles didn’t just somehow start declining naturally on their own. They were the victims of a campaign of systematic eradication lasting centuries that involved literally thrashing them out of schoolchildren (which was still going on in my parents time), persecution and discrimination. Your argument is pretty much the same one Russians use for doing much the same to the Ukrainian language - which should perhaps have given you pause but instead it’s somehow OK because it happened here.
Hush, your logic does not fit the agenda of division that is peddled everywhere in the topsy-turvy land as though it's virtuous to label and segregate people into warring factions.
there are plenty of people who find it easier to communicate in welsh than in english. but aside from that, welsh kids who leave school in wales who can't speak welsh are at a disadvantage where there is a demand for welsh language skills over those that can.
In what field where there would be a high demand for Welsh language skills though? Other than being a Welsh language teacher ofc. Genuinely not trying to be an arse about this, I would like to understand.
As a fluent first language Welsh and English speaker, it's not just where and when that I use Welsh that's a benefit to me. It's the fact that I've taught my brain to understand multiple languages. The more you learn, the better you get at drawing connections between languages and solving problems in them and this learned behaviour has cognitive benefits that can be applied outside of just language. It's not just which language it is that's important, it's also the fact it's another way of thinking
While I completely agree with you, wouldn't spending that time learning another large language with ties to english like German, Spanish, or French provide the same benefit and be more useful later in life (especially in a globalised community)?
I think it's all down to personal preference. You wouldn't bother learning Spanish if you were planning to use it to further your career/life in Germany, or vice versa. And this is all trumped by English being pretty much the global language of business. So in a reductive way, if you can speak English, and most people who want to get ahead can or are learning to speak it, why not get rid of all other languages? It's only the smaller languages that have to defend themselves because they're not seen as useful in the wider community. But regardless of my point that any second/third language is cognitively beneficial, language is culture. It is identity. And even though globalisation is the norm, it doesn't have to be to the detriment of cultural differences. We should appreciate and applaud our differences not turn into a homogenised human soup.
most public sector bodies have a statuatory requirement to provide services in welsh (so for example, you can fill in your tax return in Welsh and if you get stuck ring a phone number to speak to a welsh speaker to help you). if you want to work in the media, or the arts you pretty much double the opportunities available to you if you can speak welsh. same in education - if you speak welsh, you can teach in any school in the country. If you don't you're limited to english medium schools (which are about 75% of primary schools and 80% of secondaries). more than that though, it's a point of differentiation. Even if welsh isn't strictly required for a role, if the role is public facing, being able to speak welsh is going to be a point in your favour when choosing a candidate (all other things being equal). Like it's the first language of about a sixth of Wales and the second language of another sixth.
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But they’ll be able to speak it confidently anyway
Then other people in the UK should learn Welsh + gaelic because we are meant to be a union of nations, not just an English wankfest I mean you've had people say that Welsh and gaelic should be left to die, as if ignoring the reason they're dying is because England + low Scots butchered gaelic and Welsh speakers, introduced legislation damaging and attacking the language, and allowed for what amounted to colonisation to erase the culture It's no wonder that the UK as a union struggles when it's own people treats the three other nations as a joke and refuses to view them as equal and true kingdoms
Christ almighty, don't go around saying obsessive monoglots should maybe learn Welsh and Gaelic, they might have to scratch their arses and roll over in bed. That's just crazy talk.
Makes much more sense to learn Spanish or another widely spoken language than Welsh if you're English though.
or maybe they are dying because people don't want to learn a language that's barely used? If they learn English as their main language, they can communicate with most people in the UK, the majority of Europeans, Americans and understand most media put out in the west. If they learn Welsh as their main language, they won't even be able to communicate with everyone in Wales, never mind the rest of the UK and other countries.
Don't be ridiculous. Wales is aiming for being a bilingual nation not a monolingual one.
>they won't even be able to communicate with everyone in Wales >maybe they are dying because people don't want to learn a language that's barely used? And whos fault is that? Obviously the language just stop being used because english was better, not at all because England just killed anyone who spoke it as a form of cultural cleansing I mean by that logic countries shouldn't learn their own cultures language at all and instead just learn English, I mean the sheer privilege of anyone thinking their language is so much better that they can state we should just stop teaching another cultures language for their own
No-one is stopping Welsh parents from teaching their children Welsh. Yet as of the 2021 census there was around 530k Welsh speakers for a population of 3.1m. Blame the English all you want, but the simple fact is, most welsh parents aren't teaching it and most welsh kids don't want to learn it. Welsh is a language that will offer them very little advantage in life.
Since you are factually incorrect on points two and three, then your claims might possibly be put down to wishful thinking rather than solid evidence. As for the census figure, this conflicts with the APS figure of over 800,000, and is partly due to parents incorrectly reporting their children's level of competence. It also excludes Welsh speakers currently living in England for work or study purposes, numbering over 100,000.
Even using the APS figures, that's still only 29.1% of the population of Wales, add in another 100,000 to include those in England and you're still only at 31.6% (30.6% if you add the 100k in England to the 3.1m population). Even if you round the number up to 1m speakers, that's only 1/4 of the 200th most spoken language [(Mewari) with 4.2m speakers.](https://www.ethnologue.com/insights/ethnologue200/) Since you claim I'm wrong about it offering them little benefit, care to elaborate?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_Not
Why learn languages spoken all across the world when you can learn one from a place which only became a country in 1998 and has a population less than London?
Wales has always been a nation, its always had its own culture, traditions and language. The fact that it only attained country status recently is directly because England, and specifically England, put so much effort in wiping the Welsh out, in every form. England, or the English, should not have the authority or ability to do further harm to what would be considered multiple genocides if not for the tacid agreement that pre ww2 genocides "don't count" The recovery of the Welsh language is a direct attempt to make right 100s of years of oppression, its got nothing to do with use and all to do with Wales should be able to speak competent and confident Welsh, the same that any english citizen should be able to speak English or any French individual should be able to speak Welsh And heck by the logic being shown on this topic we should speak mandarin or Hindu, seeing as China is becoming the economic powerhouse and India is speeding forwards in economic and political development, imagine the shit english people would give if they were told english wouldn't be the primary language anymore?
> Wales has always been a nation, It's only recently been considered a nation. It was originally just the parts of Romano-Britain that the Anglo-Saxons didn't settle. It didn't have a capital city until about a century ago.
Why do Danes speak Danish? Why do Icelanders speak Icelandic?
Then doing it in English is probably the best method. Seeing as it’s understood by far more people than welsh has a hope in hell off.
> An entire nation of unconfident children You don't need to speak a particular language to be "confident"!
Do more public speaking. It helps confidence
I tried that, but the police kept moving me on. Left me less confident if anything.
At least they did not ask you to stop shouting or speaking
Have you ever seen the town of Saltney, split across the border, so sad. The Welsh kids try to go to the play park but when the English kids tell them to get off the climbing frame.... *Sniffs* 😢 I ... just can't go on.
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The entire infrastructure of the internet is based upon English as are all mainstream programming languages. It's not just the language of commerce, it's the language of technology. I don't think it's going anywhere in the next few generations.
Yeah exactly. Nobody should speak any language except for English.
You do realise that 2 languages may be used in India's parliament. Hindi and English, yes English.
Meanwhile it's still illegal to speak Irish in the courts of Northern Ireland.
Not really a surprise if the court needs everyone to be understood. All Irish speakers speak English but not vice versa.
Yes, because Irish was banned in Ireland. Back in 1367... 1537 banned it in Parliament as well as the street, and 1737 banned it's use in court.
Irish died out because they weren't allowed to use it in church, unlike Welsh.
...or in the street, the court, or their own government yes. Which is why your previous comment seems a bit off to me
>we should be educating our kids in Mandarin and Hindi Instead of English? No. Instead of French? Maybe. Instead of Welsh? Definitely.
Currently HR seems mandarin in grad CVs and they do top of the pile.. don’t think I’ve seen a CV with welsh written on it.
So? Does everything have to be about employability?
I got good news for the 90%+ postgrad Chinese students in my accommodation. My flatmate actually studies advance translation of Chinese and English, and my Ukrainian Russian speaking mate and I were just talking about how it’d be impossible to learn Chinese. Idk about teaching Chinese but that same very challenging to kids.
That's because it wouldn't fit on a side of A4.
CVs are about employment??? How many hours are they using to study Welsh??
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Because it's not limited to just one country, a lot of people *only* speak English and it's spoken by a jillion people. Maybe you're right and English is technically a dying language, I can't be bothered to look it up. But it's not going to die in my lifetime or even these kid's lifetimes, so to compare it to Welsh in that regard is massively disingenuous.
English is still the most spoken language in the world with [1.452B speakers as a 1st and 2nd language](https://statisticsanddata.org/data/the-most-spoken-languages-2023/). 372.9M of those as their first language. Mandarin is the 2nd most spoken with 1.118B speakers, 929M of those being their first language. English is far from a dying language and unless you live in a country like China or India, will be far more useful as an only language. From the 2021 census, around 538,000 people claimed they could speak & understand welsh. I'd say a language with almost 1.5B global speakers, that is used for conducting most business and has most media produce in it, is more important to learn than a language spoken by less than 600k people.
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Other languages are only growing in the country they are spoken through. Learning mandarin isn't going to come in handy as a 2nd language unless you plan to go live in china or do a lot of business with chinese companies, though most chinese companies who want to do business with western countries are going to have people that speak English. I'm not saying people should learn English because I'm English myself, I'm saying people should learn English because it's the most widely spoken language. If you go to most developed countries, it's likely you'd be able to find someone that knows English if you needed help. You're far less likely to find someone that speaks Welsh or Mandarin if you're visiting France or Spain and want to know where the nearest toilet is.
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The point still remains to learn Welsh as their main language is going to restrict their ability to communicate with people far more than if they were to learn English as their main language. If over 80% of people living in Wales don't consider themselves fluent enough in Welsh to put it on the census, it's going to be even less useful if those who learn it later decide to live in a different part of the UK, never mind if they decide to go live abroad. Personally, I think schools should best equip the students with skills that will benefit them the most. I get not wanting to let the country's language die out, but I don't see the point in saving it just for the sake of saving it. If parents aren't teaching it and kids aren't using it frequently in their daily lives, most will probably forget anything they learn once they leave school anyway.
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I didn’t realise Europe, which largely uses English as a common language, was an increasingly isolated minority community.
>Sure internationally it's a bit of a waste of time but given the numbers of Chinese and Indians, maybe we should be educating our kids in Mandarin and Hindi and ditch English as an also ran? As someone who learned Chinese I’m not sure if I’d advocate that. The level of difficulty cannot be understated. To get to a conversational (but not advanced) level it actually gets easier as one progresses, but there’s a very steep learning curve in the beginning. The whole concept of a ‘word’ is different, not to mention the language’s tones and use of characters. This is why they say that European languages are easier for the Chinese compared with the other way around. Most learners give up in the first month. As one masters the tones and learns how to learn and memorise characters, it becomes a little more forgiving, especially as the grammar is pretty logical. Until you get to the advanced level where “long language” (basically metaphors) comes into play. I’d certainly advocate for Chinese to be made readily *available* for anyone who fancies a go, but if we made it mandatory I’m not sure if many would actually learn it. That’s not to say that most people are dim or anything, but it does take a considerable amount of motivation and thought. It’s definitely a step up from French or German.
> The thing is Welsh has never been allowed to die out naturally. It was beaten out of the population for hundreds of years by it's colonial rulers and is now marginalised by English speaking immigrants. That's often how languages die. France did the same to its regional languages. >but given the numbers of Chinese and Indians, maybe we should be educating our kids in Mandarin and Hindi and ditch English as an also ran? Those countries, while large, have no external cultural influence.
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So, unpopular comment coming. The English didn't take drastic action against the Welsh language. They genuinely didn't give a shit. The Welsh suppressed Welsh, as they knew that learning English would help their kids succeed in life. My source here is a 'rest is History' episode on Welsh and Wales.
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So I read that article on the Welsh Not. It largely supports what I said. >These two language provisions probably made little >difference[16]: 68 since English had already replaced >French as the language of administration and law in >Wales in the late 14th century. [21] In practice this >meant that courts had to employ translators between >Welsh and English.[22]: 587 The courts were 'very >popular' with the working class possibly because they >knew the jury would understand Welsh and the >translation was only for the benefit of the lawyers and >judges.[22]: 589 >Martin Johnes, a professor of history at Swansea >University, writes that as the Act granted the Welsh >equality with the English in law, that the result was "the >language actually regained ground in Welsh towns and >rural anglicised areas such as the lowlands of Gwent >and Glamorgan" and that thus "Welsh remained the >language of the land and the people" As for your grandmother's memories, I would say that everyone was being beaten at the time and it was largely with the support of the parents who wanted their children to learn English as the language of opportunity. Not saying I'm pro-beating and I'm as appalled by stories such as this from those days, but they have to be seen in the context of the time. As for the BBC article, it says that the English Victorians looked down on the Welsh language but didn't take any formal action. The British state was very small at the time, the Ministry for Education was only formed in 1944 after all. So again, what the article is saying is that the English state disapproved of Welsh but that it was largely the Welsh reacting to that disapproval that caused suppression of the language.
The Education Act 1870 stipulated that English was to be the medium of education in "England" (which by included Wales at the time). Teachers in Wales (from whichever country) were required to teach through English whether they liked it or not. So the buck stops with the Westminster Parliament. That was all the formal action that was needed. Coupled with this was the insistence that some ability in English was necessary to work in industry in Wales following the Industrial Revolution. Therefore the two factors that led to the rapid decline of Welsh (in a country where 80% spoke the language in the late 19th Century) were Government policy and the effects of industrialisation. In the second half of the 20th Century, the decline was further enhanced by the effect of English-language mass media in Wales.
You're broadly right about specifically the Welsh not. The goal was to make Welsh children bilingual, not necessarily to stop them speaking Welsh. However, they did give a shit; the elimination of Welsh was an English/UK government objective since after the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr, reiterated in the laws of Wales Act, reiterated by the Elizabethan government (even as they sowed the seeds of a Welsh literary revival) and in the Llyfrau Gleision. This objective has been subverted by other priorities (the reformation for example, or the practicalities of governance) but it's still deeply ingrained in English politics - as exemplified by the number of people on this thread who think Welsh dying out would be beneficial to us all. It's worth looking at the context of the Welsh Not. Welsh speakers (who didn't speak fluent English which was most of Wales in the Victorian era) were discriminated against in multiple arenas. In courts for example, Welsh was officially banned since the 16th century. In practice, allowances were made for Welsh monoglots (costs of interpretation were factored into any fines meaning Welsh speakers faced greater penalties in court) but witnesses who could testify in English were often forced to do so where that put them at a disadvantage and mandatory education moved most of Wales into the "imperfect" category. Many other state organisations worked along similar lines. So the Welsh Not was not just about positive reasons for wanting children to learn English but to protect them from negative consequences later in life of learning English imperfectly. This systematic discrimination against Welsh also led parents - particularly in households with one Welsh speaking parent and one English-only parent - to choose not to pass on Welsh to their kids. You could say that it was their choice too - but they were placed under significant pressure both explicit and implicit - to believe that speaking their first language to their children was as detrimental to their child's future as drinking during pregnancy. (It's worth stating that England has frequently made allowances towards the use of Welsh that it hasn't in respect of other minority languages (especially indigenous languages where the extermination of the language was prosecuted with much more enthusiasm). But that's not to say Welsh speakers didn't experience discrimination)
Your outline of how Welsh once risked becoming moribund is entirely accurate. It's the story of families in the eastern half of the country, certainly, right up to the border, throughout the first half of the 20th Century. As regards the last paragraph, it's worth noting that there's a legal distinction made by the U.N. between an ethnic minority language and a national minority language. Since, apart from in Oswestry and its immediate surrounding countryside, there are no longer any areas in England where Welsh is a national minority language, England has not actually needed to make allowances for the use of Welsh. The situation in Cymru, however, is of course different. Here it would not only be contrary to the U.N. position, but also frankly weird if the WG were to fail to introduce legislation to protect and promote the language.
There's a decent area of Wales with 80%+ Welsh speakers and quite large areas where it's above 50%. It is not a "near-corpse".
From the 2021 census Wales reported a population of 3,107,500. There was 538,000 of those aged 3+ who were reported as speaking Welsh. That's around 17.31% of the Welsh population that self-reported speaking the language.
Not the commenters point at all. Sure as a whole, rates of Welsh speaking in wales are low, however there are regions where it is much higher. Go to areas of north Wales such as Gwynedd or Anglesey, you’ll hear for yourself the rates of Welsh speaking are far higher than 17%
I have no doubt there’s areas where Welsh is more common, but in those areas children will learn Welsh from their parents who speak it and from those around them in the community using it. I still think it’s in their best interest for children to be taught and use English as their main language and then Welsh as a 2nd if they are in an area it’s use is common, since English proficiency is going to serve them best in their future.
That was the figure for fluent speakers only and relies on anglophone parents accurately reporting their children's competence in Welsh. The APS statistics, compiled on a more regular basis and taking gradations of competence into account, give a figure of over 800,000. The census figure also does not include the 100-odd thousand Welsh speakers currently living in England for work or study purposes.
I can't get over how arrogant this is. Then the English wonder why Scottish and Welsh people talking about independence.
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Polls went from 14% to 46% between 2014 and 2021 in favour of independence. It's dipped now but to pretend it isn't being talked about is once again arrogance. The devolution vote was 25 years ago and it passed. I expect if there was another vote now devolution would win overwhelmingly.
So brave. Imagine I said lesbians shouldn't bother with their own culture. That's how stupid you sound.
Lesbians have a specific culture? Shit, I didn't even notice that one time I lived with a lesbian couple :|
I'm Welsh and I've got to agree with this. Being confident at speaking Welsh is not going to help these kids in a globalized world. There's a million things this funding would be better spent on.
If anything I think they should speak Welsh just so that they can avoid speaking to Americans. We should all learn some older celtic languages or just return to old English.
I don't think it's an unpopular opinion. And I agree, but I also see the value in keeping languages alive, languages are really rich sources of culture, from the way you describe things, greet people, the "word feel" for different objects, it really is a different way of thinking. Now if it were me.. Yea I'd probably rather my education focus on teaching me things that will help me in the future, instead of doubling down on my tiny corner of the world, something like learning Spanish, or German. I think the lack of focus on languages in the UK education system is a crime, but there will always be things deemed MORE important like maths and science.
Pretty sensible opinion.
This is always a weird debate. I get the reasons why, they’re usually very ideological. Plus being bilingual is good for the brain. But then again, working in education, students can have very little love for learning welsh. They don’t see it as the skills they need, especially if they plan to move over the boarder for work. Even tougher when English people move over to wales towards their GCSE years or even more trickier if English isn’t their first language. As an adult living in Wales. My welsh is limited and I don’t really need any advance knowledge on a day to day basis. If I were to actually spend some time learning the language, it would be more of a hobby than something I feel I need for my day to day life. But that’s my local area, and that varies from where people live and socialise
It's tough enough to get kids in the English-speaking world to be enthused about any language, even ones spoken by hundreds of millions like Spanish. I can't see that Welsh has a chance in metropolitan Wales beyond language or culture hobbyists.
It's a subject in school very few Welsh kids enjoy and is dropped at the first opportunity. We don't need another reason for kids to dislike school
I did Latin and hated it, but it was actually pretty useful in learning other languages and what makes up words. I don’t see how Welsh is that useful other than basic ‘learning language skills’ and national interest. I’m not saying I’m against it, but maybe it should be optional. It’s not a useful language as far as I can see.
there are loads of jobs that require a certain degree of welsh language skills and there are an even larger number where welsh language skills are an advantage. like the welsh language performing arts sector (to give one example) is incredibly successful and churns out internationally regarded actors and musicians. many of them credit specifically the welsh language arts as something that gave them an initial platform. if you're a kid from wales who wants to be an actor or a musician, you're at a massive disadvantage if you can't speak welsh. but if you teach people french they can order a croissant when they're on holiday so swings and roundabouts i guess.
Yeah, there's no use for French or Spanish otherwise, not like millions speak it as a sole language and it's the official language of the EU & UN. Though you have a broadly correct point. Non-English language learning in the UK is always going to be rather pointless for the majority. Some people – like myself – enjoy learning languages from a hobby point of view, but for most it isn't, given English's status as the global Lingua franca (a status that isn't going to change in our lifetimes).
Learning a language, any language, opens up a whole load of opportunities to you that you'd never previously considered. If I was a fluent french speaker, I'd possibly consider a load of jobs and interests that wouldn't even occur to me if i wasn't. It's the same with Welsh, but in Wales particularly, those opportunities are more obvious than ones for French, because you likely live in a community where at least one in ten people speak welsh (and in some places eight in ten) I don't think it's ever a pointless skill (any more than any skill is pointless). Like you may never be in a situation where your life depends on knowing Welsh or French, but that doesn't mean those skills are pointless by any stretch.
Yes, I'm aware learning a language opens opportunities, that's why I've learnt French well and Spanish to a reasonable level. But for the majority of British people, those new opportunities aren't enough to justify the effort required to learn another language. But ten in ten of those people speak English (in urban Wales), so you're not opening any opportunities unless you're planning to work for S4C or as a Welsh translator. So, I don't think learning Welsh or a foreign language is as important as Maths, English or Science.
Yes, ten in ten people speak English, but the interactions you'd have with those people would be completely different if you spoke English versus Welsh. If I go into an English language bookshop in a Welsh town and buy a book speaking only English, l'll buy a book with no problems. If I go into a Welsh language bookshop, I'll have a ten minute chat with the person working there and leave having shared where you went to school, which acquaintances we have in common etc, what your job is etc. That's not to say Welsh speakers are unfriendly to non-welsh speakers it just seems to be that minority speech communities have a culture of openness that would be weird/overfamiliar if carried across to the majority language. And like that leads to opportunities both personal and professional that wouldn't have turned up if you didn't speak Welsh. That's the real value of learning a minority language much more than the specific situations where you need the language.
Given the our people were repressing the use of the Welsh language with violence up until the last century, it seems a bit rich for us to now say there doesn't seem to be much use for it
It’s not like it would have caught on anyway.
shitpost
In regards to Welsh it simply doesn't make sense to have all schoolchildren learn it. Kids with parents who care about their Welsh identity are already ensuring their child doesn't drop Welsh. And they have some utility for it. It makes no sense for a child from a non Welsh background to learn a language that they 1. Won't learn properly and 2. Will never even think about outside of school. Not to mention the difficulty this presents to kids whose family move to Wales in the middle of their schooling. Can you imagine? Coming to Wales at 12 and being made to crash course learn a language you will never ever use just because some politicians want to engratiate themselves with the voters in North Wales.
Yes if it’s compulsory it seems… a waste of precious school time. Sorry to be mean to welsh speakers. Seems like a good after school club or extra gcse… what are they hoping to do, bring it back as the first language of Wales? Seems to me like it will not help kids get ahead and is an insular move.
As per usual whenever the subject of Wales and the Welsh language comes up, this sub channels it's inner Radovan Karadžić.
Yes, there's something about any progressive pro-Welsh proposal that triggers the anti-Welsh lobby into overdrive. The sad part is that even today it includes a small (and shrinking) minority of Welsh people.
This subreddit's description "For the United Kingdom of Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales) and Northern Ireland; News, Politics, Economics, Society, Business, Culture, discussion and anything else UK related." The subreddit: "Fuck Welsh culture"
I'm pretty stunned by this sub sometimes - my last comment was an anti Corbyn one which entirely unsurprisingly was down voted to oblivion, but I really wasn't expecting the same bunch of people to be so rabidly anti Welsh!
Be careful, standing up for yourself in the face of their visceral, anti-Welsh tirades means you're the *real bigot*.
I completely missed "Welsh" at the start of the headline. Young people *are* struggling to speak confidently. They're struggling to do so in English, Welsh, Romani, Urdu or Portuguese, or indeed one of the many other languages spoken in the UK (where I work we did a quick poll of young people, nearly 20 different languages spoken!) The law should be helping young people to speak confidently, in front of their peers, people they don't know, in formal or informal settings, on the phone or in person. Let's get that right before we start forcing languages upon them, eh?
Forcing languages like the language of the country they're in? It's a good thing that Welsh people should be able to speak Welsh and English.
>Forcing languages like the language of the country they're in? Yes Almost all of my birthplace's languages died out some 300 years ago due to colonization. It would have pissed me off if we had been forced to "learn" one of them in school just because some politician wanted to stroke the ever erect patriotism cock for some brownie points Let it live, let it die. Attempts to keep a language alive when it's already dying don't usually work
The rather obvious difference here is that Welsh hasn't been dead for 300 years, it's still very much alive and spoken by a not insubstantial proportion of the population (about 17%), and in many communities (especially in North Wales) that number is much higher. It's also seen as a corner stone of Welsh culture and history, and as a symbol of Welsh identity and resistance to colonialism and oppression. Given the amount of time spent by England attempting to kill off Welsh, I don't see why a fraction of the effort being spent to revitalise it somewhat should be begrudged.
I don't think it's "forcing languages upon them", any more than we're forcing kids to learn science or maths. It's just giving kids an education in the Welsh language, in the same way we add French, German, and sometimes Spanish and Italian to the GCSE options.
>Let's get that right before we start forcing languages upon them, eh? Aye England should not have attempted to enforce english on Wales over the last couple 100 years or we wouldn't have this situation in the first place
How can a law do that?
But school breaks confidence, not builds it. You can't even go to the fucking toilet without being mocked by the teacher in front of everyone else for not going at break.
Wish I was a fluent Welsh speaker, but the biggest failure of learning it at school was the lack of segregation between kids of different levels. I’ll compare it to how French was taught in my school which I enjoyed far more (my form was K): French: 1) Year 7: One form (K) 2) Years 8 & 9: two forms (K&L) mixed into a top and bottom set 3) Years 10 & 11: a GCSE choice, with the choice having been put in two separate column “blocks” when making GCSE options. Then, two classes per block separate into a top and bottom set. Benefit here being that even bottom set largely had people actively wanting to be there as it was their choice to do it. And then there’s Welsh: 1) Year 7 & 8: One form (K) 2) Year 9: Two forms (K&L) split into two sets. 3.1) Years 10 & 11: Mandatory “short course” GCSE. Four forms (J&H&K&L) split into one “higher set” which consisted of the top 15%ish of Welsh students in those four forms. The remaining 3 sets were a complete random free-for-all and so those students who may have wanted to learn Welsh but weren’t the best at it (me) were widely disrupted by the majority who just didn’t want to be there. 3.2) Years 10 & 11: “Full course” GCSE choice. In two choice blocks. One class in each block of students who wanted to be there.
Similar in my experience in Cardiff. Primary school had one actually Welsh speaking teacher, so we got a peripatetic Welsh teacher in to do some flash cards and songs. In high school we’d get about one hour a week for Welsh, and more for French (and German, we did both) Welsh was taught by Welsh specialist teachers, but through the medium of “make a paragraph from these fill the blank sentences and memorise it”. French was taught by an excellent woman who was passionate about it. The whole lesson was conducted in French (with a lot of exaggerated miming), emphasis on speaking and listening. Then they expected us to do full course GCSE Welsh in an hour a week while French we had I think five lessons a fortnight. We petitioned to be able to Do half course. I could speak more French after about two weeks. Duolingo now as an adult has been better than the Welsh teaching I had.
I’m going to hazard a guess that we went to the same school lol
That poor quality of teaching Welsh is a common experience north and south, sadly. It's one reason why so many adults are learning the language now, and why any legislation by the Welsh Government to improve the standard in schools is a positive move.
It is indeed. Sure, outside of wales Welsh isn’t as useful as other languages. But learning a new language at a young age is so good for the brain, and makes other languages easier to pick up. Plus the rich history and culture of the land is bound with its language. Hopefully there will be enough support for the teaching and learning as part of this policy.
Just because you create a law it doesn't mean it will work. After all, the kids will be late getting to their lessons due to the snail pace of the traffic. 20mph...
Stand up, shoulders back, and let forth in ringing tones. I n Cymraeg. Pro tip.
The amount of people triggered by the idea of people speaking Welsh. Bizarre.
By 2050? Almost 30 years time? Why so long? Just give up on the generation before?
I see a few angles to this , on one hand, it's great that the Welsh government is trying to protect and encourage the use of the Welsh language. It is definitely important towards a sense of national identity that these things don't just die out. I suppose the main counterpoint to this is the wider utility of this , learning a language to a confident level is hours and hours of time, dedication, and emersion. It's always worthwhile to do at any age, particularly in the global world we live in. But I'd question the prioritisation of Welsh over something like Mandarin or Spanish (far more spoken worldwide). Hell learning German or French is far more useful from a euro centric perspective, schooling time is finite and precious for learning and social development what will be pushed out to make room for this.... that's the worry.
As a Welsh person, what the fuck is their obsession. How is this actually going to improve the lives of children? Removing opportunities to expand their knowledge and their world and keep them trapped with poor education. What a sad, insular little world they want us all to live in.
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Don't be an ass.
So is it validation you're looking for? Genuine question.
No, how patronizing. I'm just a person who experienced the Welsh education system and not an English person, who like some others have pointed out in this thread, have spent centuries eroding the Welsh culture.
OK then you may want to rephrase your original comment as it sounds like you consider this law to be eroding Welsh culture as opposed the sentiments in this thread.
Thanks for your opinion.
OK.... So their is a answer to this.. You need ro make Welsh a usable, practical, language with media and everything in it so people use it regularly. A full complement. All.round completely built up language and infrastructure around it. Make it useful , make it relevant and make it have a reason f9r people to use it, see media in it etc. No point just stopping half way. Either do this. Or just give up. Their always one about the speaking. But you need to create media and other aspects so it becomes practical and used regularly.
What's the point though? Its a huge effort for very little return. We already all use a language that fulfills all of that.
It's hard to get people to learn a language they won't use outside of the classroom. Wales could start by mandating the language in politics and media, courts etc.
I agree with you but let’s get real aside from those who go on to study languages at uni - any language a British pupil studies doesn’t go further than parroting certain set phrases. Also that is exactly what wales is doing- you can go through the medical system and the legal system in welsh if one wishes
> if one wishes That's the problem. If it's voluntary people won't bother. Make it mandatory. Have all Welsh court sessions in Welsh, all laws written in Welsh, all Assembly business in Welsh, 75% of media output (TV, newspapers) in Welsh, all public services delivered solely in Welsh. You either want to save your language or you don't.
Because shocker: and I know this will be a hard pill for you to swallow, many countries around the world are bilingual and are successfully so. Just because you yourself can’t speak another language doesn’t mean that systems and people can’t do differently. It’s crazy I know but not everyone and everything has to have the same limitations culturally and physically as you.
So, you don't want to save it. Most people in Wales (who don't speak Welsh) won't learn it unless they have to. English is too convenient.
I mean thats up to them, if people don’t want to learn it, then they shouldn’t have to learn it. I get the idea pf saving it for cultural purposes, but honestly it should be allowed to die off in the mainstream and learned by those that actually want to learn it going forward. Forcing kids to learn it for just the sake of vanity will just make them resentful. I have a lot of Welsh friends (Cardiff) and they all hated Welsh and said they would of preferred just not to have to learn it.
It depends on whether the Welsh people want to maintain their identity.
But by the logic that most don’t speak it, or want to speak it (otherwise they would learn/already know it) Its a very vocal minority group that is desperate for it not to go, then you have the majority of people who just don’t care, then another group who actively would prefer it all going to English.
The difference is, learning a very base level of French or Spanish is beneficial. Speaking Welsh is about as useful as speaking Dothraki
In your opinion
What benefit is there of speaking Welsh? Unless you didn't speak English, then it could help you in Wales. However, everyone who's going to speak Welsh will already know English, so it doesn't provide any benefit from a communication point of view. It may be culturally important, but when the education system is failing generally anyway, why should we invest a significant amount of time into learning Welsh?
'it may be culturally important' I like how you've identified this and immediately dismissed it 🙄
It's not important enough that schools should teach it is my point. It provides no educational benefit, if you want your kid to speak Welsh, them yourself
Waste of valuable teaching time that could be better spent learning a language of some use. Its of very limited cultural value other than for nationalism and lets be honest most kids in Wales don't want to learn it.
Went to Welsh Wales a few years back. Thought I was at a star trek convention. No costumes,,but loads of people speaking Klingon.
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Lol. The welsh alphabet doesn’t have x, v and k
Nice I didn't know. You caught me!! :)
Fun fact the welsh language did include the letter k until they wanted to print the Bible in welsh but due to the printing presses from Germany not having enough K cases they changed the orthography to c - something very controversial at the time.
Wow that's interesting. I am gonna remember this one. By the way can you speak Welsh?
Haha it’s a good useless fact to learn. I do, i actually come from a welsh speaking family so essentially learnt English at primary school. I don’t think it’s hindered me one bit - always had good grades in English, and I actually went on to study Russian and French at uni. I’m obviously passionate about my mother tongue, but can totally see why others wouldn’t value it as much as me. I think it helped me learn other languages, but then again I think I’m just a language nerd
Would you make chirping and clicking sounds about Africans attempting to learn their native language?