The “anglicisation” of Welsh speaking villages and towns caused by newcomers snapping up homes after Covid, together with the economic stress of Brexit and the cost of living crisis, is pushing the Welsh language to a “tipping point”, the head of a new commission established to address the situation has warned.
Blaming Brexit for the decline of a language is a bit much. The cost of living “crisis” too. Given that languages take a generation – at the very least – to die because that’s just how they work – children learn at their parents’ knee and all that – something that’s 5 years old is going to have bugger all effect.
Ghastly lies to add to being Welsh, thief, stealing a leg of beef and all that.
I reckon it includes a fair bit of welsh peeps who went to the big city at 18 and came back 15-25 years later with wife/hubby sprogs that call it a mecrowavay (i.e. fluent Nigella) instead of a poppityping.
and Tim’s right, at least, in on the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin, it was Grandad that taught the twins the welsh for dirty saxon.
Ok, so forget blaming Brexit. Must be climate change, then.
I lived in Pembrokeshire when it was ‘Little England beyond Wales’. Returning some 50 years later, the Welsh have renamed villages, inserted incomprehensible gobbledegook into road signs and all the rest of it, while still leaving some of the depressed shitholes as, well, depressed shitholes.
The Welsh working class vote for parties that leave them poor and in bad health, like Plaid and Labour. Sensible Welsh vote for the only alternative, which sadly isn’t much better, but is certainly no worse. There’s very little that can be done for them.
Apparently, in 1278 the Welsh invented the condom using a sheep’s intestine. In 1890 the English rather refined the device by taking it out of the sheep first!
It’s utter bullshit. Welsh is taught in all schools in Wales now, meaning that it’s now common to hear it spoken on the street in the traditionally ‘anglo’ areas.
The advantages of taking up valuable school time to teach children two words for everything is debatable, of course.
@Excavator Man
Well, some of them are just hilarious – Arberth/Narberth, for instance (we say both) – but I can believe anyone actually prefers Hwllfwrth (sp?) or Aberdaugleddau (sp?)
Sounds racist to me. I thought the Welsh Gov. welcomed diversity?
“It’s utter bullshit. Welsh is taught in all schools in Wales now, meaning that it’s now common to hear it spoken on the street in the traditionally ‘anglo’ areas.”
Absolutely true, my (English) sister moved down to Wales 15 years ago, her two children (11 and 7) are now both fluent Welsh speakers as the primary schools teach in predominantly in Welsh. Luckily for my niece and nephew they both spent a lot of time pre-school having child care with a Welsh speaking neighbour, so by the time they reached primary age they already could already understand it, if not talk it fluently. How children from English speaking homes who don’t happen to have such early years Welsh language input manage I couldn’t say.
My experience of Wales is that any signage or documentation paid for by the tax payer (e.g. road signs) is in Welsh and English. If it’s paid for by the private sector and not compulsory (e.g. local advertising) it’s only in English.
“The advantages of taking up valuable school time to teach children two words for everything is debatable, of course”
Pity, then, the generations who had to learn bloody Latin.
Shouldn’t they be welcoming to migrants?
Much to be said for learning another language at an early age, becomes much harder as one ages. I am an old bloke, learning Mandarin, naturally wishing I had started years ago. Lots of fun, probably easier than Welsh. Not many Welsh speakers in Australia to practice with.
It’s well known that learning multiple languages is easy when young, as the brain is structured to do that. I guess it becomes harder later as the brain has other stuff it needs to deal with.
‘ The “anglicisation” of Welsh speaking villages and towns…’
Didn’t Edward Longshanks do that in the 13th Century when he conquered Wales?
The Yanks used Navajo Indians as wireless operators in the Pacific war. Not many Japs spoke Navajo. So Welsh could come in handy when we go to war with Russia.
What makes you think Wales would be on England’s side?
Jimintheantipodes: I’ll have nothing to do with the imperial agressors’ language. Proper Cantonese for me, mgoi.
philip: Not really. The point about Navajo was that it’s unrelated to anything else, so the Japs had nothing to base any translation effort on. Welsh is just yer bog-standard Indo-European. The Spaniards could use Basque, though…
aaa: “The advantages of taking up valuable school time to teach children two words for everything is debatable, of course.”
Dunno.. Over here in Clogland the kids get started on english from age 10 ( if not sooner ), to which german and french gets added in early highschool, with spanish, russian, mandarin, and japanese electives later in select highschools, plus, of course, latin and greek for the classic grammar schools.
With english a mandatory exam subject for every level of secondary education, be it highschool or trade school. One of the dead-uns is mandatory for grammar School as well.
So yeah, it may have use to teach kids 2, or more…, words for the same thing.
Whether welsh falls into this Useful Skill category….
“Over here in Clogland the kids get started on english from age 10 ( if not sooner )”
Interesting. Given how fluent the Dutch are at English, I naturally assumed it was a lot earlier than that as standard.
Yes, as early as possible. And some Welsh tell me it’s quite useful later for German?
Welsh useful for german? Other than the sounds used ( which are closer to dutch than german )…
Shouldn’t be.. completely different root… you’d have to go way down the indogermanic tree to find a common ancestor.
What would help is that it’d teach the kids that english isn’t the only language/grammar in the world..
Because, let’s be fair, most anglophones are hip-deep in doo-doo if they ever encounter someone who doesn’t understand english at all… 😉
Actually, now I think about it, the point about Navajo was that not only is it unrelated to anything else, but that (at least at the time), there was no written language either. So you really didn’t have a hope in hell of figuring it out without the help of someone who already spoke it. Basque’s “isolate”, as the linguists say, but there is written material (not to mention extensive academic work on its origins), so it wouldn’t be quite as good.
Grikath, PF: It certainly helps explain the fluency. 10’s still earlier than we start them on French over here. I think I was 12 or 13. At that age, two or three years can make all the difference.
The purpose of teaching Welsh in schools is to produce monoglot Taffricans who can only work in Wales (or Patagonia). You have to speak welsh to work for the council too. It’s a control mechanism which works to the detriment of the proles in the interest of preserving some sort of nostalgic idea of welshness which if it existed would preserve itself.
@Sam And subtitles.. Everything here is original language + subtitles, except for the real tiddlywinks.
So even while watching telly/the movies you still get the dual-track in your brain ( while learning speed-reading.. 😉 ) exposing you to the sounds/meanings.
Doesn’t do anything for our admittedly horribad accents, but it does give you maintained fluency.
Germany, for instance, dubs near-everything. And peeps there are far worse in handling english, even those with higher education and the need to read stuff in english.
And above all else… pillow-talk.. It’s amazing how fast you can pick up stuff when the need for investment is there, along with the enticement… 😉
Sam
The advantage is time. The delay in getting your intercepted messages translated, by which time battlefield conditions have changed.
The way to get a good shag in Wales is to get the sheep to look over a cliff. It backs up and its arse goes half a crown and sixpence.
So I’m told by a friend.
“Welsh useful for german? Other than the sounds used ( which are closer to dutch than german )… Shouldn’t be..”
I just assumed these Welshies knew what they were talking about. Ah, I see….. 🙂
Some real BS on here. Primary schools do not ‘predominantly teach in Welsh’ at all, unless they’re in a Welsh first language area. As for English-speaking kids coping, mine moved to Wales aged 9 and 7 having learned to speak, write and spell in the USA; they’re both perfectly literate.
You do not ‘have to speak Welsh to work for the council either’. You do have to able to understand where people are talking about and be able to name locations, which seems entirely reasonable.