Welsh language: Bill aims to put million Welsh speakers target in law
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx825j1w387o
Posted by oilydogskin
Welsh language: Bill aims to put million Welsh speakers target in law
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx825j1w387o
Posted by oilydogskin
18 Comments
Genuine question as an uncultured Englishman who is struggling to learn a second language in their 40s. Would Welsh people rather spend the limited time they have at school learning Welsh or something more widely spoken like French or Spanish?
Are you going to force every person that lives in Wales to learn welsh, even the old ones?
Because a million people is basically one in three people in Wales.
FWIW as an English person I like this sort of thing.
I don’t think there’s much benefit to whitewashing culture to the point the UK is completely homogenous across countries.
Whether this will be a success or not, I doubt it because language is learned best when you’re living around native speakers which are still a massive minority in Wales. Language learning in schools only goes so far.
Great initiative. Look at places like Catalonia, where kids regularly learn Catalan and Spanish, then English early on, and then often a fourth language.
The people saying it’s better to learn a foreign language are underestimating kids’ ability to pick languages up.
As soon as I crossed the Welsh border there it was – Welsh. I live not so far from Wales in Devon – not an iota of the Welsh language or culture I have come across here. Idk I just think having more than one language in a small geographic area is interesting and worth preserving, even from the more dominant side.
I always forget that Wales exists. Very nice people though, wish them the best 💌
As a non native Brit, it makes me sad to see the erosion of non-English native languages in the isles like Welsh, Cornish, Gaelic and also Irish actually.
People will on one hand say “what even is British culture?” and then on the other hand say “who cares about teaching kids Welsh/Gaelic/Irish/Manx/Scots etc”
Ok, the global “utility” may not be there for most of these regional languages, but sometimes we need to look past the economic benefit for everything. Culture is important and I think initiatives like this are good in keeping the traditions and cultures of the British isles alive, rather than increasingly becoming globalised to the point that people feel like that have 0 cultural identity (which is probably already the case)
Oh good, more wasted time and money forcing people to learn an utterly useless language solely to promote Welsh nationalism.
What if children don’t want to learn it? Welsh Labour gulags?
There is world of difference between giving them an opportunity and making them speak it which the target implies. It should be an opt in rather than compulsory
ethno-nationalism and protectionism is certainly on the rise
As someone (very) casually learning Welsh despite being neither Welsh nor living there, this is the kind of thing that makes me think maybe I’ve not entirely wasted my time.
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I thought everyone in Wales spoke Welsh, everytime I’ve been in a Welsh pub everybody decided to speak in their mother tongue, same for my pals too when they’ve been to Wales.
Why are people so upset about wales wanting people to learn welsh? Lol this comment section full of numpties.
And tou do everything that Bill says, do you? If Bill said to jump off a bridge, would you so that too?
Sorry, I’m very childish.
Some really disappointing comments here. Anytime something like this is posted it just becomes an excuse to bash the Welsh Language.
We all have our own little cultures, from our families, to our towns, to our cities to our countries.
Languages are wrapped up in that. I see no harm as an English person in encouraging everyone to hold onto a little of their culture.