to think that most welsh people should speak some welsh

[mumof2children]

i am no way fluent in welsh by know very basic welsh.

but sould more welsh people speak some welsh

2rebecca - would be worth your while reading something about linguistics and culture. If we lost all languages except one (and who gets to say which one? Good luck learning Cantonese, looks as if that's going to take over from English at some point this century...) then it would be a terrible loss for humanity. Just as tragic as losing hundreds of species (and yes, I know we are doing that too but there's no reason to do it to languages as well).

Languages express almost-infinite varieties of culture and tradition and history and literature and ways of thinking and relating. There are things you can think and say in German that have no equivalents in English and vice versa - multiply that by a thousand and you might have a tiny idea of what you are proposing. Then there's structure and grammar. Do you really want a world where no-one can read Shakespeare, or Rimbaut, or Heidegger, or Marx, or the writerss and philosophers of Greece, Rome, Persia and so and and so on and so on? Where no-one knows what on earth lyricists were on about so you can't understand Italian opera, let along sing it?

I'm English and I live in Wales...English is the first language, and anyone who speaks Welsh speaks English, so in my arrogant and pompous English manner-why should they? It's hard enough to make celtic "folk" accept they're British let alone that English is the first language of their country. I don't want my son learning Welsh, and thankfully French, German and Spanish are offered. I agree with TheCoalitionNeedsYou, Britain, British, English and to stop trying to create a huge barrier.

edam Perhaps the intention was to ensure that children learnt English as it was deemed to be advantageous. I agree that the method was awful. Peoples ideas of acceptable behaviour were different then. The thing is, the Welsh colluded in this as they chose not to teach their children their own language. If the English didn't value it, then the Welsh are more at fault for not valuing it either.

No one is threatened or bullied today. Learning Welsh is actively encouraged here, but the truth is that most Welsh people can't be arsed to learn it. They don't value it.

applecrumble - love you attitude, please call by for a panad and a Welsh cake next time you're here.

Karma, same thing happened to Irish that Edam has described in the case of Welsh. It was the preferred method of teaching English in days gone by.

Look at what a huge advance the Rosetta stone was in our understanding of ancient cultures and the world that has now crumbled and gone. Just a tiny fragment of stone with two languages on it that have been the key to so much knowledge. How many other civilisations will we never know about because they left no decipherable language?

How about the "Anglo-Saxon folk" learning Welsh and stop trying to create this huge barrier to mutual understanding and Britishness? The Welsh were there before the Saxons, ironically, and more ironically still, gave their name to Britain.

'Perhaps the intention was to ensure that children learnt English as it was deemed to be advantageous.' No, the intention was to destroy Welsh culture and ensure that Wales never rose again, politically. Same for Irish in Ireland.

The Welsh colluded in it as the Irish did, just as people with a gun to their heads collude with robbers to open the safe in a bank.

Didn't realize that Anne Roobinson and Jeremy Paxman were avid Mumsnetters. Racism alive and well here against the Welsh.

mathanxiety. I do think it is important to preserve the language - that's why I want my DCs to learn Welsh. They were born here and consider themselves to be Welsh, so I feel they ought to learn it. I won't be one of the parents who doesn't care what their GCSE grades are for Welsh.

I have no issue with people preserving their own culture, in their own country. I won't be learning Welsh as it is not my language.
I suspect most "Anglo-Saxon folk" would feel the same (although not my mother, who is nearly fluent).

The Welsh did collude. They didn't have guns to their heads and they should imo have taught their children the language. My dad went to school in the 50s and 60s and got hit regularly. Teaching methods generally left a lot to be required until very recently. If the situation were reversed, I would still teach my DCs English.

The fact remains that the majority of Welsh people don't value it enough to learn it now. I would if I was Welsh

YABU unreasonable. All Welsh people should be fluent in Welsh.

By Welsh I means anyone with a Welsh passport.

Roobinson? Robinson

only 25% of the world population can speak English and only 6% as their fist language.

If you can speak another language you could earn up to 20% more.

Customers addressed in their mother tongue are much more likely to do business with you.
( Taken from Routes into Languages leaflet)

On average pupils who receive Welsh medium education achieve higher grades in exams.
( Taken from WLB Welsh language education leaflet)

oh, and by the way 64% of the people on Ynys Món speak Welsh.

Brief history of the Irish language here In 1695 Penal Laws were enacted that outlawed schools for the native Irish, and made the language illegal. So there's your gun to the head and a body blow too. The subsequent dynamic of language change is described in the link (economic pressures, and the existence of a school system where Irish was not taught and was in fact actively discouraged by corporal punishment).

In Wales, English workers who moved there in the early 1800s in large numbers effectively forced bilingualism on the Welsh in industrial areas, and the English-built factories and English-managed mines forced the use of English on those involved in industrial work. The English seldom learned any Welsh so it was up to the Welsh to accommodate them, and in order to make a living as opposed to starving, they had to work in English language environments (as happened in Ireland) and participate in English language civic culture. Church culture in Wales, especially in the non-conformist churches, remained Welsh-speaking, and the same was true for areas of life not work-dominated and in areas of Wales where industrialisation did not take place. Even still, by the end of the 19th century, about half of the Welsh still spoke Welsh despite the complete lack of government support for the language. So no legal penalties for speaking Welsh, but plenty of unavoidable economic pressures. Is this necessarily collusion?

:o

As my last nights random post about the fact that they speak Welsh in parts of Argentina was completely ignored, I will throw in the fact that they have evidence that Welsh was once spoken in Beverly in East Yorkshire. Although I stand by the education board in Yorkshire's decision to not make it compulsory until GCSE!

If you look at the similarity in Breton, Gaelic (now I'm going to look ignorant as I don't know what is Scottish and what is Irish, sorry ) Cornish and Welsh you see what the original language of our country (Britain) was. It's just various invaders pushed the indigenous population to the edges. The Celtic languages are all of our cultural heritage. It's quite amazing that they still exist.

Well that was a long post that succeeded in proving nothing, just the stream of conciousness that has been in my brain since last night, oh and when I told DS' that people on the internet said Wales was not a country they were

My eldest son is SN and he has had no problem becoming bilingual, he has a beautiful way with words in English and Welsh. There are studys that show being bilingual from an early age helps not only with other languages but with maths, it all down to how brain pathways are laid down in the early years.

That said, I don't agree with making Welsh compulsory until GSCE in all schools, it's obvious to me (and the stroppy teenager I was) that forcing people into anything will instil the sort of dislike that is so obvious in this thread.

DH has just come in and said 'Tell them maybe the reason some people are so resentful of your comments are that English people have been trying to kill off the Welsh language and culture since the Tudor times and have only succeed in pissing everyone off'

Anyway, now I'm watching a 'comedian' on tele taking the piss out of everything Yorkshire, I think he may be from Lancashire! I may have to go and start a thread about people slagging off my home country. ( and yes Yorkshire is a country, there have been serious musings about getting an assembly in a similar way to Wales and Scotland!)

Hmm, somehow my last paragraph ended up in the middle!

mathanxiety, how beautifully well explained, what I wanted to achieve, but I have neither the knowledge or ability. Explains very well how the area I live in has remained Welsh language first, fishing and agriculture and no major industry importing foreign workers.

mathanxiety my comments were about the Welsh situation, not the Irish. The history of the Irish is not relevant here as their history is not the same as that of Wales and this thread is about Wales.I never said the Irish colluded, I said the Welsh did.

I stand by my earlier posts wrt collusion. Even if English was spoken in the workplace/schools, no one forced Welsh people not to teach the language to their children. That was a choice and it still is. Welsh people should have cared enough about it to keep speaking it. That they haven't is indicative that they didn't and still don't care all that much.

If you had to learn Urdu because a lot of Pakistanis moved into your area and became the major employers, and later taught your children Urdu because the Urdu language was fast becoming the language of business and civic culture across the region, would you be colluding in the demise of English?

I don't know, English is likely to remain a world language for some time yet -India is becoming an increasingly important anglophone country.

If I was English and failed to teach my children(also English) how to speak the language then yes, I would consider myself responsible for its demise

mathanxiety my DH thinks your last post was brilliant!

karamabeliever, if you felt your children would be held back in school (and punished) and later in their jobs and adult lives how would you feel then?

math I'm not saying that England had no part in it, just that there are limits as to how much the Welsh can blame the English. They played their part too and even today, when learning Welsh is actively encouraged, a lot of Welsh people choose not to learn it.
I think that you can't make people value something if they simply don't. I do support the teaching of Welsh in schools here as I do believe that it will be a source of regret to the Welsh if the language dies, but it is quite telling that it has to be compulsory because if it wasn't, then few people would choose to learn it.

lostinwales As I've said before, being English, I would teach English to my children. If Welsh was the majority language of the UK,, then I would teach them Welsh too as I would not want them to be at a disadvantage in the workplace etc, but there is no way I would be happy for my children to be unable to speak their own language.

I live in Wales again after many years in London.I have one welsh speaking parent,although my mother did get up to speed as an adult learner,my brother is pretty fluent now after learning much of it as an adult.My welsh was basic but as I didn't use it for so long I forgot it really,and now I am near Cardigan and my DD is at a Welsh language primary so i am trying to use welsh when I can and will go to classes soon.I do think that if,as I have,and many English people do,you move to an area which is predominantly welsh speaking then it is arrogant and improper not to attempt to learn any Welsh at all.

It is actually an advantage to speak Welsh these days as a lot of jobs require it. With that in mind, I don't understand why more people don't learn it. My mum did and she is not even Welsh.

But would you be colluding? Or making a choice between two evils?