Welsh wedding invitation.

[Spikeyplant]

Just as it says in the title really.

My DH has a significantly younger relative who is getting married this summer. We have just received an invitation to the wedding, written entirely in Welsh. Neither DH or I speak Welsh and the bride and groom are well aware of this.

I am totally cool with somebody who grew up in a Welsh first language family wanting to celebrate their wedding in their language. However I can't help feeling it is a bit rude to send out invitations in a language many guests can't understand without even a short note in a mutually spoken language.

AIBU?

There's no reason to think that people learning English find RP easier than other accents unless they already have experience of RP and are having to adjust to a different accent.

SatelliteCity said "that lead to assumptions it was just as easy for Welsh speakers to speak English as it is for them to speak Welsh."

No I don't think that people necessarily make that assumption, but the majority of Welsh speakers do seem to have a good standard of English as well (although not always completely fluent).

The point I am trying to make is that, in my experience, many Welsh speakers seem to really resent having to use English at all, even though they can speak it. Perhaps it's because they have had to fight to be able to speak their own language after Welsh was suppressed in the past. That determination not to allow the language to die out has perhaps created a reluctance to communicate in English. A Swiss friend of DP's for whom English is her FOURTH language was completed bemused by this sort of behaviour when visiting a Welsh speaking area. She said "Well, they don't speak French, German or Italian and I don't speak Welsh, so what's the problem of us all speaking English?"

It doesn't happen with any other language, in my experience. In Finland for example, everyone accepts that no-one else speaks their language and practically everyone speaks English (some very well indeed). When you go there, everyone goes out of their way to speak in English, even if they don't have a great knowledge of the language and it's clearly not easy for them. But they realise that it's important to communicate and to make visitors FEEL WELCOME in their country. They are also astute enough to take onboard that it makes good business sense.

I always wondered how people who learn English as a foreign language cope the first time they hear Glaswegian or thick Dorset or Brummie or any other strong regional accent

Funny story when I was in the Army. We had a small unit nearly all of whom came from Norfolk and several had very strong accents. A German officer was assigned to our regiment and some wag from HQ decided to put him with the Norfolk lot.

When I visited them a few days later, he was a bit upset "I speak very good English and your soldiers understand me well but when they speak, I can't understand them!" Mind you, a lot of the British soldiers didn't understand the Norfolk boys either. I don't come from Norfolk but I had learned to be bilingual.

I don't come from Norfolk but I had learned to be bilingual.

Unless you spoke another language besides English, you weren't bilingual. Strong accents do not count as another language.

There's no reason to think that people learning English find RP easier than other accents unless they already have experience of RP and are having to adjust to a different accent.

No, but

...but I am swearing at my phone...

What I meant was if you learn a language with a particular accent, be it RP, Mancunian or whatever, if it's English, it must be a struggle when you first come across a different accent - you think you're doing okay, and then it stops making any sense because of the accent being different from what you're used to.

I remember when I was doing French A-level and watched Jean de Florette, I was quite impressed with myself that I recognised it was a different accent from what I'd been taught (my teachers had mostly stayed round Paris & Normandy.) I had probably heard French in other accents before, but just failed to recognise it, because I was struggling to understand at all. (I don't know why it took me till I was 17 to realise other languages had accents just like English, but I do remember it being a light-blue moment.)

I remember being utterly frustrated in Zurich, the first time I tried out my German. Thank goodness I had pen and paper too! I've also struggled with Ruhrpott (and added lisp) from a German boyfriend's mother. Mind you, when I was just out of school, I needed someone translating between me (strong Dorset) and a guy with a strong Brummie accent, although alcohol may have been a contributory factor there.

Not that this has anything to do with wedding invitations. Just that sometimes, it's a miracle that any of us manage to communicate at all.

Unless you spoke another language besides English, you weren't bilingual. Strong accents do not count as another language

doesn't it? you'd be surprised....there are parts of China where one version of the language are completely indistinguishable from another. but both are 'the same language'.

there are also boarder areas between countries where 2 villages will speak the exact same language, but because one happens to lie in one country, and one in the other, they are not the same language.

what makes one language discrete from another is not as straight forward as you might think. its a socio-political thing as much as a linguistic thing.

GreatFuckability That's to do with dialects, not accents.

I am Welsh, live in South Wales and proud to be Welsh.
I don't speak a word of Welsh and am sick of the Welsh language being forced down my throat.
My kids have had to take a GCSE in it ( what's the point?)
And I know have to answer my works phone with a bilingual greeting ( don't think so)
I find the people that speak Welsh around here pretty pretentious if I'm honest.

I am fluent in French and Italian and use both when abroad. I have no issue with learning a language. Just see no point in learning Welsh.

I don't speak a word of Welsh and am sick of the Welsh language being forced down my throat.

Not a word? Not even Bore Da, Croeso or Diolch?

In what way is it "rammed down your throat"? Don't you think it's worth saving? It's the oldest language in europe. Why would happen if it wasn't protected?

Not a word.
And nothing would happen if it died out. Nothing at all.
It's a nice hobby, but not a life skill

over

I think language diversity is awesome! And I mean... If English died out... It wouldn't be too awful either. We'd soon find an other "lingua franca"...

over who exactly rams it down your throat?
the 'point' of doing a GCSE in Welsh is if you live in Wales, then it can be the difference between getting a job and not getting one. It's an extra string to their bow.
If you choose to be ridiculous belligerant about a simple greeting then you may find you need to get a new job and then you might realise the use of it in the job market.

spread it can be about accent. it can be about dialect. It can be about lots of things. that's the point.

OverByYer most languages are fairly useless outside the countries that speak them. Take Italian for example, why learn Italian unless you live in Italy or have Italian family, any other reason for learning it would be considered a nice hobby too. Spanish would be a much more useful language for an outsider to learn. A GCSE in Italian, Swedish or Portuguese would be as pointless as Welsh. But don't discount the importance of showing that you have skills that not everyone else does.

2010 Aussie- it isn't always that young people have to move away to find work. Sometimes they have to move away because second-homers and English retirees/goodlifers have priced them out of the housing market. This is starting to become a big problem where I live. I think it is immoral to move to somewhere like this, make no effort at all to engage with Welsh language or culture, and moan about Welsh people and their "unpronounceable" language, and the fact that all the local primaries are Welsh medium. There is a paranoia about Welsh, which must come from before the attempts to stamp it out. You can hear it on this thread, and I hear it all the time locally- the "they were all speaking english until i walked into the pub" type of thing. I am not completely fluent in Welsh, although mine is improving now with two fluent children in Welsh-medium education. I lived in various parts of wales growing up, with one fluent parent who spoke to me in Welsh and English, and one who spoke very little welsh. My diction sounds english to english ears, so people assume I am english, and moan to me about the welsh and their language. I sing in a choir where no-one complains when we sing in german, or latin, but there are lots of "oh I can't pronounce this at all" comments when we sing in Welsh, from english incomers. There is an intrinsic lack of respect for Welsh in the England. It isn't valued, and this combined with the paranoia towards, and distrust of, Welsh speaking people, is what makes us so protective of our ancient and beautiful language. Read AA Gill's comments about the Welsh- " Loquacious dissemblers, immoral liars, stunted, bigoted, dark, ugly, pugnacious little trolls. " (To be fair to Adrian, we met him once and my dd refused to speak to him in anything but Welsh, he took it well...).

Hmmm, what sort of job requires a gcse in Welsh?
Oh yes working for that successful to channel S4C maybe?!

Hmmm, what sort of job requires a gcse in Welsh?
Oh yes working for that successful to channel S4C maybe?!

Ioan Gruffydd and Iwan Rheon did ok from working for s4c.

But, also, teachers who can speak Welsh find jobs faster (in Wales obviously), so do nurses, and other HCP's. It helps in call centres and local/central government jobs too which around my area of South Wales probably covers the vast majority of the better paid jobs. but you carry on being snide. whatever makes you happy.

"It doesn't happen with any other language, in my experience."

Then your experience is quite limited. Look at French speakers in Canada in relation to English and Dutch (Flemish) speakers in Belgium in relation to French. Most Flemish people speak very good French, but they will not take it very well if you just assume they're French speakers.

"there are parts of China where one version of the language are completely indistinguishable from another. but both are 'the same language'."

I think most linguists would class them as separate languages, but the Chinese authorities insist on calling them dialects for political reasons. Similarly there are languages that are official languages of independent countries that are more or less mutually intelligible and that you could argue were really dialects of the same language, but that could offend some (I'm thinking of Scandinavian languages, etc.)

"A GCSE in Italian, Swedish or Portuguese would be as pointless as Welsh."

To be fair, Portuguese is spoken in many countries outside Portugal, including the up and coming (in economic terms) Brazil.
However, as you point out it's not about how many countries the language is spoken in, but learning a language that's useful in the country where you're living.

Titty we'll get her watching Rownd a Rownd for some proper Gog education one of my former uni lecturers is on it

My fluency in Welsh has given me the edge in every job I've gotten since graduating :)

same here ovaries, There were no bones made about the fact my ability to speak welsh is a huge part of the reason I got my current job, because people within my profession with welsh are hard to come by.

Is it bad that I still watch Rownd a Rownd as an adult??

I have a well paid job in the public sector ( and have no qualifications in Welsh!)
In 20 years I have never needed to speak in Welsh to anyone.
My French has come in handy a few times.

If you want to speak it fine. Just doesn't need to be forced on people, who aren't interested