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?

[RestlessTraveller]

Yes. If my Mandarin friends got married in China, I would expect the invitation and service to be in Mandarin.

If my Russian friends got married in Russia, I would expect the invitations to be in Russian.

[cdtaylornats]

Elvish if you accept
Klingon if you don't

[JayneAusten]

I've been to Italian and Chinese weddings. I got invitations in English, because the purpose of the invitation is to let someone know that they are invited and when/where to attend (and make them feel welcome).

I feel like people who would find it 'lovely and exciting and interesting' to spend time translating a wedding invitation from Welsh to English have more time on their hands than I do.

[Gwenhwyfar]

"it's highly likely the majority of your guests don't speak. "

Why is it highly likely? They're not inviting a statistically selected cross-section of the population. They're inviting their own friends and family so there's a good chance the majority would be Welsh speaking.

If I got married, for example, all relatives invited would be Welsh speaking, all school friends would be because I went to a Welsh-medium school, but friends met later in life wouldn't be. My chapel is a Welsh one so the ceremony would obviously all be in Welsh too and I come from a part of Wales that is only about 15% Welsh speaking.

[Miniwookie]

Surely it doesn't take much translating? It will have the b&g's names, a date, a time and a venue. Perhaps they thought you would find it patronising to receive a translation of what must be pretty self-explanatory.

[OvariesBeforeBrovaries]

Oh and now we have comparisons to fictional languages but of course, there's no anti-Welsh sentiment on MN.

[scootinFun]

I would find it charming and enjoy the novelty. However I am from NZ where te reo Maori is the official second language which may skew my perspective. Would love to learn Welsh - that's one for my bucket list!

[FoundNeverland]

OK SirVixofVixHall so the OP's relatives are making a point because some English people buy second homes in Wales and don't bother to pronounce the place names correctly?

I don't care what language you speak, it is lovely to receive an invite in that language but only polite and courteous to provide a translation if you know the recipient won't understand it otherwise.

I can't believe this is being turned into a Welsh vs English issue. It isn't! It's are you a polite and wanting invitees to feel welcome at you wedding or not issue?!

How much effort would it have taken to provide a translated invite that the invitees could understand?

[Cheby]

The responses on this thread are bizarre. Of course Welsh people speak Welsh, and French people speak french. And if the couple wanted their wedding in Welsh, no problem at all there. Speak your native language, of course you should.

But, when you send an invitation to a person for an event, of any kind, you are sending a personal message to an individual to require their presence. Why the fuck would you choose to write that in a language they can't read? It makes fuck all sense. In the same way that you wouldn't attempt a conversation with someone in a language they didn't speak.

[FoundNeverland]

Completely agree JayneAusten.

[chocatoo]

Are you able to glean the info you need to get to the wedding? If so, can't see what the problem is - I think it's rather charming

[gettinfedduppathis]

A relative of mine is marrying a foreign national later this year, and the wedding is in her home country. All the wedding invitations and details about the venue/accommodation etc have been sent out to everyone in both languages.

[FoundNeverland]

And Cheby. Some posters are massively missing the point...

[GreatFuckability]

Yfach....why is your automatic thought to think they are being rude and then stretching that to think they don't really want you there? Is not far more likely, they've either mixed up the invites or forgotten to include the translation?!
I wouldn't want you at my wedding cos you sound like a paranoid miserable shit, regardless of what language you do or don't speak.
Also, to the poster who said her boyfriends family spoke in Welsh, there is a good chance that a) they didn't realise they were doing or b) they find it hard to converse in the language they are not used to speaking in with other welsh speakers. If you look at research into bilingualism you will see that many people struggle to speak the 'other' language when they are used to speaking the mother tongue with someone. My children and I will often flip between languages midway through speaking and not even be aware we've done it. It's rarely a deliberate act.

[Elphame]

Welsh is the first language for many of the people in the part of Wales I'm from so an invitation in Welsh would be the norm. If I get an invite from one of them it will be in Welsh although it's not my own first language. It would never occur to me to be offended.

[GreatFuckability]

Oh, and just FYI www.geiriadur.net/ very good translation there.

[Gwenhwyfar]

"when you send an invitation to a person for an event, of any kind, you are sending a personal message to an individual to require their presence. "

They're usually mass printed and not hand-written for each person aren't they? The last one I received only has my name filled in by hand. The rest looks like it's been professionally printed. The information on it is so obvious that I think I would understand it written in any language using Latin script.

[BewitchedBotheredandBewildered]

I think the responsibility is on the inviter to ensure that the invitee understands the message.

If you don't want someone to come to your event, just don't send them a message.

I don't believe any one would send an invitation with a sub text of we're having a party but we don't want you to come!

I have invited people to a wedding in a European country and the invitations were sent in my language, the host country language and three other languages that were relevant to the people invited.

I would have considered it a "personal slight" to my guests to do otherwise.

Polite hosting starts with the invitation, which includes making people feel welcome and comfortable.

[GreatFuckability]

And, like, numbers are the same in welsh and english. which dates and times will be in. so I really don't think its a massive job of work to figure out the rest..

[UrsulaPandress]

Who knew the Welsh could be so cross?

[needmymouthsewnup]

I was going to write a long reply, but SirVixofVixHall pretty much summed it up in their last post - it does appear that the YABU posts on here are from Welsh people who are annoyed, possibly correctly, at the assumption that English trumps Welsh and it also sets my teeth on edge when I hear English speaking people getting annoyed at 'foreign countries' not speaking English. And in relation to a language whose speakers are dwindling, I get where the defensiveness stems from.

However I don't think the OP is actually being unreasonable. I lived in a European country for many years and spoke the language fluently. Some of my friends also spoke English, but we mostly spoke in their language. When I got married, in the UK to my British husband, I sent them invitations in English, but with a translation in their language. Why? Because I wanted them there and by sending an invitation only in my language, which they might not understand, I felt it would make them feel less wanted and less included.

I actually wonder if the OP had been about a German invitation for example, whether there would have been the same level of defensiveness. It's absolutely ok to send invitations in your own language and absolutely ok to have the ceremony in your own language, obviously. But if you want to invite guests who don't speak that language, the courteous thing to do is ensure they know the basics!

[haveacupoftea]

How childish the OP and some of the responses are.

[BlackeyedSusan]

an invitation is about communicating information to somebody. If the recipient can not understand then the information has not been communicated.

[Gwenhwyfar]

"I actually wonder if the OP had been about a German invitation for example, whether there would have been the same level of defensiveness."

There wouldn't have been an OP to begin with, would there? She wouldn't be complaining about getting a German invitation for a German wedding, she'd find it normal.

"the courteous thing to do is ensure they know the basics!"

The basics are obvious with an invitation in Welsh.
Have a look at these ones and let me know if you can guess, who is getting married, when and where:

www.gweiddi.org/rhifynnau/rhifyn-2-dathlu/gwahoddiad-priodas/

[Oakmaiden]

It is irritating the number of times I have been told that Welsh people only speak Welsh to piss the English off.

Seriously. People complaining because they go into a pub in North Wales, and all of a sudden everyone is speaking in Welsh. I bet they weren't before I came in. Or that they went with a Welsh person to meet some old friends of the Welsh person, and they spoke to one another in Welsh. They did it deliberately to leave me out. Or - as in the thread above - I stayed with a Welsh family and they talked to one another in Welsh - and I KNOW they can speak a civilised tongue - why they persist in this barbarism I have no idea...