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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to think these Welsh language requirements are ridiculous (and bordering on discrimination?)

423 replies

DimDimDiolch · 26/01/2020 20:53

Context: I run a micro business in urban South Wales, where I rarely hear Welsh spoken, and many Welsh born-and-bred people don't speak a word of Welsh. I lived my whole life in England (no Welsh lessons at school - or anywhere else!) until about 18 months ago. I've picked up the odd bit of Welsh here and there (diolch, dim, croeso, nos da, bara, araf - that sort of thing) but I'm far from fluent. My business isn't yet big enough to employ anyone else.

My business is the sort of business where you attend events, pay for a pitch and sell products to the general public.

I've now been denied pitches at a couple of events purely on the grounds that I don't speak Welsh, even though literally everyone locally speaks English (except those who only speak Polish or Urdu...). AIBU to think it's a matter of anti-English sentiment, bordering on discrimination, that I'm experiencing? It all feels a bit 'jobs for the boys' to me, when my Welsh speaking ability has nothing to do with the products I sell.

OP posts:
happyandsingle · 28/01/2020 09:11

But if it was a reverse it would be called discrimination. But if its bashing the english that's ok.I see it all the time in everyday banter in the media etc.
If I walked up to a foreign person and demanded they speak english or go home I'd quite rightly be labelled a racist. But the equivalent is happening on this thread but that's ok because its aimed at an english person
And if you cant see that then you are the ignorant one.

AnneTwacky · 28/01/2020 09:13

I'm english but I can see the point of forcing things to be bilingual.

I know that England has trampled over Wales (Lake Vyrnwy, to name something off the top of my head)

Welsh for so many years was not given the recognition it deserved as a native language, that it began to suffer. The fact that it is now being supported, does not take anything away from the still more dominant english language.

I get your frustration OP, but people in Wales have a right to request people have the option to use Welsh, if they so choose, when organising an event.

Nomorelaundry · 28/01/2020 09:14

No it wouldn't be bloody discrimination. It's Wales. Welsh is our national language and there are specific events that celebrate and promote this.

Because it's our bloody country. You can't walk into someone's country and tell them what to do....

But then again that's what's been going on for a few centuries.

happyandsingle · 28/01/2020 09:16

Thought it wouldn't take long for a hate comment to pop up. Thanks for proving my point.

SerenDippitty · 28/01/2020 09:17

If I walked up to a foreign person and demanded they speak english or go home I'd quite rightly be labelled a racist. But the equivalent is happening on this thread but that's ok because its aimed at an english person

No one has demanded that English people speak Welsh or go home. Only that they stop moaning about the Welsh language if they’ve chosen to live in Wales.

Nomorelaundry · 28/01/2020 09:20

I think you specifically are being ignorant and lacking a significant amount of intelligence.

Not England as a race.

I am laying next to my English Husband.

happyandsingle · 28/01/2020 09:25

Whatever you say....

SerenDippitty · 28/01/2020 09:28

As am I Nomorelaundry 🙂

Nomorelaundry · 28/01/2020 09:31

@SerenDippitty England may not be able to play rugby or sing as well as us, their anthem doesn't hold as much oompf but I can't complain on their quality of men 😜

2020GoingForward · 28/01/2020 09:52

Of course a burger seller with a mastery of Welsh will add something to an event aimed at promoting the use of the Welsh Language. They will be able to converse in the language!

I'm English living in South Wales - and I really must start going to events like this - somewhere to practise the Welsh I'm trying to pick up. So it would be a selling point for us.

My children came to Welsh much later than their peers but their welsh teachers insist they are some of the strongest speakers in their classes possibly becuase we've been trying to catch up.

I've been told there's an aim to have all Welsh schools Welsh medium - and I can see why - GCSE second language Welsh is going to be no where near fluent levels but at same time we wouldn't have moved here if there weren't English medium schools avaliable for our school aged children.

Nomorelaundry · 28/01/2020 09:58

I honesty can't recommenced the Eisteddafod.
It's just fantastic.

Pomegranateseeds · 28/01/2020 10:07

Cardiff!! I thought you were talking about somewhere on the borders of mis Wales or something!! There are A LOT of welsh speakers in Cardiff! In my area of Cardiff about 50% of our neighbours speak welsh, and some others are learning.
You are really alienating a big client base there by just not making the teeniest effort! I often come across businesses with a welsh menu or similar, but when you speak to the people there they don’t speak welsh or just know a few phrases - no problem - what’s appreciated is that they’re making the effort.
There were 40,000 welsh speakers in Cardiff 8 years ago! I imagine there are more now!

OwlBeThere · 28/01/2020 10:57

@happyandsingle I don’t hate England, I married an Englishman and I have 4 proudly Wenglish children. I don’t blame current English people for the erosion of my language and my culture either, but what I do wish for is acknowledgment of what was done to it. That’s all. Rude comments about dead languages and how it’s pointless really upset me. Imagine someone told you the language you think and feel in was pointless.

mbosnz · 28/01/2020 11:06

Welsh is one of the most beautiful languages in the world, surely. It's loss would be a tragedy.

FlightStrike · 28/01/2020 11:07

This thread is a perfect illustration of the way shitty rumours about the Welsh language and Welsh attitudes are perpetuated.

The OP posts about something that seems - on the face of it - to be genuinely outrageous. That she isn't allowed to do business in Wales because she can't speak Welsh. 10 pages later, hidden in the depths of the thread, she admits that she was trying to set up a stall in an event organised by a charity that exists to promote and create spaces in which Welsh can be used as a social language.

Whether or not you agree with the aims of the charity in question, that is wildly different than a blanket ban on non-Welsh speaking stallholders.

But of course at this point, it's too late for anything like reasonable discussion and most people will never find that context. The thread is already full of stereotypes about aggressive, exclusionary Welsh speakers. It's already full of people complaining about how they're not against Welsh, not really, they just don't think it should be forced, they just think it should be something that the Welsh speakers manage for themselves.

Except when they do that, like, say by creating new organisations and that set up new events to celebrate their language, apparently THAT'S aggressive too.

About 15% of the population of Cardiff speaks Welsh. That's a minority, yes, but not a vanishingly small one. It's about 50k people. There IS an active Welsh-speaking community. So why do people like the OP think they don't exist? Well, partly because they don't notice the language being spoken in the background, but also because there aren't opportunities to do so where you can be sure that speaking Welsh is an option.

The OP knows that English is the default language in Cardiff, she mentions this often. Knowing to whom you can speak Welsh without being perceived as being "awkward" is a really nice and useful feature of events like Tafwyl.

It's also really useful for learners, who might not have the personal social links that fluent Welsh speakers do, and really struggle for opportunities to speak Welsh with other people outside of a classroom setting. For these people, being able to order a burger in Welsh - a simple, set interaction without the pressure of smalltalk, etc. - is actually a key REASON they might be attending such an event.

In terms of Employment Law, proficiency in Welsh would be a genuine occupational requirement for a customer-facing role in an event designed to provide a Welsh-language social space. There is no discrimination.

The Welsh language standards introduced by Welsh Government in respect of private businesses do not apply to businesses below a certain size specifically because of the disproportionate burden this would place on them.

You are not being discriminated against, you are being told that you are not able to provide the service that the event organisers require. And trust me, the number of burger-vendors or welly-boot sellers who ARE able to provide welsh-language service within the bounds of Cardiff isn't high. Their lives would be easier without this restriction.

In Cardiff a LOT of jobs have Welsh-speaking as a desirable criteria. No jobs, except the ones for which it is a genuine occupational requirement, list it as a requirement because it makes it really fucking difficult to hire people. I work in recruitment - I'm not speculating when I say this.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 28/01/2020 11:13

No one has demanded that English people speak Welsh or go home

Obviously I don't know at what point you joined the thread, but I'm not sure why folk keep saying this when that's exactly what happened

MN quite rightly deleted it, along with a few posts quoting or backing it, but that doesn't change the fact that bigoted folk like this sadly still exist

Depressing, really ...

cologne4711 · 28/01/2020 11:40

My Great Aunt and her late husband were holidaying abroad. German guests were running rings around the English in the stereotypical fashion. My Great Aunt then conversed with her husband in Welsh which bewildered the Germans who left them well alone

I did this too. Friend and I were in a bar somewhere in Germany (can't remember which town now). She was at Bangor uni, I was at Cardiff. Neither of us knew much Welsh but were were being hassled by this bloke who we weren't interested in, so pretended we didn't know any English and as we'd both done very basic Welsh courses, spoke random Welsh phrases to each other until he got bored and moved away!

The Irish students there used to do it on occasion too, though they'd obviously learnt Irish properly!

Mind you, that same friend now lives near Cologne and learns Welsh - taught by a German guy! So it might have backfired :)

OwlBeThere · 28/01/2020 11:43

@FlightStrike excellent post.
@puzzledandpissedoff anyone who said that is out of order. Most of us just want the OP to realise that there are times and events where it is appropriate to be able to speak welsh.

cologne4711 · 28/01/2020 11:44

In fact I still have some Welsh books - Get by in Welsh, a comprehensive phrase book from the Y Lolfa pubisher.

Canllaw i'r Cyfryngau - a book of media expressions.

There's a section on law and order and I've just learnt that "drunk and disorderly" is meddw ac afreolus. I've also got A Welsh Vocabulary and Spelling Aid. I was really into it at one time!

SerenDippitty · 28/01/2020 11:46

@FlightStrike great post, says it all.

@Puzzledandpissedoff, what is really depressing is that speaking Welsh in Wales is so often seen as rude, aggressive and exclusionary.

DrowsyDragon · 28/01/2020 11:55

Three cheers for @FlightStrike. The truth is most of Britain is so used to being monolingual that divergence from that seems threatening. So mNy countries are bi or more lingual and it causes very few problems and is actively good for people’s brains. As for the OP, what she’s done is like me demanding a paedatrician treats me because I don’t fancy the wait for my specialists. Tafwyl is for welsh speakers, to be there you need to qualify.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 28/01/2020 12:01

what is really depressing is that speaking Welsh in Wales is so often seen as rude, aggressive and exclusionary

I agree, but it's surely not a case of one being more so than the other; for me, all hateful attitudes are depressing - espeially when there's just no need for them

TommyShelby · 28/01/2020 12:11

Learn Welsh. Problem solved

Frazzled2207 · 28/01/2020 12:17

I'm a welsh speaker living in England. Yanbu it sounds ridiculous and I would challenge it. It's well known that you need some welsh to work in most public sector jobs in wales but you're selling a product not providing a public service.