To think that if it was France & French no one would care about a name change but because it’s Welsh…

[Letshaveablackcelebration2022]

Welsh is trending on Twitter because a lot of people don’t like the fact that the Brecon Beacons will revert to its Welsh name https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/17/brecon-beacons-relaunches-with-welsh-name-bannau-brycheiniog-as-picture-of-hope-for-future

People also kicked off when Snowdon also reverted to its Welsh name Yr Wyddfa

Aibu to really not understand the issue. I am Welsh and a Welsh speaker. It makes sense to me to call place names by their Welsh names and not by their anglicised versions if you want to protect a language and culture. Which we do.

Noone would bat an eyelid if in France their decided to only use French names. We drive in France and get by without English alternatives. So what exactly is the problem with Wales doing the same?

That makes a lot more sense to me, if I'm honest.

I always feel under-served by my Welsh education (English medium schools though my primary was initially billingual/ duel entry then changed to English medium). I can follow conversations with Welsh speakers, but often feel awkward joining in! That's mostly a confidence issue in fairness. I'm brushing up a lot at the moment to help my little boy, who is reception age. My DH is English, but grew up abroad. So speaks bits of several languages... But not Welsh.

@KnickerlessParsons , that isn't how I'd say it. It's not too bad as an approximation, but if you aren't familiar with Welsh intonation, you won't get that the stress in on the 'Ban' and the 'ein'. The einiog is nearer ayn-yog than eye-nee-og, otherwise the stress would fall on the 'nee', which it doesn't.

The au, ei and io are diphthongs.

I didn’t say you had, I was simply glad to hear there was demand.
as for Cardiff, the 3rd WM secondary opened around 2013/13, but the 2nd opened in 1998. As I said 4th opening in September (though this is a bilingual school so slightly different- though incidentally I happen to think bilinguals are the way forwards) So a nice gradual increase which I hope will continue.

Frankly people in power fought other people in power for the right to oppress those without any power. Same all over the country not just in Wales. The Harrying of the North for example.

Medieval Wales was proably as feudal as England. The ordinary Welsh would have known little difference who ever was in charge. If their princes had not been fighting the English then they would have been fighting each other and harrassing the populations that dared to support the loser. That's how the middle ages worked. There were no liberal democracies.

The Anglo-saxons lost their language (languages) over-time* too because the Nromans turned up and insisted on speaking Norman French at court and legislatively. And no doubt the average chap in the street (lane, avenue, road, gate?? no language is more welcoming to new words than English) in Yorkshire of Lincolnshire would have felt colonially oppressed too had he had the benefit of a 21 st century postcolonial education in the victimhood Olympics.

If anyone is interested "After the Norman Conquest of 1066, it took more than three centuries for English to oust French as the language of government. The parliament of 1362 was opened with a speech in English by the chancellor and then, in the early 15th century, Henry V became the first king since Anglo-Saxon times to use English in his written instructions." And of course Middle english (that came after Anglo-Saxon) is not the same as Anglo-Saxon very much a 'new' language. https://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126569.html

Oh. thanks @EsmeSusanOgg , that is really nice of you, and I'm so pleased to find you so supportive of your son.
I remember DC1 as a little child, not fluent in English but speaking to another child who spoke no Welsh, and just kept going making up noises to fill any gaps, so my advice is to just use the English word or something, but keep going. You'll get your confidence and you'll probably have a willing teacher.

@EsmeSusanOgg , my name is a play on words. Gog because I am from the north and Lais (llais is voice). Goglais is a word - oh well, it tickles me anyway.

Ban-eye Bruch-eye-nee-og

The "bruch" is difficult to explain. U as in umbrella. Ch as in loch is the best I can do ( but depends on how you pronounce loch)

Au and eye are pronounced the same way (unless you're Welsh enough to hear the difference).

Whether io is a dipthong or not it's ee-o.

It is a good name :)

Ha! He does like teaching me things. :)

@KnickerlessParsons , iog makes a yog sound. The way you explain it, the Brycheiniog would be said as Brych-ei-NI-og, and I am Welsh enough to know it isn't.
ei does not sound like eye.
au no english equivalent and eye is probably the nearest approximation.

1998 was 10 years ago... Right? I am not a fan of how old I am now!

And dim problem. I was just clarifying.

But the oppression of the Welsh language is far more modern - for the use of the Welsh Not didn’t die out completely until the early 20th century, for example.

It's just having the proper names assigned. Like the signposts in N Wales were changed to reflect this Conway/Conwy Mold/Yr Wyddgrug etc.

I am on the border and speak the odd bit of Welsh as my cousin (who lived a mile away) was taught at school.
The language and heritage should be celebrated. It's not woke or difficult to understand.

Sorry, confused, Welsh died out completely? When?

I am also unsure, if you think historic oppression is something worth investing in emotionally, where the cut off date is?

And I say this as someone who broadly supports the change. I support the supporting of Welsh and Gaelic too in Scotland and Manx in the lsle of Man. Just not the stupid top down reasoning for this particular change and not if the locals don't actually want it.

"The name change had not been included in the months-long consultation on the park's new management plan, which includes the planting of one million trees.

Jodie Bond, from the National Park authority, said the decision to use the Welsh name had come from “organic” discussions among the management."

I know John Humphries has written pointing out the lack of local choice over this matter. Frankly - this is a kind of present-time colonialism. Pushing the culture of the usual elite onto everyone else. I am also pretty sure the head of the National Park is actually English. Might be wrong, but I think so.

I really don't support the Marxist spread of the oppression Olympics. It is devisive, pointless and often based on poor history because it is promulgated by people who don't have any real history knowledge or because a professional historian is fully signed up to a political view point. ie the English academic running the Brecon Beacons National Park (whilst doing loads of other jobs in England I think) pushes uncanvased name change on Welsh population because it fits various ideological agendas shared in the UK wide cultural sector as imported from the US.

That more recent for you?

@ChristinaXYZ , Sturnip posted that the Welsh Not did not die completely until ...

🙂

No problem with this whatsoever. I also like those bilingual roadsigns you get in parts of Scotland. More of this kind of thing.

Who do these people think they are deciding exactly what a place I’ve known and loved should be called. They’ll leave and go to other jobs and I’ll still be saying Brecon Beacons.

OP don't know why you're so annoyed. Ignorant and uncultured people may take issue with the name change but those who are open minded will not. Let the ignorant be ignorant, no point arguing with them.

I'm English, live in Wales and signed up to learn the Welsh language as soon as I moved here as you should make an effort to learn the language in my view.

The point of using the Welsh language sails straight over someone's head.

There were considerable efforts made to prevent the Welsh from speaking Welsh and to extinguish Welsh as a language. So Welsh people not speaking Welsh shouldn't come as a surprise. The same happened to Gaelic in both Scotland and Ireland.

If you work hard to destroy a people's heritage, then you can't then express surprise at the results that you created in the first place.

I’m neither ignorant or uncultured and I take issue with the way this is just being presented. If you want to use the Welsh name that’s fine, if however you want to continue with the name that you’ve used all your life, that should also be perfectly acceptable.

Apologies @GogLais reading too fast but that is local behaviour surely? Local teachers in local schools. Making my point, that where there is space for oppression, something will move in, and that 'opression' is not an English specaility as some PP would maintain but rather a human one and that as I said in presvious post given a chance the Welsh would opress the Welsh. In the past so many groups were oppressed in so many ways by those with power (a very small number of people) that the constant harping on it, in a victimhood Olympics, is really not helpful.

Nor is the constant denigrating of those who disagree with something , as a poster a few moments ago did, as ignorant or brainless, helpful. When they might actaully have a point. And the more one looks at this decision, the odder is seems. As I say, I broadly agree - Welsh needs support. Money well spent if the locals want it.

One thing to add is that as a teacher in England I had a boy move into a Y7 class who was Welsh, first language Welsh and he had so little English he could not really participate in lessons. The local service in those days for supporting English as a second language could cover all kinds of languages - all the south Asian ones, and many European ones, but not Welsh. That kind of thing I think is disgraceful. Welsh should be supported throughout the UK. So I am not anti-Welsh, nor anti-change, nor anti-money-spent on Welsh-langauge or anything like that - just suspicious of a politically motivated decision, bored of virtue signally in cultre, politics and the arts, and bored of those who don't forelock tug at the ivory tower types in charge of things like National Parks who talk a good talk on diversity but have no real diversity of views.

Who is the 'you' here? in "If you work hard to destroy a people's heritage, then you can't then express surprise at the results that you created in the first place."

The Welsh teachers in Welsh schools in the 19th century? The Welsh who don't speak Welsh?

I think you need to google the Welsh Not.

I find talk of the ‘Marxist spread of the oppression olympics’ absolutely fucking tiresome but the suppression of the Welsh language is why I don’t share a first language with all of my family, so it does have some relevance to my life to this day. Not really sure why you’re blathering on about the Norman Conquest and alike as if it’s relevant?

I think we know..!