Uncle's reaction to education discussion

[Krankopi]

Family gathering in Southern England over Xmas with extended family and we drove over from West Wales where we've lived for past 18 months. I'm chit chatting to aunt and catching her up on our lives and tell her about plans for DS education.

Our DS turns 3 next year and we're opting to send him to a Welsh-speaking pre-school from September and then if all goes well to Welsh speaking primary school.

The school is very good, recent investment and a few neighbours whose kids go there really rave about it. I studied French at uni and have very open attitude to other language so think it would be great opportunity for DS to be bilingual From young age.

If there were any unforeseen issues and it doesn't work out then there are English speaking primaries and secondaries in area also.

Uncle overheard the conversation and chimed in 'but you're not Welsh!' and 'it's a dead language'. I attempted to explain benefits of bilingualism, fact our area has quite a lot of Welsh speakers and DS will grow up there etc but fell on deaf ears and he really went for it at that point.

He seemed properly offended by the whole thing as if we were somehow betraying our roots (we're English and DS also born in England). It was completely ridiculous. He then proceeded to insult the Welsh, their language before aunt told him to cool it and convo moved on.

His opinion about DS education is irrelevant but thinking back to his reaction has really angered me. It wasn't just that he didn't agree, his blood seemed to really boil. He is a bit of a little Englander type who voted for Brexit so I shouldn't be surprised but I can't understand how someone could take such offense to going to Welsh school in Wales.

The more I think about it, the more I want to say something to him to put him in his place. I find his attitude disgraceful and I'm so close to writing or calling to give him piece of my mind. AIBU? Should I just forget the whole thing?

Maybe making my point another way will work better, like writing next years Xmas card in Welsh.

You think Brexit means you can’t work in Germany?

But having your whole education in Welsh means you will then have a narrower pool of people to communicate with.
Learn Welsh yes. It's wonderful. But your whole schooling in Welsh I think divides.

WTF?

I'm astounded at your ignorance about the Welsh language.

Welsh medium schools do teach English you know. My DD has just left year 11 passing all her GCSE's that she took in Welsh, she's now at college being taught in English, it's normal to her.

Also people who speak Welsh don't just speak Welsh you know, I'd say most people also speak English. My DD used to go on play dates where parents spoke both languages.

Give your head a wobble please!

I think it’s a good thing to learn Welsh.
To be honest I wonder why it’s not taught in school.
Ignore him. I honestly can not see what the problem is.

Never said it was. Speaking Welsh won’t make other languages easier no, unless it’s Cornish or Breton or the Goidelic Celtic languages.

Learning Welsh is brillant. Great idea. But think a completely Welsh school is limiting.

Being bilingual makes learning additional languages much easier than it is for a monoglot to learn an additional language. It doesn’t just make it easier to learn related languages.

@Ayuda Welsh people speak BOTH Welsh and English. Welsh schools teach predominantly in Welsh as you'd expect but begin English lessons in primary school too. Kids in Welsh schools can already speak English when they join primary schools and it's absolutely common to have parents at home that don't speak Welsh. No idea why the heck Welsh speakers aren't "like-minded 😏" but we're a mixed bag bunch politically/socially etc.

While I think this comment of yours will get piled on, on a related note I have heard from English friends in Wales that there can be a bit of hostility from some Welsh people - and I'm talking about polite and friendly English people who have made efforts to learn Welsh and send their children to Welsh schools, and in some cases have Welsh ancestry too. So to the OP, I would hope for the best, but prepare for the possibility that you might also want to seek out friends in a similar position (as well as trying to settle into the community).

That's for the parents. Kids are kids, they will make friends at school regardless of what languages they speak at home. That's true in a multicultural city, it's true in a Welsh village. And if they grow up and fly the nest, there is nothing to stop them making friends who only speak English - especially when they come from an English speaking household themselves.

He's an arsehole, clearly.
Would he take the same view if you were in France? Catalonia? Prob not.

Your kid will have the beauty of being able to switch their brain into multi-language mode (easier to learn others when you already know 2), as well as being immersed in an ancient, RICH culture (suck on that, Brexit face), as well as being able to speak perfect English and have all the benefits of growing up in Britain as a whole.

I would try to ignore him. Sadly, speaking or writing to him won't change his narrow-minded views.
I think your son will really benefit from learning welsh so maybe just be smug in the knowledge you are doing a good thing and he will be more educated by age 5 than your uncle seems to be 🤷🏻‍♀️

Being bilingual in any languages makes it easier to learn others. Not because the languages are similar, but because it opens up the brain to understand that different languages can conceptualise and structure the same concepts differently. It's a whole area of your brain and the effects go beyond language learning too. I'm not explaining that very well, but it's pretty well known and I'm sure better explanations are available.

I never said you said it was 😆I was continuing the conversation!

Not particularly. Being bilingual in another language makes learning closely related languages much easier to learn. But not if the language has no relation.

Welsh wouldn’t have helped with any of the languages I speak as it’s not related to any of them. Just as speaking 3 Romance languages didn’t help with German at all.

You might just as well say learning stuff at school makes learning other stuff easier.

Sounds like a great choice, OP. It’s likely there will be plenty of children who come from English-speaking homes, so the teachers will be very used that. And the school may well offer some support for English speaking parents too.

My DD is at an Eng-medium school, but doing Welsh A level. A good friend of mine was amazed that A level Welsh even exists, and cannot understand why she is doing it. Given that we live here, I can guarantee it will be a deal more useful than my French and German A levels.

Beginning to feel sorry for all those Welsh speaking Welsh people who are stuck in Wales forever because they went to Welsh medium schools.

What an odd thread! Send your ds to a Welsh medium school and let him benefit from being bilingual. Do not argue with your uncle. As the old saying goes: you can’t argue with stupid!

This is semi-usual in my family as I'm half welsh.

However, my English friend moved to West Wales and her boys are in a Welsh school and she cannot help them with homework, reading, spellings any of it. Doubly compounded as her eldest is dyslexic and really does need extra help.

So just bear that in mind.

Im not sure. My friend did the same and sent both her children to welsh speaking schools, even though her and her DH did not speak any Welsh at all.
One DC took to it like a duck to water and now works in a job where Welsh is an advantage.
Unfortunately the other DC seemed to struggle and always seemed a little behind. They found it difficult to learn the language not speaking it at home which then impacted on their other learning. Eg if a teacher is teaching maths and you misunderstand what they are saying you will be at a disadvantage.

It's stupid to go against a second language/dialect just because of the so called 'patriotism'. Always useful to learn a new language especially for children.

You’d have to be fairly stupid not to figure that out for yourself. As I said languages that “help” are ones that are related. Romance languages are fairly similar, English and German help with Scandi languages etc.

Not sure how you think Welsh will facilitate Russian or Mandarin.

Welsh is one of the languages spoken in Argentina.

You might just as well say learning stuff at school makes learning other stuff easier.

Well, it does! And if anyone was complaining about children learning X, Y or Z skill at school, I'd probably raise an eyebrow too. I suppose the implication in that argument is that the "other stuff" is what they should be learning in the first place - but the analogy falls down in this situation, as the child still speaks English. Hmm.

It does actually. My DC's Welsh medium secondary chose to teach 2 MFL (French and German) from Y7 because it was so much easier for them to pick up a 3rd and 4th language as they were already fully bilingual. I'm also bilingual in Welsh and English and picked up French, German and Spanish relatively easily.

Isn't there research showing once you're bilingual, other languages come more easily then if you aren't.

That can only be a good thing.