Brother texts greetings in Welsh

[MoHub]

My brother lives in Wales but he is English. He doesn't want to be Welsh, but every time he texts me at Christmas, New Year, birthday, etc he will do it in Welsh. So this weekend it was
Me: Happy Easter DB
DB: Pasg Hapus to you too

Don't get me wrong I like Wales, it's a lovely country, I like the Welsh and if a Welsh person wished me Happy Easter in Welsh that'd be fine but my brother is English and so am I. Every bloody time he does it.
A greeting in Welsh means nothing to me and yes I can work it out, but it doesn't half irk me and I know it's annoying me far more than it should.
AIBU to just want greetings in the language we both speak?

I think it’s funny - I’d find an equally obscure language to reply in.

復活節快樂
Literally means happy Resurrection Festival.

Is that Chinese ?

I think it’s cute. Why not? I’d be quite happy for my brother to do that. My brother went to another country for a few months and came back bearing all kinds of foreign ways of speaking that he continues to employ many years later. It’s fine. It probably feels more true to him and I don’t judge. Perhaps your bro is just really feeling Wales. Not a bad thing at all.

Noswaith dda!

I lived in Wales for several years and almost everyone, Welsh speaking or not, said hello, thanks, happy birthday etc in Welsh whether they were Welsh/English or something else. We don’t live there now but still use Welsh occasionally at home and when speaking to our Welsh friends. I don’t see it as any different to friends greeting me using a term that’s local to them (ay up me duck etc 🤣🤣) even when they’re not originally from there

No wonder the English changed all our place names when they invaded Ireland!

They can't cope with grammatical complexity.

Welsh is a dying language and if we don't use it, it will be gone. My husband is Welsh (not a native Welsh speaker, but had maintained an interest in speaking Welsh beyond his compulsory GCSE in Welsh). He is eager for all of his children to learn Welsh, which is essentially what happens in English medium Welsh schools - there are also many Welsh medium Welsh schools where Only Welsh is spoken.
In many areas of Wales, Welsh is the spoken language, so nobody living in these areas is being unreasonable in using Welsh. It isn't hard to look up online/use Duolingo etc so if you have a Welsh relative, then I think it's reasonable to expect them to speak Welsh and to learn a few Welsh phrases to get along with them.

I'm sure many people would learn French/Spanish/Italian to go in holiday or to converse with relatives. Why not Welsh??

It's just that everyone in the entire world expects everyone to know English. Why,?? Why is it too hard for English people to learn French or Spanish?? Why is Welsh seen as different? Why is everyone in France/Spain/ Italy and the Scandinavian countries expected to know English??!

Why can't we learn their languages??

Yep. We can't be bothered, that's why. European people in multiple countries should be expected to pander to the English speaker - why?? Spanish is actually the most widely spoken language in the world so why are English people so precious?

A friend is on holiday in Italy, texted Buona Pasqua
she isn't Italian, I am not Italian, neither of us religious, she wouldn't normally bother to text Happy Easter.
Not especially bothered by it - why would I be?

Nice that he is embracing his new home.

Nope, Madarin Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world. Also anytime I’ve been abroad I try to speak a couple of phrases in Spanish or Italian or French. Especially please and thank you, even if my accent is the worst ever🫣

Many of us that are English and live in Wales speak some of the lingo, it's practical! Especially in Lidl because they annouce the till number in Welsh first.

Diolch! 😜

I find it reasonable but I’m a linguist who lived in Wales. I did find it odd that a colleague insisted on learning Welsh then raising her child to speak Welsh when it wasn’t either parents’ native language and the area wasn’t Welsh speaking, but fair play.

I think this comes down to brothers being very annoying.
everything my brother does irritates me.

I think it’s extremely odd to think it’s odd that someone wants to learn the language of the country they are living in and bringing up their child to do the same!

A lot of English people in Wales use those phrases as it’s just what’s around. Ditto things like ‘dim probs’ on texts etc for ‘no problem’. It’s a bilingual country, he’ll absorb it and I don’t really see why hs should check himself when communicating with you when you know what it means? He’s trying to include you in his life I think.

I don't think you've understood. Where she lives is not an area renowned for speaking Welsh. If she were west or north then yes, of course, it's far more prevelant. Her area (where I used to live) is not Welsh speaking. However, as I said, fair play to her. I think having a bilingual child is enormously helpful for their future.

And stopped us wearing green !

I’ve understood perfectly. Wherever you live in Wales it is not odd to want to learn the language. That is the only way to get more speaking it.

I think she's flipping amazing for making that choice. How else will those "non-Welsh-speaking areas" (no such thing btw, Welsh is spoken all over Wales but to varying degrees of popularity) become Welsh speaking?

Believe me, if you'd met my BIL, you'd be irritated as well.

🤣🤣
thanks for that - I put the phrase into google translate to see what the poster was saying and it also gave me ‘get over yourself’ so very useful to know it doesn’t actually mean that!

Welsh is not dying. Far from it, if you look at the number of speakers by age bracket, 50% of under 25s are Welsh speakers. That’s a very heartening number. Welsh suddenly is cool to young people in a way it never was when I was a teenager. Ni yma o hyd!

I remember suggesting this once on AIBU very many years ago and people reacted like I’d suggest they teach children how to goose step. It was crazy how angry people got!

There are no parts of wales that are not Welsh speaking. Some have more Welsh speakers than others of course, but Welsh speakers are everywhere.
as a linguist you probably know that bilingualism has massive benefits for the brain whatever the languages are, so it would make sense from that perspective to raise a child bilingually in the local language even if there are relatively few Welsh speakers in that area. Every part of wales has Welsh medium schools.

So interesting how this panned out. I speak English, Welsh (only second because not my mother tongue because of aggressive English Parliament attitudes towards Welsh), French and German.

Some people are absolute tits aren’t they?

I’ve never in my whole life told anyone they are/aren’t allowed to converse in a language that they didn’t learn at their mother’s knee. Who the hell has the right to do that? And the continued ‘putting down’ of Welsh language is a way of putting down Wales. And anyone who claims otherwise is either abundantly dumb or deliberately evil. Choose your camp. And how fucking DARE you?