to not teach my DS any English

[DewinDoeth]

Ok, moved from another thread as it seems to have got people going!

DS is two and speaks quite a lot, but only in Welsh.

I live in a Welsh-speaking community, I'm a native speaker and Welsh is my first language (in fact I'm a lecturer in Welsh lang&lit), my entire family are Welsh. DS attends a Welsh medium nursery 2 days a week, and is cared for by my mother 2 days a week. And me the other days! None of the carers speak English with him.
My DH has learnt Welsh to near-fluency, and only speaks Welsh with DS: it gives DH a chance to improve (slowly, with an nonjudgmental speaker ) and has given him a massive confidence boost when it comes to it.
I am not teaching DS any English at all, and I never speak English with him. DS will learn English quite naturally, mainly from the television, or from hearing it around when there are people who don't speak Welsh. It's how it was with me and my English is of a very high standard (no doubt there will be grammatical errors in this post now - but I have an Oxbridge PhD so it can't be all bad).

PILs are not Welsh, live 250 miles away, and have expressed sadness that 'they can't communicate with him'.
They learnt to say hello and thank you in Nepalese when they went on holiday, but despite knowing me for 10 years and my family for 6, they have never learnt any words of Welsh at all, not please or thank you, and say it's pointless because it's a dead language, and it's not an useful language.

Re pubs in Aber: Cops (think it's gone now) and the one i can't spell the name of (black lion in English) - there were a few others but I spent too much time drinking £1 pints in the Glen

When I was there I lived in a house with Welsh speakers (not sure how i ended up there!!!) can't say it bothered me that they spoke Welsh when I was in the room (didn't do it to piss me off I'm sure) just as long as they spoke English to me because I had only mastered about 10 Welsh words

Don't think she's denying him the chance to speak English - just deferring it until school?

Ha ha chibi I agree - Welshies speaking Welsh? How very dare they?

Disclaimer - am a Welshie, although I don't speak the language.

I did think you might be, and just for the record I have never burned down any holiday homes (just incase anyone takes my arson threats seriously).

I think YABU.

I think it is great that your family speaks Welsh. I am Irish and wish I spoke more Irish.

However I think that fact that your DS can't communicate with his paternal grandparents as a result of your grandstanding about the Welsh is very sad. Your DS would not be disadvantaged in any way by his father speaking to him in English. In fact having known many many bilingual families and seen many children fluent in 2 or 3 languages I would say it would only benefit him. From what I have seen the earlier those linguistic pathways are 'opened' in the brain the better. Children are fantastic at compartmentalising language and knowing who to speak to in what ever language.

Teaching your son English will not mean he won't speak Welsh. It will just mean that he speaks English as well. And more importantly, that he can develop a relationship with his grandparents.

I think your issue is not about teaching your son English but about being able to deny your PILs access to your son.

Yes, Coops has gone now but I know plenty of non-Welsh speakers who used to drink there. Same for the Llew Du, which was always my pub of choice (although I went in there last week and felt about 90!)

Always loved the poster on the wall, which said "Gwell llaeth Cymru na Chwrw Lloegr"

I am not at all offended by people speaking Welsh in a shop when they are Welsh! However I have been in situations where it is quite deliberate and it is done to exclude and it isn't nice.
If you can give your DC the wonderful start of being fluent in more than one language, and some of your family only speak one of them, why on earth would you restrict your DC? I can only think it is an extreme way of control -'you can't have a relationship with my DC without me being there.

But picses there are nasty people in every country and speaking every language.

Just because you have encountered a minority of Welsh speakers who will do this to be rude doesn't mean that the rest of us do it.

Very weird OP. May as well read

despite the fact that my dss father and gps are English I would like to limit his communication to only speaking a minority language that only one nationality speak and is not spoken anywhere else in the world.

I always thought the Black Lion thing was a bit of an aber/urban myth - it had this horrible reputation of hating the English - yet when I strolled in there all Ms. Home Counties I always got my pint!

helyg - my sister was in Panty - same time as you I think - she was 2 doors down from where Prince Charles stayed. She learned Welsh at the intensive course in Lampeter one summer. Btw, if you're thinking of burning down any holiday homes I had a real bitch of a landlady in Tal-y-bont...

As for those who dispute the bilinguilism of the universities in question - perhaps it's changed since I was there - but I did Software Engineering and whilst the lectures were held in English, tutorials could be had in Welsh and exams/essays/etc. could be written in Welsh.

If anyone's offended by people not speaking English I would suggest you holiday solely in England OR, when encountering these rude and ignorant foreigners SPEAK LOUDLY SO THEY UNDERSTAND. You can get guidance for such behaviour on classic educational programmes such as "Dad's Army" or "Fawlty Towers".

I don't think you're unreasonable but do feel sorry for your pils.

We're in a similar situation, though perhaps less immersed, with Irish. I'm the English speaker. I would hate for my dcs not to speak my mother tongue, even though they would pick it up later. I suppose it's the symbolic value of language - my parents would feel shut out and disconnected if I chose to not teach the dcs English.

I think that families that have this sort of multiculturalism really need to be sensitive to both heritages. I thInk it's less about bilingualism and more about balancing two different backgrounds. Your pils probably do feel disconnected especially if they live some distance away. It's a shame that your dh doesn't try and balance things. For me it's essential that our dcs always live their combined heritage.

skihorse - I am not offended by someone not speaking English. I do think it is very sad that the DS can't communicate with his grandparents.

I honestly don't know if you are being unreasonable or not, but I think your ILs attitude to your language/culture is way off. We get this a bit from my parents, because we have chosen to put our children in Ghaidhlig (Scots Gaelic) medium education and they think it is a "waste of time" and "will hold them back" and "what's the point". We chose to do it as we lived in a Gaelic speaking area when the children were born.

The school they go to has a motto 'Two Languages, Two Cultures, Many Opportunities". Its not just about the language - its about the songs and stories and music and art and everything that goes with it - my children play traditional instruments (accordion, chanter for bagpipes, fiddle (not violin!) ) and learn a whole lot more than just language at school. Two of them are totally fluent in Gaelic now and the other is getting there fast. They are all also learning Spanish now and picking it up really well as they are already bilingual.

But my parents still think it is a waste of time.

The ubiquitousness of English means your ds probably already understands a lot more than he speaks - 5 would just let him communicate with his GPs in English and after even a few days with them I'm sure he'd be chatting away. Just because you don't have the same language doesn't mean you can't communicate!

this is op's other thread

And because I am a sensible reasonable person - I do not think, because I encountered some nobby rude welsh people that they are all like that, I am not that narrow minded.
Nor am I offended by people not speaking English - I do not however expect to be berated for speaking it my English self to my English husband.

Oh and DH did not lose his Welsh and it was never spoken in the home - his Parents used it when with other Welsh people (well certainly his Mum she is excellent at languages in general) but that is all. He can still speak understand and read it now almost 30 years later, so don't see how he (the OP child) wouldn't be able to speak it properly if they spoke English in the home as well as Welsh?

This is still going - wow.

My son will speak English - as well as the other kids at school, better than many of them.

I am not excluding him from learning English, and he will be totally and fully bilingual. Like me. (And I must have said something odd at some point because people keep saying I don't feel comfortable/natural in English - I'm totally bilingual.)

If my DS married someone who was Dutch (or whatever the example was) and decided to learn Dutch well enough to speak it with his own children, I would be amazingly proud. But language acquisition is something I'm very interested in (and work a bit in...) and so I'd find it amazing. And I wouldn't feel excluded. (But really, his children would be more likely to be trilingual, because he's a Welsh speaker.)

Chips on shoulder - hm, not so much; but I have encountered a lot of negativity because of where I'm from. (i.e. racism??) I'm not making a political point - what would that point be? I can speak Welsh and I'm passing it on to my DS? Huge point, that. I'm bemused as to what this point scoring/political statement business would be. (And happy to be told how it looks too: maybe I'm inadvertently making a political point.)

Welsh universities: I work at one and lecture in both English and Welsh. The students are not disadvantaged - but that's a whole other story which I can explain if asked but not really necessary.

My DH - well, he decided to speak Welsh out of love for me, love for our DS, and respect for our culture and language (which he is part of now). And also - him being quite intelligent - plenty of reading and understanding more about the contact between two languages. English can and does dominate, and if my DS has Welsh first, and a good grounding in that, he will be on firmer ground when he gets English. But it's going to be so early on that it's counted as fully bilingual. I'm only ever counted as bilingual and could never, ever claim to be anything else - despite the fact that nobody taught me English, nobody spoke it at home (but I didn't learn it at school - I already spoke it fluently by 4). It's magic.
But you know, DH speaking Welsh doesn't mean he loses anything; he doesn't lose his own culture, and isn't turning his back on it. He just doubles up - I have English culture too, and also Welsh. I just have double everything.

Cops was great (mostly though the non-welsh speakers were Irish) I went though - naughty - i don't mean they were anti-english in a beat them up way (though there was a minority who spat (not in the cops)) more of a 'well you're not welcome here)

As for the black lion - hand on heart - I've no idea what the reception was like - it was at the end of a crawl

YABU on the point of not making your DS's relationship with his grandparents easier. It does come across as point scoring. You are punishing your IL's for not learning your language.

I really don't understand the problem. I talk to Dutch toddlers all the time IN ENGLISH. They take more time to check their dictionaries... Seriously, were you expecting to discuss Dostoyevsky with a 2 year old? If the PILs are unable to communicate with this child then it says more about the way they interact with people rather than any form of expression of their mother-tongue.

I think though that using it as a reason that your inlaws cannot care for your son on a one on one is wrong. Fine if you don't like them, or don't trust them, that is up to you but you do seem to be using it as a wedge to prevent them after travelling a long way to see you to spend some alone time with him.

Raising him as a Welsh speaker is great but not if it means that you offer preferential access to your family only.

Helyg 'The problem with one partner speaking Welsh to a child and the other speaking English is that often conversation will revert to the language which everyone understands, ie English. So the Welsh is gradually pushed out. If both parents can speak Welsh, either first language or as a competent learner, then everyone speaking Welsh stops this happening.'

YES. That's spot on.

I pity the PIL-it means that DIL doesn't let them have a relationship. They can't have DC to stay on his own and they can't even take DC out for the day on his own because he can't even ask for a drink of water! Mother has to be there and her DC is all hers.It is all about control IMO-not language.

OP-' This is still going, wow.' Like you didn't know what a debate this would cause!You say you're 'bemused'....enough with the wide eyed naivete at what you're doing!You are DELIBERATELY not teaching your child a language that you speak, at the cost of his relationship with his gps.Shame on you.