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.

that's the point though, Mme . Sorry to mention the other thread, but that is the point.

Anyhoo - I think we are beginning to piss in the wind

Jamie I do think it is interesting - in many ways I have encouraged our children to be interested in the Irish side of the family but dh totally rejects it. Well, he's very interested in Irish culture but the Protestant NI side of things is very political, very Orange Lodge based in his family, adn he rejects that utterly.

Not his family - he's close to his mother and brother (Dad is a whole other issue!!) but his mother still "blames" me for him not now living in Belfast and still refers to it as "home" for him when he has been telling her for longer than we have been married that Scotland is now his home - its very frustrating.

DH is delighted that our children are "fiercely" Scottish (and they are!!) - down to arguing with a close English friend that ds (8) had every right to choose to support Argentina in the World Cup (ds idolises Lionel Messi, from Argentina/Barcelona).

I do think though that (and flip this will probably start a whole other fight) people who are "only" English don't (or sadly can't) understand the whole thing about being a minority group in the UK. To defend your identity, sometimes you need to be fierce!

... to use a quaint piece of Essex vernacular

fair do's weegie - I can see that.

I am often called upon to defend my Essex roots.

< tongue-in-cheek >

Jamie
I know, and I have said this before, that I think that the OP was being unreasonable on the zoo thread, but she did take the critism on board and decided to talk to her PILs about a solution that would suit them all.

I stand by my opinion that the OP should not feel pushed into speaking English - or persuade her DH to speak English to their DS. Especially as every Welsh person on this thread has stated that he will learn English, and he probably understands a lot already.

My DS did not speak much English until we moved to Switzerland, but he understood very well and was able to communicate fine with my parents.

weegie: my DCs are supporting Spain in the World Cup, despite being a teeny bit English on my mum's side

Am ashamed to say that DH did used to own one of those t-shirts that say "I support 2 teams: Wales and whoever England are playing"

"Out of curiosity, those of you getting your knickers in a twist over when (note WHEN not if) the OP's son learns English- what steps are you taking to ensure
your toddler/baby is learning another language alongside their mother tongue, given that so many posters have said that being bilingual is so critical
to ensuring they have a good future."

But English is one of this child's languages. His father is english. There is a vast difference between teaching a child a second language and bringing up a child bilingually speaking both of his parents' languages.

There is also a vast difference between a child learning a language in order to progress in life and a child learning a language in order to be able to communicate with his family.

DH never supports the English Rugby team - always Wales (Welsh grandparents) - actually hates the English rugby team

My dcs are not even the teeniest bit English.

But are still coming up against English friends here (in Scotland) who think they should choose to support England as we are all British.

An supporting Argentina seems to be beyond the pale for some English people we know.

Ds is also supporting Honduras as we went there once!

OP may be fiercely Welsh, but her DS is an individual-he may well support England! You can hope and encourage, but you can't dictate.

When I say teeny I really mean teeny... my mum was born in Nottinghamshire and so were both of her parents. But her grandparents were English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish, so in terms of ancestry I am something like 1/8 English and I suppose my DC are 1/16 English (and 13/16 Welsh)

I don't think it is about ancestry though. Most people in Britain are of mixed ancestry - a quarter of the British are of recent Irish descent. What matters is the ethnicity of your living family members, and whether or not you want to continue having their ethnicity as part of yours.

I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to that. I think Weegiemum's earlier post was interesting where she was saying that her children are being brought up as solely Scottish, and explained why. The OP does not seem to explaining what she wants the ethnicity of her child to be, which I find odd when she is an academic working on Language and Literature, so must know a huge amount about ethnicity.

If my children were growing up in Wales, I would want them to go to a Welsh immersion school and would at home involve them as much in Welsh culture as possible, even thought they do not have a Welsh parent. I think the culture of residence is the primary culture for a child. But I also think they would learn something of English culture so that they can feel connected to their living family members. The idea that a white person's identity is connected to their ancestral blood ties has very disturbing connotations.

Agree with Cory 100%!

Agree with Cory 100%!

Undercovamother agrees 200% it seems.

Indeed I do - or at least my computer appears to!

YABVU

Welsh is a tiny language spoken by very few, without regularly speaking a language you can't truly master it, he will loose out in many interviews due to his speaking even if he does fully understand English.

A generation brought up sat in front of TV with the parents not talking to them much is the reason why there are so many young English people with rubbish English and if you can't talk the language properly people will automatically assume you are as thick as pig crap.

Ponders "thick as pig crap"...

Wow ryoko - that's full on.

I know fluent welsh speakers with it as their first language - it's great and it shouldn't die out because it's a minority language. Blimey - you could argue that because English is the dominant language in the world we may as well abandon all other languages. Why would you want to do that.

The OP's ds will get to grips with English with no issues at all. The reason that this thread has caused so much debate is that it originates from another thread where the (same) op doesn't want her ils to take her dc to the zoo as ds doesn't speak english yet (ils are English speakers) - she clearly doesn't like ils and the debate on this thread has been the view that OK - bring up your kids to be bilingual how you want but in the OP's case it's marginalising the ils.

Then the thread goes into the cultural heritage and it's importance.

So the Op's ds will not miss out on any job opps I very much doubt.

What I find bizzare is that culture and nationality are sooo important to so many of you. The op is right in that the English language culture (whatever that is) will dominate ie film, music etc so she's concerned that her ds has a head start in her language and by that I think she also means culture.

I will never understand this emphasis on nationality and culture - never. I'm mixed, my dm speaks loads of languages yet her worst is English, yet she's british (from birth) from a country (not UK) where she was a minority and she's a minority in the UK. She certainly doesn't feel the need to shout her culture - possibly as she doesn't dislike english people at all. However this doesn't make her any less of the places and ethnicity she's from.

My df is English with other stuff and I've never really bothered to investigate it more (and it's not been to my detriment not to).

The non English part of my culture comes from my mum and the bit I most identify with (ie my experience) is not her/my ethnicity anyhow.

My dh is from overseas and bloody hell he insists on breathing his culture day in day out and my little 4 year old ds reckons he's a national of that country yet cannot even communicate at all in that language (not a minority language though). It feels so nationalistic and exclusive to me.

Issues of identity and culture imo are pretty irrelevant where someone is so mixed except possibly where religion plays a part.

Ryoko - how lovely to see you here, now that you are I wonder if I will have to hide this thread as well as that fox one the other day...

Another one to agree 100% with cory. As a DC I couldn't have cared less what my mother's relationship with her MIL was-she was my granny and I loved her. (as it happens the relationship was good-but if it hadn't been it was nothing to do with me.)

Nope. Can't think of one.

as a Scot who will be supporting England in the WC (or at least so far, don't know if I could carry it out to the final if they got that far - still banging on about 1966 and all that!) - does that make me kind of unique?

You are using Welsh to keep your ILs away from your children.
They will, as you say, learn English, and hopefully some other languages, too. So why not let them learn it now so that they can benefit from learning the language AND a relationshipwith loving grandparents.

In fact they will benefit from becoming bilingual as early as possible, in terms of cognitive development, ability to learn further languages etc - I wish I had that for my children.

yes, your ILs are unreasonable to not learn any Welsh, but you are cutting of your nose to spite your face.

OP, I assume if you ever move to England you'll leave Welsh behind and never speak it again so you fully immerse yourself in English.