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.

missus84 I have met several Welsh speakers who struggle very much to express themselves in English. Are you in Wales? Do you understand that in some areas Welsh is the main language?

"without having it foisted upon him at home in order to appease grandparents who live 250 miles away. Perhaps, even, they'd like to learn Welsh?"

What a shitty attitude . I'm guessing that the gps live 250 miles away because their son moved to Wales. Selfish bastards didn't want to up sticks and move as well? Tut tut. Well what bad gps they must be then The DS will learn English at some point as the op has said. Why should the gps have to learn a new language just to appease their daughter in law who appears to be making it as awkward as possible for them? The more I read of this the more it sounds like point scoring. There is room for both languages in the op's set up. This is getting pathetic.

Message withdrawn

God I wish I could speak and read that, stubbornhubby. I just happen to think that the Welsh language, hard as it is to learn I understand, is one which sounds so beautiful.

Sorry all, as you were!

Nos da ladies.

Imagine how I'm going to cope, my partner is fluent in Glaswegian.

Forgot to say that my father spoke to DD1 in Welsh until she was about 15 months - not long enough for her to start speaking Welsh unfortunately (and we don't see my parents regularly in any case) but they certainly had no problems "communicating".

"without having it foisted upon him at home in order to appease grandparents who live 250 miles away. Perhaps, even, they'd like to learn Welsh?"

What a shitty attitude . I'm guessing that the gps live 250 miles away because their son moved to Wales. Selfish bastards didn't want to up sticks and move as well? Tut tut. Well what bad gps they must be then

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Shitty attitude or not, I did not indicate at any popint that the GPs are "selfish bastards" or bad grandparents.

I still stand by my opinion that it would be nice for the GPs to learn a little of the language spoken by one of their grandchildren. Funnily enough, my own late GPs learned a little Welsh because my cousin, although born in England of English parents, was raised in Ponterwyd. He's bi-lingual, having learned English at home and Welsh at school (proving how easily it's done at an early age, especially as cousin is dyslexic).

YABU you knew you ILs couldn't speak welsh sounds like you went out of your way to cause this problem that could have easily been avoided.

DewinDoeth - now that would be a coincidence too far.

I would guess I knew your flat-mates, though!

(Although perhaps not. I like hanging round with the Sports Science boys for purely lascivious reasons, and skipped lots of lectures).

All my friends in Bangor now are Welsh-speaking natives.

Sorry if I came over a bit strong. My close workmate is a first language Welsh speaker and I think one of her biggest regrets is that she didn't teach her daughter any Welsh at all because she didn't want to alienate her husband who can't speak any.

no direct experience of this (am English mum to DD who is an Irish child but no fluent Irish speakers in this house), but on the basis of my experience in Ireland I would say that the only place that a child will learn a minority language (official EU parlance, I think ) in a way that they carry it through their lives and pass it on to their children is if they learn it at home. Every single person I know who is bilingual (Irish-English) also speaks at least one other language well. Other cultures (contemporary and historically) take/took bilingualism for granted - many Africans speak 3 or more languages.

I have some very good friends who speak Irish at home, and I want to send DD over when she's a bit bigger (their youngest is about 8 months older) so that she at least realises that the textbook Irish she will learn in school is a real language that people shout in, argue in and discuss what should go in sandwiches in...

Like Welsh, there are no monoglot Irish speakers - 80+ years of bad teaching and identification with poverty have seen to that.

We are raising ds as bilingual, with each of us speaking our native language. We have to try really hard to expose him to dh's foreign language, so skype and have a sling box to get native language children's tv etc. You dc are so lucky to be exposed to both welsh and english, and can become fluent in both quickly. They are so porous to language young.

I think the issue has become confused by politics- I understand the need to defend welsh (it's a beautiful language but minority language) but it doesn't have to be at the expense of any english at home from dh (my dh strongly promotes his language, as you quite rightly do) and it shouldn't be at the expense of you PILs. My PILs are a long way away and need that contact- they can't speak fantastic english and love nattering to him in their language. It's important to them to feel he is getting part of his culture and heritage from them too. Itisso easy for paternal IL to feel detached, especially in a different country, but add in a language barrier too. And I can see why they may get upset.

YAB a little bit U - its not fair on your PIL that they can't speak to him.

Your son's welsh is good as you say is his first language and nothing will change that, if your DH started speaking to him now in english by the age of 3 he'd be totally fluent in both.

Also I agree that the other poster that its not good for your son's welsh to hear it from your DH who is not totally fluent.

Can I just dispel a myth that seems to be being perpetrated here?

1. semi fluent Welsh is not bad for kids to hear
2. there are people in Wales for whom the Welsh language is their first, and best spoken language - I know Welsh speakers who struggle to express themselves in English because they haven't learned it totally fluently. Whilst I'd agree that generally Welsh speakers can also speak English, there are some monoglots - mostly elderly now - but as a kid in the seventies, I knew some, and at college in the eighties I knew Welsh speakers who struggled to follow lectures which were conducted in the English language.

Sorry for rant, but people do speak some BS sometimes! Just because you haven't witnessed it doesn't mean it doesn't exist!

Whwn that welsh bloke was on Big Brother, he was shocked at how poor his english was, compared to how he thought it was.

That stuck in my head.

YANBU.

He will be able to communicate with his Grandparents much more easily than people (non-Welsh) think as he will be hearing and seeing lot more English than one would think at first.

I am quite jealous that you are able to do this.

Dw i'n dysgu Cymraeg. Dw i'n newydd dechrau.

It's hard. DH is first language Welsh and DS1 is in meithrin at our local Welsh school, yet DH is very reluctant to speak in Welsh to our ds's - I can't fathom out why.

I think you are probably making life harder for him by not starting off with both languages being spoken - Welsh by you, English by your DH.

The fact that your PILs don't speak Welsh would want to make me want my child to be able to communicate with them in their language personally, especially as he will eventually need to know English anyway.

Is it about trying to lay down a cultural and identity choice for dcs early on - do bilingual people have an equal language or is one always first and another second? Isnt that creating that instead of having 2 family languages - 2 shared identities - sorry if thats a bit heavy and off the mark.

And its fair enough if you want him to identify as Welsh and by that I mean properly not South Wales Welsh ahem - I am just of the school of choice - with religion and vegetarianism and culture - I think dcs should be able to self identify iyswim.

I can't be doing with the power-play with the in-laws.

My grandmother was fluent Welsh speaking but married an Englishman and sadly chose not to speak Welsh to her children. My mother picked up some Welsh from her but not enough to be fluent and as a result I know hardly any Welsh, despite being taught it (badly) at school.

I am very sad that I am unable to speak Welsh, and have tried to learn some words to pass onto my English sons.

As a child I knew a few people who moved to my predominately english speaking area from Welsh speaking areas. As pre-schoolers they knew no english at all but soon picked it up. Sadly most of them don't speak Welsh at all now.

Add message | Report | Contact poster By hairytriangle Mon 07-Jun-10 22:09:20
Can I just dispel a myth that seems to be being perpetrated here?

1. semi fluent Welsh is not bad for kids to hear

Hairytriangle - I thought that was what language specialists tended to state, that it can cause more problems as bad habits, poor pronunciation, etc are picked up. I work with some SLI specialists and they say this can be a big problem as times, esp with children who already have speech and language problems.

OP I really hope for your PILs sake that your DS learns English to communicate with them. I imagine they feel very threatened by the extent to which your DH has integrated and no matter whether their attitude is right or wrong it won't hurt your DS to hear a little English spoken at home. Welsh can still be your majority family language and will always be your DS's mother tongue which is a wonderful thing.

But right now, amser gwely (sp?!) Nos da!

Agree with HairyTraingle. I know 2 people who are first language welsh speakers, WME, welsh-only spoken at home - and both struggled a lot (with studying/learning in English) when they went to University in England. I'm not saying this is always the case - but I believe it CAN be the case.

!!

mutha, someone I know beleives this to be a fairly common occurance at bangor uni