So the Welsh MP who refused to talk in English

[Beetroot]

On the BBC news?

WHY?

I think the jobs for welsh speakers first idea is a suspect one

I agree, it is saddening when a language is dying. Provencal another one

I know lots of media and pr jobs go to Welsh language speakers. TBF, they often have to work in both languages so it makes sense. I couldn't do those jobs but if I had half a mind to, I'd pull my finger out and learn it. There's bound to be a few examples though which don't make sense. North West Wales is one of the most contentious areas for this I believe, but the language is so strong up there, lots of local council staff could struggle without it.

my own experience is that when i was young we lived in north wales for a time near snowdonia.

as an adult i have experienced whilst in wales really really rude behaviour that i havent found anywhere else. specifically on a trip last year ish

whole shops just stop talking

whole pubs suddenly become silent

people start talking in welsh whereas they were previously talking in English.

those are my experiences.

I do not believe that the previous heinus treatment of the welsh by the English gives them the right to be racist to me becuase i am English.

The only Welsh persons who have been great have been mumsnetters Moondog particularly walked and saught out and draged her whole family around a much large lake draw a detailed map and help me find a precious place from a sketchy memory - how beautiful that woman truly is.
That said.

If this MP could not speak english and had something to say - i am sure under the Equality & Diversity Policy that either the House of commons or some Govt department has, would allow and pay for with my taxes a translator. which would be fine by me.

but just to be bloody minded to prove a point just shows me someone who is bloody minded TBH - not someone who is particularly big or clever.

obvously my personal references are simply that - but one can see how cruel stereotypes can be formed.

I mean i know as a nation the scots and the irish probably hate the English just as much - but ihave never experienced such hostility from them.

My neice went to ta We;sh speakin school and was punished if she was ever caought speaking English ANYWHERE in the school - she is only 17

Not nice.

OMGoodness- I cannot believe a lot of the comments on here.

Custardo- as yours is freshest in my mind- Are you sure the shop/pub went quiet because you were English. Could it not have been because you were a stranger to a small village perhaps. This sort of thing happens in some areas as people aren't used to strangers- It also happens in parts of England. I lived in Ashton-under Lyne in Manchester and walked into a pub- local type pub. The whole place went quiet.

Whoever said the Welsh language is dead/dying is totally wrong. The Welsh language is very much alive and kicking and unless people stand up and demand their right to use their own language in their own country then that is when it will die- but while there are people making a stand for it then it will survive.

It is not a made up language- only in the way that every language is a made up language. The Welsh language has been around for a very long time- we have very famous books dating back to the 5th Century.

Medical terms that had no Welsh translation- perhaps that is because the medical terms weren't English either but have been adopted into the English language as have many many English words such as television- adapted and made up from a French word.

Some people are far more eloquent in their mother tongue- whatever that language may be and thank goodness there are laws in place that protect that language.

I have forgotten a lot of other points probably as I have baby brain post pregnancy- I am also not the greatest debater of points as I forget what I wanted to say.

Moondog is far more eloquent than I am and I am sure she will be along shortly

food for thought on the old "I walked into a shop in north wales" chestnut I have that effect on threads sometimes.

Custy is very important though, so that might explain it.

For what its worth the welsh language is growing and why shouldn't it? My dc go to welsh speaking schools and I love to listen to them speak in welsh to each other.

I haven't seen the news programme concerned but I agree that there should have been subtitles but if it is his first language then why shouldn't he use it. Although any fluent welsh speaker i've ever known is considerate to speak english to me as I never learnt welsh at school because my county could never decide if it was welsh or english.

But why are people so against the welsh language? My children have the ability to earn a bigger salary because they speak welsh so can't be a bad thing surely.

We had a great holiday in North Wales 2 years ago (in part due to Moondog's excellent advice on the area).

We were staying in a Welsh speaking area. While we were there I crushed my thumb and needed to go to a small injuries unit. I checked in, and a nurse came out to see me, and asked, I think, in Welsh 'What is the matter'

Since my limited Welsh doesn't stretch to , 'I trapped my thumb in a camp bed', I said, 'Sorry, can't speak welsh' she told me not to worry and sorted me out. It was perfectly natural for her to assume that I was Welsh speaking. we were in a Welsh speaking area.

Another instance. We went to the Slate mine museum (excellent btw). Part of the museum was a demo of how slates are split. the chap in charge was saying 'Hello' to people in English as they entered. I can do the pleasantries in Welsh, and did so. He was chuffed to bits that I had made the effort to say hello to him in his own language. I would have done it in Freanch had I gone to France, so why not in Welsh in Wales?

How many people, I wonder, when going to a Welsh speaking part of Wales, work out how to say, 'Hello', and 'How are you' in Welsh? And what would they do if they went to Spain or France?

MB you've just made me remember a couple of the Most Embarrassing experiences, when people at work said something, perhaps mumbled on the phone or in a busy corridor, and I said "sorry i don't speak Welsh" and they said "er, no I was speaking English ". Turned out they just had a very strong accent and I wasn't tuned in. Was mortifying. I think twice before saying that now!

back in the mists of time I went out with a chap who spoke welsh, and most of his mates were also Welsh speaking. One boy, who had recently moved to South Wales from the north spoke English in uch a stronly accented way that I couldn't understand him. So he would speak in welsh, and boyfriend would translate for me.

One of the things that I regret is that we never got a posting to Valley in Anglesea. Dh was due to go, but at the last minute it all fell through. If we had gone I would have learned to speak welsh. Not many Welsh speakers where I am now But amusingly ds's Karate teacher speaks welsh as a first language, and all his Karate instructions to ds are overlayed with a strong Mid Wales accent!

At least the Welsh governmanet/parliament whatever it's called get people speaking the laguage. The Scots don't encourage people to speak Gealic - or at least not nayone south of Ullapool. having said that Gaelic TV is crap, but Padraig Post used to be a laugh. When we lived in Lossiemouth the Gaelic local news used to be on, and one of teh funniest things I ever saw was the news reporter interviewing someone who only spoke English, and they dubbed him in gealic.

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There is one, somewhere in England! Never been tho.

The slate meuseum was amazing. I got some nice bookmarks that explain how salte is make. One side English, the other side Welsh.

If a child has a detention with me, they had to copy out the English side, and if they back chatted me , they got to do the welsh side too! [Evil bitch emoticon]

Did you know that every slate tile in the UK was cut by hand? Amazing skill. And they were docked 15% of their wages to cover the cost of brakages after the slates had left the quarry!

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Well I'd want you!

We don't get much demand for cover teachers, most of our cover is done by 5 permanent cover supervisors. Long term sickness or maternity leave is done by cover teachers, but that is the minority tbh, and most of it is done by recently retired ex members of staff.

the Welsh thing was great because I was bomb proof over it. It was about science so relevant, and we are a language collage

Word got round. the Welsh side was only used one!

Some of the comments on here have been unbelieveable. Some posters seem to be just writing the first thing that comes into their heads without even reading responses to previous posts. I'm sure that pubs do go quiet when you walk into them if it is a small village that you don't live in. This has happened to me in Wales, England, and most other countries I have been to - it's what happens in small communitites when a non-local person comes in. You shouldn't take such things personally. As for people switching to Welsh - do you really think that some people would speak English all of the time and then turn to Welsh when a non-Welsh speaker walks into the room!
'The only Welsh persons who have been great have been mumsnetters Moondog' I am sure that Moondog is lovely but how can you make such sweeping generalisations. I think that this comment says a lot about your attitude to the Welsh. You would not get away with saying that about someone of a different nationality, but Welsh bashing still seems to be acceptable.

Like I said in my last post I can go about my day speaking Welsh a lot of the time, but I also have lots of non-Welsh speaking friends (Welsh and non-Welsh) who live and work here without it affecting career prospects. Yes, there are lots of jobs that do now ask for it, but often these jobs need it. I am pregnant and at my booking in appointment the midwife asked if I would profer to be dealt with by a Welsh speaking midwife. In that case I said that I didn't mind as I am just as comfortable speaking in English, but surely it makes sense that this would be available for women who would find this a comfort during their pregnancy?

Did anyone see the news clip of the French Rugby player being interviewed at a press conference during the World Cup (held in France) - I think it is on you tube. He was asked by an English journalist at the end of the press conference "would you be able to answer a question in English" He just said "non", stood up and left the room! I am sure that he could have answered in English if he'd wanted to but he was proving a point, and he did it in quite a funny way, and why not?

As for the media in Wales. S4C is a very successful channel. You would have to speak Welsh to work there as all of the output is in Welsh. At least thet MPs response would not have needed translating for the Welsh language news programme (which is made by BBC Wales).

4+1 My mate is consultant in A and E in Cardigan. He finds being able to use welsh very helpful, as people under stress want to use their first language.

My mother has dementia. She can't speak at all now, but while she was getting worse she lost lots of English, but kept a lot of her Welsh. Thankfully the staff could understand and this was a great comfort to Mum and to me

Grandad (Pembroke farmer) was rasied in Wales until he was about 17, then he left and went into the RAF and lived in Somerset as the only Welsh person in his (what do they call RAf groups? regiment type thing). he remembers being posted in Cardigan bay and going into a Post Office and the locals doing the 'silent for the English' thing- and then replying in fluent Welsh LOL

But the English can be pretty scating about other people too- it's not about Welsh people as a whole, just the few people that every culture has.

I did sit through a lecture once where I was the only English eprson and got slated for what the English ahd done (given my wlesh Granfdad and the fact that the rest of my family were Somerset yokels who never left the farm I don't hold myself personallyr esponsible) but that was just one hour; besides, thsi baby will be Welsh, ds3 doesn't remember England and the boys consider themselves Welsh now.

Oh I would love to elarn Welsh- can't fit it in at the moment, but if were to move to Cardiganshire or Anglesey say, we would make it a priority. Not so much here because of where we are, but definitely something I would like to do.

I spent a lot of my childhood in North Wales where my dad's family come from - around the bottom of the Lleyn peninsula where Welsh has always been the first language (children didn't learn English until they went to school). Never experienced any rudeness even though my immediate family is English-speaking (due to Grandad's experiences as per post below). Apart from my Dad who has a little Welsh.

The first words I learnt to read were 'cattle grid' in Welsh from a road sign. No idea what it is now, haven't been back for years since all the older generation died off. Sadly.

We always said Bore Da and Diolch etc. etc. so I think the poster who mentioned making the effort to say hello as you would in France is correct.

The wel;sh lamguage is not dying..but there is little welsh spoken where I live..I put this down to the fact that I live 10 miles from the cheshire border and just about everyother person where I live actually comes from the wirral or Liverpool..this is because, the area that I live, didnt exist as villages until the 1960s, it was originally an area that was coal mined, then a whole new community was built in the late 60's early 70's, hence most people that then settled here, moved in from surrounding wirral etc..I feel sad that at the school I dont hear any welsh accents and although they do have to teach welsh in the schools..none of the children locally can speak it because they dont hear it outside the home.
yet, it seems to be confined to this small area, because if you a few miles over and head towards ruthin, people speak welsh. when the eisteddfod was held in Mold last year, I was contacted by a pr agency to provide the face painting on the welsh assembley govt stand, when i said i could speak welsh, they were chuffed and said they had an almighty problem finding welsh speakers in our area and it was something they had not encountered before.