Talk:Welsh language/Archive 4

Criticism of Welsh

I've added a section on the criticism of Welsh. I think there's a strong case to be made against the widespread revival of this language, and I don't see it represented anywhere here. === Jez === 11:58, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not the place to put forward your personal opinions or start such a campaign/argument. siarach 12:09, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

This is NOT a 'blatant POV', it reads as an objective statement of some people's beliefs. How come it's OK to bang on about how Rhodri Morgan says how wonderful and beneficial Welsh is, but not present the other side of the argument?? === Jez === 12:25, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

If Rhodri Morgan can be quoted as saying something then that quote can go on his page (or this one or whatever other article the quote is relevant to). This does not mean that you can put up your personal beliefs on a topic that happens to irritate you. siarach 12:27, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

"Wikipedia is not ... Propaganda, advocacy, or recruitment of any kind, commercial, political, religious, or otherwise. Of course, an article can report objectively about such things". How is a criticism section not doing that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jez9999 (talk • contribs)

"Some people believe" is WP:WEASEL. The whole thing is uncited. Find us some people who believe these things, or news reports about people who believe these things, add in some links, and you might have a good section for a serious encyclopedia. Otherwise Wikipedia becomes a primary source for your political opinions. The Wednesday Island 14:31, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. The main problem with the added section is that reads entirely as original research, which is not permitted. It would be perfectly valid to have a section that cites some representative individuals on this. I would add that "Criticism of Welsh" is a very poor title for the section. The name conjures up bizarre images of people arguing against languages with mutations or inflected prepositions. It's the modern promotion of Welsh (I think "revival" is a somewhat misleading term) that is criticised by these "some people", not the language itself. Maybe a section entitled "Modern promotion of Welsh" would be a constructive approach. It would discuss the basis and progress of its promotion (socially and legally and so on) as well as criticism of such measures. All, I stress most strongly, must have good citations. garik

This article, including the reader comments at the bottom has some discussion on the subject. Can we consider resurrecting some of this section under a new heading, with this as reference? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7060486.stm --GaneshSittampalam 17:02, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I managed to miss the programme itself, but the article (and an item on the Today Programme on Radio 4 was totally sensationalist and) was just a platform for people with a grudge against the language. None of them cited any examples where this has happened that can be substantiated. I was quite dissapointed by the quality of the (radio) programme, as were others. Of course, there are many people in Wales (and beyond) who share Jez's view about the value of different languages, I supposed it should be included somehow in the article to provide balance, maybe in a similar way as this section about attitudes towards homosexuality?.--Rhyswynne 20:46, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I didn't catch the programme either, but many of the comments in the article refer to facts that are indisputable - e.g. many public service jobs are restricted to Welsh speakers, and extra money is spent by public bodies on producing bilingual material. Perhaps there should be a section on politics of the Welsh language where all sides can be represented, rather than labelling the opposition as "prejudice" (which is what you seem to be suggesting with the homosexuality analogy). --GaneshSittampalam 21:08, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I was a litte out of order there with that analogy - althouth there are people in Wales with deep prejeduce towards the lanuage. I could re write that paragraph and substitute a few words:

In Wales, Welsh speakers are frequently subject to prejudice and discrimination. Like many other minority groups that are the objects of prejudice, they are also subject to stereotyping. Welsh speakers are seen as seen as elitist and nepostistic. They are stereotyped as being lazy and deceitful, incapable of developing a career which doesn't require Welsh speaking abilty, despite research to the contrary. Welsh speakers are also often alleged as having racist and nationalist tendencies and more likely to discriminate against English people and non-welsh speakers compared to the rest of the Welsh population.

You may think I'm trying to be funny, but the above is how I feel Welsh speakers are portrayed in the media, and the programme mentioned is a case in point.

There's no denying that money is spent on the language, but some treat money spent on Welsh medium education differently to money spent on teaching through the medium of English.

There are posts in the public sector which does specify Welsh as desirable or essential, but I would argue that very few are. I went to a seminar today which said that 10% of the Welsh population are employed by the public sector. That amounts to 300,000 people/posts. Every week around 5-6 job vacant posts state that Welsh is desirable. In a whole year that's 500-odd (even though some are re-advertised) - that's a minute fraction of the total. Yes resentment exists, but it's cause is often unfounded. --Rhyswynne 16:51, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, the article needs to stick to properly referenced facts. Here's another BBC URL with a few "anti" comments (and many more "pro" ones): http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/southeast/yoursay/topics/language.shtml

For what it's worth your calculation is incorrect (whether or not the numbers you quote are correct) as only a fraction of those 300,000 posts will be advertised in any given year. --GaneshSittampalam 21:33, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I did hear the Analysis programme. It began with a question about public funding of the language, and then moved onto questions of language and identity and got really interesting. Lots of different interviews, a number of reasonable points. From what I gather, the Today programme must have jumped onto one particular aspect of the Analysis programme and run with it. But back to the Wikipedia article. The comments at the bottom of the BBC pages are not terribly useful as sources: they're a self-selected sample (people who can be bothered enough to write in) which are then selected further (the BBC picks the comments it wants to publish). If we want good figures, we're going to find them in real proper journals, I would think. WP:RS, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Examples and all that. Telsa (talk) 08:51, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the BBC selected the posts in the first URL, apart from removing ones that break their "house rules"; although the clearly did in the second. In any case I accept that they don't satisfy the "Reliable sources" criteria as stated, though I would argue that they do provide good evidence of people's opinions (as opposed to factual information). How does one normally find references to summarise political debates? Picking a somewhat related example, the references in West Lothian question would seem to suggest that news or comment items in the media are acceptable, and the first URL above (ignoring the reader comments) is certainly that. Obviously we'd have to look elsewhere for reliable statistics. --GaneshSittampalam 09:54, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of sources I'm with Jez, their are people (like myself) that don't approve of the reintroduction of anachronisms (Breton language for example). Contrary to the opinion of some you don't have to speak Welsh language to be a Welsh person. Interestingly the WLB website addresses dissenting voices by calling them "myths" (nice put down) but fails to provide any answer to the dissenter. One is "Who's going to pay for bilingualism?", the response, "Bilingualism does not cost twice as much as monolingualism." - translation costs alone would exceed complete publication costs of most publications, that's not accounting for layout alterations and duplication of excess quantities. For very large runs where printing and distribution costs become high then I concede the point. Another "What's the point? "Everyone speaks English anyway………"" and response "This attitude undermines the concept of choice; some Welsh speakers prefer to do things in Welsh, for various reasons." lamest reason ever to spend, or redirect, millions more of public money! Anyway, the point is if the WLB addresses the criticisms then don't you think that those criticisms (and more) might actually exist amongst the populus? Gwyn Jones "Notes on Anglo-Welsh literature" rubs up against some of the points like that the Welsh Welsh (his term) "must accept that they cannot speak for, even to, half their fellow-countrymen; while to the great world outside they may not speak at all", he still sides with paying to avoid language death. I'm not the only one who doesn't. Pbhj (talk) 03:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, whatever our views on the promotion of any language in Wales, this is not the place to discuss them. This is a place to discuss what should be written in the article. I would suggest that the article is rather lacking in a section on the modern promotion of the Welsh language. "Promotion" seems to me to be a neutral term, although perhaps not ideal. "Revival" seems to imply that Welsh died at some point, which is clearly inaccurate. "Revitalisation" is an alternative, but also perhaps not ideal (though I can't put my finger on exactly why I don't like it – I think it just makes me think of energy drinks). Anyway, whatever we call it, this section could discuss what has happened over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to encourage the use of Welsh, as well as discussing the reasons behind that and what objections amnd criticisms have been made. Calling the section "Criticism of Welsh" just sounds silly. It's not about criticising the language (which conjures up images of people moaning about putting adjectives after nouns); it's about criticising its promotion in modern Wales. And it strikes me that that should be put in the context of a section on its promotion in general. What do you all think? Whatever we decide to do, can we please stop using this page as a forum for putting forward arguments for and against promoting the Welsh language? This is not the place. garik (talk) 15:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Number of speakers in England (again)

S4C seems to think the number has gone up, which is hardly surprising since our current figure is from 1993. The Guardian is reporting "S4C, which is available in Wales on Freeview, cable and Sky, is aiming to target the estimated 160,000 Welsh speakers living in the rest of the UK through free-to-air channel 134 on Sky Digital." I can't find where the Guardian got this figure, though: could be their estimates, an S4C survey, S4C taking the 1993 figure and thinking "well, it must be up from then.." or what. Telsa (talk) 08:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Can't find original sources, but ....

This BBC website [1] says "S4C, the Welsh television channel, suggest that there are more than 200,000 Welsh speakers in England."

This website [2] says "and 450,000 (from a media survey) Welsh speakers in England."

This excerpt from Hansard [3] has someone saying "I should like to draw attention to the fact that in survey work there are 450,000 Welsh speakers in England alone and 500,000 in Wales." Hogyn Lleol 10:33, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

How many people speak Welsh in the marches, e.g. around Oswestry etc? --MacRusgail 18:22, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there has been any collection of the data in the Marches or throughout England, so the figures are just guesses. I think it's a fact that there's more or less the same amount of Welsh born people living in England as there are English born living in Wales, which is around 600,000. My 'beer mat maths' goes something like this:

• If say 20% of the current population of Wales speak Welsh (regardless of where they're born), I'd say that the percentage among just those born in Wales would be higher (I've seen a figure that say's only 7% of those born outside Wales who live in Wales can speak Welsh). Let's say this is 25%.
• Welsh speakers are more likely to attend university (see chart at bottom of this article) and therefore more likely to have attended an uni in England and possibly stay to live and work after graduating
• So, pure guess work here again, but lets say 25-30% of those 600,000 Welsh people who live in Enlgand speak Welsh and you get a figure of between 125,000 and 180,000.
• Conclusion - they should ask the question on the census throughout the UK and not just in Wales!--Rhyswynne 10:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you'll find that your referring to "Welsh people who live in England who can speak Welsh", they don't actually use it. You'll probably find there are many more Urdu/Hindi speakers in the UK and do you know what, Urdu is a minority official language of Pakistan where Punjabi dominates as the first language but the first language amongst the young ... English (oh and I bet you thought I was going to say Welsh at the end there!). In 2000 in London the home language for 40,000 kids was Bengali so a quick guess is at least 120,000 daily Bengali speakers in London alone! Indeed their is a move to add a question to the census form about language use. It certainly will be interesting to see the census results on ethnic identity when they come. Pbhj (talk) 03:12, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Welsh pound coins

I know what this article is getting at, but technically all pound coins are Welsh (they're minted in Llantrisant), and it's just that every four (or is it five) years they carry the Pleidiol Wyf I'm Gwlad motto. 82.36.26.70 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 17:18, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

safasai

Safasai is the pluperfect of sefyll, not the imperfect subjunctive. Here's another source in addition to the one I listed. David A. Thorne's A Comprehensive Welsh Grammar (Blackwell 1993) and J. Morris Jones A Welsh Grammar (Oxford 1913) also confirm that forms in -asai are pluperfects. This refers, of course, only to the literary language, which is how it's used in the article. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 11:05, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Welsh language newspapers

I'm sure that the infomation about welsh language newspapers is not quite correct. I seem to remember that there is a news paper published in Dolgellau called "y Dydd". To be honest I'm not sure if it is still published but I can remember it from spending my childhood and only moved away from the area a few years ago. I have tried to look "y Dydd" up on the web but have only found out of date links and pages. As for what Jez says bellow I feel quite insulted. I am proud of my home language and although I use it very little now as I live in England it's something that is important to me and to my heritage and the heritage of my fellow country men and women. Saying that I also accept that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and it is only through accepting that we all have our own opinions that we can learn the experiences of others.[Paul Gruffudd] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.96.40.99 (talk) 23:34, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Cumbric, Cumbria, Cymry

On the Cumbria page, it says "Saint Ninian, born about 360 AD, was almost certainly of Cumbrian origin and has strong associations with Ninekirks near Penrith. Not only did Ninian give his name to the place, he is believed to have had a hermitage in the caves of Isis Parlis overlooking the present church, which was originally dedicated to him. Earthworks in the area also give tantalising clues to an early monastery here. Ninian is often credited with the conversion of the Cymry to Christianity, despite its original introduction to the area by Romans." I assume that when it says "Cymry", the article is referring to speakers of the Cumbric language but if you search Wikipedia for Cymry it goes to the Welsh people page. Does anyone think it would be a good idea to disambiguate Cymry? The reasons that I haven't simply gone ahead and done it are (a) I don't know anything at all about the subject and (b) I'm aware that it could possibly be politically sensitive. (Northernhenge (talk) 13:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC))

'Cymru' is the Welsh name for 'Wales' (the country), while 'Cymry' or 'Y Cymry' is the people of Wales/Welsh people. It would make more sense to use 'the Welsh' in an article on the English language Wikipedia anyway I would say, and also was there such a thing as Wales at the time?--Rhyswynne (talk) 16:45, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

"was there such a thing as Wales at the time" if you mean in 360, no. Wales was created by Gwynedd under the watch of the Crown (English monarch) expanding lands, they then tried to take Powys and Deheubarth and shake of the homage to the King, so the King invaded to return the King of Gwynedd, Prince of Wales and his land to be rightly annexed to England and reinstate English rule (hegemony really). This is all around 1200-1300AD. The English Crown then created Wales as an administrative region out of the march lands and the lands of Gwynedd. Wales nearly became a nation with the uprising of Owain Glyndwr, but not quite (some forget that last bit!). But that's all for a different article! Pbhj (talk) 01:17, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Pop Culture usage

I've added a brief section mentioning the use of Welsh in the online game RuneScape. If anyone would like to elaborate on their integration of the language into the elfin area, please feel free to! Dirt Tyrant (talk) 02:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Percentage of Welsh Speakers

Those figures in the first para seem pretty dubious to me. I've looked at Welsh Language Board website for details from the 2001 census but they don't provide any textual results of overall percentages. They hide the figures in JPEG images and only provide a complete summary as either a MS Word or MS Excel file ... helpful - you can see they're all about diversification and access and not at all sold out to Microsoft!! Anyhow, the figures from 24 Sep 2003: 2001 Census - Main Statistics about Welsh on the Welsh Language Board website are as follows:

CENSUS 2001: MAIN STATISTICS ABOUT WELSH Speakers Of all aged 3 and over: • 582,400 (20.8%) said they were able to speak Welsh. • This compares with 508,100 (18.7%) who in 1991 said they spoke Welsh, and 503,500 (19.0%) in 1981 .

So there you go ... how do more than 60% of welsh people use welsh daily when only 20% can speak the language ...that there's called a whitewash. Incidentally if you look at the age distribution then that figure would be somewhere less than 5% without the huge financial support given to this anachronistic language. Cut out the enforced Welsh language for schoolchildren and then consider if it's worth spending the millions of pounds on? Why not support Mandarin or Urdu (both spoken far more here in Newport) and give Wales a future? Pbhj (talk) 02:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

• The first paragraph does not say that "more than 60% of welsh people use welsh daily". The percentage given is based on speakers of the Welsh language - not of Welsh people. I quote: "Of the 611,000 Welsh speakers in Wales, 62% claim to use Welsh daily, and 88% of those fluent in the language use it daily." As for the rest of your comment, you're entitled to your opinion. Cheers, Rob Lindsey (talk) 01:16, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
• So as the case at point is people in Wales speaking welsh wouldn't it be better to say about 13% (62% of 21.5%) of the population claim to speak Welsh daily (again, remember that all schoolchildren above 5 are required to speak welsh daily). That seems a far more pertinent statistic. I'll alter this unless convinced otherwise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pbhj (talk • contribs) 02:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I think they're both enlightening figures to include, particularly because the 62% figure attests to the strength (or weakness! - depends on your POV) of the use of Welsh as a community language. But I for one have no problem with Pbhj's figure. Not sure if it needs extra verification, because the 62% figure for daily Welsh-speakers seems to imply about 13% across the population. Thoughts, anyone? Rob Lindsey (talk) 06:25, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Having closely looked at the figures as given in the main article, they seem reasonably clear. But yes, it is equally interesting that this gives us an overall of 13%. However, don't let's get misled by this children thing - I don't know what the requirements are, but it is certainly not the case that all schoolchildren over 5 speak Welsh daily in school. Hogyn Lleol (talk) 08:25, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

It's called Welsh Curriculum (but in Welsh) and is part of the national curriculum here. Incidental Welsh must be used by teachers to converse with students and they are expected to answer in turn. Will dig out a cite if I remember. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pbhj (talk • contribs) 18:15, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Status of Welsh

"Welsh has enjoyed a strong revival in recent years and has an equal status with English in the public sector in Wales"

• Hmm. Via the Welsh Language Act all public sector publications and most communications are required to be available in Welsh. I don't think that gives them equal status though. To say "equal status" suggests equal usage and preference. Whilst 20% of the population can speak Welsh I think the percentage choosing to speak Welsh in preference to another language is far lower. And the percentage reading Welsh for government publications must be still lower. It is true however that certain localities have over 75% welsh speakers (ie able to speak welsh). Interestingly "2,007,984 (71.6%) had no knowledge of Welsh." [from 2003 report on2001 Census, the most recent stats on the WLB website] is telling considering we've had fully financed government support for 15 years. Some would like to go further and for example allow people never to have to speak any other language (nor I'm guessing have opportunity to) ... are their any other "countries" in which the government promotes a minority language that brings division and separation, over the majority language that brings unity of communication locally and globally? Pbhj (talk) 02:53, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

• • "their [actually spelt "there" old chap] any other "countries" in which the government promotes a minority language that brings division and separation" - I suppose you think your own borderline racist views are not likely to bring "division and separation"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.159.183 (talk) 16:05, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

• • • not withstanding the following comment, I have always had problems with their, they're and there - English grammar too; my early language schooling was not so hot and bad habits are hard to quash - lack of English grammar gave me problems learning Russian, but I get by. I'm also have a tendency towards verbosity, excesssive use of punctation, run-on sentences. As for being racist my father and son are both born in Wales (the Welsh not being a racial group as far as I know); I live there too. If it helps my view on minority languages extends to all such instances I'd rather Urdu than Sindhi, French than Breton and by extension English than Welsh. The idea behind Esperanto was great IMHO as if we can communicate we can share our experiences and work together more easily. I'm not for homogeneity, but nor for nationalistic divisiveness in linguistic policy either. Sorry The Wednesday Island but I couldn't refuse the chance to respond to an ad-hominem attack. Having re-read my post a couple of times I can't see how it's not relevant, nor where it's "racist". I think the Welsh people are being conned into thinking that you have to speak welsh in order to be properly Welsh, and that just isn't true. Pbhj (talk) 00:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Might I remind (either or both of) you that this is not a place for discussing the status of Welsh in Wales except insofar as it helps improve the article? The Wednesday Island (talk) 16:30, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Tolkien and Welsh

The "Welsh in popular culture" section could have a reference to Tolkien, who modelled the Sindarin language on Welsh. FilipeS (talk) 22:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh no, has the popular culture section crept back in? I would prefer to see it removed entirely. Last time it ended up as a list of times Welsh was used in Doctor Who. (See archives: Talk:Welsh_language/Archive_3#Welsh_in_popular_culture.3F All "in popular culture" sections are trivia magnets and are largely populated by Star Trek and South Park fans. But popular culture sections in language articles also suggest by default that "popular culture" is English. Do we have a French in popular culture? Chinese in popular culture? Spanish in popular culture? No. So why should there be a Welsh in popular culture? Telsa (talk) 16:20, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Not every Wikipedia article on topic X requires an "X in popular culture" section. (I was pleasantly surprised when Irish phonology passed FAC despite not having an "Irish phonology in popular culture" section.) —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 16:34, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Welsh Road Signs: English Destinations

The previous article version stated that English destinations are still given as English names only, and cited the distance signs for Chester eastbound on the A55 as an example. This is no longer true, and there are now roadsigns along the A55 that refer to Chester as: 'Chester/Caer', Caer being the Welsh name. In anycase, the previous statement was misleading - it is not a strict policy of roadsigns that English destinations be given in English only, just a quirk. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.10.216.79 (talk) 23:39, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, that's interesting. Can you find a photograph, perhaps? It might be worth putting one into the article. The Wednesday Island (talk) 01:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it was policy, but there are many policies: signs on Highways Agency roads used to be like that, and signs on Local Authority roads were on locally determined policies, which is why sometimes they're Welsh-first, and sometimes they're Welsh-second, and sometimes they're neither (especially where contractors did their own thing...). I'd be insterested to know whether there's a change in the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges: the A55 would be HA (unless it's been devolved without anybody noticing). Dan Dean (talk) 00:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Vocabulary section

Is this a Trivia section? Why is there a section consisting largely of a list of spelling coincidences, why does it contain only coincidences with English? (And why are there mutated words in the list... oh, to make for more coincidences, of course. Perhaps it should contain "a" as well, then.) Is this article meant to be exhibiting the Colonial Cringe? Dan Dean (talk) 00:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. A comparison between Welsh and a more closely related language would be more meaningful, but is better dealt with in the History article. As it is, I think this section should be deleted in its entirety. Any objectors?Geneth (talk) 14:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm a newcomer to this page, but that section leapt out at me as redundant and unhelpful. I'd suggest removing it. AlexTiefling (talk) 11:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Although I did not start it, I thought it was an interesting section for Welsh learners. The comparison is with English because this is the English-language Wikipedia, obviously. FilipeS (talk) 14:55, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I have to say I don't think it's helpful either. When you have languages with upwards of 100,000 words using the same alphabet you're bound to get some identical strings of letters between them. Strad (talk) 23:55, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I've removed it. —Angr 04:06, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The Breton language page has a good comparison with Welsh. Pbhj (talk) 03:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)