Ellie Mae O’Hagan jumps the
shark leek:
It’s time to end the English domination of Wales and Scotland, regardless of outcome of the referendum in September.
Oh, really? How?
To do this, I propose schoolchildren take part in compulsory lessons in Welsh and Scottish studies, during which they at least learn how to speak basic Welsh. I don’t see why not: Welsh is an official British language, the oldest language in Europe and the most common in Britain after English.
Ahahahahahahahaha! Gosh, is it April 1st already?
15 comments:
Shit, I'm from Tipton, I can barely speak English , at least of the received variety.
As world power is moving eastwards, away from most english-speaking countries, perhaps it might be more sensible to offer some important languages in schools, like russian, chinese or hindi. But compulsory lessons in welsh or any other minority-interest (french?) is a typically loony Guardian suggestion. Do they put something in their (fairtrade & organic) coffee?
I'm guessing the idiot that wrote this is -- er --Welsh?
Yes it is a ludicrous proposal - Welsh is a dead language...
http://dioclese.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/welsh-is-dead-language.html
One of my more popular posts as it happens, boyo. There's luvly!
And there I was thinking Punjabi was the second commonest language in Britain. In anticipation of the coming caliphate shouldn't we learn that?
I think that it is surely Basque that is the oldest European language precisely because it is not an Indo European language.
Great idea.
Have Welsh as your mother tongue and make yourself unemployable anywhere beyond a forty-five mile radius of Camarthen.
"Welsh evolved from Brittonic (meaning indigenous Breton, as opposed to Anglo-Saxon),"
So this writer with an Irish surname doesn't thing of Anglo-Saxon as indigenous.
But just how indigenous is Welsh?
After all the Beaker People were here before the Welsh ethnically cleansed them and their language.
Punjabi is not the second commonest language according to the 2011 census, Polish is just ahead of Welsh. In fact Polish is the main language of twice as many people as Punjabi. If we spoke of fluency rather than the main language Punjabi might well leapfrog Welsh as well.
Insistence on the Welsh language is sometimes just ludicrous - I was in Chepstow the other day and noticed that even the words "London" and "Bristol" on the road signs are translated into Welsh. Who pays for all this ?
"Who pays for all this?" The answer is that you - the English taxpayer - pay for it. If you check the comments on the post of mine I referred to above there is a lot of discussion around this point. It's called the Welsh Grant.
The main course of my argument is that if the Welsh want to p*ss their own money up the wall on stupid welsh language signs then that's fine but I object to them p*ssing my money up the wall to pay for it.
Did you know that they employ interpreters in the Welsh assembly to translate what the Assembly Members say in English into Welsh? This is despite the fact that every single member in that assembly speaks English. Ludicrous waste of our money!
"I'm guessing the idiot that wrote this is -- er --Welsh?"
No, with a name like O'Hagan, the originator of this idea is Irish. Race of troublemakers the whole bloody lot.
I have some sympathy with this. A country that loses its language loses part of its soul.
Look at Ireland - a country that nowadays speaks almost exclusively the language of its conqueror.
No Dioclese, Welsh is not a dead language and it is the oldest written language in Europe( after Latin). Having said that, only 19% of the Welsh population can speak it, but when you get outside the major population centres of Cardiff, Newport, Swansea and the Valleys, to the West, Mid and North, it is the language of everyday life.
But notice the "Scottish studies" bit. The Scots are even more divided than the Welsh, and what Hebredeans speak and call Gaelic is closer to Norse.
This silly woman doesn't know her Bryionic ABC.
Besides, as Welsh was written down so early (5th/6th century) it didn't get the rough edges knocked off of it, so it is fiendishly difficult to learn, and imported at least half its vocabulary from languages that came after it. Casnewedd is Welsh for Newport. The Cas comes from Latin for port, the newedd is new obviously.
I am Welsh, and was taught the language until the age of 15, but even as a child walking down town with my fluent Welsh speaking grandfather, not knowing a word of Welsh, I could understand most of conversations he was having with his cronies as half the words were English... TV, Radio, Sunday Night at the London Palladium etc ;-)
"Shit, I'm from Tipton, I can barely speak English.."
:D
"...perhaps it might be more sensible to offer some important languages in schools, like russian, chinese or hindi."
Quite!
"I think that it is surely Basque that is the oldest European language..."
Hmmm, I suspect you might be right.
Of course, there's only one way to find out... ;)
"The answer is that you - the English taxpayer - pay for it."
Ain't that the truth... :/
"...but when you get outside the major population centres of Cardiff, Newport, Swansea and the Valleys, to the West, Mid and North, it is the language of everyday life."
But...why would you want to..? ;)
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