Metropol

cdd wrote:In that case, alexia, how come the English text appears above the Welsh text?

Well now this depends upon where in Wales the signs are. Swansea has a modest number of Welsh speakers, but not a majority of the county borough are first-language Welsh. Signs in Carmarthenshire and anywhere west of Llandudno have signs in the Welsh first. Mind you, it is as equally illegal to have Welsh-only signs as it is to have English-only.

Mr Q wrote:Yet if I were forced at the drop of hat to converse in German, to understand signs in German, to go about my day-to-day life using German, I would struggle (at least at first). But then I didn't learn German when I was very young. I wasn't exposed to it at all until school. Indeed, my exposure to it has pretty much only been in a classroom environment, apart from three weeks travelling through Germany a couple of years ago.

By contrast, I suspect - although I admit that I have no first hand knowledge of this - that most Welsh children grow up with quite extensive exposure to English from a very young age. Even if they have a preference for Welsh, I don't imagine Welsh-speakers would face any great difficulty if they had to read and understand something in English. My impression is that they are fully bilingual, and so even where English is the second language, their comprehension of it is not substantially lower than with Welsh. So I question whether it is strictly true that English doesn't come "naturally" to them.

The difference between the Welsh example and your example with German is of course that Welsh is indigenous to Wales, and English is not indigenous to Germany. I am by no means a Welshyshouter, however surely the right of Welsh people to live their lives in Welsh in Wales stands to reason?

And there are many people where I came from whose English skills are pitiful; some in my old town did not pass their GCSE with any grade. That is regrettable I agree, but not inexcusable, as there is afforded to them another means to exist and converse in their own country. A lot of Welshyshouters also refuse to use English at all.

My own opinion is that I don't find signs the problem, I find the paint on the roads the problem -- it's hard enough to read as it is, without e.g.

S+E C'FF
CITY CTR
DE+DN
C'YDD
CANOL
Y
DDINAS

TVDragon wrote:The difference between the Welsh example and your example with German is of course that Welsh is indigenous to Wales, and English is not indigenous to Germany. I am by no means a Welshyshouter, however surely the right of Welsh people to live their lives in Welsh in Wales stands to reason?

To what end though? Because my sense is that it would be very hard for a Welsh-speaker to avoid English entirely. The media they consume, for instance, would tend to be predominantly English I would have thought. I mean, if you really wanted to, I guess you could cut yourself off from the English speaking world, but I would have thought even for the most diehard 'Welshyshouter' that would be impractical. So I don't accept there is a fundamental 'right', as such, for them to live their lives in Welsh. They have the freedom to make a choice, yes, but that choice is subject to the constraints imposed by the real world - chiefly, that the English language actually exists and is more widely used.

Mr Q wrote:To what end though? Because my sense is that it would be very hard for a Welsh-speaker to avoid English entirely. The media they consume, for instance, would tend to be predominantly English I would have thought. I mean, if you really wanted to, I guess you could cut yourself off from the English speaking world, but I would have thought even for the most diehard 'Welshyshouter' that would be impractical. So I don't accept there is a fundamental 'right', as such, for them to live their lives in Welsh. They have the freedom to make a choice, yes, but that choice is subject to the constraints imposed by the real world - chiefly, that the English language actually exists and is more widely used.

From a majority point of view, you are of course making reasonable points. However, as the political histories of Scotland, Ireland and Wales show [and I daresay in other regions], oppression and dominence incite minority populations into action to protect their own means of existence. Practically, this has caused government, media and the public sector to accommodate, and budget for, a bilingual Wales -- which in truth has really only been fully functioning for no more than twenty or thirty years.

Whether it wins elections, or simply provides jobs, the economic arguments seems to be persuasive enough for justifying tax payers' money to be used for it.

I still need to know what kind of creature this araf is, who we keep getting warned about. And why is he so terribly slow?

People actually speak Welsh, so I have no trouble with it being in Welsh.

However its the attempts to "save" scots gaelic like BBC Alba that annoy me. Nobody actually speaks the thing and in Dundee (which is fairly northern) its mainly referred to by people laughing at Postman Pat being in gaelic when they were young. Those who can speak bits are usually constrained to the lyrics of dotaman before it descends into how they thing he was a creepy old man.

http://gizmodo.com/5073534/road-sign-tr ... han-humans

We've made gizmodo!

No we didn't, somebody else made Gizmodo.

And anyway, that image and story was from the BBC, as it says on the page you linked to.

Oh does Wales still exist?

I was hoping it had been nuked by now for it being a pit of misery, having a severe opportunity deficit and a deep-rooted and subversive hatred of England.

Jamez wrote:Oh does Wales still exist?

I was hoping it had been nuked by now for it being a pit of misery, having a severe opportunity deficit and a deep-rooted and subversive hatred of England.

Ashamed of your roots much?

Gavin Scott wrote:

Jamez wrote:Oh does Wales still exist?

I was hoping it had been nuked by now for it being a pit of misery, having a severe opportunity deficit and a deep-rooted and subversive hatred of England.

Ashamed of your roots much?

No, not particularly. The place just depresses me.

Jamez wrote:No, not particularly. The place just depresses me.

My mistake. The "hoping it had been nuked" must have thrown me.