The Welsh language is under more threat than ever
Once-thriving Welsh-speaking communities continue to die out as local people seek work and affordable housing elsewhere
STATISTICS can be selectively chosen to make any kind of point. Take the Welsh language, for example. The 2001 census showed that the number of people who speak Welsh had risen significantly, and that trend will no doubt continue in the statistics of the next census as well.
The demand for Welsh-medium education is higher than it has ever been, even outside the traditional Welsh-speaking areas. Adult Welsh classes are filling up all over Wales, and Welsh is even a language of government these days, enjoying (in theory, at least) equal status with English on the floor of the Senedd Siambr. Surely anyone can see that the Welsh language has been saved? The erosion of the language has been stopped in its tracks, and the position of the language is now stronger than it’s been for many decades. That much is obvious, right?
Well actually, no. That’s only half the story. There are more people who speak Welsh, it’s true, but the survival of Welsh depends on its use as a community language. Most communities where Welsh is the majority language are being diluted by monoglot English-speaking incomers, which threatens the status of Welsh as a community language.
In many of our coastal and rural areas young people often cannot afford to stay in their communities, as they are generally priced out of the housing market and often have poor employment prospects. Their only choice is to leave to find work and affordable housing, and their place is taken by incomers who can afford the houses but don’t speak Welsh. Then the linguistic nature of the community gradually (or not so gradually, in some cases) changes as more and more people there speak only English, and less and less speak Welsh. It doesn’t take long before the linguistic make-up of the community has changed to the extent that the default language of the community is English. When the Welsh language ceases to be the language of the community as most of the people there don’t speak it, it is in danger of dying out. Within a generation it will be effectively dead in that community.
Even worse – many of the houses in the community are not only bought by outsiders, but are just used as holiday homes. There are villages and streets in parts of Wales that are almost empty outside of the tourist season, while locals have been displaced because they can’t afford to live there. How can this be right or fair?
The Welsh language now is under more threat than it has ever been. To many people in Wales, this is unacceptable. So what can be done to arrest the decline?
The Government should put tighter restrictions on the housing market, to take both language and local economic issues into account. The emphasis in new development should be on building affordable houses for local people, rather than the current practice of building a token percentage of affordable housing as part of larger developments aimed primarily at wealthy incomers. Local authorities should also be able to place restrictions on the number of people from outside the area who are allowed to move in and buy houses, to give the advantage back to local people. This policy would help rural communities in both Welsh and English-speaking areas, so it’s not something that would need to be introduced purely on linguistic grounds.
Tied in with this would come the necessary powers to enforce this policy with estate agents who would otherwise seek the largest profit over the good of the communities in which their housing stock is situated.
In considering any planning applications in rural Wales, particularly in tourist areas, it should be a requirement that planning authorities must consider the impact of any mooted housing development on the linguistic make-up of the community. Again, emphasis should be on local homes for local people, and taxes on second homes should be much higher than on main residences, to discourage people from buying holiday homes.
The right to buy council houses should be abolished, to avoid further erosion of the social housing stock available in Wales. More properties should be made available for young families to rent in their local area. Money should be invested in the building of new housing stock specifically for local people to rent.
Job creation should, of course, be a priority. This means encouragement for new companies and industries (or new branches of already existing ones) to locate in areas of Wales outside the M4 and A55 corridors. People will only stay in their communities if there are sufficient employment opportunities within easy reach of those communities. In order to make more of Wales accessible and therefore more able to attract and sustain businesses, better north-south transport links would be required. This would ideally include a direct rail route and improved road links.
In short, the needs of Welsh communities and the people living in them should take preferences over those of holiday home buyers and other incomers.
Of course, there are those who would see all this as unnecessary. Some of them would claim to be in favour of saving the Welsh language (though many would not even go that far) but not at the expense of changes in the housing market. What we need to consider is this: once the Welsh language is gone, it will be gone forever. Once Welsh-speaking communities are eroded away to the point of nothingness, we cannot bring them back. If Welsh is to survive as anything other than an academic interest or a part-time hobby for learners, radical action is needed now to preserve its status in those communities in which it is still (for now) the majority language. Otherwise we will have lost one of our greatest treasures for all time, and it will be nobody’s fault but our own.
- For more information, visit Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg.
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I don’t see this as much different from the BNP position in principle. Discrimination on the grounds of language or origin is no different than race, gender, sex. Existing laws should cover incitement to linguistic hatred?
Employment and social aims are laudable, but not at the expense of freedom to live where you want.
Lived in Wales for all my adult, non university life, learning Welsh, take an active family part in a very rural community. This type of rhetoric damages a case, which I support, for promoting the language.
Every word of this article is true. The Welsh language is declining, that’s a fact that anyone from or living in a Welsh-speaking community can attest to. Radical action must be taken or the language will be gone forever, and thinking otherwise is simply deluded, I’m afraid.
You seem to be trying to protect Welsh as some sort of museum piece.
The Welsh language will survive because it is relevant to future generations not because we erect notional language bars. If we did this where would it end, a ban on Welsh speakers marrying “outsiders”?
After reading Barry Taylor, I am not certain whether “the Welsh language” or those that fail to use it are under the greatest threat.
The suggestion that …
“Local authorities should also be able to place restrictions on the number of people from outside the area who are allowed to move in and buy houses, to give the advantage back to local people”
…, left me cold, it smacks of totalitarianism.
Sorry Mr Taylor: I prefer the freedoms found within our democracy. No language is worth the political oppression you offer.
“Local authorities should also be able to place restrictions on the number of people from outside the area who are allowed to move in and buy houses, to give the advantage back to local people.”
I haven’t got a problem with this…except that it’s simply not going to happen, whoever the government is. If you’re effectively saying the language will die unless the impossible happens, well there’s only going to be one outcome. The world is changing and campaigns need to adapt to that, not keep repeating mantras 30 years old. My feeling is that, whilst fighting to maintain local communities in the kind of ways you suggest, to the extent that it’s possible, we now need to find new ways to strengthen and link together the (growing) Welsh speaking community across the nation.
Barry Tyler has a proper concern that should concern everyone who lives in a country with an ancient language that is spoken by a significant minority. If someone proposed the bulldozing of Conway castle because the English built it, nearly everyone in Wales would object vehemently. Even more so for the language. I, for one, would not want to be part of a generation that goes down in history as the cause of the demise of the Welsh language.
Barry’s complaint is a bit like Marx’s analysis of capitalism, accurate, and like Marx’s cure, wrong. If the language is taken out of the argument, the complaint about housing and the effect on society is true for many parts of the UK. People who earn more money, or have more capital buy houses in delightful rural places and change the character of the society. The Channel Islands way of dealing with this is to charge a housing premium to people who weren’t born in the islands. The reason why the Islands can do this is they are legally not in the UK nor a member within the EU and the tax advantages covers the extra cost. This is not the case in Wales and cannot be.
The difficulty of allocating housing on the basis of language is that it is two-edged. Housing is sold on the open market and the owner, when selling the property, is going to sell to the highest bidder. In some small towns and villages in one generation, the balance has gone from being a Welsh language community to being default English. You can almost hear Barry shouting, “Wicked English coming here and taking away our heritage”. I have some sympathy with this because it is as dramatic as the changes in large English towns and cities. However, would Barry like to have a quiet word, in Welsh, saying to the householders who intend selling their home to the highest bidder, “Sell it to a Welsh speaking person at a lower price.”
It is well known that turkeys vote for Christmas.
Surely the fault lies with Welsh speakers not speaking the language socially and not with English speakers “diluting” Welsh speaking communities. More state control smacks of putting the language on a type of “life support system”. Often as not when I was living in Cardiff I would walk past a Welsh medium school where the kids would be playing and speaking English. That is not success. I live in a community where 4 and 5th generation Mennonites still speak German at home, and the same for Hispanics. Both living in a predominantly English speaking environment. The same cannot be said for Welsh immigrants though.
It’s funny isn’t it, when local authorities try to secure housing for local people for their benefit and to maintain local culture and character in places such as Cornwall or Cumbria, that’s good policy – fair enough, but when it’s advocated in Wales it’s totalitarianism!
Here’s a thought. We now live in an era of coalition government. Instead of hunkering down behind our respective barriers and readying the gunpowder, why don’t we all come out into the open and look for compromise? How about looking for merits rather than holes in opposing arguments?
Having looked back through the comments, there seems to be agreement that Barry’s basic argument – that the language in the community is under threat – it’s his solutions that you disagree with. So how about looking from a solution that comprises all the merits of your arguments. This doesn’t have to be a war.
I’m going to ignore my brother’s perfectly reasonable exhortation, and take issue with some of Barry’s prescriptions.
In all discussions about housing in the Fro, I think we need to be very careful to distinguish between second home ownership and permanent settlement. I seem to remember Plaid putting forward a proposal several years ago that would require anyone buying a permanent home for use as a second residence to redesignate it and apply for planning permission as a change of use for that building. This is an entirely sensible move that would allow planning authorities to very closely control the proportion of housing in any area being used as a second dwellings, and thus in turn help to preserve the use of Welsh as a community language.
But that is quite different from the question of so-called “incomers”; i.e English-speaking people (often monoglot Welsh people) who move into a largely Welsh-speaking area. I cannot see how you might seek to control the supply of housing so as to maintain the linguistic status quo without running the very real risk of violating somebody’s human rights. If done directly, this is discrimination on grounds of language.
Barry suggests a much higher proportion of new housing being allocated to social housing, which is fine. But he also suggest that “Local authorities should also be able to place restrictions on the number of people from outside the area who are allowed to move in and buy houses” which may not be, despite being (as Barry notes) linguistically neutral.
Barry also advocates an indirect route, i.e that “planning authorities must consider the impact of any mooted housing development on the linguistic make-up of the community”. I suspect public authorities would need to be extraordinarily careful not to even indirectly deny someone their rights on the basis of their language.
Placing the needs of Welsh communities ahead of incomers is an attractive-sounding objective, until you realise that it is also an attempt to put group rights ahead of individual rights. That is a very major jurisprudential step that could have precedent in many other areas (why, for example, could somebody in another part of the UK claim the same right on grounds of ethnicity?) and one that needs to be considered for all its implications.
Barry,
Instead of advocating the drawbridge, portcullis and moat mentality, why not follow the example of the Dutch. Many if not most people there can switch from Dutch to English, French or German without a moment’s thought indeed many are fluent in all four languages.
As few people outside the Netherlands and South Africa speak any form of Dutch, insteading of retreating, they have embraced Europe and the world and have become expert linguists. They are realists in the 21st century. The Welsh education system could do likewise if it so put its mind to it and ignored politics.
Wales is in deep economic decline, do you really want to put up language barriers in the face of employers that may bring jobs to Wales?
Isn’t it interesting how some people automatically assume that anyone who is pro-Welsh must automatically be anti-English? I have nothing against English people whatsoever, nor do I have an issue with English people (or anyone else) living in Wales – provided, of course, that they integrate with the community to which they move, which includes, if that community happens to be majority Welsh-speaking, learning the language. That criterion isn’t racist; I would apply the same criterion to anyone moving in, be they English, Pakistani, Chinese or anglophone Welsh.
The problem of local people in popular tourist and retirement areas being priced out of the housing market isn’t an exclusively Welsh problem, as J. Morgan noted. I’m simply advocating for Wales what has been advocated for other areas in the UK. As I said, it wouldn’t just benefit the Welsh-speaking communities.
As Duncan noted in his comment, most commenters so far seem to agree with my analysis of the problem while disagreeing with my proposed solution. In that case, what alternative solutions do you propose to arrest the decline of our language?
Adam: I quite agree that we need to make a distinction between second home ownership and permanent settlement. Holiday homes often spell the death (or terminal illness) of a viable community whereas permanent settlement threatens the linguistic nature of the community rather than its existence. That could easily change if more incomers were willing to learn the language (I know a great many already have) but this, of course, cannot be legislated for and the encouragement to integrate with the community would need to come from the community itself. How this could be achieved I don’t know.
To say that a policy privileging a local community, an endangered language or culture is the same as the “BNP position” is stupid and inflammatory, and shows you don’t know much about the BNP. This kind of conflation of minority language rights with majority so-called ethnic rights is one of the reasons words like ‘racism’ have been hollowed out and debased to the extent that we use them to smear Welsh rights groups and devalue their proper usage to point out examples of genuine racism.
I suppose that other measure supported by groups ranging from the UN and UNESCO to local English councils in Cumbria and the Lakes, to protect local cultures and places are also ‘racist’ and BNP-like? Or is t just when the Welsh speaking communities ask for these rights that it becomes racist? I suppose Native American reservations are ‘racist’, or Canadian native homelands are fascistic enclaves, or even perhaps that ecological species conservation is evidence of some kind of atavistic fascism on the part of those of us who believe it’s a good thing? David ‘Hitler’ Attenborough?
No, it doesn’t help to compare what Barry Taylor proposes to BNP policy, not least because it’s policy that Tory, Labour and Lib Dem councils across the UK have called for and in many cases implemented.
(If you want to see some real racism, I recommend you take a look at the anti-Welsh comments on Betsan Powys’s blog and on the Western Mail website, which are often genuinely frightening pieces of incitement and hate. )
Len Gibbs’s objection is far more thought-through, but then he spoils it by asking why Welsh-speakers sell their homes for the maximum price. Typical blame the victim mentality. len, when peopel move house, they tend to move to somewhere else in the same area. In order to buy a house that’s already priced high, you need to sell it for as much as possible. To expect Welsh-speakers to be more virtuous than anyone else, and then slyly blaming them for not being so, is rather cynical.
In the 2 years I’ve lived in Caernarfon, I’ve learned enough Welsh to get by. My question is – and this puts the boot of cultural and linguistic exclusiveness on the other, English-speaking foot – why don’t people who move here bother to learn enough of the language to show respect for their neighbours and their neighbours’ culture? Do they feel superior to it, do they disdain it, is Welsh just too difficult? I think we need to factor into this debate just how much effort Welsh-speaking communities put in to welcoming people in, who often don’t give much back. They routinely change language in pubs, offices, shops and elsewhere, to accommodate the non-Welsh speaker.
As someone wrote in a letter to the Daily Post recently, ‘Isn’t it more “racist” to refuse to learn Welsh when you move here than for the Welsh-speaker to expect you to learn a modicum of his or her language when you do?’ Again, the point is over-stated, but it begs a question.
Frankly, if I was Welsh and lived in a welsh-speaking area, I;d want people who moved here to learn the language, respect my culture, and not sneer at it or retreat behind a wall of indifference or resentment. I’d also be distressed, like English people in Cumbria or Cornwall, to see my villages turned into overpriced second-home ghost towns. I’d want assurances from politicians and government that they would do what they could in terms of encouragement, incentivisation and legal protection to maintain my community. None of this would make me racist or totalitarian, but I’d like to see Clive and John Tyler try…
You can’t have a debate about the future of Welsh speaking communities if you simply shout them down and call then racist for doing little more than asking for what an English-speaking community would consider routine. So routine in fact that we wouldn’t even call it a ‘right’, so ingrained is it.
(As for the language barrier stopping people bringing jobs to Wales, I can assure you that here in Gwynedd there are plenty of businesses which employ no Welsh-speakers. If they were obliged to do so, you’d actually have more local jobs.)
Patrick McGuinness, what exactly would you like me to try ?
I have tried democracy, and I find it to my taste.
Sorry – I forgot to recommend a really important article by Mike Parker (like me and Englishman living in Welsh-speaking Wales) called ‘Loaded Dice’, which appeared in Planet about six or seven years ago. It comprehensively calls outlines the ‘loaded dice’ against which Welsh communities have to battle to be heard, often to say things which basically English communities take for granted, and further shows how they’re smeared and derided in the press and among politicians with a vested interest in Welsh-bashing.
It particularly picks apart the vicious way in which accusations of ‘racism’ and anti-Englishness are bandied around to police the debate about Welsh. Many of the English people who live here in C-fon like the place precisely because it’s what it is, and that’s why they’ve learned Welsh and send their kids to local schools. They’re as fed up as I am with the bleats about how it’s ‘anti-English’ to want to preserve Welsh communities, or that it’s ‘racist’ to give local people jobs and houses. They’re also fed up with being ’spoken for’ by endless drones who have an axe to grind against Welsh (I write, suddenly speaking for them myself…).
Mike Parker’s recent book ‘Neighbours from Hell’ is also invaluable for the way in which it follows some cultural manifestations of Welsh-hating over centuries.
My own more modest contribution to the debate was an article on the anti-Welsh rhetoric of the ‘Welsh Mirror’ under Paul Starling, which earned the then editor a legal threat from our heroic winged crusader himself, which was followed up by … complete silence. Were it not for the fact that Paul Starling’s journalism made me seriously worry about the future of the English language in Wales, I’d have been seriously worried by what his campaign said about the power relations between the English dominant culture and the Welsh culture that needs to be kept in its place.
If some of the anonymous messages I’ve had attacking me for what I’ve said and written over the years are anything to go by, I’d say that the real jackboots are being worn by the anti-Welsh lobby, many of whom have some seriously unpleasant things to say about the Irish too.
My particular favourite, and by far the mildest, is ’self-hating Englishman’. Yep, that’s me. Self-hating Englishman, goes and lives in Wales, learns Welsh, and guess what? Hates himself so much he only goes and learns another language!
There can be no doubt at all that the natural Welsh-speaking communities of north and west Wales are under tremendous pressure at the moment. No amount of glad-handing amongst the Welsh speaking establishment in Wales about their own successes over the past few years can deny this particular reality.
I think that part of the problem is the vague and fluffy nature of the current mantra of “Creating a Fully Bilingual Wales”, which all the main parties have signed up to. It sounds fantastic on paper, but, any socio-linguist would tell you that a fully bilingual society can be quite a misleading concept, unless it is properly defined.
To ensure the continuation of Welsh as a community, living language, politicans have got to bite the bullet and accept that we have to have different forms of bilingualism in Wales as the building blocks for any long-term language regeneration. I would go for a three-tier approach Dwyieithrwydd Dechreuol (Initial Bilingualism); Dwyieithrwydd Cynyddol (Progressive Bilingualism) and Dwyieithrwydd Cymraeg (Welsh Bilingualism) at the apex of the triangle.
Dwyieithrwydd Cymraeg (Welsh Bilingualism) would mean that Welsh would be the main language in organisations/communities. Gwynedd County Council are the only county council actually implementing such a policy at the moment but there is no reason why other local authorities in the Welsh speaking areas such as Ynys Mon, Ceredigion, Carmarthen could follow suit. To ensure that Dwyieithrwydd Cymraeg gets off the ground I suggest that the Welsh Assembly need to re-distribute a huge amount of money which currently goes on translation, in order to facilitate a huge new Welsh learning push in the Welsh-speaking areas.
A new Welsh Language Act will mean nothing in essence unless our politicians are brave enough to take on some vested interests and introduce some new radical thinking.
It would be interesting to hear a constructive discussion on this subject. It is usually either shot down with the “racist” argument, or taken to an extreme of closing our communities to outsiders (and presumably banning out-migration) in order to ‘preserve’ the language.
For what it’s worth, I agree with Barry Taylor that something must be done, but I share a lot of misgivings about too much government control. From the point of view of human rights, the UN declaration etc have an interesting get-out clause in their “right of free movement”, which, coupled with the powers granted under the European Framework for National Minorities could keep human rights lawyers in a job for generations… However, I’m not sure that the precedent set in government sponsored restrictions would be healthy for democracy, nor even for the affected communities.
Adam Higgitt is right when he says that the issues of second homes and incomers are totally different. Second homes are a luxury, and I would like to see them subject to planning permission, as well as maybe VAT, 200% or 300% council tax… there are plenty of ways in which they could be controlled. Unfortunately, many of our legislators, and the backers of our legislators, have second homes, therefore, it is unlikely that anything will be done. However, Assembly politicians might just be motivated enough (by principle or fiscal desperation) to try something along these lines, given the powers.
But the problem of a living, thriving, Welsh speaking community is altogether different. I have heard suggestions of a variable stamp duty – that increases according to the distance that you are moving. That may be a bit too blanket. It might be possible for local councils to charge a levy on house sales, with 100% rebate for local people (note, not linguistically local, but having been resident for a set number of years), people moving to the area for jobs, family of local people etc). Alternatively, it might be possible to legislate for retrospective “106″ agreements, restricting the use of houses for residency by local people, then encourage the application of these by council tax rebates
I know that one of the things in the pipeline is the possibility of allowing restricted planning permission for local people to build their own houses outside of village boundaries – that would help local families stay local.
A final one from the point of view of the language is that the encouragement of Welsh speaking workplaces would make the Welsh language far more normal even where communities were losing their language. For instance, in Anglesey, (60% Welsh speakers) any Welsh documentation that you receive from the county council was probably produced in English by a Welsh speaker then translated. The spin off benefit of Mon becoming a Welsh speaking council would be that all non-Welsh speaking staff would have the opportunity to learn Welsh, giving them access to a far wider range of local activities, many outside services to the council would require Welsh language materials / operatives, giving the advantage to local firms, etc
This has become a longer post than I had intended, so I’ll just close by answering some specific comments as well:
Financier – I agree and disagree at the same time.
First, I will disagree that the Dutch situation is similar to the Welsh. In the Netherlands, Dutch is the language of government, of commerce, of television and other media, in short, of life on all levels. In Wales, there is only restricted access to any services in Welsh, and the Welsh speaking communities are in a minority.
According to linguists (notably Joshua Fishman et al), when a minority language is spoken by less than 75% of a community, it ceases to be a community language. There is never any chance of this in the majority of Netherlandish communities, yet in Wales the vast majority of Welsh speaking communities (of which there were only 67 in the 2001 census) are perilously close to this boundary.
However, while I disagree with your comparison, the devlopment of your argument makes a lot of sense. It is well known that bilinguals pick up further languages more easily. Therefore, a decent education system should attempt to make the monolingual bilingual, and the bilingual multilingual. Yet this does not happen in Wales. My children, who are bilingual, will not receive the first whiff of a third language until they are in secondary school. Yet if as many bilinguals were taught a third language in primary school, what a difference that would make to the country!
Unfortunately, it might not help our Welsh speaking communities, because with this extra advantage, most of our Welsh speakers would be seeking the kind of job that is just not available in the traditional Welsh speaking areas.
Michael Cridland – you talk of minority immigrants keeping their languages, but Hispanics and Mennonites speak world languages. We are the only speakers of Welsh (other then a few thousand Argentinians…), so there is no anchor to our language if our own communities are not thriving. I can assure you that statistics show that most immigrants who are not a part of a thriving immigrant community lose their language within a generation or two at the most.
Excellently written piece, that hits the nail firmly on the head. To sustain Welsh as a living language, it has to more than just a language of the home and classroom; it needs to be used in our communities. The Welsh language faces extinction by the end of the century unless it is given help to survive, the United Nations warned on the 19th February. UNESCO, the UN’s cultural and educational arm, classified Welsh as “unsafe” in its Atlas of World Languages in Danger. The Assembly government is moving in the right direction, and that is a reflection of the desire among the people of Wales to see the language flourish. We should debate and legislate in the Assembly on the way forward in a mature and reasonable way and not to use the language as a political football. Development of cross-party consensus on the language, dating back to the 1980s, has been invaluable for Welsh to grow.
Bilingualism is too costly or will deter business some claim, but look at the evidence across Europe . Look at Spain for example. It’s no accident that the two areas with the strongest requirements for private companies – Catalonia and Basque – are the most successful economically among the communities of lesser spoken languages. And Quebec in Canada is another example, Montreal is a powerhouse of the North American economic sector. They have far more stringent legislation with regard to language than Wales has. Are these areas successful because of language laws? No but they are not failing because of these laws.
If some say it excludes those who are not bilingual, it is for that very reason why children up to 14 are required to learn both languages. The demand for Welsh medium education is outstripping supply and it is crucial to increase proper bilingual education so that not child will be left behind and all children leave school able to communicate in both languages in future. If Welsh wasn’t making any impact then reservations on compulsion would arise but the fact that the 40% of children in Wales a between the ages of 3 to 16 compulsory school years are fluent in Welsh and that the language is taking off shows the success of Welsh language teaching, but more needs to be done.
This is simply about people’s rights. If you want to conduct something in English of course you are entitled to do that. However if you would like to speak Welsh you always have to ask or people are unsure who to ask and other such problems. So new legislation would I hope ensure that national bodies and a small sector of the private sector have a Welsh language service is available if you wish to use it. We are not talking about long, complicated official forms, but to be able to converse one to one. We are not talking about small or medium businesses but those large national companies or companies that receive large sums of money from the taxpayers then they should deal with their customers in their chosen language. There are practical things that need to be done like making sure the Welsh language telephone service line is seen next to the main English language service line, because if the two are separate it will be difficult for people to remember it. The Welsh assembly government should use this opportunity and see it a something positive and progressive rather than something negative. The Welsh language and its continuing revival is something that everyone in Wales can be rightfully proud of, regardless of whether or not they can speak the language. The fact that legislative powers over the it will now be coming to Wales is another important step forward. I am optimistic that thanks to this and the efforts of the people of Wales, Welsh, as a vibrant and widely spoken language will be there for future generations of all the people of Wales to proudly embrace.
John Tyler – I meant, of course, try calling me totalitarian or racist.
Noswaith dda, you all answered yn saeson didn’t you? Therein lies the problem, a minority language under attack either explicitly or implicitly for over a thousand years. A lot of it comes to bear with Scots Gaelic a conquered people have a conquered mentality. Housing stock? Gimme a break as they say in da Bronx. How can you measure usage of Welsh? Have an Inspector call unannounced? Gaeltacht type solution may work, totally Welsh speaking areas. Look at your cities/towns. I heard Welsh in Caerdydd but one hears it more in Gwalchmai. When I was in Welsh Wales a shopkeeper stopped a conversation in Welsh to switch to English. (Do I look English…or just foreign?) Polite, perhaps but I don’t start saying “Keh du? Odema” When Nigerians approach me.
I haven’t had time to digest everything that Barry has said but as it is topical, I am wondering about his statement “The demand for Welsh-medium education is higher than it has ever been, even outside the traditional Welsh-speaking areas. Adult Welsh classes are filling up all over Wales, and Welsh is even a language of government these days, enjoying (in theory, at least) equal status with English on the floor of the Senedd Siambr. Surely anyone can see that the Welsh language has been saved? The erosion of the language has been stopped in its tracks, and the position of the language is now stronger than it’s been for many decades. That much is obvious, right?”
I would have hoped it was an obvious statement but not to one of the cradles of the Welsh language. According to Golwg, Bangor University has decided to close six departments and make at least 100 academics redundant.
http://www.golwg360.com/Newyddion/cat77/Erthygl_8755.aspx
Now, you could call this the cold wind of recession finally hitting the university sector but the critical issue about this is that all the departments threatened with closure – Theology and Religious Studies, Linguistics, Social Studies, Modern Languages and the School of the Environment and Natural Resources – make up a large part of the Welsh language provision at the University. As some have already commented, losing 100 welsh speaking lecturers could derail the Coleg Ffederal project before it has even started.
As a former professor of the aforementioned institution, I am appalled at this development as it goes against everything Bangor has stood for since it was established through the pennies of the slate miners in the late 19th century. If, as Barry notes, there is increased demand for welsh language provision in higher education – and the establishment of the Coleg Ffederal seems to bear this out – what on earth are the senior management of Bangor doing?
Thanks Barry, Patrick McGuinness, Aled Job, Iestyn, D, Hughes for such constructive contributions. I agree wholeheartedly with so much of what you say, from my perspective as someone who grew up monoglot English and Yorkshire, moved to Wales and learned the language as an adult and whose life has been tremendously enriched as a result.
Safeguarding communities where Welsh is the natural language is hugely important not only for people who live there, including in-migrants who respect and value Welsh culture, but also more generally for all who value cultural diversity whereever they are
More than this, it is important to many people in other parts of Wales. The revitalisation and normalisation of the language throughout Wales will be much more difficult without the remaining communities where it is at least a majority, but still not a “normalised” language.
The key to normalisation, throughout Wales, is changing the STATUS of the language. Even when 90% of the population spoke Welsh, the problem was that it had subordinate status and was marginalised from structures of power and influence, except the chapels. Do we value it and believe in it enough to want to use it as the main language of administration, business, the economy in parts of Wales where it is, or was until very recently, the majority language? In other parts of Wales, do we want to take bold steps to increase the number of Welsh speakers and the status of through the use of the school system and adult (including in-service) education, so that many more have the gift of Welsh and so that we have enough functional speakers around in our state and local bureaucracies, businesses, shops and cultural/leisure institutions to give individuals who wish to use it in real life real citizen and consumer rights?
Ken Hopkins’ 2006 Institute of Welsh Affairs pamphlet “Saving our language” is well worth a read. A well-known Labour activist, he was director of education in the old Mid Glamorgan County Council. It looks at how the the education system outside the “heartlands” could, given political will, ensure within a couple of generations that vast majority of people in Wales are functionally bilingual. The best of both worlds,our own culture and Anglo-American culture, just like the Dutch or the Scandinavians.
Fascinating debate. As someone looking from afar (well, Kent) this reminds me of the debates that were had whilst I was at school in the sirhowy valley. What disappoints me in this debate is that much of the arguments havent moved on in 20 years which is a really shame as the key issue- keeping a language alive and prosperous- is surely one worth supporting. I happen to think Barry’s proposed solution is utterly barking but his sentiment entirely valid.
Whilst we’re on the subject, does anyone know a good online Welsh course? Id be interested. Thanks
The question the H Bros asks is how can the issue be resolved. Whatever policy that is advanced has to be within the EU policy. Everyone in the EU has the right to work and live anywhere in the EU territory.
Barry poses the problem of what is a majority Welsh-speaking area – is it 50% or more? The 2001 Census shows that with the exception of Gwyneth, Conway, Carmarthenshire, Cerdigion the remainder of Wales is classed as no knowledge of Welsh and that in the National Assembly Committee areas there are no Welsh majority areas. (Table KS25)
patrick mcguinness, my nemesis, asks a question that can be easily answered because he has answered it himself. The sale of houses in Welsh speaking communities is subject to the same economic pressures as any other region. This has led to the present position of the highest bidder, often an incomer or second-homer, becoming the new owner. It has inevitably had the effect of communities experiencing the change of linguistic character. Barry asks what are the practical alternatives? The same as reported in the Daily Telegraph today concerning London that is more affordable housing for local young people must be among the highest priorities. Housing societies – freed from the right to buy legislation – could implement a policy of ‘working in the area’ criteria. This is not linguistically based, even though many would be bi-lingual with a preference for one means of social communication. Wales needs to make a distinction between conservation and preserving the way of life. In the first buildings are seen as the most important element regardless of its history, the outward must not be altered – this despite the fact the house may now only have two people living in it, whereas a hundred years ago there were twelve. Preservation is aimed at the maintenance of the social structure and to do this, for schools, post offices, local shops, pubs, chapels etc., people are needed. The green belt can be a black corset that strangles life out of the community. May be one of the other alternatives would be to make it possible and economically attractive for the young to remain in rural Wales than to have to move to Cardiff for a job and one of the dreadful flats in the Bay.
I don’t think that a majority area is an answer because the use of Welsh has fallen below that definition. The solution, as has been suggested, is for people who speak Welsh to speak it. I have never had a problem with people speaking Welsh when I am present. I don’t have the phobia that they may be ‘talking about’ me. My retort is, “If they are talking about me they couldn’t be talking about a better subject’. Part of the issue is confidence. There is no other place in the world where Welsh is an indigenous language, so for those who speak it, speak it. It’ll do a lot for the language. And don’t apologise to me when you do – or ask my permission.
John Tyler – of course, patrick mcguinness is totalitarian (but not a racist.) It’s a part of his charm and the joy of his postings.
Dylan J-E – yes, what Bangor is proposing is appalling, and an indictment of a great university. I don’t know how firmly decided it is yet – I thought it still had to go to Senate, or Council? Depressing, but I’m afraid it’s a logical outcome of the Thatcher-Blair educational policy continuum.
Len – yes, that’s me, McCeausescu.
Len – the problem with exhorting Welsh speakers to speak Welsh is that most people rather than choosing which language they speak, speak the community language. It is part of human nature to fit in with the tribe that surrounds you. Therefore it is only the extreme and the bloody minded who bring up Welsh speaking kids, for instance, in Gwent (I know, because I am one of them – the bloody minded, I hope, rather than the other). While it seems the most natural thing in the world for me to speak Welsh with my children, I often have to make decisions, some of which go against my ‘polite’ up-bringing. Do I speak to them in Welsh even when they are playing with non Welsh speaking children? Do I still speak Welsh even when in a conversation with non Welsh speakers?… Its not a simple “either or” question, its a case of how an individual sees the pressures of society to conform to the English speaking norm. Those who haven’t made a specific decision to speak Welsh therefore often don’t. What is happening in the Fro is that, village by village, the community language is changing to English, and the non-decided are going with the flow.
Michael – on a related topic, any language is relevant to future generations. What decides it’s future is whether it is passed on within the family. If Welsh had fifty words for sunshine and none for everyday modern essentials, it would still survive as long as it was passed on within families – the community / family existence guarantees the kind of development that would invent / borrow / adapt words for what was needed, just as is done in English and every other language. If, on the other hand, every generation learns from text books written by the previous generation, with no understanding of community dynamic and idiomatic usage, it dies on its feet.
Mat Davies. I would recommend http://www.SaySomethingInWelsh.com . The again, I am biased…
I think a possible solution to preserving the language and culture in the Fro, and affordable housing for locals (a problem for those in English speaking Wales too). First of all when I visit the Fro try to use the limited amount of Welsh that I have to communicate with Welsh speakers.
What I believe should happen is further devolving of powers to local authorities to be able regulate what they can do with housing (build low cost housing for locals) provide Welsh classes for non Welsh speaking people.
Also I omitted to mention that we also have Guatemalans who neither speak Spanish or English but certain Indian dialects.
My final suggestion (and I apologize for my disjointedness due to the fact that I am using a library computer with a lot of distractions and for a sufferer from ADD that’s a little too much)
I would support what could be a type of “Gaeltagh” solution where areas that are in predominantly Welsh speakers should have to speak English and that services should be offered in English in the same way they are in English speaking areas.
Iestyn: I’m a happy to be monoglot English and also a typical bloody minded South Walian. If I were to speak Welsh, and it as much a choice as chance that I do not, I wouldn’t care if someone else in company spoke Welsh or not. Although most of my social friends are either native Welsh speakers or adult learners I have chosen not to speak Welsh. In a country where there is an indigenous language it is the choice of those who live here either to speak it or to accept the exclusion of not being included in certain conversations. It is not a matter of politeness or discourtesy but of the consequence of choice. It is of the essence that if Welsh cannot be spoken in Wales, where else in the world can you? You get the point, patrick mcguinness, that choice is not just people speaking English in the presence of monoglot English, but of monoglot English accepting, as I do, that people who speak Welsh have the right to speak it. The solution to the problem is, so to speak, on the tip of the tongue. It is an issue of confidence. I could on at length as to why being monoglot is an advantage but that is not the subject of the article or the subsequent question. The question is how to prevent the demise of the language and how to promote its advancement. Ther are two things we can all do. The monoglot population to give respect to those who speak Welsh and for those who speak Welsh to be proud of their cultural heritage and use it. The language is a lot more important than the stone of Conway Castle.
Might I suggest that it is the locality, rather than the linguistic issue that would be an acceptable first step in this issue?
If you made those cases on the basis of locality (which in places of higher welsh speakers would provide that natural ‘bias’) then I feel we achieve a semblance of agreement to go forward. Not saying a solution, but the general principle of increasing social, affordable housing for local need seems something the left can at least agree on surely?
I have always been agnostic to the view that getting more people to speak Welsh is a panacea. The problem thus far, from those for and against, is how you actually ‘make’ people speak Welsh outside of school? I speak as someone learning very quickly, and fighting near open warfare at home to get my wife to agree to allow our kids to go to Welsh medium.
Personally, I think all our efforts should be about supporting local communities to maintain themselves via local quotas for housing, provide total and equal rights for Welsh speakers and giving as many opportunties for people to learn and converse in Welsh. Can we all agree on this?
That aside, I do not think linguistic quotas are suitable for this aim alone, particularly when trying to find common groud to move forward in. Surely the common theme is to give local people the priority, which would maintain the ties and roots in that area?
That said, some of the rubbish from the anti-welsh lobby makes me sad – and I speak as someone who would have probably put forward those views in the past. What do we have to fear from increasing the rights and strength of our beautiful language?
Just a few words, what is more important in Wales, the language or the people?
Ah yes, the false dichotomy. I’d wondered when that might make an appearance in this discussion.
It reminds me of the petition-taker who approached me outside Nottingham City Hall many years ago and asked me “are you against war?” The temptation to reply “no, I’m all in favour!” was almost irresistible…
Angela EL:
Which is more important in Wales, jobs or people?
Which is more important in Wales, transport links or people?
Which is more important in Wales, sports or people?
Those of us who speak Welsh (or have jobs, use transport links, or enjoy sports) are people too, and we should have the same rights and privileges as any other people in this country – which includes linguistic rights.
Why do we always have to speak in terms of a Rotweiller attacking a corgi, language is of the people; the question is : is the language important, or not, and to whom? We have to have a language, but why not two? We could even move on to a third, or even a fourth as in some European Countries. We need a language as we need food, but you wouldn’t dream of going to the South Seas and replacing Mango with Fish & Chips; one may eat mango, chips and rice; one may read Shakespeare, the Dandy and Dylan Thomas. Food is a necessity but it can be mixed, reading is a necessity that can be mixed. Politics & education have a role to play, a situation has to be evolved whereby neither Welsh nor English speakers feel under threat, then hopefully Y Gymraeg/Welsh will be allowed to develop unfettered and not be jackbooted out of it’s own Country . Whoops! I just woke up, I’ve got this unenviable talent of typing in my sleep; dreaming again.
Earmarking houses for certain groups is absurdly bureaucratic and can never ensure that all the right people get houses and all the wrong ones don’t. There is no sensible alternative to simply allowing enough houses to be built to meet demand. Of course there should be minimum standards: building regulations, efficient land utilization, and street connectivity all matter. But we need to get out of the silly wasteful development control culture, which only ever was an attempt to address the perceived problems of south-east England. And it would be helpful — even without such liberalization — if planning decisions were made in response to political considerations by directly-elected locally-accountable community councilors, rather than after a quasi-judicial fashion by out-of-touch civil servants in sprawling counties and county boroughs.
Language policy cannot be met through housing policy. I broadly agree with Aled about where language policy should be going. A bilingual Wales should defend the Welsh language, even where it’s in a local majority.
Patrick – I would hope that Council will reject this move but the fact that it has been proposed by the senior management in the first place shows how the University has completely lost its way.
The delusions of grandeur that it could become a Russell Group University have naturally led it to the point where it has forgotten why it was set up in the first place.
A sad day for higher education in Wales and one can only hope that the new leadership that will take its place in October will return Bangor to its local roots.
Barry: – “includes linguistic rights”. The starting point to advance the language is not legislative but the indigenous nature of the language and its historic use that provides those rights naturally. No one can successfully argue against the ‘right’ of people to speak an indigenous language. Aled G Job is right to criticise the current mantra of “creating a fully bilingual Wales”. The concepts within this policy are essentially divisive as they enforce a distinction within the overall population without the means of achieving its aims. For someone to be bilingual, they have to have others to speak, too. If in the ordinary course of life, you live and work among a population that speaks only English, bilingualism is impossible. My business associate is Welsh speaking and he finds it extremely frustrating to be answered on the phone in Welsh, and when he answers in Welsh, to discover that the person is going through the motions of a fully bilingual Wales. He goes through a routine of trying to find out if the person in front of him can speak Welsh and sometimes they do. One simple thing would be for those who speak Welsh and work in an English environment would be to wear a button or badge that says in Welsh, “I speak Welsh”. That would up the use of Welsh among those who prefer to speak it. The solution needs creativity and confidence not arid and pointless legislation.
Marcus Warner: “the left can at least agree on surely?” Why the left? It’s not a one-sided issue. We can all agree, including the Daily Telegraph, on the provision of social housing for the young of the community – its where I started my married life.
Late US House Speaker Tip O Neill (what a good Irish name) said “All politics is local”. And in this case it is a local problem. deal with problem of why Welsh speaking communities are declining. Offer them the support they need. For example in establishing indigenous businesses and not just low cost tourist jobs (though recognizing its place). Invest in the local infrastructure. strengthen the language provision, and leave the decision making to the local communities (which would probably require a new local government act ).
To paraphrase Winston Churchill “Give them them the tools, and let them finish the job”. Is that unreasonable?
As someone who uses the language with my family and friends “in the community” I would say that Barry Taylor is taking a very pessimistic line on the future of Welsh. After all, he refers to the fact that the numbers of people taking language classes has never been higher.
Whether you live in Aberdare or Amlwch, if you want to learn Welsh, the opportunity is there and this is to be welcomed. We should all be relaxed about this matter as there are other bread and butter issues which challenge people’s lives every day.
I am quite sure that in 40 or 50 years from now people will still want to have their gravestone epitaph in Welsh. Let it rest there.
David Phillips – You are probably right not to worry too much about the survival of the Welsh language. For instance, it is a part of the country’s administration and there are already some statutory safeguards requiring Welsh translations and Welsh language services, so there will always be a practical incentive for some people to speak Welsh. Unless something really drastic happens, there will also always be people who speak Welsh for their own reasons – patriotism, a will to preserve their heritage, family tradition etc.
The worry from the Welsh speaker’s point of view is that it will cease to be a vibrant living language, and become a museum piece. This is of course the conundrum regarding the “preserving the Welsh speaking heartlands” debate. As a living language, Welsh must be given the freedom to develop under its own steam. Living communities of Welsh speakers will, for instance, invent new words for new concepts, new idioms (and cliches), even new grammar, as the world around the language changes.
As an example of this, look at the Welsh of IT and particularly the internet, and you will see that the vocabulary there is a natural Welsh based vocabulary, rather than an “imposed” linguistic one, or one that has just been re-spelled from English. That’s because there are natural Welsh language communities on the web, and those natural communities invent their own natural language.
Could I ask, why do you speak Welsh with friends and family? Welsh for me gives me a closeness that I can’t seem to find in English. I find English a very mechanical language, and the obvious mainstream English culture (ie that of the media and of everyday conversation) to be very material and somehow cold. Tthis is not an accusation that English speakers somehow lack the emotion or warmth of Welsh speakers, it just reflects my emotional make-up and possibly depth of understanding of the respective languages.
My feeling is that if all Welsh speakers spoke mostly English, while speaking Welsh with only a minority of their contacts, or in a minority of situations, then their language would, by default, become English, and their Welsh would become a “translation”, their new idioms, concepts and general vocab would be at best English translated, and at worst English mis-spelt.
This would be a tragedy for the language which would to all intents and purposes become English with odd words.
This would be a greater tragedy for the people of Wales and the country itself, because it would rob us of that which allows us to take time out of the international English speaking world, and be ourselves. It would rob me personally of that special bond that “our own language” gives me with my family and my special friends.
Iestyn, I’m glad you agree with me that we don’t need to “worry too much about the survival of the Welsh language.”, and so I am surprised that you express concern that it may “cease to be a vibrant living language”.
There is latitude when it comes to new words being created to adjust to the realities of our modern society and as the demands of the global economy stimulate innovation. But remember, nobody “owns” a langauge as it is simply a means to ease communication between people, and we always need to consider ways of avoiding the creation of barriers for their own sake.
I am afraid I don’t share your exclusive sentiment about what you call “our own language”, and I regret that such a disposition can lead to division, whereas instead we should with a global mindset be reaching out, building bridges with others, and co-operating for the common good.
Wales can be a “big country” as part of a strong Britain if we are outward looking and see language not as something static and pure but like an organism which over time adapts and develops to a new environment and climate.
David, your last paragraph should be the aspiration of every Welsh person, be they Nationalist or Unionist, Welsh or English speaking. I agree 100% with the sentiment.
Maybe I should have italicised parts of my previous post to clarify my meaning – I have no real fears for the *survival* of the Welsh language. But equally, one could argue that Latin has “survived”, and languages such as Cornish are genuinely “living”, but couldn’t be described as vibrant by any stretch.
I also agree that my “exclusive sentiment” could lead to division. One of the most difficult paths to tread as the language develops and grows (or stagnates and dies) will be that between protecting the language’s natural differences and avoiding using it as a tool to create division. I’m not sure about “creating barriers for their own sake” – idioms and terminology will grow differently from different roots, the Welsh language, left to its own devices, would develop along Welsh lines. This will happen in natural Welsh communities, but without such communities, I would fear that the language would be reduced to a book learnt / grammarian guided language – the very pure and static language that you warn against.
I’m interested that you think that seeing Welsh as “our own language”, and feeling a special bond with other Welsh speakers makes me less likely to reach out and build bridges to the rest of the world. I see an equal danger in relying on the English language. After all, it must be very easy to forget that most of the world doesn’t speak English as a first language, and doesn’t have Anglo-American culture as their “home” culture when everything you see is in English. I believe that strengthening our Welshness (true Welshness rather than not-Englishness) could potentially make us more a part of this global village, rather than less so.
This conversation is very interesting to me, as I tend to spend time with people who believe the same as me, and the chance to discuss the matter with someone who feels differently, but is willing to discuss that (on a web forum!!!).
As a teacher of modern languages, I might want to add that the assumption that being and speaking English makes one open to more cultures is a false one. I reckon that the strength of the English language has been counterproductive in many respects, because it means that one expects the world to come to you, and to make the necessary mind-broadening changes to do so. It doesn’t follow that this makes us English or English speakers more open. Openness is essentially a dynamic thing, and I find it depressing that Britain and America, essentially monoglot nations with the supposed ‘advantage’ of having an international language, are also the most insular and inward-looking.
The internationalism of one’s language has nothing to do with the internationalism of one’s outlook. In the case of English, and possibly the French of France (at any rate until recently) it may even be an inverse proportionality.
There’s no relationship between cultural openness and closedness and the size, range or spread of a language.
I would disagree with Patrick Guinness assertion that the United States is a monoglot nation. That is not true. The Spanish is almost a second “official language” (the US does not have a official language). I receive a lot of my bills in English and Spanish. I agree with Patrick’s view that speaking English does not make one open to other cultures. Mainly because there is a certain arrogance amongst English speakers that non English speakers have the onus to learn English, and this is found amongst Americans as representing the 21st century version of the “British Empire”.
Michael – yes: re the United States, I meant to make clear that the monoglots in the US, and the monoglot part of US culture , constitute the monoglot English only part of that culture. They may speak the language of the world, but they aren’t talking to the world, and they aren’t listening to it (listening being at least as important a reason to learn a language as talking).
But what the US has, which we do not, is an array of non-English speaking cultures which thrive while using English as a lingua franca but which are not confined by being monoglot English. That for me is what makes the US an exciting place. Spanish is of course a special case, notably in California and Texas and Florida.
I found the issues raised by Barry Taylor insightful and alarming, and I endorse the solutions he suggests. In 2001, nearly a third of all properties in Gwynedd were bought by buyers from out of the county, and with some communities reporting that as many as a third of local homes used as holiday homes, this has had a horrifying effect on Welsh speaking communities.
However, I feel that probably the best way to strengthen the growth of the Welsh language is by promoting a “pop culture” in the medium of the Welsh language. There needs to be a wider variety of programming attractive to the youth and young adults that is trendy and engaging. This means a kind of MTV for the Welsh speaking youth independent of adult TV.
The problems facing Welsh speaking communities are the same problems facing local communities across Wales: a lack of affordable housing, low incomes and the obstacles that put local people off setting up their own enterprises.We live in a country where the high street generally brings the lyrics of the song Ghost Town by the Specials to mind.
Promoting the language on a national level is one thing. Promoting it on a local level in Welsh speaking authorities is another. Both should be pursued, but both will most likely prove ineffectual without something being done to address the problems of affordable housing, low incomes and local enterprise.
I don’t see much value in attempts to make incomers feel morally obliged to learn Welsh. Most of them will do so of their own volition if speaking the language becomes practical and desirable, and speaking the language will only become practical and desirable if Welsh speaking communities are allowed to flourish, which brings us back to affordable housing, incomes and the state of local economies.
To suggest that this is a BNP-esque article is a lie; it comes nowhere near to that level of hatred. This, to me, is not an article of hatred, no, but an article of love. Love of Wales, love of Our Language, a language which I am immensely proud to call my mother tongue.
I agree with the blog author that it really is heartening to see so many adults in Wales taking classes in Welsh, and so many young people in Wales in full time Welsh-medium education. It’s fantastic. But in actual fact, as others have pointed out, I’m sure, there’s no value to that unless they put their Welsh into practice. What is the point of a language which thousands of people can speak, but no-one chooses to speak? No point at all, and our anti-Welsh-languages ‘friends’ elsewhere would be on Cloud 9.
As a proud speaker of Our Language, I know that unless I use it, it will die. Thanks very much, diolch yn barchus, but I’m not particularly happy with that idea. No siree. Ask any Welshman or -woman what defines the Welsh people, go on! Some may say, ‘our rugby team’ (or maybe not, after last night), others may say ‘the Senedd’, ‘the castles’ or even ‘the sheep’, but a resounding majority would say ‘Our Iaith’. Bloody well use it then!
It’s a difficult concept isn’t it? to suggest that restrictions should be placed on who moves to a community, based on language. On one hand, I completely and utterly agree – for the preservation of our language, of who we are. That sacred Welsh Identity that we all have enscribed in our hearts deserves protecting, doesn’t it? But then again, we are a progressive and tolerant people. We accept. Unlike our English Defence League and BNP neighbours. (And as for the “Welsh Defence League”, well, they’re just the EDL dressed up as thugs and paraded around for show. They’re not real Welsh people, if you ask me.) This may be our country, yes, but we’re at serious risk of sounding racist towards the English if we say that “only native Welsh people can have this house, only a native Welshman can have that job”. Sorry, bois, but I’m not racist.
I’m at somewhat of a moral crossroads on this issue. On one level, I love my country to the death. Wales and being Welsh are the two things that I hold dearest to my heart and love the most of anything – they’re who I am, and I’m nothing without them. But on one hand, I know that my country would not be my country if it turned people away because of who they are. That’s not what we do, is it?
The only option that springs to my mind, is to put a legal obligation an any incomer – English or otherwise – to learn some Welsh, and not just the basic “bore da” and “rydw i’n hoffi coffi”, no. Real Welsh. Useable Welsh. Welsh where that Englishman, or that Pole, or that Bangladeshi, can go into his local Spar and say “Bore da John! Shwmae? Shwma’r teulu ‘da ti dyddie’ ‘ma? Clyw, gaf i beint o la’th a thorth o fara ’s’gweli di’n dda! Gyda bo’ ti’n ‘neud ‘na, af i ca’l pip fach clou ar Y Cymru, os yw hwnna’n iawn, boi?”. That’s Wales, isn’t it? Yes, ffrindiau, that is Wales. And I’m damned proud of that Wales.
We’re not a backward nation that turns people away. We’re a progressive, an accepting and a tolerant people. A loving nation. We love ourselves, each other, and our brothers and sisters elsewhere. I agree with this article in principle, yes, but so many ideas in it are against my own principles on so many levels. A successful and effective article? To a degree, yes. Do I agree with it? Hmm.. I’ll get back to you on that one.