Denying the reality of a bilingual nation
A sense of direction
THE battle to get bilingual road signs in Wales has been a long and difficult one. It evokes powerful memories because of its directness and force. But ultimately it was successful because it had right on its side. Wales at the end of the 20th Century was a country far more comfortable with both her tongues and that is a good thing.
That isn’t of course to doubt that there are people who still resent that Welsh appears on road signs. Any radio phone in or online discussion forum often unearth these fossilised opinions. Because there are still some people who are unhappy to be living in a bilingual Wales which treats both our languages with respect. And unfortunately such attitudes can come from both extremes of the debate.
Last week I signed up to the Facebook campaign to vote Yes in the referendum. My views on the issue are public enough and based on conviction. I saw no downside in doing so, and also promoted the group widely online to others. After all, the group was accruing members rapidly and had been established by a person seemingly removed from the alleged “elite” True Wales hates so much. No downside at all, I thought, until all members of the Yes group received a Facebook message inviting them also to join something else entirely.
Scrap English Versions of Placenames In Wales/Fersiynau Cymraeg yn unig
Call to scrap the english versions of towns and cities in Wales. For example change Holyhead to solely Caergybi, St Asaph to Llanelwy, Mold to Yr Wyddgrug, Swansea to Abertawe and so on.—- Ffoniwch cael gwared ar y fersiwn Saesneg o drefi a dinasoedd yng Nghymru. Er enghraifft, Caergybi newid i unig Caergybi, Llanelwy i Llanelwy, Yr Wyddgrug i Yr Wyddgrug, Abertawe i Abertawe ac yn y blaen.
People are entitled to hold this view, of course, but ultimately to do so is as culturally denying and socially divisive as opposing Welsh on road signs. That the originator of the Facebook group for a Yes vote, called Daz n Manda, supposed that was the right vehicle to promote this extremist position disappoints me. The modern Wales is not a place for cultural suppression on linguistic grounds. In a week where the power to make laws on the Welsh language was transferred from Westminster to Wales after centuries of oppression, to see such a group being promoted to those who had signed up to support a Yes vote was the last thing I expected.
Perhaps by shedding light on this invitation, I may be doing the Yes cause a disservice. After all, this isn’t anywhere remotely near an official Yes message in the same way that the Yes group online isn’t anything official either. Yet by doing this and conflating a progressive, unifying and sensible desire to expand the legislative powers of the Assembly with a cause which is meant to enforce one cultural tradition on another, Daz n Manda has done his original group a disservice.
Which is why I have this morning left Daz n Manda’s group, preferring to wait for the official Yes campaign on Facebook to be established. One which will not seek to promote a reasonable political cause on the hand while denying the legitimacy of the English language in Wales on the other.
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I agree with your view but let’s not forget that so called ‘unreasonable’ demands very often only become widely accepted as reasonable and fair when they are seen alongside more ‘extremist’ demands. For instance, in the 60s and 70s demands for equality for women were initially discounted as looney fringe by a male-dominated culture. It wasn’t until Gloria Steinem et al embarked on their bra-burning, women’s lib campaigns did the fundamental concept of equality for women become generally accepted as reasonable. Of course, there’s still a long way to go but I think the principle is generally accepted. Maybe the Welsh only campaign will have a similar effect.
The group isn’t about forcing anything. For example, towns created with an “English” name, like Blackwood, would still have Blackwood on signage. Towns with heavily angcilsed population, like Newport, would still have Newport on signage. Etc. No problem.
What it’s about is removing those silly phonetic versions of place. Why does Caerffili need “Caerphilly” written on the sign too? It’s the same thing! Brynaman has “Brynamman” on the sign. Why? To what useful purpose?
It’s not as extreme a request as say, expecting Tesco to put up signs in Welsh. Or other such things that are quite reasonable today (after decades of opposition).
I don’t see the big deal myself. It’s a Facebook group, not a white-paper. Or would you rather pretend that there is a sizeable percentage of Wales who don’t hold beliefs like these? A “its not happening really” delusion, like people used to hold with the BNP until they got massive votes. (Not comparing “correct” signage rants to the BNP, obviously!) But the dismissive attitude is similar.
In your job, as commentators, you have to be neutral, to be “politically correct”. As the general public, we don’t, and are free to air such views as we feel need airing. You are free to oppose them, of course!
The problem with being too charitable is your opponents will see it as a sign of weakness and will steal a march on you.
You can bet your bottom Welsh dollar that True Wales (now styling themselves as a pro-devolution group) will have no qualms about working with abolitionists in UKIP.
So likewise the “Yes” campaign will have to be a popular front consisting of language activists, Unionists, nationalists, conservatives, socialists, liberals and people of no political alignment as well. Nationalists will have to put up with people wanting to strengthen Wales’ status inside the UK during this campaign, just as you might see some opinions from your fellow campaigners which you disagree with. After all, it’s more democracy we are fighting for.
I hope you didn’t leave the group, Daran!
Al,
I don’t feel that we are commentators, and I’ve never felt the need to be politically neutral (it’s a fairly open secret who I work for) on this site. Nor, do I think, have some of the other editors.
I don’t think many commentators are neutral, either. That’s the job of journalists. Commentators are brought in because they will regard events and developments through the prism of their own experience and views.
For my part, I agree with Daran. This Yes vote will be hard enough to win as it is. We don’t want the waters muddied with something that could be so easily misconstrued in intent.
Actually Al the group’s info stated that it wanted to see Holyhead ditched in favour of Caergybi alone, for one example, so we’re not talking about orthography alone here. If it was purely orthography then there wouldn’t be a problem, other than such decisions (in the case of ditching English orthography of a Welsh name) should be left to local residents IMO
Ramblings writes “So likewise the “Yes” campaign will have to be a popular front consisting of language activists, Unionists, nationalists, conservatives, socialists, liberals and people of no political alignment as well. Nationalists will have to put up with people wanting to strengthen Wales’ status inside the UK during this campaign, just as you might see some opinions from your fellow campaigners which you disagree with. After all, it’s more democracy we are fighting for. I hope you didn’t leave the group, Daran!”
I accept the broad base that is needed to win a Yes vote. It will be a broad church, and rightly so. Of course there will be opinions that divide people on that side – to which I am as firmly committed as anyone -as much as there will be dividing points amongst opponents of extending the powers of the Assembly.
The facebook group isn’t official and if it was then I’d have very deep concerns that such a socially dividing perspective was being advocated as part of the message because, quite frankly, it is irrelevant to the real issue.
As it is a grass roots campaign, I can accept that the originator can use it for his/her own purposes, which can be broader than the simple desire to win a Yes campaign. But I don’t appreciate the two issues being conflated and so to avoid future invitations which, as Duncan says muddy the waters, I decided to leave the existing facebook group.
And by the way, I may do some political commentary which I hope is generally impartial but also informed, but that does not mean I remain neutral on everything. I am very partial when it comes to supporting a Yes vote in the referendum and wouldn’t pretend neutrality. That isn’t to say WalesHome.org is pro-Yes, but I most certainly am.
Hello, I’m Daz the creator of this group and I have made some changes to the group. I was surprised to read this this morning and apologise for any misunderstanding the group has caused, I love seeing bilingual signs in Wales, it has nothing to do with that at all, the site is about POSSIBLY changing SOME placenames to their original Welsh origin only. I admit when i first created the group I was a little misleading and hope the changes charify these.
see for youself http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=298662803007
changes to the group i created i apoligize for any missunderstanding caused http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=298662803007
Rather like the “Cai Maes Saes” sign painted on a stable in Sir Benfro a couple of years ago, the “translation” rather gives things away. This is not something written by someone with even a basic grasp of Welsh. What telephone number are they to call?
At first I thought it might be a wind-up … but it is more probably a genuine call from some well-meaning person who doesn’t speak Welsh but wants Wales to be more Welsh. Why shouldn’t s/he be free to campaign for something they believe in?
Daran, you seem to think it obvious that such a call is “culturally denying and socially divisive” but, as it has obviously come from someone who doesn’t speak Welsh themselves, wouldn’t it be better to think that the motive in this case was a desire to unite rather than to divide?
Anyway, I’ve just read through some of the posts on the town names group, and it seems to me that whatever the circumstances of the way the group was set up, many subsequent contributors understand the issues well and have made positive contributions to the discussion. You’re free to be dismissive if you wish, Daran … but a good number think it is an issue worth discussing, so why why not just leave them to get on with it? Why go out of your way to condemn them?
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Of course this is a different issue from the Yes Campaign for the referendum, and we need to make sure that we do not conflate the referendum with other unrelated things … such as the Welsh language or even, dare I say, independence. But it is surely naïve to expect individuals, and groups, who want a Yes vote in the referendum not to want a whole range of different, sometimes overlapping and sometimes separate, things too.
The very nature of networking is to invite participation at the point where these different interests and concerns overlap. If we want to get a turnout of more than say 40% in this referendum I think we are going to have to be wise to these overlaps and make full use of them. If we want the Yes Campaign to reach places where it hasn’t yet reached, we must let it spread by means that the centralized, official, Yes Campaign (when it is set up) would have no hope of being able to control. We should not confine the Yes Campaign only to those (like me, and I guess you) who are primarily motivated by the very narrow, though obviously important, constitutional issue at hand. And even if we wanted to, we couldn’t. Our means of communication are very different now from the way they were in 1997 … they are more plural, more diverse and less subject to central control.
So my advice is to be a little less Puritan. Cut people some slack to do what they think is right in their own way.
MH @ Syniadau
Perhaps it more interesting to consider this campaign not as an attempt to resurrect Welsh monolingualism (not that Welsh monolingualism is any more offensive than English, Danish or Basque monolingualism) but rather to create a sort of “Welsh English”; i.e. a sort of English in which one says things like “In the Senedd in Caerdydd, members of Plaid Cymru argued for more provision for ysgolion Cymraeg.”
Some non-Welsh place names do reference Wales’ cultural plurality in the past; English names in the Vale, Gower or South Pembs, Norse names along the coast, and these are as valuable as any other part of our heritage. However let’s not be naive. Place names are not really about diversity, but about power. There are Welsh Romany names for dozens of places in Wales, but none of these appear on our road signs, because the Romany in Wales have never enjoyed any sort of cultural authority to impose their names on anybody else.
The existence of English place names in places which were historically Welsh monoglot until the 19th century (i.e. 90% of the country) is not really about “diversity”, but more about the power of the British State and the language of that State, English.
@Simon: it’s a conversation, a rant, an exploration. Yeah there are people on there who would advocate having ONLY the Welsh version on signage, removing all traces of an English/Norse name, however ancient. But there also people who would have only the English! And people who are fine with both. Just like any idea, the nature of it depends on the participants – the group has already changed from its initial idea, and will continue to change, no doubt, as the conversation goes on.
OK, granted, it wasn’t such a good idea to broadcast the group to the Pro-Referendum group, but mainly for the reason that it’s irrelevant. However, that’s how Facebook works, groups post to groups, that’s the ‘viral’ nature of social networking. That’s how causes and ideas spread. I’m sure that if it was posted to an “official” referendum group it would have been moderated out, and that’s fair enough.
What I do find slightly worrying is the suggestion that we’re not allowed to have discussions like these, that we shouldn’t have them, period. Don’t rock the boat. Just accept it. Well, we wouldn’t even have a Senedd with an attitude like that. Yes, Wales is a modern European country, and is moving forward in all sorts of ways. But that is as a result of rocking the boat, of having discussions and campaigns like these, not in spite of them.
Some ideas are incendiary, and don’t gather popular support. Others are outrageous at first, then gradually they seap into the mainstream, “you know, they have a point…”. Others are obvious and self-evidently right. But they are all needed in a democracy. And I thought Wales, of all places, was the place where the feelings of the people were not just noted by Government, but an essential part of it?
IMO that signage group isn’t being divisive. But so what if it is? Are we to bite our lips and not say what we think and feel? The monoglot English speakers (of which I was one) say what they think and feel, constantly. Why aren’t the Welsh speakers (and sympathisers) allowed to do the same? Where is the equality in that? A truly bilingual society is one in which both sides are allowed to explore, discuss, and express their feelings. It’s only then can we reach a fair middle ground. That’s democracy.
MH writes: “Of course this is a different issue from the Yes Campaign for the referendum, and we need to make sure that we do not conflate the referendum with other unrelated things.”
Which was my original point. And I also accept that in 2010/11 the Yes campaign will be more decentralised and that the messages will be more complex than the simple assertion of whether an Assembly should or shouldn’t exist. But grassroots initiatives on this issue need to take reflect on the influence they attain through social media. I’m sure Daz did what he did with the best of intentions – and thanks for responding here, by the way – but I stand by my position that it was unnecessary to start spamming people with a message that many, like me, will have found offensive.
I’m sure it’s now just a matter of time before True Wales weaves this whole discourse into their platform of opposition to more powers, even though it is a completely separate issue. More tenuous inclusions to their platform have previously been made. We need to be ready to challenge that conflation when it comes.
Al writes: “What I do find slightly worrying is the suggestion that we’re not allowed to have discussions like these, that we shouldn’t have them, period. Don’t rock the boat. Just accept it. ”
I don’t think that’s what I was saying at all. I wrote: “People are entitled to hold this view, of course, but ultimately to do so is as culturally denying and socially divisive as opposing Welsh on road signs.” That isn’t shying away at all from debate on the issue – and neither was my response, which was direct and challenging to the assertion being made around place names.
And in the spirit of rocking the boat, let me take the debate further. The offer of localised consult the people exercises on this issue does little to placate me. I can just imagine the response if people started advocating the removal of Welsh place names from road signs, based on local plebiscite. Discuss.
Simon writes: “Place names are not really about diversity, but about power.” Very true. But I much prefer a Wales where power over such matters is shared, rather than used by one linguistic community over another. Such Anglicisation may have started as a power exercise but they are not perceived like that, surely, by many of the communities affected in a twentieth century Wales which is comfortable in its bilingualism. Though to a certain extent I am attracted by the “Welsh English” style you advocate.
“I can just imagine the response if people started advocating the removal of Welsh place names from road signs, based on local plebiscite. Discuss.”
It is being discussed. I frequently see a post/letter from “Angry of Newport” complaining about the pointless use of Welsh names on signs, and why can’t they remove them. Thing is, when “Angry of Newport” says it, they’re just expressing their fair opinion. When “Annoyed of Bangor” says the same thing (in reverse), they are being divisive, subversive. Why? There is a double standard that only seems to apply to the Welsh speakers. Subversive to whom? Are we so brainwashed and beaten that we now think, perfectly normally, what we’ve been told to think for at least 500 years? The English opinion is right, normal, justified, and ours is wrong, subversive, dangerous?
I know EXACTLY how it works, because I am from that monoglot English South-Eastern Labour area. I know how people think. How they act. What they believe. And why. Things may be sweetness and harmonious and equal in the Bay Bubble (or on match day), but they aren’t out here.
Al
Would you be content for Caerphilly to be standardised as Caerphilly? and for Cardiff to lose the Caerdydd? It strikes me that both outcomes are likely in the event of local plebiscites.
“Thing is, when “Angry of Newport” says it, they’re just expressing their fair opinion. When “Annoyed of Bangor” says the same thing (in reverse), they are being divisive, subversive. Why? There is a double standard that only seems to apply to the Welsh speakers.”
Not to me they’re not. Both are divisive standpoints. At no point in the original post or the ensuing thread have I used any double standards.
Actually when I referred to local plebiscites I did specify changes to the English orthography of Welsh names. Caerphilly replacing Caerffili outright would never be an option, Caerffili for Caerphilly would, Caerdydd for Cardiff wouldn’t, because the difference is no longer purely orthographic.
Simon
Apologies, but I’m not sure I get that point. Am I right in thinking that you say names that have been anglicised (e.g Caerffili and Caerdydd) may not be subject to a plebiscite where their removal from signs is an option?
I think I see the reasoning (although I’d be grateful for a more detailed explanation) but I’m not sure many people would accept a plebiscite in which the only choice was to retain the bilingual status quo, or drop the English version.
I’m not sure many people would accept a plebiscite in which the only choice was to retain the bilingual status quo, or drop the English version.
I’m referring to towns that only have a Welsh name, where the “English version” is the same Welsh name spelled differently, Caerphilly and Merthyr Tydfil for example are Welsh names.There are no English names for these places. They are not anglicisations either, not in the same way that Cardiff or Carmarthen are, they’re just orthographically outdated. As such it’s not so much a choice between a bilingual status quo and monoglot Welsh as a choice between monoglot Welsh spelled right and monoglot Welsh spelled wrong.
Not sure how many places fall into this category, though.
Ah right, I get it now. Thanks.
I’m sure you are right – in historical terms at least. In usage, however, I suspect that a number of people who live in Caerphilly would argue that Caerphilly is now the “correct” and accepted spelling and should be considered as a standardisation option. While you doubtless have scholarship on your side, they have custom and practice on theirs.
(at least they are phonetically similar, though. In Northern Ireland we had to go around saying “Londonderry/Derry” at all times. The locals now call it “slash city”.)
Perhaps just one more reason why this is so fraught?
I suspect that a number of people who live in Caerphilly would argue that Caerphilly is now the “correct” and accepted spelling and should be considered as a standardisation option. While you doubtless have scholarship on your side, they have custom and practice on theirs.
Well this is it. They’d have to want to ditch it. And as both spellings are official, it’s fair to ask whether there’d be any point to the exercise.
At risk of sounding like a broken record, Welsh orthography is basically phonetic. The problem is Anglo-Norman spellings that to some extent mean that a throughly ignorant Englishman wouldn’t read them too badly wrong, but that an unfamiliar Welshman (or a relatively well-informed Englishman) would misinterpret them. Spelling Llanhiledd as “Llanhilleth” (as the railway has) just results in errors (as appear in automated railway announcements). The only reason we don’t get people saying “Caerffi*ll*i” as a result of the Anglo-Norman “Caerphilly” is that people have usually heard of the cheese. The other main issue is that “u” and “y” have a horrendous tendency of flipping in Anglo-Norman spellings, with inevitably chaotic results. It would be much better if these Anglo-Norman spellings could be retired as an historical curiosity.
But we should stop where the pronunciation is genuinely different. Much though I dislike “Oystermouth” in place of “Ystumllwynarth” and “Skenfrith” in place of “Ynysgynwraidd”, there is a significant difference there, however hilariously wrong it may be.
So I’m staying in Daz’s group. It’s going in the right direction, even if I don’t subscribe to all the detail.
Daran, if you really find such invitations “offensive” then you should of course delete them. But ask yourself whether you would feel the same way if members of the Conwy Flower Arranging Group or the Rhondda Capri Owners Group had send out a message inviting their members to join a group to vote Yes in the referendum.
Perhaps you would. In which case I think you are being unnecessarily Puritan in wanting to keep the issues so rigidly separate.
I wouldn’t. I’d welcome and encourage it. And, more importantly, I’d welcome it whether or not I agreed with what I was being invited to do. Even if I were strongly in the No camp I wouldn’t be offended; I’d welcome the fact that the issue was being brought to wider attention, as it would be an opportunity to put my views across to the rest of that group. That is the nature of networking. Networking is all about the overlaps, and if it is acceptable for invitations to pass one way it is surely just as acceptable for them to pass the other way without you calling it “spamming” or “unnecessary”.
@James D
It’s amazing. Somehow, the automated railway announcements at Cardiff manage to mis-pronounce the English and the Welsh, with the Welsh “Ll” magically appearing in both languages.
I see why now.
I find it hilarious that those supposedly protecting their ‘endangered’ culture by suggesting oppressive schemes such as ridding Wales of English place names would, without missing a beat, happily rid places like South Pembrokeshire of its ancient placenames replacing them with made up welsh names.
Of course there is scope for the removal of English spellings for Welsh such as in the case of Caerphilly… after all, why wouldn’t you if local people were in agreement. However, as for other placenames, I would suggest that if the the Welsh name is more popular then nobody would even notice if the English was gone. It would be a natural progression.
However, that’s not the direction that the ‘welsh language movement’ seems to be taking in my personal experience. Rarely have I seen evidence of ‘Welshification’ being driven by desire of the majority of local people. Certainly never here in South Pembrokeshire… usually we are busy trying to defend ourselves from the long unreasonable arm of the Welsh Language board based in Cardiff who’ve probably never been here. It tends to be more the case that a tiny, vocal minority will oppressively demand change even where it is not wanted. This is most certainly not natural progression and should be stopped at all costs.
“I find it hilarious that those supposedly protecting their ‘endangered’ culture by suggesting oppressive schemes such as ridding Wales of English place names would, without missing a beat, happily rid places like South Pembrokeshire of its ancient placenames replacing them with made up welsh names.”
Read the thread again Henry. The campaigners would quite patently NOT remove English names that are substantially different to the Welsh ones.
Just how local should we go with this? There are, of course, many other languages spoken in Wales and places where we might find, for example, Urdu in the ascendancy. Should signs be written in other languages besides Welsh and English to give due recognition to the very plural Wales that we live in?
Or perhaps it is better to accept the least worst solution and settle for simple bilingual signage and be done.
Illtyd – the original purpose of the group was not based around orthographical change in the way that Simon Dyda explains, and which I have some time for.
It was about changing Holyhead to Caergybi etc, as the original blog post makes clear
Now the originator has decided to repackage the group as “Call to scrap SOME english versions of towns and cities in Wales. For example change St Asaph to Llanelwy, Ruthin to Rhuthun, Wrexham to Wrecsam and so on. Local people would need to express their views.”
But this is still liable to several interpretations and therefore provocative.
MH – you make a fair point on two way traffic. But members of the Conwy Flower Arranging Group might of course take equal offence and leave that group. I don’t regret the decision I made or the promotion of a debate on this issue.
Jackson – “perhaps it is better to accept the least worst solution and settle for simple bilingual signage and be done.”
I couldn’t agree more…
Illtyd Luke,
If that really is the case and we can all have some sort of assurance that Welsh language hard liners wouldn’t try and push it to the next level then I can’t see a problem with this.
However, it does really highlight one worrying thing that surely I can’t be the only one to have noticed:
People campaigned long and hard for bilingual signage and they rightly (particularly in the language heartlands) got it! Now here we are not long later and they’re at it again campaigning to have English removed from the signs. Where is it going to end? When are these people going to be happy? It does seem as though some are making careers out of it…. and further to that point, call me cynical but I hear the Welsh language translation industry is booming. Perhaps a little unfair whilst the rest of us are suffering and excluded from working in it.
Thanks Daran, I would never want you to regret initiating any subject of debate. That’s what I’d hope our blogs were for.
But what has happened here does raise questions about how the Yes Campaign should work, as you clearly think what has happened here has “crossed a line”. In particular the question is to what extent it should be a centralized campaign, as opposed to an “interlocking network” of campaigns sharing the same goal. Is there more strength in being united, or would it be better to let groups form that could draw in new people who would feel uncomfortable in a centrally organized, overtly “political” group? In particular I’m thinking of younger people who very definitely tend to want a Wales with more autonomy, but are disillusioned with the political process to the extent that they tend not to vote … and that applies to more than just young people, of course.
Not wanting to pick on Glyn Davies, but he has said that he does not want to join “the” Yes Campaign, even though I have no doubt he will put all his efforts into doing his part on his own or in a smaller group. I think (reading between the lines, and I may be wrong) that he must have some suspicion that the Yes Campaign might be fought too much on party lines. And I have said here that I think it might be a justified concern given some of the things Peter Hain said a few months ago.
You, Daran, have more experience of being at the centre of a Yes Campaign than anyone. Perhaps it might be worth starting a thread on the pros and cons of various approaches we might take … or at least what lines we should not cross.
MH – thanks for this. Agree that this is an interesting thread. It might be worth raising it with Cymru Yfory, which is filling the gap on the Yes side at the moment, or if you want to flesh it out would welcome an article here.
Back in 97 the political parties worked through Yes for Wales to varying degrees. For example, Labour had its own machine run by Andrew Davies and though some Labour people – and quite senior ones – joined and were active in YfW, it wasn’t an exclusive or excluding arrangement. I can well anticipate this happening again in 2010-11 but since I won’t be one of the people planning the Yes campaign this time, it’ll be up to those that deliver that function to work out the boundaries. Though it would be odd if a multiple approach isn’t permitted, I’d imagine that Glyn, for example, would feel more comfortable doing his own thing through a network of pro-more powers Conservatives.
Similarly, will there be a single No campaign? But that’s a matter for them.
Henry R – Yes you are being a little cyncial, with respect.
This has been an excellent debate and as somene who was up to his neck in the 97 campaign, it is not a debate that we could have had then, without accusations of ‘all sorts’.
Glyn is being a little pre-emptive in deciding whether or not he should be involved in a ‘yes’ campaign, as no-one really knows what shape it will take. Yet, I do anticipate an all party campaign that will be far more inclusive than previously held. I welcome this approach but see dangers in unity. For starters, we must involve individuals from outside the political spectrum. As much as I dislike the ‘celebrity’ culture that influences society, it is far more significant than it was in 97 and far more likely to swing a public deeply cynical about anyone resembling a politician.
We will also have to take account of individuals who while being supporters of the confirmation of powers, will find it impossible to work alongside fellow ‘yes’ supporters who they loathe. In 97, many Labour and Lib Dem supporters refused to get involved in the official ‘yes’ campaign in Swansea and instead worked within their own party structures. Such people should be encouraged to do so, as it is far bettter for them to be involved than not at all. This may well be the path for Glyn and I’m sure that it has nothing to do with Lembit!
As a final thought, I hope in future that people read all the thoughts of such topics, before being ‘offended.’
Ian,
I accept that you would think that.
I have my reasons and evidence for saying what I believe. You are right that there is some great debate on this (albeit not all strictly related to the title) and I wouldn’t want to drag it down. However, there must be a way that I can respectfully point out the elephant in the room.
Whilst a select group of people are free to have their ‘high-brow’ discussions on this website, they do need to know that the things being said here could not be further from the reality of what the man or woman on the street thinks…. well certainly not my street anyway.
Ian wrote: “As a final thought, I hope in future that people read all the thoughts of such topics, before being ‘offended.’”
There’s nothing ‘faux’ in my being offended. And it’s chicken and egg. If I hadn’t been offended, I wouldn’t have written the blog post, and it wouldn’t have led to this interesting discussion.
“In 97, many Labour and Lib Dem supporters refused to get involved in the official ‘yes’ campaign in Swansea and instead worked within their own party structures. Such people should be encouraged to do so, as it is far bettter for them to be involved than not at all. This may well be the path for Glyn”
Factually correct and agree with you entirely.
As a monoglot English speaking Welshman, I have no problem with bilingual street, road and direction signs.
If that rocks your boat so be it.
But bilingual traffic information signs are unreadable at normal driving speed.
They are distracting and hazardous.
Surely on safety grounds alone these should be in the language spoken by the majority.
“But bilingual traffic information signs are unreadable at normal driving speed.”
If you really can’t read them, you shouldn’t be driving.
Wales is not a bilingual country, unfortunately, the Welsh language is hegemonous! If we were truly bilingual then we would not have the Anglo-Norman orthography of the Welsh name on our road signs but modern English translations. I reside in Pontypool but should like as a monoglot English speaker to see my town signed as Bridge upon the Pool, which sounds very romantic and reminiscent of Borton on the Water. The fact that Welsh language campaigners have won the right to Welsh usage but modern English translations are precluded is abjectly unfair – you are all hypocrites!
Richard, putting modern English translations on signage is ridiculous, frankly. This isn’t about Welsh superiority, or wiping out English, but about correctness. Ponty has been Pont-y-p?l (or Pont Poell) since it was built. It’s never been called “Bridge upon the pool”, even if that’s what it means in Welsh. So why now?
Next you’ll be saying that we should rename Abergavenny “Mouth of the River Gavenny”, or Dartford to “Oak River”, or Glasgow to “Green hollow”. That is what they might mean (translated from original Brythonic/Welsh), but they’ve never been called by their English meaning. Ridiculous.
I am stating that to have parity with the Welsh language that all Welsh place names should have English transliteration correspondences and yes Abergavenny should be signposted Mouth of the Gavenny. If the Scottish Glasgae or the Gaelic Glaschu had parity of usage with Glasgow then Green Hollow should also be in official use therefore respecting everyone’s liguistic background. Elderly expats visiting the country of their birth are flabbergasted to find Newport as Casnewydd and Swansea as Abertawe. Why now, you ask – simply to have equaility with the vociferous minority that has foisted the Welsh language on an unwilling English speaking majority; irrespective of the cost, that incidentally could have been invested in the NHS and education. This is, though, a moral issue: what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander! In a progressive society the argument of never doesn’t hold water: gender and race campaigners didn’t accept the reactionary argument that women were never equal to men or Africans never equal to Europeans so I am not going to accept historical precedent preventing the march towards true equality either!