Is the welsh language just for the tourists or, as unlikely as it may seem, do real people actually use it?

Question

Alan L - so children are forced to speak welsh in school and hence it is the fastest growing language in the world; kind of makes sense, but if you applied the same rules and made them all speak Russian, you would have the same result, although Russian would, of course be more useful!!

Answer 1

god i hate the welsh launguage,
i am actually from and live in cardiff and its crap!
the people who speak it are generally t"@*s
its compulsory to learn in school.

Answer 2

Of course people actually use it -- to express themselves. But they are polite enough not to use it in front of tourists if the tourists are to be included in the conversation. The biggest cultural event in Wales is the National Eisteddfod, which is almost entirely Welsh speaking, although there is a special tent for beginners who are unable to speak it fluently as yet. It is the language of many churches and there is a fine tradition of hymn singing in Welsh. There is a Welsh language television channel (Sianel Pedwar) and a growing availability of Welsh literature. It is possible to attend the University of Wales and graduate in a limited range of subjects without being able to speak English (I've known people who did!) Why do you think it unlikely that Welsh people should speak their own language? It is spoken outside Wales, with parents who have emigrated to England or other European countries bringing up their children to speak Welsh. I have spoken Welsh to people in Australia, various Caribbean countries and Patagonia (where there is a real revival of the Welsh language among young people). What more can I say to convince you? The Welsh language is for the Welsh, and anyone who wants to learn it, not to impress tourists.

Answer 3

It's a living Language-2 of the Big Brother 7(uk) housemates were Welsh and had conversations they didn't want the others to hear..and the Producers must've had a Welsh speaker on the staff to put up the subtitles :)

Answer 4

My kids actually go to a welsh medium school. The standard of education is higher. That's not to slate english speaking school!! just where I live in Cardiff. The basis of the language is that it's also then easier to pick up a thid language without many problems. I personally can only speak about 10 words in welsh but my kids as both fluent in english and welsh.

Answer 5

I'm from Caerphilly in South Wales and we have both English speaking and Welsh speaking schools around the area. I went to and English speaking school but we had Welsh lessons. Before the schooling was changed we could drop it the time of taking our GCSE options or carry on. At the time in my school isn't wasn't taught as well as French so I dropped Welsh.

It is something I regret as now that I live in the North West of England I get asked a lot if I can speak it. I can say the odd word but not enough to say full blown sentences. I do plan to try and learn it though those language books you can purchase.

My gran came from Gilfach Goch which isn't too far from Caerphilly and her first language is Welsh. I remember her telling me that when she was young it was always Welsh speaking until the English and Irish moved in for the coal. It was at that time in the valley that they were forced to speak English and had to wear plaques saying Welsh and were not allowed to speak English.

I think this is where a lot of the resentment comes from. All road signs in Sth Wales are in di-lingual with English first followed by the Welsh version. Although I've been told that in North Wales this is the other way around.

I've not encountered many Welsh only speaking places in Sth Wales but when I went to uni in Swansea they seem to speak it more openly than we do 40 odd miles away.

A friend of mine used to live in Nth Wales and he told me that they were always taught if someone English asks you directions always answer them in Welsh and tell them the wrong thing. We don't do that where I come from.

Answer 6

A smallish percentage in northern Wales speak Welsh as a native language, and school systems in Wales are making an attempt at reviving the language. Road signs in Wales are in English and Welsh, and government office and Post Office signs are also in both languages. So yes, real people speak Welsh.

Answer 7

My father-in-law was from South Wales and he only ever spoke in his own language when in the company of his sister who refused to speak English because it wasn't her language, thankfully we have never come across any other Welsh person like her, we visit south Wales regular and yes a lot of the Welsh people do speak their own language and good on them, but none of them have ever used it in front of us as they know we don't understand it.

Answer 8

Per head of population, it's the fastest growing world language.

Kids at school have to learn it now.

The 2004 Census showed that almost 25% of the Welsh population cound speak and/ or understand it.

Groeso y Cymru

Answer 9

When my other half was a kid, his family moved to North Wales and he had to learn welsh as all his lessons were in welsh, when the last BB was on and Glynn was talking in Welsh,. I had my own true translation.
Just like wales is unfortunately real, so is the language.

Many years ago when I was a kid my parents took us to wales for a holiday and if we asked directions we were sent the wrong way. If you went in a shop they would ignore you and talk welsh amongst themselves. The other thing is all the sign posts were pointing in the wrong direction.

Plus in the 1980's if you were not welsh and you owned a holiday home in North Wales it was burnt down.

What I want to know is If Wales is as good as all the Welsh make out, how come you have to pay to cross the Bridge to go into wales but not to come out. I would gladly pay to leave wales if I was unfortunate to be there.

Another thing, have you noticed that when welsh people live in England, their home is a shrine to Wales. If they love Wales that much why do they not move back there?

Answer 10

I went to Uni in Wales and it is really used, especially in more rural areas. All of the signs are bi-lingual and everything we were sent from the Uni was in both languages. Plus my graduation ceremony was in Welsh. Its a cool, ancient language that is only funny because they don't have words for everything so there is a lot of English in it which makes it sound strange.

Answer 11

I'm all for encouraging your own language as part of your culture so long as we all don't have to pay for it - Irish is now added to the official labnguages of the EU so all documents are translated into Irish at a cost of EUR3M per year even though there are only around 1m people in Ireland who can understand it and of those 99% would also understand it better in English.