How Petty

[Canary42]

Cancel culture at its worst.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-67098393

[ToraToraTora]

Wrong again Perseverer, the citizens of Serbia for example learn't English from watching OFAH! Lovely Jubbly!

[Boto]

There may be 17+% people able to speak Welsh but how many actually do?  I know some people who can't string a sentence together in Welsh, only know a few odd words, but said they can speak it.

[Deskdiary]

TCL says less than 20% of Welsh people speak Welsh as justification for "almost nobody speaks Welsh". Really? That's a pretty weak argument.

So less than 1 in 5 Welsh people speak Welsh.

My SIL & BIL live in Haverfordwest and there's a newish secondary school there that teaches only in Welsh. This is Pembrokeshire, or little England as it's otherwise known, so only teaching in Welsh is doing the kids a disservice.

Welsh is a minority language that over 80% of Welsh people don't speak, including my BIL who is Welsh.

[ToraToraTora]

wow that's child abuse DD.

[Deskdiary]

It's a curious point that TCL made, and a flawed point, that Welsh is widely spoken even though less than 20% speak it.

When I went to school less than 20% wasn't a lot.

[Old_Geezer]

Dunno about petty, but a prime example of the trouble speaking the truth brings you in today's world.

Can't see me asking for reincarnation when I next find myself in the happy hunting grounds.

[ToraToraTora]

Even those that speak it don't really, they know some words of course but you can really be fluent in Welsh because modern speech has words that do not have a Welsh equivalent so it just sounds odd anyway.

[Deskdiary]

^^^quite.

TCL has lost this one. Hopefully he'll come back and admit same.

[jourdain2]

MrJ2 can just about string a sentence together in  Welsh, but he has forgotten a lot over the last 80 or so years.

He was sent, aged 6, as an evacuee to a village near  Swansea where the local school taught Welsh as a second language (embarassingly, he came top of the class!).  Later  he lived  in mid-Wales in the 1980s and sang with a Male voice choir, which boosted the language.

He thinks  it is ridiculous to promulgate the language as a first language - a second language, yes.  I agree.

[Khandro]

A friend of mine moved to Wales about 30 years ago to discover that his children had to learn Welsh in school. I don't know if this is still the case, but it seemed to be a ridiculous waste of time & resources when they could have been learning a more useful European language - even Latin would have been more advantageous for their lives.

Narrow-minded ideology, nothing less. 

[THECORBYLOON]

DD, TORATORATORA claimed, "almost no one speaks Welsh not even the Welsh"

If 17.8% or 538,300 folk speak it, would you not agree that is not, "almost no one"?

[barry1010]

Yes, the Welsh language does use some English words but many of the words in all those volumes of the English dictionary have been 'borrowed' or adopted from other languages.  Latin, French, German, Spanish, Arabic, several Asian and African languages, Russian....

I am still in my pyjamas, in my house (not a bungalow) in a cul-de-sac.

[William51]

 This is a complete knee jerk reaction, Nigel Hunt was only pointing out a safety issue, which should be investigated.

[bhg481]

William - I think you could have left out the word KNEE from your comment.

[naomi24]

The professor is right but unfortunately people on a mission have a tendancy to ignore practicality and reality.  Perhaps these nincompoops really believe that some day the Welsh will abandon English in favour of their national language.  I just hope they're not holding their collective breath.