Welsh Language

A parent’s love of language: “you have to take your inspiration from where you find it…”

Mick Fealty on March 2, 2014, 4:36 pm | Readers 59

Back in the 80s, I remember an elderly aunt in Beechmount telling me about the day her mother told her to fetch my grandad from the Donegal shore of their small farm, and her remarking that ‘she spoke us, as she always did, in Irish, and we replied in English’. It was only then it struck just how immersed my own father must have been in a language I sweated tears to get my head round as a kid and …

The Western Mail reverts to an old old type…

Dewi on May 22, 2012, 9:19 pm | Readers 54

The Western Mail, Wales’s National Newspaper, has lost the plot. A front page editorial states: AN EXTRAORDINARY recommendation has been made by eight AMs that would see up to £400,000-a-year spent on translating the written record of every meeting held at the National Assembly into Welsh. We say that at a time when budgets are squeezed and public services are being cut, this is a luxury we cannot afford And: We fully support the right of AMs and others to …

Tories can be nice people…?

Dewi on April 16, 2011, 10:08 am | Readers 4

Hasn’t the world changed recently. According to my Mam this lot used to eat Miners’ babies for breakfast…. Welsh Tory manifesto. Wales is blessed with a vibrant heritage, two national languages and an outstanding sporting tradition. Our national community was among the first to emerge in Europe. We have a literary tradition that dates back to the sixth century. Yet while devolution has brought renewed self-confidence to Wales, successive Labour-led WAGs have failed to take enough pride in Welsh cultural …

Welsh language hits the big time…

Dewi on February 27, 2011, 5:31 pm | Readers 11

It’s finally arrived – the Welsh language Email scam! As reported in the Western Mail: a message that will be familiar to many repeat recipients of messages from deposed African royals, a widow of a Kuwaiti ambassador for the Ivory Coast asks for help distributing a $2.5m trust fund for the needy if the willing party can just send through their bank details. DC John Cherry, e-Crime Wales business liaison officer, said that it was an “old-fashioned” scam that perhaps …

Welsh (and English?) now an Official Language in Wales….

Dewi on December 8, 2010, 3:57 pm | Readers 98

We’ve just passed A Welsh Language Measure – David Williamson (of Belfast I believe) writes in the Western Mail: Leading activists yesterday welcomed a last-minute move by the Assembly Government to secure the status of Welsh as an official language in Wales as AMs voted on flagship legislation. The Assembly yesterday passed the long-awaited Welsh Language Measure which will lead to new bilingual duties on publicly- funded organisations and key utility providers. Early yesterday afternoon it emerged that the Assembly …

Welsh Language in the Heartland

Dewi on October 7, 2010, 4:14 pm | Readers 95

There is increasing evidence of the decline of the Welsh language as a lingua franca of areas traditionally thought of as Welsh speaking, coupled with a marked increase in the use of the language in more Anglicised areas. It’s a fairly easy phenomena to understand – as the % speakers fall below 75 to 70% it is normal for the languages of institutions such as the WI, Cricket Clubs, Young Farmers etc etc to change their primary language.

Dewi

Welsh Nationalist. Rugby Fan. Know a bit about History and Railways…