I agree that Welsh should not be regarded as a foreign language within Wales. However, I am sure that many Welsh people will consider it foreign in all but name as they don’t speak it and many will have little knowledge of it. Here in SSIW land there is the right balance for us who did not speak Welsh once but were Welsh by birth in that we have the comfort of writing in English but with the knowledge that we now have both languages. Of course we cannot and shouldn’t say that Welsh is a foreign language but we should be aware that even those who love Wales may feel that it is until they can be encouraged to come over to the, ummm, SSIW side!
That Wikipedia definition isn’t bad, but it is complex and doesn’t cover all eventualities.
There is this additional problem of native, when does that happen? If you move to another country are you instantly a native, does it take some time or do you never fully achieve native status, though your children can; it’s complicated.
As i said the UK is complicated, as it is both one country and four at the same time. Technically, by this definition there are few foreign languages, as there will be a least a couple of people who speak any modern language who live there. But what would be the point of stretching the definition, foreign is a useful word for generally separating things, but breaks down when it comes to detail.
I used the example of foreign bodies earlier. Now a virus may have been ‘born’ (it became a new copy of the virus formed of native material in the host body) in the host, so technically it is not a foreign body, only copies of the virus that enter from outside are technically foreign. The problem with the word foreign is that it often it is often taken in a negative sense [“all these ruddy foreign types coming here with their strange ways and stealing our womenfolk with their exotic allures”], when the word itself does not attach such value
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a stranger is from another country
That’s interesting because the Huguenots came from France, of course, where the word “étranger” means foreign or foreigner. Moreover, the “é” often indicates that the original was an “s”.
I spent a happy, hippy year at UEA in the late 60s where I learnt to speak fluent Norfolk. 
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I always wonder why people want to have things to be complicated as they’re actually very simple. UK (roughly) consists of (let’s take just Great Britain and not "colonies too) 4 separate countries - Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland - put together in one single country. This part is similar to ex Yugoslavia. We were 6 republics (we could even at that time say 6 countries) put into one single country. So, no matter where in the country the language is spoken by native people, it is NOT foreign language.
I would simply change this Wikipedia definition in a very simple statement: Foreign language is that one which is not spoken by native speakers primarly living in one particular country and is not official language in any part of the country. So … Scots live on their land from “ancient” days, so do Valians, Irelanders and Englanders and this for all those languages should not be cibsuddered as foreign languages. Foreign languages should neither be Cornish and other still spoken languages no matter how many people speak it.
This seams so natural to me and quite simple. As long as we lived in ex-Yugoslavia we (as I’ve already aaid) had 4 official languages and although Macedonian (for example) could be foreign language to me it wasn’t. However we have 2 minorities in Slovenia - Hungarian and Italian and so those two languages are languages of these minorities and for this foreign language as they “belong” to another country.
So … we have one more mission to acomplish - to give the word “foreign” a positive note. As in all cases, it only depends of from which angle you take one thing (word in this case) and what value you’re willing to add to it.
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It seems that here more South in Europe we share the same way of perceiving “foreign” languages! (see also my comment above).
Maybe because of different history of or countries, maybe for the way we were taught history, maybe for the language itself we use to describe the world or maybe it’s just a personal perception…I don’t know!
Most definitely in these times we have a mission to give “foreign” a positive note by the way. People are going insane here in Italy!
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Here in Finland we have to official languages: Finnish and Swedish. We refer the other one as the other domestic language, never ever as a foreign language.
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Yes, it looks like so.
Do you have to learn some of Sweedish (if you’re not Sweedish speaker already) by default like we had to learn Serbo-Croatianin ex Yugoslavia or it is a kind of choice which language will you use as “your own”?
Oh yes, the other language is a mandatory school subject (also at the university because public servants must know both). I don’t know how it works for bilinguals but for us monolinguals you have one or the other as an official language. (Well, Sami also nowadays.)
(And of course that mandatory Swedish is deeply hated by many, since it’s quite unlikely that you ever need it. And it’s not like you really learn to speak it at the school…)
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I would somehow say to Sweedish in Finland “official foreign language” as it actually belongs to another nation living in their own country regularly … 
@tatjana however, @tygerc
it’s interesting that in Finland Swedish is not “foreign” while here German, French and Slovenian are official languages in a few Italian regions (and schools are bilingual) but still “foreign” to Italians.
By the way…is Russian defined “foreign” in ex-Yugoslavian countries now?
But… What we’re finding out through this thread is that it’s not so simple!
Language is complicated, people use words differently! Dictionaries tend to have multiple definitions for the same words!
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Just speaking for myself. When I was growing up in N.E England, I would never have considered Welsh or any other British language, or country for that matter, as being foreign. I’d say the nearest would have to be French, Norwegian, etc.
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Despite we were kind of bound to Russia until 1952 (or so) we never had Russian as native language. Russian was always foreign language in all Yugoslav republics but it was taught in schools across the country at the time. I know people who are old enough to be able (kind of obliged) to learn Russian at school but there was a choice. You could choose inbetween Russian and German (how interesting, isn’t it?) until English came to schools as the main foreign language to learn and Russian language was substituted with German as the second choice. Serbo-Croatian was not foreign language but was taught only half of the school year in 4th grade in which time we were able to learn the language and the script (cyrilic). Knowing the script was very useful as you could buy newspaper in cyrilic script too and when boys went to serve the army in other republics they were much more exposed to the language and script of it.
Now in Slovenia Russian is taught in schools only by request as 3rd foreign language to choose if there’s enough interest for learning it. If not, you can not choose it to learn in school but have to go your own way or visiting evening classes or do it at home as many of us do Welsh with SSiW. (But of course not that particular way as it is unique to SSi). How the things are standing in other ex Yugoslav countries I don’t know though.
Let’s say it’s as complicated as we want it to be but I agree it’s the unique to every single country and nation in one particular country. As I’ve said before, we have Italian and Hungarian minority who use Italian and Hungarian as well as Slovene and both languages are official languages of the area and in parlament (if one chooses to use it there), but still Hungarian and italian are foreign languages in our country despite people speak it and are learning it in bilingual schools as it is the case with Slovene minority in Italy, Hungary and Austria. They speak the language and is the official language in the regions where minorities live aswell but it’s still foreign language to the Italians, Hungarians and Austrians. And the cases are changing with the policy and history … but yet … I don’t find it complicated at all. It’s everything quite pure to me though. Whatsoever … Welsh can’t be a foreign language in UK no matter what (at least I think so).
That’s what I had in mind.
And besides: It’s not about what people are thinking of one language to be foreign but what is the situation in general in one particular country. We alone can think what we want but the general status of one language wouls not change because of that though.
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It’s interesting that “Welsh” is derived from the Anglo-Saxon “Wahl” leading on to Wales, Wallonia, Valais etc. It is a term denoting the language of non-germanic peoples - Romano-British in our case and is indicated as the language of “foreigners” or “outsiders”.
By definition Welsh is a language foreign to anyone who might still consider themselves Germanic i.e. in our case Anglo Saxon. It is interesting that we have adopted the word, with most in Wales or Britain probably not knowing its origins.
Cymraeg is something quite different and altogether nicer - the language of compatriots or to me the language of friends, with common interests and values?
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I do agree @aran that @david-ball-1 had not actually actively implied that Welsh is a language foreign to the UK.
I can also agree that to many worldwide English speakers Welsh is a foreign language, and vice versa to worldwide Welsh speakers there is no reason why English need seem anything other than alien (though not extra-terrestrial).
However, I would be and am disappointed in any Englishwomen, cisgendered and trans, and/or non binary who might dismiss the need for residents of England to take more interest in the languages that originate within and just beyond England’s current borders. If there is such a woman out there, please refer her to me. (;-))
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“Welsch” in German has been used to refer to refer to Italians and their culture/language, I believe.
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I’m so glad you make this point about “native”.
The Irish recognise that they were preceded as residents by Na Fir Bolg.
We do not really yet know who were and were not the first peoples, but Alice Roberts’ on BBC tv documentaries tells an ever more complex story as new archaeological discoveries happen and scientific techniques develop.
Aboriginal, indigenous, native peoples, and what Georges Brassens calls “les autochtones” have oft been derided, dismissed, oppressed, enslaved, robbed of traditional lands and spiritual homes, made invisible even to themselves, tolerated with little good grace, treated as second class citizens, patronised, had their folklore/culture/heritage mined and appropriated without recompense and horribly distorted, etc and in microcosm it happens within any culture between generations…
Diversity is our collective inheritance. Wanting what and who you get on your plate/doorstep is life’s big challenge.
Forgive them (us), for they (we) know not what they (we) do…
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…while admitting that in some senses English itself and its contributor language ancestors originated/keep originating in each new guise of the language, OUTSIDE England’s borders… Inglis developed in what is now Scotland. Angles and Saxons and Jutes, Danes and other Norse came from elsewhere, mingled elsewhere as well as in what counts now as England, ranged and traded across the world , absorbed speakers of other languages and their technologies. Subtract Irish writers and their influence from “English” literature and you’d be left with a hollow shell.
Welsh-speaking people are in charge of official Welsh, but every human language belongs to humanity. Greatest Humanity knows no borders…
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“Welsch” in German has been used to refer to refer to Italians and their culture/language
That’s why I always describe myself in German as “walisisch” or “aus Wales”
I’m so glad you make this point about “native”
I’ve always assumed native comes from the Latin “natus” meaning “born” but I can see that it has adopted other loaded connotations now.
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An interesting thread!
Talk of etranger made me think of the Welsh word for “foreign” which is “estron”, but has a wider meaning, more akin to the original meaning of foreign, being “strange, from outside”, as in “foreign body” in first aid.
That lead me to wonder about the origin of “foreign” which, as the internet does, led me to the word “fremd”, still used in Scotland and NE England, apparently, to mean foreigner or stranger. Which I guess means that to some people, a fremd is just a friend that you don’t know. And you thought Welsh was complicated…
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