Aran discourages anything remotely political on this Forum and I do understand why. I am a Nationalist who is definitely not right wing. I want Independence, not prejudice. I have nothing against the people of any other Nation and do not object to immigration, but all these topics raise lots of hackles. These are also the topics I most want to discuss. I happen to feel that Welsh is still under threat from English as a result of incomers who do not want to learn Welsh and expect whole villages to change to English for them. How can we have a Welsh Forum which ignores our history and our current politics? We just need trolls to be greeted with total disdain and their messages flagged as ‘rubbish’!!! 
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Well yes, often these days people don’t even bother to look at comments because they expect trolls. The a problem of entrenched ghettos/bubbles is a wider social problem, the internet isn’t helping, but the media has always sought to divide has it not. it’s very hard to tell when someone is being genuine and when you have a troll. How discussions are arranged makes a huge difference.
Yes, an AI pulling links to items of interest, then a locally hosted discussion with a separate area for discussion by Welsh learners. How much this would cost, I don’t know, Content could of course be added locally too.
2 points:
- this isn’t a Welsh forum, it is the SSiW forum.
- that’s my original point; a forum needs to spring up around a common interest, thats how they start to work. So it needs to be a forum about politics that happens to be in Welsh.
This is the same issue I have with events for dysgwyr - they have their place, of course, but they won’t be the lifeblood of growing the use of the language.
So in essence, we need to find the equivalent of the Pwyllgor apêl - events to raise money for the Eisteddfod that are naturally in Welsh.
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Yes, I agree about the current SSi forum being primarily (although not exclusively) a forum for the SSi courses. We can all see why any discussions on the main forum about politics or religion need to be of a of a nature that isn’t too deep.
I used the word “we” as it seems appropriate because of the way that Aran, Catrin, Iestyn & Cat have welcomed us all into the SSI family, whilst remembering that they will have the final say in such matters as this.
So, when I suggested a sub-forum, in practice it would probably need to be a 2nd forum, to avoid accidental cross-pollination; or at least, clearly separated in the way that the Million Speakers threads are.
Currently, some of us tend to re-meet in an ad-hoc basis on Twitter etc, to widen any deeper conversations/debates. So I guess that we are just looking to formalise this, but in Cymraeg, as we feel equipped to take part (edit: I meant "as and when we feel equipped…). In fairness, I couldn’t have written these thoughts in Welsh with my current command of the language.
That’s my take on it. I think it would be great if we could do it under the SSi banner, but as I hinted above, it wouldn’t be right to push the SSI leadership in the wrong direction.
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I don’t tweet. All talk of trolls has put me off. I am dipping a toe into Facebook, mainly the Messages app!
Fair point. It is always a potential problem, although I haven’t experienced it myself. Having said that, journalists and politicians, etc seem to get a fair battering.
That’s why we might need our own site to keep things reasonably civil, or grow some extra thick skins.
No, this is not true.
What we discourage - or rather, do not permit - is discourse which targets or blames groups or individuals.
So you, for example, talk in that post (which I will leave there so people can see what I mean) about Welsh being under threat ‘as a result of incomers who do not want to learn Welsh’ - and apparently you don’t understand that many of the incomers who DO want to learn Welsh will feel uncomfortable at seeing ‘incomers’ blamed for problems facing the language.
We do not want - and will not permit - that kind of discourse (with this single example of yours kept solely for educational purposes).
But we welcome - and enjoy - political discourse which avoids focusing on blame or targeting groups or individuals.
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Interesting - and this is meant as a serious, and not a snarky question: is it possible to have a deep and/or wide conversation via Twitter?
I say this as only a casual user of Twitter. Because I have an account (more than one, actually), Twitter sends me emails about things “it” thinks I will be interested in, and occasionally I follow those links to the Twitter website, and see some Twitter exchanges. By its very nature, it seems designed to encourage shoot-from-the-hip, one-liner type replies which can so easily descend into fights.
I have from time to time taken discussions from the forum “offline” into PM exchanges or sometimes email exchanges, which to me, lend themselves to wider or deeper discussion. I would not (personally) want to do it via Twitter. One reason for this is that I’m never totally sure who can see Tweets and who can’t, whereas PM and emails are fairly controllable in that way (not totally, as they can be forwarded, but I feel I have some control over them).
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Please, please, please explain. How can those who do learn mind the fact that dilution of the presence of the language is attributed to those who don’t learn and how else could the language be diluted save by people who don’t speak it and don’t learn it? I genuinely do not understand how anyone can discuss the state of the language and suggest possible solutions to its decline without knowing the cause of that decline and discussing possible causes.
[quote=“henddraig, post:49, topic:10319”]
How can those who do learn mind the fact that dilution of the presence of the language is attributed to those who don’t learn[/quote]
Because of the way in which you’re choosing to group them.
You didn’t say ‘people who don’t learn’ - you said ‘incomers who don’t want to learn’ - and by the second half of the phrase, you’ve already reached ‘them’, and from that point on, the more you talk about ‘they’ and ‘them’, the more it’s going to sound as though you’re talking about incomers in general, and the more unpleasant it will be to read for people who see themselves as being in that group.
It may be easy for you, far away from the complicated and difficult social issues involved with this, to think my point here is trivial and unimportant. It’s not, though - I’ve seen far too many supportive, positive English people become disheartened by EXACTLY this kind of generalisation to see it as trivial.
Discourse around the language has involved far, far too much blaming over the years.
I reiterate, we will NOT permit it here.
The two most important other contributory factors are people who do speak it moving away (and that is a group who have been targeted and blamed on occasion in Welsh discourse), and people who speak it choosing not to pass it on to their children (likewise).
You’ve not been paying attention to the Million Speakers Project sub-forum, then - https://forum.saysomethingin.com/c/welsh/million-speakers - where we’ve been doing EXACTLY that, and very encouragingly so.
It really is NOT complicated - focus on solutions, not problems, and avoid the blame game.
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Oh dear. So sorry, did not at all mean to blame anyone, just flag up people to try to reach with lessons. Maybe with social events welcoming …look on Gower, the language didn’t come into it, English was it! But caring about the village did matter and we gave people Welcome packs with useful info. We made sure to invite them to village events. Now it is hard when one group does not speak a word of the other group, but Welcome parties could be in English and people could be introduced to those who have learned! Who better to be Language Ambassadors.
Edit . In fact, all Forum members actually in Wales could be ambassadors of that kind, showing how easy SSIW is to use!
It’s far too simplistic to blame a group. As Aran highlights there are multifaceted contributing factors to the decline of the language.
Part of the reason this isn’t discussed here is because it’s preaching to the choir. You’re talking to Welsh learners. That need can be fulfilled on many other forums.
The other thing I have an issue with with Facebook learners forums is how often people bring up the politics behind it and use phrases like “our language”. It’s a phrase almost always used by people born in Wales who are learning. It’s very isolating to those of us without Welsh connections who have gone to so much effort to learn. Does that mean I will never be part of “our”?
On these same groups people often say learners must learn the history. Why? You don’t with any of the major European or Asian languages. It’s inevitable you will hear about it with Welsh but why does it have to be on a forum for learners?
These are reasons that language politics has to be approached with such caution.
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It’s interesting to hear the views here. I agree generally that a more focussed clientele would be served better by an online forum eg sports, hobby etc. These are things which people would come online to see
I was just reading Golwg and a mumsnet in Welsh has just been set up…
There ya’ go! Best of luck to it. Maybe similar things will come along. With regards to off-line, I enjoy following minority languages and read a story about Gaelic in NI, where a Gaelic speaking community had purchased a plot of land, and started a nursery solely through Gaelic. I think activities like this can be useful as it incentivises people and makes them realise that the language is important. They should be open to speakers and learners of all levels.
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Only following nice people seems to work and I do follow one or two of the ‘other side’ and you do see interesting things and often people link to longer reads anyway. Also you would be welcome at #aydysgwyr every Monday 9-10 [UK time] (well excepting Christmas day, maybe), posts in Welsh or English are welcome
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But Aran tells us when we complete one of the courses, that Welsh is ‘our language’ now. That means it is your language too as soon as you can speak it, whoever you are, wherever you come from, wherever you are going to. So No is your answer.
Already I’m quite possessive about Welsh, yet it is a ‘club’ everyone is very welcome to join. To be honest I was always fairly possessive about it and always had to put up with some banter/ridicule towards it, because I identify as ‘Welsh’ [despite being born in England], but I’m more so now. The negative comments about the language only strengthens that possessive feeling of those who identify as Welsh (but don’t necessarily speak Welsh) and those that speak Welsh (but don’t necessarily identify as Welsh)
Maybe sometimes ‘our language’ is thrust at perceived “enemies” of the language as they do exist and can be taken out of context.
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Thinking about it, for many people the Welsh language is part of their identity and hence evokes feeling of loyalty and membership of a tribe.
There are parallels with football clubs. As some of you know I am a Manchester City supporter. I call myself ‘y ddraig las’, The Blue Dragon, because I identify as Welsh and as a City supporter. The funny thing about identity is that you don’t choose it, you discover it. In Manchester there are lots of Blue families (Man City supporters) and Red families (Man United supporters). Quite often there are ‘black sheep’ who bat for the other team (to their parents eternal grief). They do this because the other club is a better fit for them for their personality, they discover a sense of belonging, that this is their team, that they never found whilst been taken to home games of the other club. It is very weird but that is how football works. This is why football fans go to football matches, not only to watch the game but to partake ein a deep sense of belonging, where they can be themselves. It’s not surprising really, that the most popular City chants over the years have been ‘We love you City, we do’ and ‘I’m City until I die’ because they evoke the feeling of shared identity. ‘Blue Moon’ itself encapulates every Blues feelings adn memory of the journey to discovering the club 'Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone, without a dream n my heart, without a love of my own". Liverpool’s ‘You’ll never walk alone’ is very similar. This desire to share a common identity is by no means confined to football stadiums.
So, some people also find a sense of home in Wales or within the Welsh language community and sometimes both. Mostly those people grow into the same community they grew up with, but you get the occasional ‘black sheep’ who doesn’t quite fit in enough to identify with the community they grew up in and that doesn’t mean that the community has failed in anyway, we are all different. Sometimes you get outsiders who become Welsh. I know people who moved to Wales and on day one they were not Welsh at all, but over the years they slowly became more Welsh until one day they sometimes realise they have become more Welsh than anything else.
But every football club is also open and welcoming to new members of the tribe. Perhaps languages are a bit like this too, it takes a while, but after time you realise that you too are a member of this community and liek football that door is always open for those who wish to pass through the door, whether they get the whole identity thing or not.
Of course not everyone has this strong sense of identity. There are lots of people who just enjoy watching football and are not passionate about one club or another. It’s perhaps similar with language, you can learn Welsh because you love learning languages or it serves some other interest.
For example I went to watch Swansea City play Man City this week at Swansea. I even sang along with ‘Ar hyd ar Nos’ [a Swansea and Welsh national song], i got some odd looks from the Blues around me, but I told them I was Welsh and had just got caught up in the moment and forgot where I was and they were fine, because I was one of us, the Blue tribe. I watched the highlights on the telly when I got home, to see the goals at the other end properly. A comment was made about why some of the Swansea fans left before the end of the game, surely they would want to appreciate the skill of the currently very good City team? No, they are Swansea, they lost 4-0, they would have felt terrible and in no mood to appreciate technical abilities.
My point being that identity is very important for some and a lot less so for others. For some the ‘our’ [ein] is very important. for myself, it’s kind of I kind of knew that I was a Welsh language person, but it took learning it here to discover it. i have no connection to Manchester, apart from City being my club. Outsiders coming to a club/ language are always going to be a minority, and some people might not understand that, but they are just as much members as anyone else. I get the same wonderful feeling of coming home, whenever I cross the border into Wales after some time away and it is the exact same feeling when I go to a City match, of coming ‘home’.
Really I think people are looking for somewhere online for the Welsh language with a wider remit than the SSiW forum. A ‘Clwb Cymraeg’, somewhere that isn’t just politics, isn’t just learners or fluent speakers, but for all Welsh speakers or potential Welsh speakers. The difficulty is that there is not one Welsh language community; Some are interested in politics, some in football, some in language learning, some in history, some in music etc. These people will find their niche and may already have found one that is just about that particular thread of interest. Building something universal is difficult as keeping everyone happy is difficult, i think the way to do it is keep trying things until you discover something that people like, that they identify with, that they feel they support.
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I get that sense of belonging, I really do. I think many whom I have seen use it miss this though. I have seen accusations of “cultural appropriation” slung at people because they’re talking about the language.
For all the great positives of a sense of belonging there is an unavoidable negative in your choice of comparison. Tribalism and inclusivity are not synonymous. For all the positive chants you’ve listed there are just as many aimed at the opposition fans. The opposition fans in our metaphorical play would be the English.
Again, that’s why linguistically people need to be sensitive.
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Absolutely, there is of course the flip side of the coin. There are also parallels in terms of cultural dominance, one culture is dominant and that changes things, in football and in language
I must be very careful with my wording as I do not want to annoy anyone, but I truly believe there are teams whose fans do not insult the opposition. I have been to a lot of rugby games back in the day when you were babau bach and all RU was amateur. Only once did I hear nasty things said/sung/chanted about the fans of my club. I was totally shocked and never went back to that ground. It always seemed to me that insults are said by people who feel unsure of themselves and want to assert themselves, but that is clearly not true as, up here, no Celtic fan says nice things about Rangers and vise versa! Currently all is not well with Rangers and Celtic had an unbeaten run of immense length until facing non-Scottish teams, showing that the two clubs need each other to provide decent opposition and keep each other on their toes!
I have always felt that wonderful feeling when travelling towards Wales and that nasty sinking feeling when leaving. I am for ever in exile now and it is not a pleasant feeling. I am sure most folk welcome new neighbours as future friends, whereever they are from.
But the language we are all learning and which I call ‘our’ language because it sings to me of home, is endangered. It needs help and it seems a shame if we cannot discuss its problems without having to be so careful of our wording just in case someone is insulted by something we did not mean as an insult to anyone.
Gareth didn’t use rugby in his analogy.
I went to an enhanced communication course recently and a point was raised: you no-longer have sole ownership of the meaning of your words once they are in the public forum. In other words, nobody can “take them the wrong way”, they can take a different meaning from the one the speaker intended but it is not incorrect.
Aran has already pointed you in the direction of the Million Siaradwyr topics.
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