Well, as the cliché goes, history is always written by the victor - although it’s not clear who the “victor” is here - but it does suggest or remind us that history and politics are closely bound up.
Meanwhile, perhaps we should get back to something completely uncontroversial, like the politics of Welsh …
I was genuinely shocked at some of the comments underneath at least one of the YT videos I linked to. Virulently anti-Welsh language, misogynistic (thank goodness for spelling checkers), and, well, unpleasant. No wonder Leanne Wood feels under pressure.
Some of it was complaints about children being “forced” to learn Welsh at school. I know that no one here would agree with that view, but how is it best countered?
Edit: sort of in response to the opening post really, but I think it’s excellent that Wales has a First Minister who is a fluent Welsh speaker. (“he was raised in Bridgend in a Welsh-speaking family.” - Wikipedia).
I’ve heard him occasionally on Radio Cymru, sometimes in non-political contexts (which itself is refreshing).
Absolutely. And, actually, everything that is included in our education is also political. People who only speak English colour any attempt to use another language as political, but fail to see that their decision not to learn another language is also political. They don’t see it because to them it is ‘neutral’. But it isn’t - that’s just their perception.
how to counter this? In my experience you will never change the other persons view in whatever response you give. The best reply is not to reply directly or take the bait, but say something overwhelmingly positive about the language etc and mybe even be surprised at how brilliant it is and how wonderful everything is - throw them off their stride so they can’t swipe straight back with their usually planned counterpunch.
Let’s face it, how did they get to Britain? Across the North Sea, not the calmest stretch of water on the planet! What did they travel in? Not modern ocean liners! Little wooden boats powered by wind and oars! So how many could arrive at a time? If trading boats, very few because the crew had to go back again, very few passengers could be accommodated. Even if the entire boat stayed, well I am not an expert on 5th century boats - or any boats for that matter I have seen Viking longboats described as carrying about 60, which is pretty big, but not exactly a huge invasion and I’d guess most were men.
Angle, Saxon, Dane or Norse men and indigenous women, I suspect, produced the next generation! Mam sang to baby in one language and Dad, if about, spoke another!
All conjecture!
Oh - just one point - the language did end up a lot different from Cymraeg, so Dad must have stayed in many cases!
well, i-m not sure… If you look at the migrant crisis now, then you can see how resourceful desperate people can be and how far they are able to go to find the ways and means to take any risks to keep moving on.
Belgae means the bulge as well as the tribal name, what if there were too many people for resources in Northern Europe. Only Twenty miles from Calais and on a good day a very primitive raft could do it. There was a big plague at that time as well, another reason for migration.
Also I suspect lot of trading ships and boats would be available after the romans left. There may have been a lucrative people trafficking operation going on
All conjecture again, but I believe it was possible over a period of a decade or so for significant numbers to migrate across.
yes, i do get carried away with these types of discussions, totally off topic I agree. No dpubt I’ll be off on another flight of fantasy history again, but will try to restrain myself.
Oh yes, I watched that and found it OK.,
I am an anorak - watching politics virtually every day! This program seemed just as good as any, and, of course, the only one in Welsh!
Da iawn S4C!
I think I have seen other politics programmes on S4C before (or politics-related). There is also “O’r Bae” on Radio Cymru, Fridays at 12:05, also with Vaughan Roderick.
“Y Sesiwn” is not quite as racy as “Byw Celwydd”, but I suppose they do their best, what with the hand-held cameras and all… .
Was listening to the John Walter programme (23.11.2016), and if I heard correctly, one of his guests said that not all teachers can speak Cymraeg.
Now, in one way, that did not surprise me. But thinking about it, wouldn’t it be reasonable to insist that any teacher in a publicly-funded school in Wales should in fact be able to speak Welsh?
If not all the teachers speak Welsh, what chance is there that all the children will leave school being able to speak Welsh?
Do the laws / regulations in Wales have anything to say about this?
Teachers of which subjects? Whilst there is a language divide (Welsh and English schools) I wouldn’t expect every teacher in an English speaking school to speak Welsh. Also, I wouldn’t oppose a non-Welsh speaker teaching English in a Welsh school (it’s taught through the medium of English anyway).
If you mean teachers of Welsh then, yes, I agree. I remember a contestant on Pointless who was (is) a primary school teacher and her specialist areas were Welsh and Art. However, when asked to say something in Welsh she struggled, I assume she wasn’t fluent. This I found strange. I appreciate she may also have felt very nervous on telly and stumbled over her Welsh and is acutually quite profiencient - in which case I apologise and retract my statement. However, teaching a subject require a degree of proficiency, in language that should be a level of fluency meaning the level of mistakes made are closer to the native speaker (after all, everyone makes mistakes in any language).
I have certainly been taught French (badly) by a teacher who had a dreadful accent and was almost certainly not fluent. Not a good experience. However, a genuinely French teacher who could not control a class was as bad for different reasons.
I do see what you mean about someone teaching English in Monmouth, but surely the aim should be to get all teachers able to speak Welsh, on the way to the million the Government aims for. Special classes for Teachers could be run - by other teachers!! Or they could all log on to SSiW which would probably be quicker! (No certainly be quicker!)
This is the sixty-four-thousand dollar question though, isn’t it, and I did mean teachers of all subjects (which is what primary school teachers tend to be, anyway). Even teachers of English, possibly - just say they are teaching English to a child of a first language Welsh-speaking family, wouldn’t it give them a better insight into how the child thinks, if they also at least knew Welsh?
It’s a question for Welsh residents (which I am not), to decide, of course, but I raised the question because it seems to me, if you want to get the children to speak Welsh, then you need to get teachers and parents speaking Welsh, or at least, be able to speak Welsh.
I don’t like barriers, so I wouldn’t, either, but I would encourage such teachers to learn Welsh themselves…
