Letter: Forget Welsh language lessons and get policing
Friday 3rd September 2010, 8:40AM BST.
Letter: It is a sad sign of the violent times in which we live, to read that a man was robbed at knifepoint near Newtown railway station in daylight hours recently.
Despite this, the public are repeatedly told Powys is the safest area in which to live.
With an ever-changing population from the larger towns and cities in the UK this is absolute nonsense.
Several elderly residents are reluctant to venture out in Newtown in the evenings, for fear of being attacked.
In recent months individuals have been assaulted and items stolen.
This would have been unheard of some years ago.
The same edition hails the police for its efforts in promoting the use of the Welsh language in the workplace.
Commendable, I’m sure, but the general feeling of the public is that the police today have lost sight of their objectives and priorities, in order to be seen “doing the right thing”.
Community support officers with no powers at law; traffic wardens; civilian security firms; civilians running the stations and the introduction of civil enforcement officers in 2011 – is it any wonder the jobs of many trained police officers are now at risk, in order to save millions in the next three years?
Whatever pruning may ultimately be needed I would suggest they start at the top.
Bernard Jones
Powys
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The welsh language is a dead tongue.
Utter waste of money and time trying to promote it , to appease the racists that oppose union.
Enlightened nations are modifying their language to enable international trade, (Germans, Chinese, Japanese), but not the welsh. Lets stick with our inadequate language and promote it an an effort to make us feel proud to be welsh…
Proud of what? The welsh have never achieved anything, their very identity would not have survived without the inconquerable barrier of the English to protect them.
Ditch the language, stop pretending you are anything special and face up to the fact that without England, (and its subsidies), Wales is nothing more than a backward third world mountain range.
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Sheer writing brilliance! really enjoyed that reply – Thanks
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What nonsense Andy!
Don’t you know that the Welsh are World-renowned for their singing abilities?
Singing – that’s what I am proud of and why I am proud to be Welsh.
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Interesting fact – William Wallace was born in Wales, his da was welsh I beleive.
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‘The welsh have never achieved anything’.
I can only assume that your ignorance stems from lack of education, and in that way I really pity you.
The Celts (ancestors of the Welsh) have been here for the thousands of years. The invading tribes that make up the English nation (Angles, Saxons, Jutes) only really arrived here in the dark ages. So we are talking the 6th or 7th century. There was no such thing as English until the middle English period – Queen Elizabeth’s time, when there was a push for ‘Englishness’ to compete with the French, Latin and Celtic languages that were deemed superior. Between 1500-1700 30,000 new words were invented to fill out the vocabularly. Now i’m sure you know that language is a very powerful thing, and with this language, a new brand of ‘Englishness’ was promoted. With the age of exploration (often driven by Welsh elbow grease) the reputation for supremacy was established. Thus, your patriotism tacked onto a modern invention.
And don’t forget the fact that the Welsh held up a 400 year line against the English too. Quite an achievement for those from a ‘backward third world mountain range’.
I am a lecturer by the way, and I teach this stuff day in day out. Go check the facts if you don’t believe me. ‘Englishness’ is a 500 year old invention.
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Well I worked at a local college back in the 90′s and I was accused of being raciest towards the welsh BY A COMPLETE IDIOT ON A COURSE(WELSH SPEAKING )because I said it was 9pm and the college would be locking up. The fact my entire family on my mothers side are welsh , utter madness I think the lady who accused me had a welsh relative going back decades and she knew who Tom Jones and shirly bassey were.As for teaching it in welsh schools do not bother WHY??? UNLESS YOU ARE GOING TO WORK ON S4C .
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i holiday in witchurch
i travel round the county
everytime i go into wales whitch is a nice drive around despite some of the one-horse dismal villiages i allways feel intimidated
by the welch language signs especially when you are supposed to read a read sign first in welch–THEN in english–then try to look where youre going as well c/mon
if we had urdu first in bradford or halifax there would be hell to pay
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I am English but more and more I am becoming saddened by what a small minded, arrogant and intolerant people we are. Urdu and Hindi signs in Bradford…totally irrelevant to the original letter. We are willing to discard so much in this world. The extiction of species, peoples and languages pass without notice. Welsh is an old language that many in that small country wish to retain. For it to survive it has to be a living language.
As for road signs being in Welsh first well if you know this to be true read the lower part of the sign or familiarise yourself with the words you need. Within 10 minutes of driving in Wales you should recognise that “araf” means “slow”.
If you drive abroad most countries do not include English on the signs and yet we get by. It may help to know that there is a big world away from Shropshire before you condemn a country for trying to keep its native tongue.
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Yes but what is the relevance of the welsh language in 2010?? apart from the select few wondering the streets chuntering it to each other until they enter any shop, etc etc and have to speak English to get served etc . As with LATIN it is pointless.
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The relevance of the Welsh language is that it is their language to retain and use as they see fit. England may be the dominant country of the UK but we cannot dictate whether the Welsh use their own language just because we don’t like it or because it causes inconvenience to holidaymakers.
Welsh is not comparible to Latin which did not so much die but developed and merged with other languages. Latin’s relevance today is in helping us to understand the roots of many European tongues and to be able to translate ancient documents. If we discard old languages they will soon be gone forever and how sad would that be.
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Yes but Urdu is not the language that has been in Halifax for thousands of years. In fact what you propose is the opposite. Having Urdu on the signs in Wales would be as offensive to the Welsh and having English on the signs first. Think about it.
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‘..the public are repeatedly told Powys is the safest area in which to live. With an ever-changing population from the larger towns and cities in the UK this is absolute nonsense….This would have been unheard of some years ago.’
Yep, the kind of criminal behaviour described comes from people from outside of Powys. If you want to find a criminal, you only have to look at the types that come in from England and Scotland. Them with their hi-falutin’, fancy-pants big city ways.
Nah, only joking – As a Plutonian, I find this offensive.
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Why should we not have the Welsh language? It is part of their, and our heritage.At least they have their own National Costume, as do the Irish and the Scots, but alas not the English. Go to India and see how many different languages they speak, It’s different from town to town. So it’s all right for Urdu and Hindi to be taught in schools up and down the land, but not Welsh in Welsh schools.
You younger people are giving our heritage away.
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“you younger people are giving our heritage away”…I have to say I really am getting quite sick of people making such sweeping statements as though ‘the young’ are to blame for everything. The sad part is, I actually agree with your comments completely, I’m young…how does that fit in with your presumption!?
People seem to forget that even England has many different dialects, they have simply been accepted so why not accept Welsh?! The only practical point that I would make is this…we live in Shropshire, which is in England, so why do we receive 5 times the amount of paper for things, such as tv license, so they can fit the Welsh translation on. We live in England, let it be English as we let Wales be Welsh….Plus I am sure it would save a lot of money in the long run.
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Welsh was spoken in these parts long before the English language or English people even existed.
Some English people feel uncomfortable with the fact that the Welsh language still exists, as one can see from reading these posts. If so, learn it. Us Welsh have bothered to learn English, now you may repay the favour and learn the language of your ancestors.
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