Sadly, it’s as likely as every other performance target the Government sets to be met. Either A. Certain to be because it’s such an irrelevant metric it’s easy to change; or B. It’s a difficult challenge so it won’t be met (look, for example, at the change in child poverty, which is now increasing and twice as high as Scotland and higher than much of England, and the latest strategy to address it doesn’t include any targets)
What counts as a Welsh speaker? What level of fluency is required, or is it entirely self reported?
Yay…let’s keep enacting policies all designed to accentuate the differences between the peoples on this Island.
All to keep a bunch of minority whackjob separatists happy.
There is a fundamental lack of seriousness within Welsh politics about pretty much all matters, and that has massive implications for the future of the Welsh Language.
Most obviously, the usefulness of any target, strategy, plan or priority is inversely proportional to how many of them there are. The point is to tell the civil service, schools, hospitals, businesses, academics ‘this is what we want you to focus on.’
Literally everything in Welsh politics ends up being a ‘priority’. There isn’t a single devolved area where Senedd members pop up and say ‘we really want you to spend less on X’. ‘Why not deprioritise Y’.
That means we have strategies, plans, targets for literally everything. And after that, we have to look to the Well-being of Future Generations Act to consider any possible impact on every possible audience.
The result should be obvious. The Welsh Language is going to be treated in the exact same way everything else is. Loads of politicians in the Senedd will complain that more has to be done, loads of quangocrats will release reports demanding more funding, spending, targets and everything else. The Welsh Government will eventually release a brand new strategy, and keep doing all of the same stuff.
Because the following week, a whole new set of questions are going to be asked about why Peatlands aren’t the Welsh Government’s priority, or why the highly specific hypothecated grant going to Local Authorities to support one specific thing doesn’t include another specific thing, as that proves that the Welsh Government doesn’t really care about it.
The unfortunate reality is that unless the Welsh Language is actively prioritised above other things, it will always end up being neglected. The problem is that will require its advocates to openly make the case that delivering on that target is actually more important than providing more funding and capacity to public services, which they have, historically, (for legitimate reasons) been very squeamish about.
As long as it’s not at the expense of wider education. You only have so many hours of teaching and education available, we have kids that don’t have basic numeracy skills, but who can reverse translate the Mabinogion it’s no use and it’ll hold them back in life. Also the economic potential for learning Welsh is basically zero, aside from getting a job in the council or as a Welsh teacher.
Personally, I think it’s an admiral cultural project, but there’s a balance to be struck, trying to push Welsh too hard could be detrimental.
If a language requires a continuous and substantial funding at every level just to keep it relevant is this a good use of very limited funds? Languages have come and gone for millenia, English will disappear in time, replaced by maybe Spanish or another lingo. Nobody speaks Latin or ancient Greek.
A good move would be to ban English being used for official government business
Of course there would be translation services for other languages
I’m doing my part 🏴
How about tackling that list of things Wales lags behind the rest of the UK first eh ? You know the ones ! But as per all modern governments – they tackle lesser issues because it is cheaper. While the economy and environment is literally in flames.
The problem they’ve got is that if they want to hit this target then they are going to have to mandate Welsh above English and priortise funding and resources accordingly. They can’t be honest about this though.
Behind the thin veneer of civility, there is always the underlying view that welsh language culture is somehow superior. You don’t have to dig far to find this.
Meanwhile the rest of us are just trying to get on in life, with much more important things to worry about. Wales is failing in so many aspects.
If people want to learn them language then fine. But if they don’t that is fine as well. However, if these people continue to hector and push this agenda above all else they will kill their own project.
11 comments
Sadly, it’s as likely as every other performance target the Government sets to be met. Either A. Certain to be because it’s such an irrelevant metric it’s easy to change; or B. It’s a difficult challenge so it won’t be met (look, for example, at the change in child poverty, which is now increasing and twice as high as Scotland and higher than much of England, and the latest strategy to address it doesn’t include any targets)
What counts as a Welsh speaker? What level of fluency is required, or is it entirely self reported?
Yay…let’s keep enacting policies all designed to accentuate the differences between the peoples on this Island.
All to keep a bunch of minority whackjob separatists happy.
Could we please do something to improve overall [education standards ](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-67616536) as our main priority?
There is a fundamental lack of seriousness within Welsh politics about pretty much all matters, and that has massive implications for the future of the Welsh Language.
Most obviously, the usefulness of any target, strategy, plan or priority is inversely proportional to how many of them there are. The point is to tell the civil service, schools, hospitals, businesses, academics ‘this is what we want you to focus on.’
Literally everything in Welsh politics ends up being a ‘priority’. There isn’t a single devolved area where Senedd members pop up and say ‘we really want you to spend less on X’. ‘Why not deprioritise Y’.
That means we have strategies, plans, targets for literally everything. And after that, we have to look to the Well-being of Future Generations Act to consider any possible impact on every possible audience.
The result should be obvious. The Welsh Language is going to be treated in the exact same way everything else is. Loads of politicians in the Senedd will complain that more has to be done, loads of quangocrats will release reports demanding more funding, spending, targets and everything else. The Welsh Government will eventually release a brand new strategy, and keep doing all of the same stuff.
Because the following week, a whole new set of questions are going to be asked about why Peatlands aren’t the Welsh Government’s priority, or why the highly specific hypothecated grant going to Local Authorities to support one specific thing doesn’t include another specific thing, as that proves that the Welsh Government doesn’t really care about it.
The unfortunate reality is that unless the Welsh Language is actively prioritised above other things, it will always end up being neglected. The problem is that will require its advocates to openly make the case that delivering on that target is actually more important than providing more funding and capacity to public services, which they have, historically, (for legitimate reasons) been very squeamish about.
As long as it’s not at the expense of wider education. You only have so many hours of teaching and education available, we have kids that don’t have basic numeracy skills, but who can reverse translate the Mabinogion it’s no use and it’ll hold them back in life. Also the economic potential for learning Welsh is basically zero, aside from getting a job in the council or as a Welsh teacher.
Personally, I think it’s an admiral cultural project, but there’s a balance to be struck, trying to push Welsh too hard could be detrimental.
If a language requires a continuous and substantial funding at every level just to keep it relevant is this a good use of very limited funds? Languages have come and gone for millenia, English will disappear in time, replaced by maybe Spanish or another lingo. Nobody speaks Latin or ancient Greek.
A good move would be to ban English being used for official government business
Of course there would be translation services for other languages
I’m doing my part 🏴
How about tackling that list of things Wales lags behind the rest of the UK first eh ? You know the ones ! But as per all modern governments – they tackle lesser issues because it is cheaper. While the economy and environment is literally in flames.
The problem they’ve got is that if they want to hit this target then they are going to have to mandate Welsh above English and priortise funding and resources accordingly. They can’t be honest about this though.
Behind the thin veneer of civility, there is always the underlying view that welsh language culture is somehow superior. You don’t have to dig far to find this.
Meanwhile the rest of us are just trying to get on in life, with much more important things to worry about. Wales is failing in so many aspects.
If people want to learn them language then fine. But if they don’t that is fine as well. However, if these people continue to hector and push this agenda above all else they will kill their own project.
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