The only Welsh word I know, because it’s on the roads.
I find this a bit surprising as the Welsh Government seem to be making very strong efforts to increase the number of speakers.
Knowing a few words may not be enough for someone to say they speak the language. Last time I went to Spain I only spoke in Spanish in restaurants and museums, but would never say I can speak Spanish.
Great news!
The sooner we transition away from wasting time teaching Welsh to kids in Wales, the sooner Welsh educational underperformance will improve. Too many Welsh kids leave school lacking employability basics like GCSE Maths and English, yet that isn’t the main issue as far as the Welsh Assembly is concerned.
The emphasis on forcing Welsh on native English speaking Welsh kids is parochial and detracts from STEM teaching for the jobs of the future.
It is time to quit teaching todays kids Welsh. It’s utterly useless.
[deleted]
I just started learning on duolingo over the weekend! It’s a fun language!
It’s interesting that the rural areas are dropping but Cardiff is increasing. Possibly a result of the gradual shift to more built-up areas and therefore more mixing with English speakers? Cardiff is at the point where there are lots of opportunities for adult-learning, which might not exist everywhere else.
From a local school I see some bizarre things around the Welsh language which seem counter-productive to me – the school has both English-taught and Welsh-taught paths and the classes are segregated as such. But the kids speak a mix of the two to each other, and all the teachers speak both languages, so it just seems like a barrier to getting more kids speaking Welsh when they have to be opted-in wholesale to Welsh-only classes.
The Welsh-speaking kids often seem to struggle when they move on to secondary schools, sixth forms, and university, as the path is rarely there to do all of those in Welsh.
I’m not sure what the solution is. Personally I never learnt Welsh and I live in an area full of Welsh speakers who treat me no differently, but learning it is hard without devoting a _lot_ of time to it because everyone speaks English. It’s much easier in, say, France, where people force you to speak French. It’s possible that Welsh will drift more into something similar to Scots over time.
It’s a relatively easy language to learn. Also you can probably understand the elves speak without subtitles in lord of the rings films.
The Welsh national anthem advocates for protecting the language, but y’know, it’s not used for business, so clearly it’s worthless! /s
>In 2021, an estimated 538,000 people in Wales aged three years and over (17.8% of the population) reported being able to speak Welsh, data from the Office for National Statistics said.
There are over half a million people learning Welsh via DuoLingo, so I think the international numbers might well be a bit higher
Well yeah, it’s as useful to learn as Latin. Actually probably less, we at least loan some words from Latin.
My uncle was trying to apply for jobs as he lives in Wales and they specified you had to speak fluent Welsh which is ridiculous
It’s annoying that the amount of Welsh-speakers living in England isn’t tracked. I’m sure that would explain where at least some have gone in the past decade.
I find this quite surprising, I know many relatives including my Uncle that have become near-fluent in the language in the last decade so to hear that it’s actually declined is really surprising to me.
I wonder if it a blip or a trend.
It should definitely be preserved but unless someone comes up with a compelling reason to use it in day to day life over English it’s just not going to ever take off.
I went to uni at Bangor and befriended a few locals, most could speak Welsh fairly fluently but even they readily admitted it has no use beyond talking to other Welsh people.
Hardly surprising. This is social engineering at its finest. If you already speak the language that everyone learns so they can speak universally (English) when on earth would you invest much energy as a child to learn and speak a language fewer people use?
Even though we take the piss out of the welsh, Wales is such a beautiful country with a rich and long history and its language is borderline magical, it would be a massive shame to see welsh go the way of Cornish
Could immigration be the cause?
Someone from Africa/Europe/Asia is obviously going to learn English to move to UK, but expecting them to learn Welsh as a third language seems a bit excessive
I’m surprised at this. I live in Newport which has always been a predominantly English speaking area. I went to the first Welsh language school in the area when it opened in the early 90s. There are now three primaries with another being built, along with a high school – and they are all full.
I wonder if it could be down to the demographic of people moving to the area? In Newport’s case, a lot of people from Bristol moved here when they removed the tolls on the Severn Bridge. Those parents may not have any interest in fostering the Welsh language in their children because they’re an English family, they just happen to live in Wales.
Sgloddion a saws cyri is a very important phrase I’ve picked up over the years.
It means chips and curry sauce 🙂
I went to school in Wales. This won’t be the best spelling but the teacher in my last form class in primary school taught us all Cae dy geg yr mochyn dda. Which is Shut your face you black pig, I think that’s what he was going for anyway. Obviously he was a racist cunt. It was 40 years ago and he was 60 ish then so there is a good chance he’s dead, the twat.
Quite an unpopular opinion in wales but I’m not pro independence- the welsh assembly is full of welsh nationalists who make silly laws about language which mean that for example my email signature has to have my job title and division in welsh and THEN English, even though not many people speak it on M4 corridor. The front page of any state/ council letter you receive is welsh front page and English back. Such a waste of time and resources
Interesting part is fewer welsh speakers in Wales, I wonder how many of us left Wales for employment reasons
I am a Welsh speaker not in Wales, there is a colony of welsh speakers in Argentina, there are plenty of us around the world….so I wonder the number of welsh speakers in total rather than just in Wales where the poor investment and management by our overlords has driven many of us out of the country
Very sad, I have a great interest in the Welsh and would hate to see their language fade.
Never forget that England committed acts of cultural genocide which includes the torture of Cymry (Welsh) kids for speaking Cymraeg (Welsh).
They would force children who spoke Cymraeg at school to wear a humiliating sign called the “Welsh Not”, and then at the end of the day the children would be beaten or given some other cruel form of corporal punishment.
They all spoke Welsh as soon as they saw me and my English mates go into a pub in North Wales once.
I could swear they were all speaking English just before we came in though, hmmm.
I worked with a Welsh lad in a kitchen who spoke fluent Welsh and English and told me that during the Second World War, most of the secret and incredibly important radio communications between the British were in the Welsh tongue because the Axis powers had *no* clue what the hell any of them were saying, nor did many Brits.
It’s similar to Cornish though. A lot of our place names are in English and Kernewek but I’ve met *very* few people who can speak the language. I can say a few basic words in Kernewek but not enough to even hold a basic conversation. Shame, really.
edit: spelling.
U need english for jobs and stuff so people can understand
28 comments
Araf!
The only Welsh word I know, because it’s on the roads.
I find this a bit surprising as the Welsh Government seem to be making very strong efforts to increase the number of speakers.
Knowing a few words may not be enough for someone to say they speak the language. Last time I went to Spain I only spoke in Spanish in restaurants and museums, but would never say I can speak Spanish.
Great news!
The sooner we transition away from wasting time teaching Welsh to kids in Wales, the sooner Welsh educational underperformance will improve. Too many Welsh kids leave school lacking employability basics like GCSE Maths and English, yet that isn’t the main issue as far as the Welsh Assembly is concerned.
The emphasis on forcing Welsh on native English speaking Welsh kids is parochial and detracts from STEM teaching for the jobs of the future.
It is time to quit teaching todays kids Welsh. It’s utterly useless.
[deleted]
I just started learning on duolingo over the weekend! It’s a fun language!
It’s interesting that the rural areas are dropping but Cardiff is increasing. Possibly a result of the gradual shift to more built-up areas and therefore more mixing with English speakers? Cardiff is at the point where there are lots of opportunities for adult-learning, which might not exist everywhere else.
From a local school I see some bizarre things around the Welsh language which seem counter-productive to me – the school has both English-taught and Welsh-taught paths and the classes are segregated as such. But the kids speak a mix of the two to each other, and all the teachers speak both languages, so it just seems like a barrier to getting more kids speaking Welsh when they have to be opted-in wholesale to Welsh-only classes.
The Welsh-speaking kids often seem to struggle when they move on to secondary schools, sixth forms, and university, as the path is rarely there to do all of those in Welsh.
I’m not sure what the solution is. Personally I never learnt Welsh and I live in an area full of Welsh speakers who treat me no differently, but learning it is hard without devoting a _lot_ of time to it because everyone speaks English. It’s much easier in, say, France, where people force you to speak French. It’s possible that Welsh will drift more into something similar to Scots over time.
It’s a relatively easy language to learn. Also you can probably understand the elves speak without subtitles in lord of the rings films.
The Welsh national anthem advocates for protecting the language, but y’know, it’s not used for business, so clearly it’s worthless! /s
>In 2021, an estimated 538,000 people in Wales aged three years and over (17.8% of the population) reported being able to speak Welsh, data from the Office for National Statistics said.
There are over half a million people learning Welsh via DuoLingo, so I think the international numbers might well be a bit higher
https://www.duolingo.com/enroll/cy/en/Learn-Welsh
Well yeah, it’s as useful to learn as Latin. Actually probably less, we at least loan some words from Latin.
My uncle was trying to apply for jobs as he lives in Wales and they specified you had to speak fluent Welsh which is ridiculous
It’s annoying that the amount of Welsh-speakers living in England isn’t tracked. I’m sure that would explain where at least some have gone in the past decade.
I find this quite surprising, I know many relatives including my Uncle that have become near-fluent in the language in the last decade so to hear that it’s actually declined is really surprising to me.
I wonder if it a blip or a trend.
It should definitely be preserved but unless someone comes up with a compelling reason to use it in day to day life over English it’s just not going to ever take off.
I went to uni at Bangor and befriended a few locals, most could speak Welsh fairly fluently but even they readily admitted it has no use beyond talking to other Welsh people.
Hardly surprising. This is social engineering at its finest. If you already speak the language that everyone learns so they can speak universally (English) when on earth would you invest much energy as a child to learn and speak a language fewer people use?
Even though we take the piss out of the welsh, Wales is such a beautiful country with a rich and long history and its language is borderline magical, it would be a massive shame to see welsh go the way of Cornish
Could immigration be the cause?
Someone from Africa/Europe/Asia is obviously going to learn English to move to UK, but expecting them to learn Welsh as a third language seems a bit excessive
I’m surprised at this. I live in Newport which has always been a predominantly English speaking area. I went to the first Welsh language school in the area when it opened in the early 90s. There are now three primaries with another being built, along with a high school – and they are all full.
I wonder if it could be down to the demographic of people moving to the area? In Newport’s case, a lot of people from Bristol moved here when they removed the tolls on the Severn Bridge. Those parents may not have any interest in fostering the Welsh language in their children because they’re an English family, they just happen to live in Wales.
Sgloddion a saws cyri is a very important phrase I’ve picked up over the years.
It means chips and curry sauce 🙂
I went to school in Wales. This won’t be the best spelling but the teacher in my last form class in primary school taught us all Cae dy geg yr mochyn dda. Which is Shut your face you black pig, I think that’s what he was going for anyway. Obviously he was a racist cunt. It was 40 years ago and he was 60 ish then so there is a good chance he’s dead, the twat.
Quite an unpopular opinion in wales but I’m not pro independence- the welsh assembly is full of welsh nationalists who make silly laws about language which mean that for example my email signature has to have my job title and division in welsh and THEN English, even though not many people speak it on M4 corridor. The front page of any state/ council letter you receive is welsh front page and English back. Such a waste of time and resources
Interesting part is fewer welsh speakers in Wales, I wonder how many of us left Wales for employment reasons
I am a Welsh speaker not in Wales, there is a colony of welsh speakers in Argentina, there are plenty of us around the world….so I wonder the number of welsh speakers in total rather than just in Wales where the poor investment and management by our overlords has driven many of us out of the country
Very sad, I have a great interest in the Welsh and would hate to see their language fade.
Never forget that England committed acts of cultural genocide which includes the torture of Cymry (Welsh) kids for speaking Cymraeg (Welsh).
They would force children who spoke Cymraeg at school to wear a humiliating sign called the “Welsh Not”, and then at the end of the day the children would be beaten or given some other cruel form of corporal punishment.
They all spoke Welsh as soon as they saw me and my English mates go into a pub in North Wales once.
I could swear they were all speaking English just before we came in though, hmmm.
I worked with a Welsh lad in a kitchen who spoke fluent Welsh and English and told me that during the Second World War, most of the secret and incredibly important radio communications between the British were in the Welsh tongue because the Axis powers had *no* clue what the hell any of them were saying, nor did many Brits.
It’s similar to Cornish though. A lot of our place names are in English and Kernewek but I’ve met *very* few people who can speak the language. I can say a few basic words in Kernewek but not enough to even hold a basic conversation. Shame, really.
edit: spelling.
U need english for jobs and stuff so people can understand