The job situation.

[meic]

I can well believe that it is used as a language of exclusion though.

If you feel like trawling through all of my excessive number of posts you will see that, I have never responded to any Welsh post by continuing the conversation with them in Welsh on this public forum, nor to the best of my knowledge has any of the other Welsh speakers on this forum.

As for Racism and Xenophobia who started throwing the stones in this conversation?

Who is merely defending their own language in their own school and country?
That is merely Nationalism, see reference to second world war earlier.

[al_yrpal]

After we have paid the huge bills for welfare handouts, EU taxes and MP's "expenses", theres not much left for education and health, you know.
Why should English taxpayers, some of whom barely speak English, be expected to fund a tiny minority who are trying to revive a dead language?
I'm already subsidising other peoples hobbies, opera, ballet, Shakesperean theatre, etc, to the tune of a great deal more than the cost of the odd white line in the gutter.
Do I need to add one of these...
They say this is a democracy......I don't seem to have much control over how my hard-earned cash is squandered.

Colin,
I know exactly how you feel but I don't agree that either Welsh or the Gaelic are dead because I have lived in Wales and spent a lot of time with Gaelic speakers and they aren't. There are sooo many things that I disagree with about public spending, and so much I abhor about the Vodafones, Starbucks, Amazons and Google who don't pay their fair whack too (see todays Guardian!). My answer is to avoid paying any tax that you can, thats the only way that I can make myself feel better about the whole situation.

As an aside, I lived in the Valleys for 5 years where avoiding Welsh TV was a regional pastime amongst the residents. Many houses sported the huge TV masts like those you can spot in places like Dublin, and next to our factory there was an electronics firm that made very high gain aerials and aerial amplifiers. All the aerials were pointed at the Mendips to get English TV. Pobol y cym was definitely not preferred to Eastenders.

I thought Yorkshire was a separate country

Al

[meic]

You are missing one rather big point here, this is Wales, Welsh is our national language, we speak to each other in Welsh (on the street, in shops, in pubs and at the school gate).

I certainly don't, and I'm proud to call myself Welsh

Yes, we are a segregated society in that respect, obviously I would like to see Welsh reintroduced to the areas that lost it. However the Policy of eradicating it was successful in most of the country and it is hard/wrong to impose another language over your mother tongue.

On the other hand many people who move to this area from the likes of yours will start to learn Welsh, more importantly their children will end up speaking it "like natives".

[[XAP]Bob]

How often is Welsh used as a primary language? I've not heard it spoken on the south coast...

Cant bloody win can we.

As soon as we speak Welsh in front of you it is "<inappropriate term removed> they know we can not speak Welsh, it is so rude of them to speak it in front of us why dont they speak English, we know they understand it."

Why werent my swear words auto-censored, I was relying on that happening?

Actually I'd expect to overhear it in shops/pubs/the street. Yes after a few seconds of talking to tourists it would be reasonable to expect both parties to try other languages - but I don't expect "normal" conversations to switch language because of my presence. I quite enjoying overhearing other language conversations.

[meic]

I quite enjoy the puzzled look on their faces as they try to work out which language it is, as I am often the one doing that myself when others speak.

In Germany we had fun switching between Welsh and English and watching their faces as they think they can not understand English as well as they thought.

[reohn2]

You're a one you're Meic,and I agee with you 100% .
I don't speak any other language other than the odd phrase in Italian and French and I'm the worst for it .

[meic]

Diolch

[reohn2]

Diolch

In English please!

[meic]

I dont think that there is a direct translation into English, Welsh is a very nuanced language with subtlety and a wider range of expression in a way only a speaker can understand, rather like you must read the Koran in Arabic.

However, I will try to give as short and accurate translation into English, as I can, for you.

"One is most humbly and deeply grateful (to the point of even offering one's own wife for your pleasure) for your support in our unending and Holy struggle against the evil imperialist oppressors and their evil machinations against the language of the heavens, in the language of the meagre.
May the earth herself bless you with all the water and peaceful paths a spirit can wander and that the evil spirits do not prick your heel nor the demons of fire brush your elbow."

Though I have of course over simplified it for the sake of brevity.

PS: I am very glad I didnt originally say "Diolch yn fawr" I would have been typing from here to the end of time explaining that one.

[Penfold]

Good grief one and a half pages about the Welsh language and if it has any value outside Wales....Who bloody cares.

The OP was about teaching on the cheap with bi lingual 'teaching assistants'....

I suspect that bi-lingual does have its advantages here, seeing as it a post in Welsh primary schools. I suspect that some kids do grow up in a Welsh language only home so they will need someone in class to explain just what it taking place.

I even have a Welsh mate (yes honest I have one) who never spoke a word of English until he was 14, he didn't need to....However, he saw the error of his ways did learn English and now by some complete freak of nature teaches English at sec mod schools here in England (Is that mad or what)

Now teaching assistants are no teachers on the cheap because they are not qualified to teach. For that skill you need a degree and a PGCE. They are invaluable however in the classroom. My own daughter also teaches English in a large academy. She also works as a SENCO and she says she simply could not complete her days with the SEN kids without those assistants. who do all the donkey work while daughter gets on with the teaching. Some of her assistants are bi-lingual too although here it tends to be Urdu, Pashto, Dari or lietuvių kalba (Lithuanian)

The oddest bit is the Headmaster still wants these kids to achieve a GCSE grade of D or above and most of them cant even speak more that Hello, Toilet, No Yes.... Amazing place we live in these days eh?

[Claireysmurf]

You are missing one rather big point here, this is Wales, Welsh is our national language, we speak to each other in Welsh (on the street, in shops, in pubs and at the school gate).

I certainly don't, and I'm proud to call myself Welsh

Yes, we are a segregated society in that respect, obviously I would like to see Welsh reintroduced to the areas that lost it. However the Policy of eradicating it was successful in most of the country and it is hard/wrong to impose another language over your mother tongue.

On the other hand many people who move to this area from the likes of yours will start to learn Welsh, more importantly their children will end up speaking it "like natives".

I think it's perfectly possible to live in Carmarthenshire and not be a welsh speaker. Maybe it is upbringing but I have so many negative associations with Welsh as a language and would consider moving to England if the amount of Welsh used in south east Wales increased markedly.

[Si]

Why werent my swear words auto-censored, I was relying on that happening?

Please do not rely on it because it's rubbish and American and we can't have another one. Which means that someone now has to go through the thread looking for quotes of the phrase in question and substituting them all manually.

This is also why persistent swearers will find their complete posts removed rather than just having the phrase in question removed...because if they are happy to make extra work for us then we are happy to make their efforts in typing out a post a waste of their time by removing it.

[531colin]

I think it's perfectly possible to live in Carmarthenshire and not be a welsh speaker. Maybe it is upbringing but I have so many negative associations with Welsh as a language and would consider moving to England if the amount of Welsh used in south east Wales increased markedly.

A person who considers themselves Welsh, but doesn't speak the language or want to speak the language, and lives in Camarthenshire would find their children being educated in Welsh language......wouldn't they?...or is it only bits of Wales where Welsh is the language in school?....

[meic]

Si, Sorry I will auto-censor myself in future as I always have in the past.

Colin, No schools are available in both English and Welsh medium.
At secondary level there will be a choice between the two types, none are oversubscribed that I know of yet.

At primary level, if I wanted my kids educated in English it would be a very long drive, all the rural primaries that I can think of around here are Welsh medium, the English medium ones are in town.
The primary level kids adapt very quickly to different languages, it is only at secondary school age that they start to find it difficult.

[karlt]

I think some people struggle to realise that Welsh is a first language to many of its speakers; the language they think in, the language they use by preference. I've had the experience of hitching a lift in Snowdonia (yes, I know, Meic, gogs) and having the driver struggle a little with conversation for the first few minutes as he hadn't had to converse in English for weeks. And he wasn't an old chap.

Wouldn't it be truer to say that there aren't any monoglot Welsh speakers over a certain age - say three or four - than under, these days? I thought the last few elderly who never learnt English died out in the Lleyn area back in the late sixties.

Never quite understood the English antipathy to it; always been fascinated myself to the point of trying to learn it.