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Welsh Bi-Lingual Signs
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transmanche
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Gosh, how do visitors to Ireland cope? Two names for every place? And why aren't visitors warned in advance?
BestWestern
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It is, and fair play to them for having a go!
BestWestern
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Gosh, how do visitors to Ireland cope? Two names for every place? And why aren't visitors warned in advance?
Perhaps we ought to start a new thread for that one
Why would they need to instinctively know that? It's hardly difficult to realise that if you're somewhere which uses two languages and many station name boards have two words on them that the one you don't know might just be in the other language, but even if not it really doesn't matter. Take this example of a bilingual road sign:
https://risaroe.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/img_2850.jpg
Someone might deduce that as Denbigh and Dinbych are very similar they might be the same place, but if not it doesn't matter. If someone drives up to that sign and thinks Mold / Yr Wyddgrug and St Asaph / Llanelwy are different places, it doesn't matter. Once you've got the information you want from a direction sign you stop reading it. For signs with sentences on them you don't try to read the bit in a language you don't understand.
I live in Singapore, where the station signs are often in four languages. It's a complete mystery to me how my colleagues all, without fail manage to alight at the same station every day, the metro system isn't full of dazed, confused and lost strangers, and how people don't turn up at the wrong station all the time.
Except it isn't, because having multi-lingual signs isn't confusing in the slightest. A lot of other countries on each deal with this all the time without even conceiving that it might be a problem.
There's no reason whatsoever to resent Welsh signs. The "confusion"argument and the"cost" argument are both total non-starters. It's just a little Englander argument.
Except it isn't, because having multi-lingual signs isn't confusing in the slightest. A lot of other countries on each deal with this all the time without even conceiving that it might be a problem.
There's no reason whatsoever to resent Welsh signs. The "confusion"argument and the"cost" argument are both total non-starters. It's just a little Englander argument.
I think you know full well that the majority of signs are only in English and on the others the languages use completely different character sets making the other languages totally unreadable to people that don’t speak them.
I just had a quick look through my photos and it all the counties I could see conceived this could be a problem. In France, Germany, Russia, and Brazil the other languages (on rail / metro) are in italic. In Italy, Finland, and Scotland they are non-bolded. In Spain they are in capital letters. In Portugal, Norway, and Malaysia they are in a different colour. In Japan, China, and Korea they use different characters.
Could you name one other than these new Welsh signs where there are two languages sharing the same character set with no difference in font or colour?
Yes, the thousands and thousands of bilingual signs in Wales that use the same typeface and colour and don't cause any confusion.
I've said it already but it's been conveniently ignored by the posters who, I'm afraid, are just coming across as little Englanders - why are people trying to read a language they don't know? In the real world English only speaking Welsh people just ignore the Welsh.
Or is the suggestion English people are all educationally subnormal and can't recognise their own language? They're not of course.
The easy solution if it's such a problem is don't go to Wales. Then we can all stop switching to speaking Welsh when you walk in a pub, a win all round!
transmanche
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Welsh is a language with an equal status to English guaranteed by law.
Sussex's dialect of English isn't.
I wholly agree with your post. I've never known an issue to flare up such vitirol as the right of Welsh people to use their own language in their own country. Baffled by the rage it creates, utterly baffled.
As I said earlier, if "Fflint" is too much for you to understand, that's not the fault of the Welsh language!
transmanche
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On literally thousands and thousands of aeroplanes worldwide.
And unless there are thousands of English people thinking this is where they dispose of unwanted salad, I don't think it causes a problem.
Or if that's no good for you, what about every sign in Brussels/Bruxelles/Brussel?
It's not so much a matter of importance than of status. Dialects are merely versions of a language, without standard spelling or grammar, and without a single geographic source. Languages are representative of peoples and nations, are often regulated by an official body and dictionary, and are protected under law.
Dialects hold some importance from a literary heritage view point. Languages are more than just a way of speaking, they are humanity's history.
transmanche
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I thought it was fairly obvious that I was taking the p**s...Salad in Spanish is ensalada
Y Ddraig Coch
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Today has genuinely shocked me by some of the absolute naivety and down right almost racist and virtually dark aged views on the rights of a countries inhabitants who just want to speak their own language, in their own country and be able to have their own language printed on literature and signs.
English people with these views are the ones I hear about all the time whilst travelling, who moan about "foreigners" in their own country not speaking English to them, complaining in Muslim countries there isn't bacon for breakfast and just generally still think it is the British Empire and we rule the world. Not so and about time some people woke up and smelt the coffee
Sorry for going off topic but I needed it off my chest. I am usually a very calm person.
English people with these views are the ones I hear about all the time whilst travelling, who moan about "foreigners" in their own country not speaking English to them, complaining in Muslim countries there isn't bacon for breakfast and just generally still think it is the British Empire and we rule the world. Not so and about time some people woke up and smelt the coffee
Sorry for going off topic but I needed it off my chest. I am usually a very calm person.
It's a really bizarre thing. As mentioned by someone before, you could go to Catalonia and see bilingual signs, are they an outrageous thing?
Lots of public transport in California has signs in English and Spanish. If somewhere as gung-ho patriotic as the USA can cope with seeing another language I really don't understand why anyone thinks it's so awful to see Welsh in, um, Wales.
ash39
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I haven't read all the comments but I just have to add this, makes me chuckle whenever I see it at a Welsh station (assuming it has a lifft installed)...
Throw a bone and there's always someone who will biteI thought it was fairly obvious that I was taking the p**s...
Thanks PR1 - I understand it better now
I haven't read all the comments but I just have to add this, makes me chuckle whenever I see it at a Welsh station (assuming it has a lifft installed)...
When I was a kid in an era more signs started to be translated, even in the north we took the mickey out of ones like that.
With hindsight, we were completely wrong. If you're genuinely giving both languages equal status you don't just leave it with an unpronounceable word there and think that's OK because everyone knows what it means.
The same happens all over the world.
Nobody wouldn't know what "bagages" meant because it didn't have the extra G, but it'd be remarkably rude to not include the translation because "oh yeah, you just use the same word as us spelled a bit funny"
All western European languages have words in them from all over the place, and often with a common root.
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ash39
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I'm not saying don't have the translations, I don't have an issue with them and can't understand why anyone would. It's just amusing that, in this instance, the translation is literally just an extra letter.
Spartacus
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Not quite, I don't think there's any real issue with 'regular' words and sentences, it's quite easy to work out very quickly that there's two languages in place and ignore one, but as a non-Welsh speaker I find road junction signs with a large number of signposted destinations quite a pain in the backside and have always thought a different font or colour, as in Ireland, would be an aid to navigation. On the railways just the platform name board getting the treatment would be all that is needed to clear any possible confusion up, and what's wrong with that? No risk of anyone thinking the second name isn't just a second part to the first, like it's some sort of Welsh word for 'Parkway' or something, before they get to the town's main station when in fact the town has only one station, and they've missed it. I've seen similar things happen.
People often haven't the foggiest where they're going, they've got a ticket and an itinerary, and if that sign doesn't say what's on their itinerary and ticket then they're staying on. There was a certain amount of confusion a few years back when a certain building contractor started putting it's prominent and very official looking name boards up at stations it was working at, in the same way they do for buildings. Irregular travellers were missing their stops due to seeing those signs and getting them confused with the station boards: size, colour and font were near identical.
Who's dialect would you use? Heck, Slaithwaite would need 3 boards, Slaithwaite (National), Slawit (Regional), and Slathwaite (Local), which is surely somewhere along the path to lunacy! As for the names that might have to be applied to a certain halt to the West of Manchester.... at least half would be unprintable, and that's just the local ones
Spartacus
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Everything in 'Ye Olde' to please the tourists?
Y Ddraig Coch
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As already mentioned above somewhere...…… if you come to a road sign, in both languages, if you are Welsh and going to Llanelwy (St Asaph) you turn right and ignore the rest of the sign. If you are English you see St Asaph which is where you know you need to be and follow that and ignore the rest of the sign.
I really don't get the issue? It is only the same as an English sign going to more than one location, you see your location and ignore the rest.
Last night the Chinese Menu in the restaurant was in Cantonese and English, I had so much trouble reading the Menu because the two languages confused me no end......oh wait, it didn't at all!!
Welsh signs are here to stay and quite rightly too. It really isn't that difficult. If you can't select relevant information from a clear road sign, I don't think it's the signage that's the problem
krus_aragon
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Continuing this more light-hearted theme:
The (road) signs that gave me and my brother a giggle when we were young were those that read: "Heavy Plant Crossing".
Nothing too funny* about that, unless you know "plant" is the Welsh for "children". I never did spot any of these obese kids at the side of the road...
(*unless you're only familiar with "plant" as in "vegetation", in which case you may want to look out for triffids.)
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