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Welsh Bi-Lingual Signs

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tomwills98

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The new signs in Radyr were designed and implemented by the WAG. I've seen them at night and with the new night sun LED lighting it's quite difficult to see. And why are people losing their **** over signs in Wales, written in Welsh?
 
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And why are people losing their **** over signs in Wales, written in Welsh?

It's kinda sad, but like in a lot of ethno-cultural disputes, both sides seem like victims. You get Welsh-speaking people who feel like their language is being mocked and ignored even in its home country, English-speaking Welsh people who feel that the language is being forced upon them and that jobs are being kept from them by a smug elite. Both sides are kinda right, I think.

Then you get English English people who say that Welsh isn't a real language anyway and it's all a waste of money. These people should be ignored.
 

driver_m

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For anyone English who gets huffy about Welsh people speaking their own language in their own country, I hope you have never moaned about someone speaking a foreign language in our country! Get over yourselves. I've started trying to learn Welsh a little bit, and just to annoy you more, the WCML services to N Wales are going to be doing bi-lingual announcements if the ITT is correct. End of the day, it's embarrassing for any of my fellow English to moan about the Welsh language, whether it's the signs, the language or whatever. It's not like anyone in Wales is monolingual. It's for Welsh residents to decide how their country deals with it and we should respect it.
 

Del1977

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It's not like anyone in Wales is monolingual. It's for Welsh residents to decide how their country deals with it and we should respect it.

This is just not true. My parents and entire family live in Wales, were born in Wales and their parents were born in Wales and have only ever lived in Wales. Yet they all can only speak English. As is the case for the majority of the population.

And they also have no interest in learning Welsh, either.
 

Del1977

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That you class Welsh as a 'foreign' language in Wales, speaks volumes...

But it is to them, and that is the point that I'm trying to make. They've never encountered it: not at work, not among friends, not among family. The only time they encounter it is on road signs and station announcements, and when waiting for the English programmes to appear on S4C.

That's the reality for many Welsh people in South Wales.
 
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This is just not true. My parents and entire family live in Wales, were born in Wales and their parents were born in Wales and have only ever lived in Wales. Yet they all can only speak English. As is the case for the majority of the population.

And they also have no interest in learning Welsh, either.

That's totally fine, as is their right. English-speaking Welsh people are just as Welsh as anyone else. But I hope you recognise that other families who speak only Welsh (or rarely speak English) have the right to make a similar decision? So the trainst etc should be bilingual so that both you and the other family can use them?
 
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But it is to them, and that is the point that I'm trying to make. They've never encountered it: not at work, not among friends, not among family. The only time they encounter it is on road signs and station announcements, and when waiting for the English programmes to appear on S4C.

That's the reality for many Welsh people in South Wales.

Wait when is this from? The waiting for the English programmes to appear thing hasn't been an issue since the digital switchover, at least a decade ago. Now they can easily get Channel 4, right?
 

transmanche

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But it is to them, and that is the point that I'm trying to make. They've never encountered it: not at work, not among friends, not among family. The only time they encounter it is on road signs and station announcements, and when waiting for the English programmes to appear on S4C.
It's clearly not 'foreign' to them if they 'encounter it is on road signs and station announcements'.

I've never lived in Wales. But I've visited so many times that I've picked up enough Welsh words to understand what many signs and announcements say - to the extent that I'd happily get by even if there weren't English translations. If I can manage that, then I'm sure your parents (who you say have lived in Wales all of their lives) can also manage it without it being a major inconvenience.

As for English programmes on S4C, have there actually been any of those since the digital switchover was completed in 2010?
 

Del1977

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Wait when is this from? The waiting for the English programmes to appear thing hasn't been an issue since the digital switchover, at least a decade ago. Now they can easily get Channel 4, right?

Well yes - that's based on my childhood, rather the current experience!

That's totally fine, as is their right. English-speaking Welsh people are just as Welsh as anyone else. But I hope you recognise that other families who speak only Welsh (or rarely speak English) have the right to make a similar decision? So the trainst etc should be bilingual so that both you and the other family can use them?

Yes of course. I don't have a problem with bilingual stuff. My only issue is announcements being made first in Welsh and then in English. The number of people who speak Welsh as a first language simply doesn't warrant that - particularly in South East Wales. And I also think made-up Welsh equivalents for English towns is daft, too. Again - no objection if there's a historic Welsh name for said towns.
 

6Gman

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But it is to them, and that is the point that I'm trying to make. They've never encountered it: not at work, not among friends, not among family. The only time they encounter it is on road signs and station announcements, and when waiting for the English programmes to appear on S4C.

That's the reality for many Welsh people in South Wales.

Does S4C have any English programmes?

Has S4C ever had any English programmes?
 
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Does S4C have any English programmes?

You probably know this, but before digital TV, Channel 4 was replaced in wales with S4C (which literally means 'Welsh fourth channel'). Some English-language shows from C4 were on late at night.
 
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And I also think made-up Welsh equivalents for English towns is daft, too. Again - no objection if there's a historic Welsh name for said towns.

Most English towns are old enough, and the Welsh language is certainly old enough, that there are natural Welsh words for those towns.
 

transmanche

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Does S4C have any English programmes?

Has S4C ever had any English programmes?
Yes. Prior to 2010, many programmes shown on Channel 4 elsewhere in the UK were shown on S4C's analogue service. 'Primetime' programmes were in Welsh, with English programmes timeshifted to later in the evening or even a different day.

S4C's digital service has (AFAIU) only ever shown Welsh programmes.
 

paddington

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I went to Wales for the first time last weekend, and one of the things I wanted to do was to listen to some Welsh train announcements (for one thing Welsh spelling is not very intuitive if you come from an English background), but I left disappointed - everything was drowned out by the loud sounds of DMUs and there didn't seem to be any announcements on ATW.
 

6Gman

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You probably know this, but before digital TV, Channel 4 was replaced in wales with S4C (which literally means 'Welsh fourth channel'). Some English-language shows from C4 were on late at night.

Ah, I should have known but must have forgotten.
 

transmanche

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Most English towns are old enough, and the Welsh language is certainly old enough, that there are natural Welsh words for those towns.
The best one, surely, being Twmpyn Glori for Dewsbury.

Birmingham is a notable exception. I'm guessing it was an insignificant place until the industrial revolution.
 

transmanche

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And I also think made-up Welsh equivalents for English towns is daft, too.
Define 'made-up'?

Do you also object to 'made-up' English equivalents being used for towns, cities and countries elsewhere in the world? Wien, Napoli, København, München all spring to mind.
 

urbophile

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Define 'made-up'?

Do you also object to 'made-up' English equivalents being used for towns, cities and countries elsewhere in the world? Wien, Napoli, København, München all spring to mind.

I can't understand why everybody doesn't just accept, and use, the local name for places instead of trying to translate. After all, it's only the larger/more important cities that tend to have versions in other languages. And some of those are pointless: like the English calling Marseille Marseilles (but still pronouncing it as the former.) If I'm not mistaken, international timetables usually show place names in the local language. So that we would have trains going from Chester to Caergybi, not Caer to Holyhead.
 

CambrianCoast

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I think your tone is a bit much, but I actually kind of agree with you! It's kind of funny how Welsh versions of English words get mocked as "made up", but English borrowing foreign words is taken as proof of how open and diverse it is. What is 'Lan-elly' or 'Carmarthen' if not a made-up English name?

On the other hand, aeold y crachach dych chi? :lol:

Nid oes rhaid bod yn aelod o unrhyw grachach i adnabod yr anwybodaeth nawddoglyd sydd yn cael ei fynegi ar y fforwm yma, nac ychwaith i fod yn siaradwr Cymraeg rhugl, balch.
 

AndrewE

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My take on it is that if the Welsh recognise the importance of their tourist income (from all over the world as well as from within the UK), and have any concern at all about the safety of car drivers, then they will admit that the public good is not well served by putting a language first on road signs that means that most drivers have passed the sign before they have found a[n English] word that they recognise. It has happened to me more than once - but maybe it's my fault, and I should have learnt the language before crossing the border! I did try once but gave up...
ps, just found this:
My English friend was driving me home once when, out of the gloom, a sign appeared at the roadside ahead.

His hands tightened around the steering wheel, his knuckles turned white, he leaned forward slowly and his eyes narrowed in intense concentration.

"That sign," he whispered. "I can't read it. It's in some other language. I think it's telling me to 'Drive carefu-'..."

That's the last thing I remember before we both woke up in hospital beds, two more hapless victims of Welsh road signs. As the evening went on, more people just like us kept being wheeled in, each one a victim of a cruel policy designed to force Welsh down our throats.
from https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/news-opinion/no-everyone-welsh-road-signs-14006685
 
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GusB

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My take on it is that if the Welsh recognise the importance of their tourist income (from all over the world as well as from within the UK), and have any concern at all about the safety of car drivers, then they will admit that the public good is not well served by putting a language first on road signs that means that most drivers have passed the sign before they have found a[n English] word that they recognise. It has happened to me more than once - but maybe it's my fault, and I should have learnt the language before crossing the border! I did try once but gave up...
ps, just found this:
from https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/news-opinion/no-everyone-welsh-road-signs-14006685
I assume that if you were to hop across the channel, you'd want all signs in France to be in English? How awful it must be for you to cross the border into another country and for them not to recognise the language that you would prefer to speak.
 

HSTEd

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What about bilingual signs being forced onto territories annexed to Wales in 1974, apparently with very little consultation with the local population?

Has a substantial fraction of the population of Newport ever spoken welsh, for example?

(And it is at least 350 years since Monmouthshire has been part of 'Wales', if Wales even existed as we imagine it now at that time)
 

AndrewE

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I assume that if you were to hop across the channel, you'd want all signs in France to be in English? How awful it must be for you to cross the border into another country and for them not to recognise the language that you would prefer to speak.
I can cope with most French signs, maybe because I'm not wasting time looking for the line in English somewhere below! I've got an O-level in French (and German and Russian.) Please tell us how many people in the world you think can cope with Welsh language road signs? I've travelled into Wales for 40 years, had a Welsh-teaching mother-in-law (she said they had to invent the word "Nwy" for "Gas") and have Welsh-speaking friends - and tried to learn it, as I said. I can make out the meaning of quite a few words, but to read a road sign in Welsh when driving is too much of a challenge...
 
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GusB

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I can cope with most French signs, maybe because I'm not wasting time looking for the line in English somewhere below! I've got an O-level in French (and German and Russian.) Please tell us how many people in the world you think can cope with Welsh language road signs? I've travelled into Wales for 40 years, had a Welsh-teaching mother-in-law and have Welsh-speaking friends - and tried to learn it, as I said. I can make out the meaning of quite a few words, but to read a road sign in Welsh when driving is too much of a challenge...
In that case, you've had 40 years to learn the language and have family and friends who can assist you along the way!
Why would you deny the residents of one country the right to use their own language simply because you can't be arsed?
 

trash80

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My take on it is that if the Welsh recognise the importance of their tourist income (from all over the world as well as from within the UK), and have any concern at all about the safety of car drivers, then they will admit that the public good is not well served by putting a language first on road signs that means that most drivers have passed the sign before they have found a[n English] word that they recognise.

Why would tourists have a problem with signs in the local language? Doesn't make sense to me.

Other countries cope fine with regional languages, never understood why it is a problem here with some people.
 
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