English is our main tongue

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Monday, September 24, 2012
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South Wales Evening Post

MY ancestors are Welsh, born and bred. My great-grandparents' first language was Welsh, my grandparents were bilingual, my parents were only English-speaking. Several correspondents quote the prohibition of the use of the Welsh language as the root cause of the decreased use of the language.

In my case, there was no government dictate in place to prevent the speaking of Welsh and I assume my parents made their choice not to teach me Welsh for whatever reason.

I feel as Welsh as anyone including those who are bilingual.

Maybe the historical decline in the speaking of Welsh is as much due to parental choice and the closure of the Welsh chapels — I wonder how many Welsh speakers are now regular chapel-goers?

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It is good to see the language is surviving, but it's clear that the common language of Wales is English and that Welsh is only ever going to be the second language.

C Williams

Trebanos

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  • Profile image for mw0cnd

    by mw0cnd

    Monday, October 15 2012, 3:59PM

    “taffjack1 what a inbred pleb you are!”

  • Profile image for taffjack1

    by taffjack1

    Sunday, September 30 2012, 11:15AM

    “mw0cnd,
    The attitude which you express towards Welsh People, who do not speak the Language, is part of the reason, why you will never achieve your dream, "I love the idea of self-determination standing on our my own two feet ".
    Do you really think that any of us will vote yes, in a Referendum, for Independence ? Knowing full well, that we will be regarded as 2nd Class Citizens, by the language obsessed plebs like yourself, who will no doubt hijack the process ?
    I don't usually use words like Pleb but have borrowed it from your outburst.
    You have chosed to speak Welsh, that is your choice and I respect it, why can't you respect our choice ?
    As for your last paragraph, that just about sums up your arguement ...."The ancient English tactic of 'divide and rule' may have worked on you lot. But the majority of Welsh people have seen through it"
    What Majority ? It is you that is in the Minority and I hope that you take opportunity to learn Arabic whilst in Saudi. There is more chance of Arabic being of use to you in Wales, than Welsh.”

  • Profile image for mw0cnd

    by mw0cnd

    Tuesday, September 25 2012, 3:14PM

    “immagrant1 reading what you have just writen proves to me that people like you Don't have all his corn flakes in one box.Another example of how the dinosaurs survived for millions of years with walnut sized brains.what a moron.......!”

  • Profile image for immigrant1

    by immigrant1

    Tuesday, September 25 2012, 1:16PM

    “mw0cnd - Welsh should be abolished. Complete waste of money. Just speak English like everyone else.”

  • Profile image for maxmin

    by maxmin

    Tuesday, September 25 2012, 9:17AM

    “Told you! Bang goes any chance of having any sort of reasoned debate on the subject.”

  • Profile image for mw0cnd

    by mw0cnd

    Monday, September 24 2012, 10:37PM

    “Yes we all agree you are one of those loonies max-a-moron and looking at The over-riding response from the anti-Welsh language brigade who write on here is that they are OH SO PROUD
    of their Welsh Heritage and are glad to see that the language is surviving. And saying how welsh they are and how their ancestors are Welsh, born and bred how their great-grandparents' first language was Welsh, then that their grandparents were bilingual, because they feel embarrassed with what they have written are they saying then that the Language is out-dated and of no use to them because they speak English only they forget nobody is asking them to speak it? Any more than they are asking them to paddle to work in a coracle. They forget The Welsh language is THE reason Wales still has its own identity. Maybe C Williams 1st language is English but for many in Wales it will be welsh and English is their 2nd language! I'm a Welsh Nationalist. An idealist. I love the idea of self-determination standing on our my own two feet I work in Saudi, will be here for another 16 months. I love my country, but I've worked away a lot. My money is sent home and still gets spent in the Welsh economy. I will one day retire in the land of my birth, and I will speak my language when and where I please and not give not a toss to some of my inbred hate themselves welsh who I feel sorry for because they are just ignorant plebs who would love to see it destroyed. Are these anti-welsh language bigots really saying to over 600,000 of their fellow Welsh people that they should
    knock their language on the head??? Just because they cant speak it? The language is actually good for tourism. There's a positive for us. People from the
    USA and Europe are fascinated by old languages. Guess what...the English tourists
    love it too (apart from the well worn "they were talking English til I walked in" line)..Strange that the only REALLY negative vibes about the language come from Welsh people I don't get it.

    One thing for sure though...
    The language is going nowhere. The ancient English tactic of 'divide and rule' may have
    worked on you lot. But the majority of Welsh people have seen through it”

  • Profile image for maxmin

    by maxmin

    Monday, September 24 2012, 7:00PM

    “Oh dear wait for the wrath of the loonies.”

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