Forcing Welsh
SIR – It is not enough to provide Welsh Nationalists with Welsh-medium schools; they also insist that all state school children should be compulsorily indoctrinated in the Welsh language, even though timetable space is paramount.If we want to attract investment into Wales to create more jobs, we need to give curricular priority to science, technology, basic English literacy and numeracy, not Welsh. (Don't kids still learn Science, Maths, Technology and English?)
Authorised bilingual graffiti disfigures public walls, train windows, street signs and motorway gantries, confusing visitors and annoying most residents. Our ears are abused by Welsh rasped at us over electronic amplifiers in post offices, railway stations and even in supermarkets. (Our ears are ABUSED? Bloody hell!)
The objection is not that Welsh is spoken by Welsh speakers (good luck to them) but that we non-Welsh speakers are forced to hear it, to read it and, more significantly, to pay for it. (Forced to hear and read Welsh. Breach of human rights surely? Call the police!)
Welsh Labour Party complacency and apathy among the Anglo-Welsh population has allowed Plaid Cymru, a minority party in South Wales, championed by voters from outside the area, a disproportionate amount of power as reward for coalition in the Assembly. (outsiders moving in? Sounds like Seimon Glyn doesn't she! Someone tell Glennys Kinock so she can reach for her high horse again!)
Language Acts have been rushed through and fluency in Welsh has become the pre-requisite for employment and promotion in top jobs in areas of Wales which had formerly felt enlightened to be exempt from its parochial constraints. (acts? More than one like? rushed?)
Scottish Nationalists are realistic about their ancient language and look forward and outward, not backward and inward to their place in the real world.
There are indeed some useful tips to be learned.
Beryl Roberts
Waun Erw, Caerphilly
What century do these people live in? Seeing as how, in a recent letter to the Telegraph, she claims to live in "Mid-Glamorgan" which hasn't existed since 1992 then I'm guessing it's not the 21st Century!
6 comments:
Odd letter, the bit that made me laugh was the one about Plaid Cymru being a minor party championed by people outside the area.
Beryl from Caerffili might care to look at the composition of her local council - where Plaid Cymru is the lead party!
I love these 'crazies'. The language of their letters really gives the game away: "indoctrinated in the Welsh language", "bilingual graffiti" and the phrases which you have highlighted in your responses. I guess I shouldn't laugh but this is truly mad stuff.
Oh well, maybe we all have our own personal obsessions and weirdnesses (to some degree) - it's just that most of us don't publicise them in the newspapers.
funny, I live just outside Caerphilly, and my ears aren't abused by Welsh. Abused by grunted atrocious "wenglish", sure, but not Welsh. Maybe if people like Beryl had taken Welsh back in school, she wouldn't feel pushed out of the job market because a lot of places want bilingual speakers (which they do more and more, I've noticed that).
I personally don't think that's a genuine letter. Too mad. Wouldn't surprise me if it had been written by a Plaid Cymru activist.
Have you rwad any of Gwilym levell or Robyn lewis' thousand and one letters to the Mule Jim? Believe me, there's plenty of mad people out there!
Its a letter written to include all the old chestnuts isn't it
So I guess its an old chestnut writing it.
I don't decry anyones language of choice or culture, what I do question is when language is put above ability to a job
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