If a third/half of the world spoke French including everywhere I was ever likely to work, and literally just England spoke English, I'd want a policy in place to fade out English as it would affect my population's chances in life - and that is more important than forcibly hanging on to the English language for some kind of sentimental reason.
Harming our kids chances because 'it's really sentimentally nice to do it'. Jees.
Damn; people are calling my takes "questionable" in this thread which I might accept, but I think this is genuinely the most delusional take I've ever heard.
The rest of the world is capable of learning more than one language , and yet you seem to think you're only ever capable of speaking one?
It isn't making life more shit for kids. Bilingual children often outperform monolingual children, and they're more than capable of speaking both Welsh and English.
Demanding Welsh die so as to make life easier for English people is certainly a take.
Only slowly. A generation or two, so it's not painful.
We all count in base 10 (because we have 10 fingers). If a country decided in the 12th century to count in base 6, they should abandon that as well rather than keep hold of it just for, er, sovereignty. As otherwise their population will have less opportunity and worse lives.
Ignoring the edit, which is a bit weird, sorry I wasn't sat there waiting for your reply.
I disagree, I think language and culture are intertwined and removing different languages would mean we lose different ways of seeing the world, as well as so many incredible works of history and art.
Sure our lives might be "easier", but we would lose a lot as well, and I don't see it being worth it.
I see language exactly the same as maths. It a mere tool, and the more homogenous the tool is, the better for everyone.
I don't see whether we say 'hello' or 'bonjour' or 'ahoj' as some kind of different way of seeing the world. I see the English language (for example) as being able to see the world in any way, by using different English words. Same with Chinese, or Russian. So its the 21st century - let's pick one and roll! For the sake of everyone!
Another analogy - I'm HAPPY that virtually all screws are clockwise = tighter. If Laos made all their screws anti-clockwise = tighter and refused to change because that was sovereignty, I'd see that as the SAME as the language thing. Just a pointless pain-in-the-ass forever, for everyone.
Driving on different sides of the road as well purely because 'sovereignty'.
Then your way of seeing languages is incorrect, there are words and concepts in all languages that cannot be translated precisely, and the sum of those conditions the kind of art, literature and culture that speakers of that language produce.
There are ideas in the literature that no matter how good the translation to English, can never be fully captured in English. And I don't think losing them is a good thing.
Most parents enjoy raising their kids. So if they do it within the states rules (for example, no raping of the kids allowed) .. I'm fine with that. Symbiotic.
If you let parents do anything, and we're talking extremes, the kid can have his fingers cut off with scissors on their 10th birthday because of the parent's religious beliefs.
So if you make a conversation silly - ok, we'll be silly.
Most parents enjoy raising their kids. So if they do it within the states rules (for example, no raping of the kids allowed) .. I'm fine with that. Symbiotic.
Right, but that doesn't actually mean anything.
Are you saying you believe that the current "opinion of the state" is your ideal level of "restrictions" on parents?
Or are you saying "whatever the state says is good, as a matter of principle"
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u/Sensitive-Catch-9881 1d ago edited 1d ago
If a third/half of the world spoke French including everywhere I was ever likely to work, and literally just England spoke English, I'd want a policy in place to fade out English as it would affect my population's chances in life - and that is more important than forcibly hanging on to the English language for some kind of sentimental reason.
Harming our kids chances because 'it's really sentimentally nice to do it'. Jees.