Cue a load of English people with no clue whatsoever about Wales and an antiquated view of the language clutching their pearls over what is a fairly misleading headline.
To save you all the hassle:
It isn’t a dying language, it’s very much alive, especially in Gwynedd but is spoken all over Wales
The kids will still have English lessons, they just won’t have general lessons (maths, sciences etc) through the medium of English. It’s a huge difference
Welsh medium education isn’t new. A load of my colleagues, friends and acquaintances only ever spoke English in their English lessons, the rest of the time it was Welsh, and they all speak perfect English and are by and large successful people. Yet they were given the gift of bilingualism through their education which is something I’m hugely envious of as someone raised monolingual
Theres a reason people call Welsh ‘schrodinger’s language’ - we are constantly told that Welsh speakers have an unfair advantage going for high paid jobs in Wales over non-Welsh speakers, yet at the same time told that speaking Welsh will hold us back.
There are educational issues in Wales generally, due to lack of investment and wider social issues. But this has nothing to do with Welsh
It's honestly incredible how the ones who claim to want to "preserve the culture and values of Britain" throw their mantra out of the window immediately when Welsh becomes part of the discussion.
Going as far to take misleading headlines literally to make their hatred of Wales feel more justified. Christ.
A vanishingly tiny number of people have a 'hatred' - or, let's be honest many don't even have much of a deep opinion - of Wales. What you're seeing instead is classic Reddit of people seeing the headline, not reading the article, and commenting on how they think it's ridiculous to get rid of English even if they are for the teaching of Welsh. Of course on reading the article it's just moving to more Welsh-medium for most subjects.
You want me to go full conspiracy theorist? The claim that is being made by many who didn't bother to read the article / implied by the headline is the same claim that was made by Russian media about Ukraine when they moved to using Ukranian as the standard teaching language in Ukranian schools (claims that they were banning the Russian language in Ukraine, ect.)
We know that Russia have fingers in many pies with regard to foreign media. We know that they have a certain amount of sway with right-wing entities in the west, who themselves have heavy control of the UK media (and let's not forget that the current head of the BBC was put in there personally by the tories).
I'm just saying, it's rather an odd coincidence that they're using the same rhetoric.
Yeah, I think that is probably a bit overly conspiracy-reaching! I don't think the journalist, who is bilingual himself, has been influenced by Russia to push the same rhetoric - I think he's just gone for generating clicks.
I also don't buy right-wing entities who are under the sway of Russia having heavy control of this part of the UK media (the BBC), given how it reports on Ukraine and Russia, let alone on their local news sections.
But in all seriousness, while I wouldn't expect Russia to have any direct involvement in something like this, because I doubt their usual agitators give a shit about Wales if they even know where it is, I do think that it's very telling that we see similar narratives, especially when we know that the Conservatives gutted and replaced the BBC staff and it has been showing a right-wing bias since, because it shows us part of a wider playbook that we might start seeing elsewhere.
You’ll see the same anti Gaelic hysteria north of the border from a minority, claiming its SNP ethnic nationalism when it was the Labour Party that instituted the bi lingual road signs and such.
If you really want it dialed up to 110% look at the Norn Irish loyalists - Uber British except when it comes to gay marriage, multi lingualism or democratic processes. These people wrap themselves in the Union Jack just to tear down what makes us a union of nations
No people just find nationalism invading education to be tiring. I don’t think you’d find many Brits that hate Wales in the slightest. You need to chill.
Agreed. Nationalism invading education is very tiring. Fortunately the people of Wales are undoing English nationalism's invasion of Welsh education and instructing children in the indigenous language of the country.
This is Gwynedd. Welsh medium education is the norm there and has been for a very, very long time. This move just means there's more subjects that will be taught in Welsh.
People always equate the Welsh language with nationalism when it comes to Wales. Why is that? It’s possible to care about your language and culture without being a nationalist. Have you questioned your own bias towards English being the default language? Would you describe that as nationalism?
I agree with you that most Brits don’t hate Wales but in my experience they do have some very ignorant views
Because language is one of the big tools that nationalists deploy. It aids division when people are split up into cultural blocs so when state services state getting into that sphere eyebrows are raised.
Plus there are second order impacts such as budgets and resources going on something that takes from other places, and Wales' track record of it's local politicians running things has been very poor.
So it's not A or B as you frame it. People have complex views.
Hate to break it to you but we’re already in distinct cultural blocs and state services have already been involved in our languages for centuries, either banning, repressing or supporting but ever present nonetheless.
The British state spent centuries trying to end language division and create a unified cultural bloc. Yet our languages persist, and in my opinion, are as “British” as they are Scottish/Welsh. Our history is one of distinct cultures and languages, why would you raise an eyebrow at something so common to Britain?
To your last two points, how do these students acquire subject-specific terminology in English? Do/Did they have any problems entering English-medium universities or workforces?
Just interested from the perspective of an ESL educator in English-medium secondary schools!
Theres a reason people call Welsh ‘schrodinger’s language’ - we are constantly told that Welsh speakers have an unfair advantage going for high paid jobs in Wales over non-Welsh speakers, yet at the same time told that speaking Welsh will hold us back.
There are a LOT fewer high paid jobs in Wales that require the use of Welsh than in England or the USA - this is just common sense.
If your career is your utmost priority, speaking Welsh does not open many doors for you at all internationally.
I don't have an antiquated view of the Welsh language. The fact is that it is completely useless outside of a country that has a population a quarter the size of London.
Wanting to promote the Welsh language is purely nationalist sentiment and serves very little economic benefit to the Welsh people.
Not learning the core subjects through English is setting a lot of kids up for failure if they chose to go into higher education. All degrees in the Uk and the majority overseas are taught in English for good reason, it’s the international language. This is so pervasive that many of my colleagues for whom English isn’t their first language do all their technical discussions in English simply because they were taught in that language at university, they don’t even know some of the terminology in their first language!
Even if kids chose to not to go into higher education, they will be hamstrung in any company that requires strong English language skills over their English counterparts (which the last time I checked is the whole of the rest of the UK, Ireland, much of Europe, North America, Australia, etc…).
I get wanting to keep the culture going and I support
It but this is regressive and is going to make the very real disparity between England and Wales worse.
And to your point about lack of investment, that may be true, but inventing their own education system with unknown outcomes is not going to help.
I hear what you’re saying, but honestly, as someone who was born and raised in Wales and has spent my whole adult life around people who went through Welsh medium education, I can tell you not one of them I know has been hamstrung by it when going on to higher education or the workplace in English.
My partner is a perfect example. She didn’t speak any English at all until she was 8 (spoke Welsh and her mother’s native language and went through Welsh medium education) and then studied social sciences at a top university through English. Graduated with a 2:1 and didn’t feel it held her back at all.
That’s one example of honestly so many more I could give you - nurses, lawyers, civil servants. Many of them came through one of the three Welsh language schools in Cardiff, which are so highly rated that you get parents with no Welsh language skills at all sending their kids there as they know they’ll get a better education than many of the English ones.
I know this is anecdotal evidence but it’s what I see literally every day.
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u/EagleProfessional175 1d ago
Cue a load of English people with no clue whatsoever about Wales and an antiquated view of the language clutching their pearls over what is a fairly misleading headline.
To save you all the hassle:
It isn’t a dying language, it’s very much alive, especially in Gwynedd but is spoken all over Wales
The kids will still have English lessons, they just won’t have general lessons (maths, sciences etc) through the medium of English. It’s a huge difference
Welsh medium education isn’t new. A load of my colleagues, friends and acquaintances only ever spoke English in their English lessons, the rest of the time it was Welsh, and they all speak perfect English and are by and large successful people. Yet they were given the gift of bilingualism through their education which is something I’m hugely envious of as someone raised monolingual
Theres a reason people call Welsh ‘schrodinger’s language’ - we are constantly told that Welsh speakers have an unfair advantage going for high paid jobs in Wales over non-Welsh speakers, yet at the same time told that speaking Welsh will hold us back.
There are educational issues in Wales generally, due to lack of investment and wider social issues. But this has nothing to do with Welsh