<h1 class="entry-title">Is Wales’ language policy slowly killing the nation?</h1>
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<abbr class="published" title="August 3, 2012 1:33 pm">August 3, 2012</abbr> · by <span class="author vcard"><a href="http://owenjackwilliams.wordpress.com/author/owenjackwilliams/" title="Posts by owenjackwilliams" rel="author">owenjackwilliams</a></span> · in <a href="http://owenjackwilliams.wordpress.com/category/general/" title="View all posts in General" rel="category tag">General</a>, <a href="http://owenjackwilliams.wordpress.com/category/personal/" title="View all posts in Personal" rel="category tag">Personal</a>, <a href="http://owenjackwilliams.wordpress.com/category/politics/" title="View all posts in Politics" rel="category tag">Politics</a> <span class="edit"></span>
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<p><strong>Wales is the only country on the planet that seems to
actively dissuade its population from achieving high standards of
English. </strong></p>
<p>I’m a fan of strong and controversial statements, but I don’t believe
that this one is particularly exaggerated, though I think it might open
me up to extreme criticism from certain elements within Welsh society.</p><p><br>
Wales has been held up across the world as a beacon of hope for minority
or dying languages. Be it Maori in New Zealand, Sami in Lapland or even
Hebrew in Israel, reigniting the flame of a dying language is a
difficult task and one the Welsh government and people have managed to
do despite the significant odds against it. Welsh is now a true living
language, with a growing number of speakers and an increasingly
important role in Welsh (and even occasionally British) life.</p><p><br>
The language may look like a long string of gobbledegook to the English,
but to the Welsh the language is the pinnacle of Welsh cultural life
and the defining feature of Welsh identity. The importance of the
language cannot be disputed and I do not attempt to even question it. However, I do attempt to bring into focus just what some of the
consequences of the Welsh language policy has and could do to the Welsh
economy and its international standing.</p>
<p><a href="http://owenjackwilliams.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/welsh-language.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-36" title="Welsh language" src="http://owenjackwilliams.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/welsh-language.jpg?w=640" alt=""></a><br>
<strong> Welsh must be first on any official sign in Wales</strong></p>
<p>The United Kingdom remains one of the most linguistically advantaged
nations on the planet. English is still the world’s lingua franca, it
has an almost unchallenged position as the most used language
internationally, be it in the halls of the United Nations, on the fields
of international sporting competitions or in the conference rooms of
the worlds most powerful companies. British people therefore, having an
innate understanding of English, are already a step ahead of the
billions of people across the world who have to learn it as a second
language, no easy feat when you can’t submerge yourself in it and must
become fluent from afar.</p><p><br>
Even our somewhat dubious title of being one of the most monolingual
countries in the EU has not, as yet, seriously damaged our chances on
the international stage. And yet, despite these huge advantages which could be translated into a
much more prosperous situation for the Welsh, our schools, both Welsh
and English medium, fail to encourage a high standard of English
understanding.</p>
<p>My mother, who was brought up in New Zealand, is an English teacher
in an FE college in South Wales which covers both Welsh-speaking and
English-speaking areas. She has frequently told me that those students
whose education has been predominantly given in Welsh have such a low
standard of written English that some of her foreign students are better
in terms of grammar, syntax and vocabulary. She also says that many of
those that have gone through English-medium education are just as poor.</p><p><br>
English grammar is not taught well in Wales, if taught at all, and the
Welsh department, at least in my school, has a certain level of power
which doesn’t really fit with its position in a school based in an
Anglophone part of Wales. And if English is partially subjugated within Welsh culture god forbid
you try an learn a foreign language. I remember having to justify taking
French (a language spoken across the globe by 275 million people) over
Welsh (spoken by 770,000) This, I believe, is a by-product of the recent
language policy in Wales which puts Welsh as the dominant language in
the country, despite the fact it is spoken by a minority of the
population.</p>
<p><a href="http://owenjackwilliams.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/welshflag.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-38" title="Welshflag" src="http://owenjackwilliams.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/welshflag.jpg?w=640" alt=""></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong> Welsh identity is based heavily on the language</strong></p>
<p>It is almost impossible to get a good job within the Welsh public
sector without having a good standard of Welsh understanding. And this
applies not only to Welsh people but also people from outside the UK. This has led to a two-tier career market, with Welsh speakers, generally
regardless of other educational achievement or work experience have an
advantage over all other applicants for certain jobs. This means that Welsh-speakers are more likely to be employed (at least
in the public sector), more likely to be promoted and also maintain a
peculiar monopoly on Welsh identity, with the unspoken understanding
that someone English-speaking Welsh people are somehow less Welsh and
less worth of career advancement.</p><p><br>
Many English-speaking Welsh people who have the skills and talents that
Wales needs to prosper are therefore leaving Wales, severely reducing
the Welsh talent pool. It also means that attracting talent from outside of Wales, be it
England or Australia, is increasingly difficult, not a great situation
when you consider that Wales has one of the worst average education
results in the UK.</p>
<p>England has long been dogged by a society divided by class, Wales has
always been more homogeneous on this front, but in recent years the
Welsh language policy has produced the biggest division within Welsh
society, even bigger than the urban-rural divide and the north-south
divide. It goes without saying that this does not help Wales. The term cutting
your nose off to spite your face has never quite been as applicable.
Wales is deliberately reducing its pool of talent for the sake of a
political and cultural ideology of having a strong Welsh language, which
means that it is crippling itself not only on a British level but also
on an international stage.</p>
<p>What is genuinely more important? The Welsh language or the Welsh people?</p><p><a href="http://owenjackwilliams.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/iswaleslanguagepolicyslowlykillingthenation/">http://owenjackwilliams.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/iswaleslanguagepolicyslowlykillingthenation/</a><br>
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