[lg policy] blog: Is Wales=?windows-1252?Q?=92_?=language policy slowly killing the nation?

Mon Aug 6 15:00:04 UTC 2012

Is Wales’ language policy slowly killing the nation?
August 3, 2012 · by
owenjackwilliams<http://owenjackwilliams.wordpress.com/author/owenjackwilliams/>·
in
General <http://owenjackwilliams.wordpress.com/category/general/>,
Personal<http://owenjackwilliams.wordpress.com/category/personal/>,
Politics <http://owenjackwilliams.wordpress.com/category/politics/>

*Wales is the only country on the planet that seems to actively dissuade
its population from achieving high standards of English. *

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.

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.

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.

<http://owenjackwilliams.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/welsh-language.jpg>
*                                                            Welsh must be
first on any official sign in Wales*

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.

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.

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.

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.

<http://owenjackwilliams.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/welshflag.jpg>

*                                                     Welsh identity is
based heavily on the language*

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.

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.

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.

What is genuinely more important? The Welsh language or the Welsh people?

http://owenjackwilliams.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/iswaleslanguagepolicyslowlykillingthenation/

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