The Welsh Language In The Age Of Jackboot Politics

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Brexit it appears has unleashed many prejudices to those who feel emboldened by the result. For those only slightly above the IQ of a caveman it's in attacking people from Poland for the crime of being Polish. With regard to Wales this has also brought out of the woodwork those who feel that the Welsh language should slowly lay on the ground bleeding through neglect before being led away from view and shot.

You hear the arguments being rattled out again "It's an old language" "No one uses it" "I went into a shop where no one would speak to me because I only spoke English". Another argument I've heard is that Welsh is dying because the Welsh language TV channel S4C or Radio Cymru has very low ratings for some of its programmes.

But behind these arguments there is an instinctive fear. I've written before of how I believe that the Welsh are too nice as a nation and so have allowed governments, organisations and people to take liberties with it that they wouldn't do say, to the Scots. But the language is something that shows that Wales is different. That it should not be considered as a merely adjunct to England. That it shouldn't have the word "and" forever in sentences (as in .....England...... and Wales). For those who criticise the language there is as a consequence a fear of something they don't understand.

I may be an old romantic (I'm certainly old) but if the language was allowed to die then there would be a part of Wales that would die with it. I for one (even though my Welsh is in that annoying Twilight zone of not being fluent but being far better than the cat sat on the mat) will continue to learn and continue to speak it in all the occasions I can.

And you know, Welsh speakers are very patient with the likes of me with my hesitant delivery, limited vocabulary and I'm sure countless mistakes with mutations for the simple reason that I'm making the effort. Welsh is spoken more often than it's critics would suggest. If you look you will find it everywhere and not just in big cities or in the West of the country.

Also if we focus on S4C (but this also applies to an extent with Radio Cymru) the low ratings argument is a misleading one. S4C's biggest problem is not the language but the fact that, if we use BBC as the example, it's meant to be BBC1 (entertainment ,news, sport and drama), BBC2 (as BBC1 plus minority programmes), BBC3 (teenagers , BBC4 (culture), Ceebies (Pre school childrens' programmes) CBBC (School age childrens' programmes) BBC News and BBC Parliament in just one channel.

So taking me as the example whilst I'm a fan of the Welsh language soap opera Pobol Y Cwm I'm not going to watch a farming programme that might be shown afterwards. Unlike other broadcasters S4C would be unable to offer anything else as an alternative, hence it suffers.

Ironically the detractors of S4C would probably have you watching something brain dead like Big Brother. To think so far Orwell was nearly right. Big Brother is not watching us at our homes we are encouraged to watch it.....not me though.

So in this age of jackboot politics. Where I'm sure some of the Welsh language haters out there would like Welsh in the national curriculum replaced by synchronised goose stepping. Remember that learning Welsh marks you out as being different and independent of the way that jackboot politics would like you to live.

Until the next time.