Welsh Bilingual Signage

[FosseWay]

I know quite a bit about languages and linguistics, code-switching and stuff.

Yet what always gets me is that whenever you hear someone speaking Welsh, every fifth word is often English. That’s a hell of a lot of loan-words.

That's what happens when you get invaded by a imperialist nation who then spend the following hundreds of years trying to squash your language.

Mind you, next time you're in a café, I hope you don't ask for a latte or a tea with a croissant or a pain au chocolat. You might look out of the window and get some wanderlust, or think about taking an odyssey somewhere on the sabbath, perhaps with a dominatrix to see an giraffe which is an albino.

Complaining about loanwords being used in other languages when writing in English is, well, frankly ridiculous. English is probably the worst common language for the use of loanwords.

All of that is true, plus what nowster said regarding loanwords. But there's another factor at play as well, which I encounter every day in Swedish (which hasn't suffered oppression or colonialism from speakers of other languages). If you are doing something where the interface or material you're working with is in another language (English), even if you're talking in Swedishyou will end up incorporating more English words into your conversation than if there wasn't any English around. In other words, the amount of English used varies by context, even within the usage of one particular speaker. A good example is with computer interfaces. At work, everyone's Windows and dependent applications are set to English as the interface language by default. No doubt I could change it, but neither I nor IME anyone else ever does. So I may be having a conversation in Swedish where someone refers to something that they're reading on the screen: "Track changes" or "Delete". It's a natural human reaction to use what's in front of you. So you end up hearing hybrid words like "deleta" instead of "radera" for "to delete", which you'd never hear in a context where there were no English cues.

The Welsh counting system - which to a large extent is vigesimal - is something else, so little wonder that Welsh people might prefer the English equivalent.

Danish counting is similarly vigesimal, and in theory there is an alternative decimal system that uses words that look very like their English or Swedish equivalents but retain the inverted ("German") tens and units. But I've *never* heard Danes use this - they always count in the traditional way, including when simply giving numerical information like train times at a station. IIRC at one point the central bank issued a 50 kroner banknote on which the denomination was written in decimal, FEMTI KRONER. They got Letters, apparently, and at the next revision it went back to HALVTREDS.

[nowster]

The Welsh counting system - which to a large extent is vigesimal - is something else, so little wonder that Welsh people might prefer the English equivalent.

There is a decimal variant available nowadays. The historic vigesimal system tends only to be used for times and dates.

eg. "naw deg" rather than "deg a phedwar ugain" (ten and four score).

[nowster]

Danish counting is similarly vigesimal, and in theory there is an alternative decimal system that uses words that look very like their English or Swedish equivalents but retain the inverted ("German") tens and units. But I've *never* heard Danes use this - they always count in the traditional way, including when simply giving numerical information like train times at a station. IIRC at one point the central bank issued a 50 kroner banknote on which the denomination was written in decimal, FEMTI KRONER. They got Letters, apparently, and at the next revision it went back to HALVTREDS.

And here's Tom Scott on the subject:

[Ritchie333]

The Welsh counting system - which to a large extent is vigesimal - is something else, so little wonder that Welsh people might prefer the English equivalent.

I believe this has been largely deprecated, so you say "dau deg" instead of "ugain" and "pum deg" instead of "hanner cant" and "saith deg saith" instead of "saith ar deg a tregain".

[nowster]

The Welsh counting system - which to a large extent is vigesimal - is something else, so little wonder that Welsh people might prefer the English equivalent.

I believe this has been largely deprecated, so you say "dau deg" instead of "ugain" and "pum deg" instead of "hanner cant" and "saith deg saith" instead of "saith ar deg a tregain".

Though you do have to be careful not to confuse "pum deg" (fifty) with "pymtheg" (fifteen), and "dau deg" (twenty) with "deuddeg" (twelve) which can (when spoken quickly and/or with a strong local accent) sound similar to the untrained ear.

[Ritchie333]

And where did "deunaw" come from? I've not seen "two nines" in any other language.

[FosseWay]

And where did "deunaw" come from? I've not seen "two nines" in any other language.

Not exactly the same, but similarly odd: Latin for 18 and 19 is duodeviginti and undeviginti respectively, i.e. "two from twenty", "one from twenty". Latin numbers otherwise follow a similar pattern to most modern western European languages (i.e. the ones that aren't Celtic, Danish or French). There is no similar construction for 28/29, 38/39 etc. - these are viginti octo etc. The "two from" construction doesn't even match the way Roman numerals are used, where you can only use the subtraction feature once (IV, IX, XL etc., not IIV...).

[exiled]

And where did "deunaw" come from? I've not seen "two nines" in any other language.

Not exactly the same, but similarly odd: Latin for 18 and 19 is duodeviginti and undeviginti respectively, i.e. "two from twenty", "one from twenty". Latin numbers otherwise follow a similar pattern to most modern western European languages (i.e. the ones that aren't Celtic, Danish or French). There is no similar construction for 28/29, 38/39 etc. - these are viginti octo etc. The "two from" construction doesn't even match the way Roman numerals are used, where you can only use the subtraction feature once (IV, IX, XL etc., not IIV...).

Of course the decimal versions, septante, octante, and nonante are the versions used in Belgium, Switzerland, bits of Canada and the official French in the Channel Islands. Indeed some regions of France also use them, and they are approved by the Académie, and IIRC are used for teaching maths. Just the AF decided to be difficult by its choice of numbers from 70 to 99.

[exiled]

Bilingual road signs in New Zealand:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/29/asia ... index.html

They look good.

[Berk]

Bilingual road signs in New Zealand:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/29/asia ... index.html

They look good.

Up to a point. Te reo Māori doesn’t have equal status with English. Safety signage should always be presented in English first.

Note also the use of Transport, which is very much seen as secondary in NZ signage (don’t have an objection with it myself).

[exiled]

Bilingual road signs in New Zealand:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/29/asia ... index.html

They look good.

Up to a point. Te reo Māori doesn’t have equal status with English. Safety signage should always be presented in English first.

Note also the use of Transport, which is very much seen as secondary in NZ signage (don’t have an objection with it myself).

Maori has been an official language since 1987. The order is not important, provided it is consistent. So if the decision is Maori first, Maori should be first on all bilingual signs.

[Vierwielen]

I know quite a bit about languages and linguistics, code-switching and stuff.

Yet what always gets me is that whenever you hear someone speaking Welsh, every fifth word is often English. That’s a hell of a lot of loan-words.

I noticed something interesting in South Africa about the way in which English technical words are used in Afrikaans.

I once overhead a foreman on one of the mines talking a new [unskilled] member of staff through the process of gold recovery. Both were Afrikaans-speaking whites. They used Afrikaans except for any technical word where they used English.

On the other hand, when I heard two Afrikaans-speakers (both university graduates) disucssing an IT problem, they were speaking English. I commented on this to the and one of them told me that he did not know the Afrikaans words for various IT concepts so rather than mixing languages, they used English. The main difference between these two incidents was the educational level of the participants concerend.

[jervi]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-67098393

Universities doing what they do best. Firing people for freedom of speech, this time saying that having Welsh on road signs is confusing and therefor dangerous, which is true.

[Nathan_A_RF]

Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences. He got what he deserved, which was his honorary position removed by insulting a nation's language and not backing down thereafter. Bilingual road signs are not dangerous.

[jervi]

Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences. He got what he deserved, which was his honorary position removed by insulting a nation's language and not backing down thereafter. Bilingual road signs are not dangerous.

You have to be joking.

He stated a fact and then his opinion. Some people don't like his opinion based solely on political reasons & he gets fired, that is not proportionate, especially since he has not even done anything wrong other than express a completely justifiable opinion.

And it is more dangerous, even more so for non-fluent English & Welsh speakers. It also requires signs to be bigger, which costs more and requires more resources, which have a higher carbon footprint. It is also more susceptible for errors, as most people who live in Wales do not even speak Welsh, and therefor errors in translation which are not uncommon to hear about.

I'm not against bilingual signs, in areas which another language is actually present and used, however, road signs are there for safety, not pushing a political agenda and therefor their legibility must come front and foremost by putting the more understood language first.

[Steven]

having Welsh on road signs is confusing and therefor dangerous, which is true.

I'm not against bilingual signs, in areas which another language is actually present and used, however, road signs are there for safety, not pushing a political agenda and therefor their legibility must come front and foremost by putting the more understood language first.

Ah, English Imperialism at its finest.

It's only confusing if you're (generic) too stupid to realise that you need to read the bits you can understand. And of course, having the national language first in a consistent basis helps the less bright members of the English public with finding the one they might understand.

[jervi]

having Welsh on road signs is confusing and therefor dangerous, which is true.

I'm not against bilingual signs, in areas which another language is actually present and used, however, road signs are there for safety, not pushing a political agenda and therefor their legibility must come front and foremost by putting the more understood language first.

Ah, English Imperialism at its finest.

If the most understood language is Welsh in a particular area, then no reason not to put that first, likewise if a particular town has the majority of residents using Polish, French, German, Ukrainian, Cantonise etc, then put that first cause it would be justified.

All signs should be understood quickest by the majority of people that sees it, that's common sense, not "Imperialism". And that goes for everywhere, on the road, in the airport, on the train, in the UK, in Brussels, in Bangkok.

[Steven]

If the most understood language is Welsh in a particular area, then no reason not to put that first, likewise if a particular town has the majority of residents using Polish, French, German, Ukrainian, Cantonise etc, then put that first cause it would be justified.

All signs should be understood quickest by the majority of people that sees it, that's common sense, not "Imperialism". And that goes for everywhere, on the road, in the airport, on the train, in the UK, in Brussels, in Bangkok.

So, let me get this straight. The belief here is that somehow working out "Caerdydd" isn't a word you understand is somehow a safety issue, despite the fact that warning signs are all pictoral and identical to those in England? Or that it's somehow magically "safer" when you don't know which language comes in which order instead of simply knowing that English is always second?

You do realise that all schools in Wales teach Welsh to GCSE so everyone schooled in Wales has a good level of understanding?

Yma o Hyd and all that.

In addition, I assume that the Irish Government are somehow wrong about how Irish always comes first on their signs? Or maybe the Hong Kong Government about how English comes first before Cantonese?

[JohnnyMo]

having Welsh on road signs is confusing and therefor dangerous, which is true.

I'm not against bilingual signs, in areas which another language is actually present and used, however, road signs are there for safety, not pushing a political agenda and therefor their legibility must come front and foremost by putting the more understood language first.

Ah, English Imperialism at its finest.

It's only confusing if you're (generic) too stupid to realise that you need to read the bits you can understand. And of course, having the national language first in a consistent basis helps the less bright members of the English public with finding the one they might understand.

I'm dyslexic, I need to read the bits before I can discard it. I have no problem in Ireland where the languages are in different fonts.
In Wales the order is not consistent.

As for "English Imperialism" I find it upsetting when in Europe (Netherlands and Vienna are especially bad) where English is the primary language. Fully support the role of English as a universal 2nd language, except in the UK where it should be the primary language.

[Steven]

As for "English Imperialism" I find it upsetting when in Europe (Netherlands and Vienna are especially bad) where English is the primary language. Fully support the role of English as a universal 2nd language, except in the UK where it should be the primary language.

Remind me again what the official language of Wales is? And what the native language is?

It *is* English Imperialism to demand that English comes first in a country that isn't England just because English people speak it.