Claire McNab13h ago

I am staggered by the sheer hugeness of this.

The #WelshGovernment has a policy of bilingualism. All meetings include translators, so that speakers of English or Welsh can participate equally. But every member of the Welsh Cabinet is a native speaker of #Cymraeg, so the Cabinet meetings will be held in their native lsnguage.

#PlaidCymru #Wales

Imposing the #EnglishLanguage was a key component of the imperial project of Britishness. But the tide has turned. 💚 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Show threadHarriettMB13h ago
@2legged It’s brilliant, and I wish it were the same in Ireland and in Scotland.
Show threadColin Macleod
@HarriettMB @2legged My father's first language was Scottish Gaelic, but when he went to school in the 1920s English was compulsory and the children would be punished if caught using their mother tongue. Things have changed since then but it's too little too late I'm afraid.
4:29pmWeb
Show threadHarriettMB8h ago
@CGM @2legged My mother was from West Cork, a native Irish speaker, and a primary school teacher. But she neither encouraged or used Irish with us as kids, so we never learned good fluent Irish. Also, my parents didn’t encourage music, story telling and singing, or even dancing. I grew up in a fairly austere Protestant tradition in the Republic of Ireland. It’s a terrible shame and it happened in a lot of families. You just can’t get that instinct back when you are older and wiser.
Show threadClaire McNab8h ago

@CGM When my mother was 4yo, in the late 1930s, she went to the local primary school.

To use the toilet, she had to ask in irish. But her West Brit parents spoke not a word of it, and nor did she. So she pissed herself, and was sent home humiliated.

Her father took her out of the school. She did v v well at a school elsewhere, and became a poly linguist. But to this day she cannot even pronounce an Irish name or word.

I despise the linguistic fascists who did that to her. 😡

@HarriettMB