The English speaking Welshman

Yes, scrubbing off the English names from signs isn't going to work. If they want more Welsh spoken and less English it's a long term process and it begins by getting people who speak little or no Welsh, near the border - keen to learn the language. Help them to speak it and keep the language alive not deface signage.

Being Welsh has got nothing to do with speaking the language, if you are born in Wales you are Welsh. The 'I'm a first language Welsh speaker' individuals who try and say they are more Welsh than monoglot Welsh born, English speakers are a divisive minority. They are more than happy to cheer a goal or try scored for Wales by a monoglot English speaker!

The article seems to be a collection of arguments gathered together to justify an opinion already held. As opposed to an analysis of arguments from all sides in order to arrive at an opinion. As an example "More broadly those areas speaking less Welsh tend to be those who identify less as Welsh. " The populations that identify as Welsh only to the greatest degree are in the South Wales valleys Merthyr 70+%, Rhondda Cynon Taff and Caerffili 69+% These are areas with low %s of Welsh speakers. https://stateofwales.com/2023/03/census-2021-wales-identity/#:~:text=Merthyr%20Tydfil%20(70.1%25%20Welsh%2D,(69.2%25%20Welsh%20only). Why more people don't learn to speak Cymraeg is a complicated and many faceted issue however if a pill were available that enabled someone taking it to become fluent in an additional language instantly the vast majority of Cymry would chose Cymraeg. .

I think you need to go away and read a few books written more recently than the mid 19th century. I think you'll find that racial theories have progressed a little.

I would suggest some English only speaking Welsh people fear being treated as second class citizens in an independent Welsh speaking Wales. So yes I would agree the language issue is divisive and detracts from the real purpose of independence ie the building of a prosperous, independent Wales. I support the Welsh language (even though I don't speak it) but I do not support it being weaponised.

No Welshman is more or less a Welshman for language only. Nobody suggests this and the author (and some commentators above) are being disingenuous. However, being Welsh depends upon the existence of the Welsh language. If you speak it or not, you need it to exist and flourish. We all own it. You can neither be a Welsh speaking Welshman nor a non-Welsh speaking Welshman if the language is gone. We all need the language to exist or we'll become a Cumbria.

I'm sorry Lewis, this is an argument that's as old as houses. I've heard this in various guises since before you were born. My grandfather grew up in the Rhondda in in the 1930's. His parents were 1st language Welsh speakers from Cardigan. They were told not to speak Welsh to their kids because the way modernise was to be a monoglot English speaker. I know, seems insane now doesn't it. He spent years trying to learn his mother tongue. Going back a little further and David Lloyd George was pursuing the Cymru Fydd home rule campaign and it was declared that the English speaking people of Glamorgan would not tolerate being ruled by Welsh speakers. This is an old, confected narrative that has been used again and again to divide us. In fact, it is in dire need of being debunked. The fact is it has been passed on and passed on so much that it has become the bogey man that you have perceived as a concern. It has somehow turned into some perverse "received wisdom" in far too many parts of Wales. I remember being referred to as "one of the Welsh kids" growing up in 1980's Pencoed. I've been lectured on it by friends' parents. More recently we had the not very much missed late anti-Welsh bigot and his conspiracy theory website, Jaques Protic (anyone remember that?), spewing his bile about the crach all over the internet. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful but the narrative is pure bovine manure. Yes, Plaid was born out of the movement to fight for the language and language rights were at the heart of it. I'm proud of that history. Without those people who fought for our language, this child of English monoglots would not have received a Welsh Medium education. Rather than reinforce a culturally chauvinist narrative what should happen is that it should be thoroughly debunked as the utter tripe it is. On a happier note, in 2018 a very large survey was run on the Welsh language in Wales. The sample size was more than 11,000 people. Of those who did not speak Welsh, 82% thought more should be done to preserve the language. 64% said they wished that they could speak it. Now that is far closer to the truth than a 150 year old scare story. The fact that the Welsh Govt's woeful record on the language since then gets so little attention is shocking.

This is pure guff. Are you a fifth columnist?

'Quite simply, the narrow focus on the Welsh language by many is what will continue to see many English speakers disenfranchised by calls for independence.' I'm not sure that the issue is quite as stark as this writer suggests i8n the course of presenting his case here; but I do believe that a return to obliterating English on road signage - especially now that both languages are utilized on signage - is likely to prompt non-Welsh speakers living in Wales towards the conclusion that the movement to secure greater autonomy for Wales is the exclusive preserve of those who are most zealous to advance the knowledge and use of the Welsh language. Which isn't the case, because the two really and truly aren't one and the same.

Rascals.

I suggest the author looks up and studies decolonization as a graduate topic. Of course, the languagr issue no longer divides the cross party nationalist movement in the same way that it used to.

I was born in Llanbadog formally known as Llanbadock originally known as Llanbadog. If you drove through at 30mph you would not be able to read all that before the sign had passed and the road-sign would be bigger than the village itself. We really only need put the one proper name on signs and undoing some of the medieval tampering isn’t a threat to you. Your argument about majority versus minority language use should be tempered by the fact that Chinese is the planets majority language which is far more difficult to learn than Cymraeg. Despite the consensus you will find that there are plenty of us bi-lingual people in Gwent who mainly use English as a courtesy.

I have to assume you're trolling. The ignorance on display here is almost beyond comprehension!

This article does strike a chord with me, as currently, I'm somewhere inbetween where the writer mentions. On one side I'm entering year 3 of Welsh, with a class with more English colleagues taking part, than Welsh. On the other side, I live in a border town, where I have been openly mocked and abused for speaking Welsh by English people. Using language to alienate will end in tears.

Dim ond 3 gwlad? Peidiwn ag anghofio Cernyw...mae hyd yn oed y Wladwriaeth Brydeinig wedi cydnabod yn ddiweddar pobl Cernyw fel cenedl lleiafrifol. ~ Only 3 countries? Let us not forget Cornwall...even the British State has recently recognised the Cornish people as a national minority.

As stated some of the arguments in this article are based on shaky logic. However, the point about Scotlands push towards independence being based on State institutions is valid. One of the most important things we can do to increase the likelihood of independence is to further develop separate institutions in the public and third sector

Wales Online ran this argument for the Welsh Not supporters after the Eisteddfod, with the expected response. What struck me most was the shocking standard of English by those who, I assume, had gone through a monoglot education in that language. They are thankfully a minority, but proof that Saunders Lewis was correct in stating that they had lost their native language without gaining the ability to communicate in another.

 The whole narrative of the article is based on some preconceptions that are variously outdated or overwhelmingly debunked, as well as inaccurate. There are a very few Welsh speakers who for who knows what reasons see fit to doubt whether those Welsh people who don't speak Welsh are as Welsh as those who do, just as there are those detractors who almost froth at the mouth over the Welsh language issue. Both are dinosaurs. Some hack Labour politicians have in the past sought to create division and hatred over the language non-issue, and anyone with half a brain could work out that in even in the semi-democratic government institutions we have, a minority would not rule over a majority. Even Labour politicians these days are usually cautious of not being too dismissive of Cymraeg, though there are still the micro-aggressions, such as the Secretary of State for Wales routinely ignoring the existence of Cymraeg in her regular communications to the electorate and in her replies to correspondence in Cymraeg, to which she replies in English. On the whole, Welsh Labour stifles the progress of Cymraeg through poor and divisive legislation, and then poor enforcenent of that legislation, plus a glacier like implementation of policies, as well as kicking policy into the long grass with madcap schemes to arrive, somehow, at a situation where there will be a million Welsh speakers by 2050. Anyone who thinks about this for a moment will realise that there is little substance to the policies and that in reality they are just elaborate fob-offs, which the parchusiaid seem to have swallowed whole. By the time they wake up it will be far to late to smell the coffi. Hence campaigns against road signs. They are not a threat to anyone who speaks English, nor should they be seen as such, but rather a protest at the continuing marginalisation of our national language. Things have moved on, and as you say, no one should be defined according to whether they speak Cymraeg or not. Cymraeg belongs to all of us, whether we speak it or not. Even in the unlikely event of Cymraeg replacing English in everyday life in the currently anglicised areas, the ability to speak fluent English would not disappear. The writer of the article is apparently highly educated and is studying for Masters degree. Why then did he submit this sub-par sixth form essay so full of inaccuracies, fallacies and outdated arguments?

I opened the article in anticipation of a fresh take. I close it bitterly disappointed. Sori Lewis.