I notice that the main BBC news portal has been augmented. There is usually a link at the top to each of the four home nations. But this has now been augmented and we now have an ALBA and a CYMRU. Now, some may see this is the BBC simply providing Welsh and Scottish language enthusiasts with the opportunity to read the news in their language of choice? But where does it end? Should it also be in Polish, Irish, Bangladeshi? This strikes me as pandering to minority language obsessives. If you want to find out what is happening in England, Scotland Wales and N.Ireland how about you go on a website that tells you this in the language overwhelmingly spoken in this part of the UK?
UK HAS TWO NEW NATIONS…
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Huw Edwards interviewed someone in Wales last week on the 10pm news, in welsh. Very good to see he is multi-lingual and nice to see him make an effort with what is notionally his native language. To the layman he seemed to struggle slightly but I could have been wrong and it seemed a valiant effort.
The person he was speaking to answered in English. I wondered what the point was.
Huw Edwards’ first language is Welsh, a language in which he is fluent.
This is why the election coverage feels so fragmented.The BBC in particular is ensuring we only get regional bits and pieces.No real overall UK coverage.
This morning Victoria Derbyshire had the cheek to have a studio bound debate on why the election campaign feels so sterile.BBC should look in the mirror on that one.
I came across the ALBA celtic language channel on Sky platform some months ago.I agree ,where does it end.The most you can say is that these are languages which have some historical context in parts of the UK.
And then there’s INBBC ‘Arabic’ propaganda which we INBBC licencepayers have to pay for–
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arabic
Don’t forget the BBC’s Gaelic output broadcast especially for the benefit of the 1.1 percent of Scots who can actually understand a word of that language. There are more people of Italian descent, roughly an equal number of Poles and about five times the number of English people living in Scotland than there are Gaelic speakers but still BBC Scotland panders to the demands of the SNP that their miniscule number be pandered to.
The ever-expanding BBC broadcasting empire-
“A new BBC Wales headquarters in the centre of Cardiff has planning consent but the project is not a done deal yet”
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/new-bbc-wales-headquarters-centre-9152266?
Well David, let me declare an interest here, but then possibly it’s obvious from my username?
Welsh was here in the UK before English.
To draw the comparison to include Polish or Bangladeshi is pathetic and illogical.
Whilst I agree that Edwards conducting an interview in Welsh on bbc1, and getting a reply in English is ludicrous, it wont help your cause in any way by insulting the minority Welsh language speakers by drawing comparisons to Bangladeshi.
Suggest you rethink the thrust of your logic.
Chwarae teg.
Here Here !
Fair play.
A real conservative has no problem at all with Welsh. It is an indigenous language of Britain. There is a problem with the usual liberal lefties who have tried to use it to divide the peoples of these islands.
I am firmly of the opinion that we in England of ancient origin are of Celtic /Anglo Saxon/ Viking ancestry. That Anglo Saxon became the dominant language is probably a result of the more aggressive actions of the Anglo Saxons and the concurrent more submissive attitiudes of the Romano British.
That we are an ancient people there is no doubt however galling it is to the modern revisionist liberal anf his sheeplike followers. .
Strangely I never thought Cameroon was a lefty but by the standards of this site maybe he is.That may explain why he has supported and nurtured the SNP in the past and is now actively encouraging the break up of the UK for party political purposes.
Ha ha..ha …..Reading David Vance’s thread opening blurb I immediately thought of you Dysgwr_Cyraeg and could exactly see your post coming and suspect others feel the same.
I personally also think you are so right and it is great to see you a proud Welshman.
Most of us posting here are either proud English, Scottish, Welsh Irish or British and the subject of this thread is a waste of time when there are so many real BBC Bias incidents to document.
I am assuming there are many here who do not object to BBC looking after British nations inherited culture.
So David please do not take offence with this slight disapproval of your comments since, personally I am so grateful for your brilliantly administered site here and really look forward sometime during most days to have a look in and comment here.
We are all British (and Irishmen)
How many Welsh and Gaelic readers would have to access the Alba and Cymru sites for the BBC to declare it public money well spent? Or doesn’t it matter?
One could argue that the historic languages of Britain are French, German, Scandinavian and Latin, although in a different form than the modern standards. One could similarly argue that more British residents want Bangladeshi or Polish broadcasting than Welsh or Gaelic. The real question is why the BBC would feel it has to cater for them.
As my day-to-day language is Hebrew, also a revived language, I sympathise with the Welsh and Scottish language nationalists. Fortunately I don’t pay the telly tax but if I did I would ask is it the BBC’s remit to rescue languages facing extinction?
A great deal of this sort of thing is posturing. I heard a very interesting programme on the setting up of the Northern Ireland Assembly. The nationalists wanted Irish as a recognised language, so it was suggested that translators and headphones would be needed but many of their number jibbed at that because they didn’t speak Irish and didn’t want people to know that. Then, of course, some of the Unionists wanted to insist on the Ulster Scots’ dialect being an official language too.
There were similar goings on in the multinational parliament of the old Austrian Empire . The young Adolf Hitler observed the poseurs and the grandstanding and decided democracy was useless.
Fortunately the BBC bias regarding Ulster is too obvious, too old and too well known.
The BBC treatment of Noraid was tantamount to encouragement.
Minority languages are at worse a nuisance, I lived in Catalonia for many years, when I moved there I was learning Spanish but everyone around me was speaking Catalan. I didn’t want to learn the latter as I wanted to travel round Spain & be understood. I can see why the Catalans defended their own language but in a world where it’s good to have a lingua franca hanging on to languages only spoken in small enclaves is rather insular. I grumble because it was darn hard work learning a language that people around me understood but didn’t speak on principle.
I’ve talked to people who worked in Montreal and found the locals refused to speak English.
But they accept your money.
Money talks louder.
The French still give the Eurovision score in French, but the Belgian could give it in English if he/she is a Flem.
Whilst I hate the BBC this article is stupid.
Celtic languages pre-date the English language and are indigenous to these islands.
Of course, translating the BBC website into foreign languages would be pandering to those who wish to be separate from Britain’s culture and community.
Celtic languages ARE NOT foreign languages and if you think they are then you are a not very intelligent Saxon, Johnny come-lately.
Chronologically, English is the foreign (Germanic) language regardless of how many people speak it.
When I lived in Northern Ireland the girl I was seeing was married to an Irish nationalist . Oh he was a right one, until the day he had to renew his Irish passport so they could go on Holiday. Apparently the British passport was cheaper than the Irish one , so he bought a British one. Yeah the cheapskate, I am so glad his wife went down the British route for satisfaction.
Huw Edwards pedigree as a Welsh speaker cannot be seriously questionned, his father was Hywel Teifi Edwards was one of the greatest Welshmen of his generation and fronted Welsh language television before being exiled to comfortable inclusion in London. The reason you have two headings is that BBC Wales has a newsfeed in both English and Welsh. As someone who naturally speaks Welsh most of the time, as do hundreds of thousands in Wales, I find this is a case of biased bbc being both narrow and biased.
This reminds me of an episode of “Red Dwarf” where the ship is under attack and Rimmer or Kryton or someone says “quick, send a friendship message in all frequencies and languages………………………….and welsh”…..
How I larfs….
Maybe I should have been oh so offended and complained???
“BBC Young Dancer 2015 – South Asian Finalist announced”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2015/bbcyd-south-asian-finalist
Will Beeboids also politically support this, in their interests of the licence fee?:-
“Election 2015: Ed Miliband admits SNP could prop up Labour government – as it happened.
“Following BBC Question Time senior Labour figures admit party would have daily ‘dialogue’ with SNP.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11558636/Miliband-labour-snp-deal-question-time-live.html
Uk also has 2 economies. The death of the middle class economy, which will hurt poor and working class more. And a economy for the prompting up of the upper class, through the austerity policy package, that the lower classes must pay the privilege for.
