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Comment by fdsafdsafds | Hacker News Reader

In fact, I would go further, and say that Welsh in Cardiff is spoken almost exclusively by an upper middle-class "elite". You can say that publishing in Welsh helps preserve the language, but you can't argue that it's good for making science accessible or useful.

Edit:

>because killed by English internal colonialism/centralism so to say

If we trace the origins of the languages currently spoken in the UK, it's much more correct to say that all of the original languages were pushed out by foreign influence from the continent.

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indeed i was answering TeeMassive’s comment, and not to the main topic. In this case, the goal of writing a PhD in a (all but) dead language, it's to keep it alive, not to be inclusive.

i really don't know what's the social makeup of Welsh speakers (if any); but i understand it's a very niche thing, and not really useful for inclusivity of science; but again: it's not something i was arguing. i was talking about "real" languages with a base of active speakers.

overall, for sure keeping a language alive is a good endeavor on its own, and that was the PhD's goal.

>> If we trace the origins of the languages currently spoken in the UK, it's much more correct to say that all of the original languages were pushed out by foreign influence from the continent.

ahaha, no. welsh it has been killed "recently" by internal policies, about education etc. not because the Normans influence or whatever.

>i really don't know what's the social makeup of Welsh speakers

There's a helpful map here:

https://datamap.gov.wales/maps/welsh-language-statistics/

Zooming in on Cardiff shows exactly what I described - Welsh is more common (although still rare) in affluent suburbs, and the central part of town along with the poorer suburban housing developments have the lowest level of Welsh.

Outside Cardiff, the effect is essentially reversed - rural areas with a (very) long farming heritage are among the few places where Welsh continues to be used as a daily language.

I think this scenario is quite easily explained due to the amount of funding given to the Welsh language and the corresponding jobs created centreing on Cardiff, as well as the requirement for members of the Welsh Government to speak Welsh.

Good map. As someone who grew up in Cardiff it doesn't surprise me to see this distribution. A lot of media roles are also billingual in Cardiff.

I've got a GCSE in Welsh (having been one of the first years to have to do it mandatory). Used it once in anger up in North Wales. It was a difficult language to learn and I'd have preferred to continue with another European language ideally. I'll probably try to teach my daughter some Welsh though (she was born in England and will go to school in England).

>ahaha, no. welsh it has been killed "recently" by internal policies, about education etc. not because the Normans influence or whatever.

My point exactly. The onwards march of that awful mongrel language English, trampling all of our original Celtic languages, continues to this day!

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