Sat Jun 24, 2017 1:45 pm
Great reply Jantra - that's exactly the attitude the vast majority of monoglots have, but they're often drowned out by the loud obnoxious ones who think they are part of the 'silent majority' who hates the language.
This article was an utter joke, with pretty much zero research. The fact that it keeps talking about 'Welsh-only schools' pretty much sums it up (there's no such thing, every WM pupil leaves primary fully bilingual). The article also uses a quote from Save the Children to attack Welsh Medium education. Save the Children have made a public statement since saying that they were not asked for a quote and that the quote that was used came from a report backing bilingual education for refuges in the Asian education system!
As far as Llangennech is concerned, there is an English medium school less than 2 miles away, every EM pupil in Llangennech will be able to keep learning through English in Llangennech (the change in language medium will be for new entrants only). Notice as well that the article pushes the idea that turning Carmarthen schools is a Plaid Cymru policy. However the changes came whilst Carmarthen Council was Labour run, and was a response to the Welsh Labour Government's 1m Welsh speakers policy.
Then the article says that since only 20% of Welsh people speak Welsh, supporters of the Welsh language would never want a vote on the matter, ignoring the fact that polls show only 16% of Wales think we'd be better off without the language (62% disagree) whilst only 20% disagree that more needs to be done to preserve Welsh as a living language (53% think that more needs to be done).
Whilst I would disagree with the article for it's anti-Welsh Medium education slant anyway, the fact that is it so full of absolute falsehoods. As someone on Twitter pointed out, if it was a native American language spoken by 99 people and at threat from then the liberal Guardian would be all over protecting it, but they have a history of a massive blind spot when it comes to Welsh.