BS: Bilingual Signs etc

Subject: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Mr Happy
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 02:38 PM

Some classics here!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7702913.stm


More?

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: gnu
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 02:56 PM

That is priceless! Hahahahaaaaa

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: bubblyrat
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 04:20 PM

I often wonder why they bother. I mean,there are probably more people in the UK that can speak Farsi,or Pushtu,or Tagalog,or Hebrew,than can speak Welsh,so why do we HAVE to have these road signs ,etc., translated into one of the world's more obscure and BLOODY DIFFICULT tongues?? Still, I suppose,if we ever go to war with Japan again,it might come in handy for radio operators,as per the Red Indian ( Sorry !!---Native American !) Navajo-speakers of WW2. Meanwhile,if "Tacsi" means Taxi, and"Parc" means Park,what's the point ??

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 04:57 PM

Judging by some of the other threads, it's no more difficult than English, and is the language formerly known as British, until the Anglo-Saxons turned up, and was spoken throughout most of mainland Britain, apart from parts of Scotland where the closely related Pictish was spoken.

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Anne Lister
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 05:01 PM

Roger - in the rest of the UK you don't have to have any road signs translated. Here in Wales it's an important language, spoken by an increasing number of inhabitants. It's far from being a dead language, nor has it been imported with a group of incoming settlers. It belongs here and has an older lineage than English. As the road signs are bilingual, it doesn't pose a problem for those who are visiting from other countries (including England).
I often wonder why people in England seem proud of their linguistic incompetences ... but there we are.
You're on a forum dedicated to folk music, much of which is traditional (no, I'm not opening that can of worms!), and you ask what the point is of maintaining a living language? Where do I start?!
I'm not sure why this old news has been resurrected on the BBC website, btw - rather like the head of Jesus being spotted on a Marmite lid it's not a recent story at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: maple_leaf_boy
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 05:47 PM

I think it's excellent that they have bilingual signs in Wales.
In some places in Canada, they have bilingual signs that are in
Scottish Gaelic and English, as Scottish Gaelic is still spoken
in those places.

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 06:13 PM

I've seen that sign posted here some time ago. It's still funny. I love that there are bilingual signs. We have Spanish/American English signs all over here; not just for immigrants and migrant workers, but also for peoples whose ancestors were here before the "white man." I had one friend who traced her Hispanic/Latino ancestry back to the 1400s if I remember correctly and that was here, in Colorado. Through the generations they kept their native language intact, yet were taught English, too.

My Rog was raised with French at school and home, but afternoons at school were in English. I thought it was so neat when we headed upstate New Hampshire and saw bilingual signs saying "Bienvenue/Welcome!" And, watched French Canadian tv at the hotel we stayed at.

Vive la différence!

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 07:48 PM

I don't think these are unconditionally a good idea. In places where a minority language was there first, it's good to have a reminder of the region's history (much of Wales is like this, as is most of eastern Turkey, where by and large bilingual signage doesn't happen).

In much of Scotland it's a nonsensical waste of money. It's not like Glasgow Queen Street Station had a traditional Gaelic name before the Sassenachs expropriated the Gaels' railway network. There are Gaelic signs in large parts of Scotland where nobody now living has been part of a traditional Gaelic-speaking community.

If the government wants to promote Gaelic, instead of paying some bureaucrat to think up neologisms to rename features that have always had Scots or English names, their cash would be far better spent on making Gaelic-medium porn movies.

there are probably more people in the UK that can speak Farsi,or Pushtu,or Tagalog,or Hebrew,than can speak Welsh

No there aren't. Urdu has about the same number of speakers, Polish may currently have more (though only a minority of Poles see themselves as permanently resident in the UK). No other immigrant language comes close.

Gaelic can't rank higher than sixth in Scotland - behind English, Scots, Polish, Urdu and Italian, possibly lower than Chinese as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Smokey.
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 07:50 PM

I wonder how long it was there before someone pointed it out...

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Emma B
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 08:08 PM

oops! again

Owain Sgiv, an officer for the Welsh language campaign group Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, explained:

'Roughly translated, llid y bledren dymchwelyd means bladder disease (cystitis) has returned. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 08:34 PM

"In places where a minority language was there first, it's good to have a reminder of the region's history"

Gaelic was spoken throughout Scotland (though not exclusively) at least up till the time of MacBeth.

Look at the map, and you'll see, just south of Edinburgh, Auchendinny (neatly tucked between the British names Roslin and Penicuik).

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: GUEST,Allan Connochie
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 09:15 PM

"Gaelic can't rank higher than sixth in Scotland - behind English, Scots, Polish, Urdu and Italian, possibly lower than Chinese as well."

You often see this (ie about Urdu) quoted but it simply can't be true. The stats for ethnicity show that less than 50,000 people in Scotland's ethnicity comes fom the Indian sub-continent and of course only a proportion of these will be Urdu speakers. The Chinese population of Scotland amounts to lower than 20,000 people. There are still almost 60,000 Gaelic speakers. Though of course it is not the fact that Gaelic is spoken by more people than all the sub-continent's languages put together that makes it important within Scotland - surely it is the fact that it is one of Scotland's traditional languages that makes it important within Scotland?

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/02/18876/32939

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: GUEST,Allan Connochie
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 02:51 AM

"The stats for ethnicity show that less than 50,000 people in Scotland's ethnicity comes fom the Indian sub-continent"

Sorry my mistake make that less than 55,000 but it makes no difference to the point!

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Gervase
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 06:48 AM

I'm just amazed that whoever made up the sign couldn't see that it was wrong - unless it was made in England and not Wales. Even those incomers to Wales with no Welsh would be able to see that the translation was wrong, as it doesn't take long to pick up a reasonable vocabulary.
As for I mean,there are probably more people in the UK that can speak Farsi,or Pushtu,or Tagalog,or Hebrew,than can speak Welsh,so why do we HAVE to have these road signs ,etc., translated into one of the world's more obscure and BLOODY DIFFICULT tongues? - fytyn.

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: melodeonboy
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 06:56 AM

As for the concept of "bloody difficulty tongues", surely that depends on what your first language is, and how big a difference there is between that and the target language. I doubt that a speaker of Breton would regard Welsh as "bloody difficult", whereas a speaker of Amharic might well.

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Mr Happy
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 07:08 AM

..........similarly, the translators have been busy inventing 'Welsh' looking/sounding versions of place names.

For example Wrexham is 'Welshisised' to 'Wrecsam' even though the original is clearly anglo-saxon origin

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: GUEST,Allan Connochie
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 07:20 AM

"As for I mean,there are probably more people in the UK that can speak Farsi,or Pushtu,or Tagalog,or Hebrew,than can speak Welsh,"

From official census figures there are over half a million Welsh speakers which must dwarf the combined speakers of Farsi, Pushtu, Tagalog, and Hebrew all put together. So there is no probably about it! People seem to be just plucking statistics out of thin air. According to Wiki (I know but there aren't to many sources for these stats) there are almost as many Punjabi speakers as Welsh speakers in the UK. Punjabi is the most common immigrant language. Hence if that were true that would make Welsh (with the possible exception of Scots - and I say possible because there are no real stats as to how many Scots speakers there are) the second most spoken language in the UK after English. Which is all by the by as we are talking about Wales where it is easily the second language and where it is a traditional language. The debate over signs is a valid debate but surely there is no case for making up statistics on the hoof and trying to use that as a justification for a point of view.

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Gervase
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 08:07 AM

In my part of Wales it is easily the first language. At the last count more than 60 per cent of the population used Welsh as their primary language.

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 10:32 AM

But still, it would be very nice if governmental entities realized the necessity of PROOFREADING -- and if the document/sign in question is bilingual, knowledgeable proofreading of both languages.

Spell check ain't enough, folks! It needs to be done by a real person.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 11:40 AM

They don't do it in Saesneg, so why bother in Cymraeg.

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 11:59 AM

But still, it would be very nice if governmental entities realized the necessity of PROOFREADING -- and if the document/sign in question is bilingual, knowledgeable proofreading of both languages.

The problem is that the person making up the sign knew that he couldn't speak Welsh, that's why he sent it for translation. It's just unfortunate that the person he sent it to for translation doesn't seem to have had the courtesy to put his "Out Of Office" message in both Welsh & English.

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: melodeonboy
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 05:22 PM

"..........similarly, the translators have been busy inventing 'Welsh' looking/sounding versions of place names.

For example Wrexham is 'Welshisised' to 'Wrecsam' even though the original is clearly anglo-saxon origin"

That may well be true, but what's the difference, linguistically, between "Welshisising" "Wrexham" to "Wrecsam" and Anglicising "Caerdydd" (which has a meaning in Welsh) to "Cardiff" (which means nothing in English and is nothing more than a crude transliteration)?

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 07:06 PM

Of course monolingual signs can also cause confusion. The former Gaelic correspondent of "Scotland on Sunday" tells of how many years ago he was heading south to start work in Edinburgh for the first time, and as he approached the new Forth Road Bridge he was startled to see a sign announcing TOLL AHEAD, toll (twll yngh Nghymraeg) being the Gaelic for a hole, and wondering how the brand new bridge had developed a hole in it so soon, when it dwaned on him that the sign was entirely in the Beurla.

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Howard Jones
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 07:03 AM

A few years ago my local bank ATM was displaying its menu in Welsh. It's about 50 miles into England from the Welsh border.

Speaking of which, I see that Google Maps, having for some time labelled the Welsh side of the border in Gaelic rather than Welsh, has now chickened out and it just says "Wales" on one side and "England" on the other.

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 07:40 AM

I recall a multilingual sign at an Italian autostrada service station, enjoining one not to buy from unauthorised {It 'abusivi"} salesmen; so the English bit inevitably said ,b>"Avoid abusive retailers" ~~ which I most certainly would have done anyhow.

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 10:10 AM

My first wife, who was a monoglot English speaker, when she saw the Welsh for "toilets" - Cyfleusterau - reckoned that one would have pissed oneself while trying to pronounce that . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Anne Lister
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 12:03 PM

Bryn, mostly today it's simply "toiledau" wherever I've been looking, so that makes things simpler!

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Gervase
Date: 22 Mar 10 - 05:44 PM

A small, silly thing, I know, but I do like changing the default language of the automatic check-out machines in our local Tesco to Welsh.

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Mr Happy
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 07:36 AM

There's a Tesco store a few miles from Chester, where I live, in Broughton, Wales.

The aisles used to be labelled in Welsh on one side of the sign English on the other side.

Prob for me [ & poss lots other customers] was that the Welsh faced where you entered the shop, which made it difficult locating stuff.

i.e. 'Caws' for 'Cheese'

It wasn't any easier going to the middle tranverse aisle because, though you then had the front aisles in English, the second ones were still in Welsh.

The store has now modified its signage so that there's bi-lingual labelling on both sides of the signs - phew!!

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 10:47 AM

Y'all ever been to the Republic of Ireland? Read any Canadian government publications? Called someplace and heard "Press One To Continue In English..."?

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: GUEST,Bob L
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 05:53 PM

A mate once told me of a Canadian hotel where bilinguality meant that hot & cold taps were both labelled 'C'....

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 06:37 PM

Mna and Fir on toilet sigsn can be confusing too...

Subject: RE: BS: Bilingual Signs etc
From: melodeonboy
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 08:51 PM

"A mate once told me of a Canadian hotel where bilinguality meant that hot & cold taps were both labelled 'C'...."

I do remember, some years ago, finding a khazi not that far from Aberystwyth station that had just D and M on the respective doors. D actually stands for "dynion" (men) and M for "merched" (women), but I imagined that any French visitor (and quite possibly English visitors with a rudimentary knowledge of French) might assume that it was D for "dames" amd M for "messieurs"!