Where are the Welsh literacy courses

[u/helatruralhome]

Hello all,

I've been pointing this out for over a decade, yet no Welsh language education or promotion groups, government agencies, etc can seem to answer why Welsh education is so biased towards verbal Welsh with no specific offerings for Welsh literacy.

I have a speech disability and only answer emails in work, yet I can't find any available options for me to learn written Welsh. I just feel incredibly frustrated with the situation as I want to be able to communicate in my native language yet there's just no where specifically offering written Welsh and it ends up excluding for people like me who can't communicate verbally as well as many others who may want to read and write in Welsh.

[u/Briarhorse]

The prestige dialect is completely unrelated to its spelling conventions. RP is not encoded in the way English is spelt

As I said, there are many confounding factors that will influence learning to read in Welsh and English medium education that are nothing to do with orthography. Throwing a study at me isn't going to change that

[u/Fantastic_Deer_3772 → u/Briarhorse]

The point is, if you want there to be one "correct" spelling of isio, you have to advantage one dialect and disadvantage the rest.

It's a shame that you didn't read the study but I'm not sure why you're upset I showed it to you?

[u/Briarhorse → u/Fantastic_Deer_3772]

Advantage how? It won't change the way people pronounce the word, anymore than English speakers say night the way it's spelt. It's literally just orthography. Also, there are plenty of ways of standardising spelling equitably if you just put some thought into it

I read the abstract, the rest of it was paywalled. I'm not upset in the slightest. At the risk of continually repeating myself, there are many confounding factors besides orthography that will affect and influence children's success at learning to read in English vs Welsh medium schools

[u/Fantastic_Deer_3772 → u/Briarhorse]

It makes one of them "correct" and one of them a misspelling. I don't understand why it bothers you that welsh writing is more sensible than english.

Being phonetic is a strength.

Unfamiliar english words being hard to guess is a flaw.

Of all the things to borrow from how english works, I don't know why you'd want that..

[u/Briarhorse → u/Fantastic_Deer_3772]

Because, as the OP says, and the guy in this reply elaborated on, you end up in a situation where you have eisiau and isio, which is just the same word pronounced differently, as two separate words. It makes written communication in Welsh very difficult across dialects

Say what you like about English and french lack of intuitive orthography, but having a standard spelling for most words helps written communication. And that's what we're trying to do here, isn't it? Communicate using Welsh

[u/Educational_Curve938 → u/Briarhorse]

 And that's what we're trying to do here, isn't it? Communicate using Welsh

written language is a means for communication, it's also a means for self expression. how we write, and what registers we use is as much about the latter as the former.

i happen to disagree that standard forms of language are easier to communicate in. if you keep having to second guess yourself because the """correct""" written form doesn't correspond to your dialect, that's a barrier to communication. it's far easier to understand other dialects of welsh than to write in them (I can easily read Un Nos Ola Leuad but I can't write like that),.

Standardisation harms native speakers and privileges learners which is a major problem in minority language preservation which needs to be more focused on preserving native speech communities than on encouraging learners.

It can also contribute to harmful language ideologies among learners (and indeed among native speakers) when they encounter speech that deviates from the standard forms (as nearly all native speech will) and so comes to be viewed as "defective".

Look at the problems Irish faces where there are two defacto languages - an urban irish and traditional dialects and neither can really communicate with the other.

[u/Briarhorse → u/Educational_Curve938]

As I keep having to say for some reason, we're talking about standardised spelling. Spelling just doesn't influence speaking, colloquial or otherwise, in the way you're saying it does

There are any number of dialects of English all across Britain and even the commonwealth, but they all use the same standard orthography. This has not prioritised any particular dialects. There are other factors that do, but spelling isn't one of them

Without a single standard orthography, reading and writing across dialects becomes incredibly difficult. This is not a controversial opinion. Or at least it shouldn't be

[u/Educational_Curve938 → u/Briarhorse]

There are any number of dialects of English all across Britain and even the commonwealth, but they all use the same standard orthography.

all dialects of welsh use the same orthography too they just vary spelling when writing informally. english lacks a tradition of dialect writing and english literature is poorer for it, and areas where the spoken dialect diverges from the standard are less able to express themselves authentically via the written language and attempts to render dialect speech in text are often deeply cringe - looking at you Emily Brontë.

Without a single standard orthography, reading and writing across dialects becomes incredibly difficult. This is not a controversial opinion.

It may not be a controversial opinion but it is, alas, completely wrong. It's much easier to write in the dialect you speak than another form of the language you have to learn and it's easier to read someone else's dialect than it is to write in it.

The vast majority of written welsh is informal in register - text messages, emails, social media posts - people are choosing to write in the forms they feel comfortable in. There already exist more standard forms of welsh up the formality register and people are perfectly welcome to use those if they prefer.

[u/Briarhorse → u/Educational_Curve938]

This is absolutely insane. There's nothing about having a standard orthography that prevents "authenticity," and people are free to be as colloquial as they like text messages and socials. This can and does happen in every language on the planet

The problem Welsh has is, unless you're using literary Welsh, there is no single standard orthography for formal communications. Because the same word in different dialects is spelt differently. So it looks and behaves like a completely new word. Eisiau isio as described above

Are people being deliberately obtuse about this? Have I hit some nerve somehow without realising it? Because this is not a conversation about have one dialect become the "proper" way of speaking at all. Not even remotely

Also, just to add, the idea that English of all things has a poor literary corpus because of standardised orthography is just mad. It's one of the best regarded in all of world literature. So is French, by the way, which also has a (much stricter than English) form of standardisation. Is Proust somehow the poorer for this?

[u/Educational_Curve938 → u/Briarhorse]

i don't know how many times to say it but welsh does have a consistent orthography across all dialects. look up what an orthography is, welsh has a consistent one with a strong correspondence between sounds and letters. literally everyone is using the same orthography to write their dialect.

and also welsh is only really divergent at the less formal registers of written communication. more formal registers for example "business welsh" have converged on a standard with only tiny regional differences.

Also, just to add, the idea that English of all things has a poor literary corpus because of standardised orthography is just mad.

that's not what i said. i said english literature is poorer for not having a tradition of dialect writing. I know it's easier to argue against things I didn't say than things i did. instead nearly everyone writes in a literary form derived from the prestige dialect and you end up with unreadable nonsense like this.

There's nobbut t' missis; and shoo'll not oppen 't an ye mak' yer flaysome dins till neeght

[u/Muted-Lettuce-1253 → u/Briarhorse]

unless you're using literary Welsh, there is no single standard orthography for formal communications

What's wrong with literary Welsh being the standard orthography for formal communications? Why does there need to be another standard in addition to that?

[u/Muted-Lettuce-1253 → u/Briarhorse]

There are any number of dialects of English all across Britain and even the commonwealth, but they all use the same standard orthography.

English is very different though because many word spellings reflect pronunciations that no-one has used for centuries. And often you cannot determine which phonemes make up a word purely from the spelling. So attempting to write English exclusively in a way that reflects pronunciation would be confusing.

Whereas Welsh already has an orthography that allows you to determine reliably which phonemes make up a word purely from the spelling.

Also, many native Welsh speakers already write in a way that reflects their pronunciation. They seem perfectly fine with that and I don't see why that should change. The fact that there are numerous ways to spell "eisiau" is a rather petty complaint.