Language: Culture or Communication? I was watching See Hear earlier this morning - it's a program by and for deaf people. But they were going on about getting BSL (British Sign Language) to be recognised as a language. They cited Welsh as an example. But this got me thinking. The concerns about Welsh are mostly cultural, whereas BSL concerns are mainly communication-based. Let me state at this point, I have nothing against Welsh as a language - or against the Welsh as people. Hell, one of my closest friends is Welsh. But the measures brought in seem somewhat, well, restrictive at times. And not always 100% successful. Public Services They teach Welsh in schools. It's compulsary that children either learn Welsh, or are taught in Welsh, until the age of 16. The latter can be quite useful, but the former is hardly foolproof. It does kind of require that the kids turn up to said lessons. not very useful for people who habitually skip lessons they can't be bothered with. Trust me. I've talked with people who listed Welsh as one of the classes they mostly bunked off! Then there's the fact that all signs have to be bi-lingual. Not too bad an idea, but it can have drawbacks. Back in '95 I went to a Open Day at Cardiff Uni. All posters have to be either bilingual - or duplicated in Welsh. Now I'm guessing that Student Union printing costs will be subsidised for Societies. At least, I hope so. Having the Law force your Society to spend twice as much on posters is a bit irritating if you ask me. Then there's the space involved. One thing I remember from the Uni I went to, is that Posters can take up a damn lot of space! And doubling the amount of posters required is going to cause problems! It's just duplication/redundancy of information. Expecially at a University. I mean, think of the amount of International students there are these days. The amount of students for whom English is a second language is fairly significant. And if they can be expected to read English-language posters, so should the students for whom English as a very early Second Language. Television In Wales they have a dedicated Welsh Language Channel. S4C. It takes the place of Channel 4. Showing a lot of the same programmes though - but at different times. This can cause problems though. Unless someone had Digital TV (Cable/Sat/DigitalTerrestrial) they're a bit shafted when it comes to the regular C4 programs. Channel 4 imports a great deal of American shows, and does tend to treat such shows marginally better than the other Terrestrial channels. Problem is, this means that any Welsh person who doesn't speak Welsh, but does like American imports, is a tad inconvenienced.

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In a way, this adds up to comething potentially counter-productive. For some people, this could cause a potential resentment of the Welsh Language in Wales itself. Which would not be good.

Art

Or at least, one of my attempts at it. One of my story/RP characters. Fix, a.k.a. Jared Collins.
Drawn in German. Scanned in greyscale. Coloured in GIMP.

February Already?? It hardly seems any time ago when it was still December 2001. Where has all the time gone? Sometimes I feel like the world rushes past by me, nothing staying the same except for the bits that I wish would change. Oh well. Not an awful lot going on here really. Still out of work. Still doing the occasional tweak to my site. Still trying to keep my two computers on their metaphorical feet.

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Still. Quake 2 rocks! OK, it's getting a tad old now, but it's fun to play in multiplayer mode. Even if it's 2 humans and a handful of over-smart Bots.