Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Signage

Visiting Bath, with its monolingual signage, the weekend before last I missed seeing written Welsh. All official public signage here is required by law to be bilingual, so it is everywhere. On road signs, posters, university emails, international mail stickers. In the south it's English first.
The top left photo is of a sign at Cardiff Castle. The others were taken in Swansea.
On the left, the Meridian Tower is making a subtle debut.
I don't know how much these signs help cultivate the Welsh language. Even as a dysgwr Cymraeg--Welsh learner--after just 4 weeks here I have to make a conscious effort to actually read the bottom half of the sign. My brain almost filters it out. But I like that the Government promotes Welsh, I like the look of it, and I will try and make the most of my city-wide vocabulary flash cards.

 

 

1 comment:

  1. It'd be a lot simpler/easier/cheaper to have only the English signs as some people say, but it's a part of the stuff that needs to be insisted for the Welsh language to endure. The Welsh speaking Welsh fought hard to come this far.

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