Multilingual Monday

An article written entirely in Welsh appeared on The Guardian website last week, highlighting the decline of the language. Although the article had a link to the English version, it provoked some predictable ridicule.

"...wonder if Babelfish does Welsh"

"I doubt Babelfish could be bothered. I mean its not as if anything said in Welsh is likely to be important."

"Welsh? Oh, right. (puts away Klingon dictionary)"

"I once had a game of Scrabble where every set of letters I pulled from the bag looked like that."

But on a serious note:

"Most speakers are emotionally attached to their own language. The difference is that when your language is spoken by the majority, you don't need too much effort to "defend" it and therefore don't get angry about it very often. That's why it SEEMS that the English aren't that radical about English... As Artze, a Basque poet, once said:"Hizkuntza bat ez da galtzen ez dakitenek ikasten ez dutelako, dakitenek hitz egiten ez dutelako baizik"(A language is not lost because those that do not know how to speak it do not learn it, but because those that can speak it, do not use it). "