Am I the only one who finds a href="http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/06/27/sisters-turfed-out-of-store-in-wesh-language-row-91466-23999339/" target="_blank"this story/a about a shopkeeper in the Isle of Wight evicting two ladies from her shop for speaking Welsh a bit bizarre? br /br /Holidaymakers Rosemary Dean and sister Ann were told to stop talking in Welsh and told: “Speak English instead.” They were then asked to leave Grange Gifts in Shanklin High Street on the Isle of Wight:br /br /emLifelong Welsh-speaker Mrs Dean, 60, of Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, said: “It was unbelievable.br //embr /em“We were just talking in Welsh about the price of goods in the shop and the woman behind the counter shouted at us to stop.br //embr /em“There was no warning, she just launched into us.br //embr /em“She got really angry and admitted she was discriminating against the Welsh.br //embr /em“It was the day before we were due to return home and we had had a lovely time up until then and everyone on the island had been really welcoming.br //embr /em“It put a real dampener on our holiday.”br //embr /emMrs Dean has reported the incident to the Welsh office of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.br //embr /emShe said: “I became determined after the outburst to take the matter further because no-one should be prevented from speaking in their own language and be treated like that for doing so.br //embr /em“It is clearly a breach of our human rights.br //embr /em“My sister, who now lives in Bath, and I are proud of speaking Welsh, which is our first language.br //embr /em“But if we speak to an English person we do so in English because we certainly don’t wish to appear rude.br //embr /em“We were purely speaking to each other and banned for doing so.”br //embr /emShop manager Sue Pratley admitted that she asked the women to leave over the language bust-up.br //embr /emShe said: “I made a comment to them that I wished they would speak English. But she took issue with that and said I should learn to speak bloody Welsh.br //embr /em“I don’t want to go into detail about what happened. I did ask them to leave.br //embr /em“I welcome all creeds and colours and running a shop you get a lot of abuse. Mostly you just take it but sometimes you do retaliate.”/embr /br /I suppose you had to be there to know what really happened but it does seem strange that a gift shop proprietor might object to other languages being spoken in her shop. After all I am, sure that she gets a lot of visitors from the continent. It is also the case that most Welsh speakers I know will revert to English when faced with somebody who can not understand them.br /br /It is just as well really that the Welsh Language LCO will not stretch so far as to protect the rights of Welsh speakers when elsewhere in the UK.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8266684-4423192289348643473?l=peterblack.blogspot.com'//div
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Know your Welsh
Am I the only one who finds a href="http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/06/27/sisters-turfed-out-of-store-in-wesh-language-row-91466-23999339/" target="_blank"this story/a about a shopkeeper in the Isle of Wight evicting two ladies from her shop for speaking Welsh a bit bizarre? br /br /Holidaymakers Rosemary Dean and sister Ann were told to stop talking in Welsh and told: “Speak English instead.” They were then asked to leave Grange Gifts in Shanklin High Street on the Isle of Wight:br /br /emLifelong Welsh-speaker Mrs Dean, 60, of Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, said: “It was unbelievable.br //embr /em“We were just talking in Welsh about the price of goods in the shop and the woman behind the counter shouted at us to stop.br //embr /em“There was no warning, she just launched into us.br //embr /em“She got really angry and admitted she was discriminating against the Welsh.br //embr /em“It was the day before we were due to return home and we had had a lovely time up until then and everyone on the island had been really welcoming.br //embr /em“It put a real dampener on our holiday.”br //embr /emMrs Dean has reported the incident to the Welsh office of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.br //embr /emShe said: “I became determined after the outburst to take the matter further because no-one should be prevented from speaking in their own language and be treated like that for doing so.br //embr /em“It is clearly a breach of our human rights.br //embr /em“My sister, who now lives in Bath, and I are proud of speaking Welsh, which is our first language.br //embr /em“But if we speak to an English person we do so in English because we certainly don’t wish to appear rude.br //embr /em“We were purely speaking to each other and banned for doing so.”br //embr /emShop manager Sue Pratley admitted that she asked the women to leave over the language bust-up.br //embr /emShe said: “I made a comment to them that I wished they would speak English. But she took issue with that and said I should learn to speak bloody Welsh.br //embr /em“I don’t want to go into detail about what happened. I did ask them to leave.br //embr /em“I welcome all creeds and colours and running a shop you get a lot of abuse. Mostly you just take it but sometimes you do retaliate.”/embr /br /I suppose you had to be there to know what really happened but it does seem strange that a gift shop proprietor might object to other languages being spoken in her shop. After all I am, sure that she gets a lot of visitors from the continent. It is also the case that most Welsh speakers I know will revert to English when faced with somebody who can not understand them.br /br /It is just as well really that the Welsh Language LCO will not stretch so far as to protect the rights of Welsh speakers when elsewhere in the UK.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8266684-4423192289348643473?l=peterblack.blogspot.com'//div
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