Calling all translators (Welsh)

[Martin Sapsed]

Didn't I get a surprise this morning finding that my translations had
sparked a thread!!! Sorry I'm a bit late joining in but I usually get a
life in the evenings! ;-)

Kevin Spicer wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-03-04 at 20:47, Matthew K Bowman wrote:
>
>>Welsh is a form of Gaelic still spoken in Wales but English is their first
>>language.

Sorry - you're wrong there. There is a substantial proportion of the
population of Gwynedd for whom Welsh is their first language, and while
most can get by in English, they much prefer to use Welsh.

 > I think only a few hundred can't speak English in North Wales.

I'm not sure of the numbers. I certainly recall being shown around a
house we were interested in buying by the lady of the house who had
considerable difficulty remembering the English for various aspects of
the house - cooker was one I think.

> You're now wondering why we need a Welsh translation if theres only a
> couple of hundred people don't speak English?  The answer is fairly
> simple - regulations!  Government bodies etc. are required to be able to
> communicate with Welsh speakers in Welsh.  If you visit Wales you'll
> find that all the road signs are dual language too.

The University of Wales, Bangor in North West Wales (where I work) has
an official bilingual policy. All official documents must be produced in
both languages. Hence, when we adopted MailScanner we produced bilingual
versions of all the reports etc - they're in the cy+en folder if you're
interested. Students at the University have the right to submit
assignments in English or Welsh as they choose and a number of the
courses are taught using the Welsh language. The majority of schools in
Gwynedd (the county occupying the North west corner of Wales) operate
primarily in Welsh. The local council is also fully bilingual as is the
Anglican church.

Even mighty Microsoft are producing Welsh language packs for Windows XP
and Office 2003 in response to the growing availability of Welsh in Open
source packages.

Cheers,

Martin

--
Martin Sapsed
Information Services               "Who do you say I am?"
University of Wales, Bangor             Jesus of Nazareth