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Welsh language signage ‘risk to lives’ reports Telegraph

28 Sep 2022 2 minute read
Careful – bilingual sign ahead. Picture by Llywelyn 2000 (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The Telegraph newspaper has said that Welsh language signage could constitute a “risk to lives”.

The dire warning of the fatal effects of having bilingual signs came after a report by a Welsh council cited the “safety benefits” of English-only signs.

The report by Monmouthshire Council suggested a Welsh place name could lead to delay if it does not officially exist in the National Land and Property Gazetteer, which is used by the emergency services

The report said that keeping English-only signs “will reduce the chances of confusion”. The report says: “The negative impact of reducing potential use of the Welsh language by translating existing street names is offset by the safety benefits for emergency services.”

However, the Telegraph newspaper interpreted this advice as a warning that bilingual signage “would put lives at risk”.

“The Welsh government has banned a border county from using English-only street signs despite being warned it would put lives at risk,” they said.

On Monday the council’s English-only sign policy fell foul of the Welsh Language Commissioner’s office who said that the council’s previous policy of replacing English-only signs with bilinguals ones was the right one.

Gwenith Price, Deputy Commissioner for the Welsh Language, said: “Organisations should not take decisions to do less for the Welsh language than they previously did, or to do the minimum where more progressive action in relation to the Welsh language was already being made.

“The suggestion repeatedly made by the Council that the policy had been amended to ‘comply’ with the Code of Practice is wrong and goes against the spirit of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 and the role of the Welsh Language Commissioner.”

The Telegraph is not the first time it has been suggested that bilingual road signs, which are common in many countries, pose a threat to the public.


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Andrew
Andrew
2 years ago

Telegraph reporting poses risk to public more likely.

Windy
Windy
2 years ago

Usual Daily Torygraph drivel

WilliamsG
WilliamsG
2 years ago

Not that old cookie again, yawn yawn

Gwyn Parry
Gwyn Parry
2 years ago

Lol fatha arfer! More colonialism tripe

Cathy Jones
Cathy Jones
2 years ago

Now I know, there is going to be the usual rabble of evil Welsh Nationalists, with their white hoods and burning crosses and Panzer tanks rolling up into this comment section prattling on and making a mockery of what The Tellygraph, an actual newspaper run by actual grown-ups that have cars and mortgages and everything, has chosen to publish …but let me tell you this: Kwasi Kwarteng read one “Dim Ysmygu” sign and then immediately crashed the economy. …so, think on you valley nazis, your language is destroying everything. Why only last week I saw a “Pwl Nofio” sign convince… Read more »

Peter Cuthbert
Peter Cuthbert
2 years ago
Reply to  Cathy Jones

Love it! We need more ‘take the p**s’ Anglo-Welsh (Or should that be Cymraig/anglo?) humour. Learned several new Welsh words this morning.

Richard
Richard
2 years ago
Reply to  Peter Cuthbert

Cach 🤹‍♀️🙈 might be one to
note when reading the newspaper 🗞 referred to…….not a word i
Use though 🙉

defaid
defaid
2 years ago
Reply to  Cathy Jones

Why can’t I give this more than one like?

Can we have a seren aur button as well as the to bach, please? This has been the best bit of my day.

hdavies15
hdavies15
2 years ago

How do these journos cope with driving through any other country? Very few give an English alternative yet the Sais scribblers and their myopic readers are forever hopping across the Channel in their cars and mobile homes.

Kerry Davies
Kerry Davies
2 years ago
Reply to  hdavies15

Their colleagues on the Costa Del Crime have no such worries. Odd, innit?

hdavies15
hdavies15
2 years ago
Reply to  Kerry Davies

Lot of them can’t read English anyway and they just ignore most road signs as a matter of course. The way Truss’ mob are tucking the UK up they’ll soon be retiring to some safe haven with their ill-gotten gains too!

Rhufawn Jones
Rhufawn Jones
2 years ago

Yn cytuno. Dw i wedi syrthio oddi ar fy meic droeon yn ceisio darllen y Saesoneg gyda’i seiniau di-synnwyr. Dw i wedi sgwennu at y cyngor plwy ganwaith yn gofyn am arwyddion uniaith Gymraeg er lles diogerlwch pobol Gwalia. Ymunwch yn yr ymgyrch!

Barbara
Barbara
2 years ago
Reply to  Rhufawn Jones

OMG ,the SAIS must be panicking in their pants a language that is going to cause a motorway pileup according to this journalists rag writter there’ll be carnage on the roads

Alun Smith
Alun Smith
2 years ago

The Telegraph seems to have a real problem with the use of the Welsh language.

What is it about Welsh that addles the brains of drivers? You never hear complaints about the signs around Calais being in French and English, by their logic this should be the accident black spot of Europe!

Fi yn unig
Fi yn unig
2 years ago

Well well, who would have thought that the Telegraph was anti English? Using their logic, people who can speak only English can only drive in England. Any country beyond its’ borders is going to have signage to varying degrees in other languages. If this means that drivers are going to pose a danger to other road users then they cannot drive anywhere else. I implore English people to take exception to this grave insult and batter this deplorable rag with complaints.

Gareth
Gareth
2 years ago

I must live in a parallel universe. When country’s like Aus and NZ are reverting to native names and removing the English, eg Ayers Rock to Uluru, the mention of using a native name here, eg Eryri, send certain people into spasms. Are people in Aus and NZ dying by the car load because of this policy ? has the death rate increased because monoglot English have driven through Pontypridd, Beddau, Porth or Ynysmaerdy, as these places have no English translation. It beggars belief such drivel can be printed I would like to see official figures for death by “enwau… Read more »

Benjiman Angwin
Benjiman Angwin
2 years ago

If you want to pick a fight with them, declare Y Bala the 1st Welsh Gaeltacht and switch all signs to Welsh only over night; wait for them to react and then do it again.

Arwyn
Arwyn
2 years ago

Bigotry.

Aled Rees
Aled Rees
2 years ago

Easy answer to this.Have them in welsh only.That’s how it is in other countries.

Frank
Frank
2 years ago

Some people have nothing better to do than knock and watch everything Wales and the Welsh do. They think they are so knowledgeable and superior. It would be better if they concentrated on the shambles that is England.

Stephen Owen
Stephen Owen
2 years ago
Reply to  Frank

Very good point

West Is Best
West Is Best
2 years ago

And Nation Cymru once again platforms far right Cymrophobia from the Torygraph, provoking ire amongst the independence minded community.
The Torygraph only has a few thousand readers and does not represent the mainstream. These are the elderly fools who voted in Liz Truss on our behalf. They can’t use the internet, so other than reposting angrily to Facebook, the Torygraph articles live and die on their own site / toilet paper.
Why not just let it die there? Nothing happens other than people who are already angry about things get just a little angrier.

Richard 1
Richard 1
2 years ago
Reply to  West Is Best

Telegraph editors haven’t realised that their anti-welsh drivel is actually boosting the independence movement. A bit like the king’s PoW announcement …

R Paterson
R Paterson
2 years ago

Perhaps the Telegraph (an outmoded and obsolete piece of kit) should turn it’s attention to the innumerable road signs in England (and also Wales, it must be admitted) that are almost completely obscured by overgrown vegetation. Some are impossible to read unless one slows down dangerously…

Pascal Lafargue
Pascal Lafargue
2 years ago

That’s true. And the Welsh language is also responsible for the war in Ukraine.

Rhufawn Jones
Rhufawn Jones
2 years ago

And for global warming

hdavies15
hdavies15
2 years ago
Reply to  Rhufawn Jones

… and Covid versions 1 -10!

Huw JONES
Huw JONES
2 years ago

….. and it collapsed the pound. Just as well we won’t be using the pound once we become Independent.

Evan Aled Bayton
Evan Aled Bayton
2 years ago

Most people no longer use the street names to navigate now and use various Satnavs or What three words. My children don’t know the names of many of the local streets. The Telegraph is prone to stupid insular comments without any evidence base. The observant among you will have noticed that street names in Lviv are in Polish in the Roman alphabet and Ukrainian in the Cyrillic alphabet.

Evan Aled Bayton
Evan Aled Bayton
2 years ago

I forgot to add that some years ago Cornwall decided that having too many signs caused accidents and removed most of the signage to no great detriment.

Duncan Stewart
Duncan Stewart
2 years ago

So how do the Torygraph’s headbangers manage in places like Switzerland which routinely manages working through four official languages and frequently adds a fifth (English) ?

But then, they are Swiss.

Gareth Cemlyn Jones
Gareth Cemlyn Jones
2 years ago

If bilingual signs can be confusing let’s stick to Welsh only signs. Imperialist colonial mindset again!

Frank
Frank
2 years ago

It really peeves the english that we can speak two languages and they find it difficult to learn their own language correctly.

Marc
Marc
2 years ago

What utter 🐂💩

Y Cymro
Y Cymro
2 years ago

The Telegraph are like anti-vaxxers who claim Bill Gates used the Covid vaccination to implant computer chips into our brains. Obviously they have something in common with these fruitloops. They too don’t have a brain to implant anything of substance.

Steve Duggan
Steve Duggan
2 years ago

It doesn’t take much to confuse some telegraph readers. Poor souls. It’s why they read the equivalent of the Beano .

R W
R W
2 years ago

That’s right, people’s minds will explode if they have to deal with more than one language!! The usual codswallop from the Torygraph.

George Thomas
George Thomas
2 years ago

Political proposal:

Can we create: a) a charge for rightwing pundits writing and spreading this sort of story, b) a charge for Welsh journalists getting hits off the back of reacting to it, and c) a charge for anyone injured due to dual language signs in Wales.

Money raised can be split evenly between Welsh language causes and boosting the NHS obviously overworked by huuuge number of injuries caused by this issue.

Might be worth an extra £1,000 per year.

Richard
Richard
2 years ago

The Gvt Bowen Commission on bilingualism in signing of roads looked at the various types of signs across Europe and impact or benefits to drivers in bilingual settings. They found NO evidence for matters the Daily Torygraphs raises and set the template for both Cornwall and Highland Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 signage policy

Quornby
Quornby
2 years ago

Telegraph reporters can’t all be that stupid….. it must be policy….. we know what their policy is, and that of Monmouthshire council. Both do a diservice to the Welsh people.

Carwyn P
Carwyn P
2 years ago

Please… remember… You are entering another country… in which there exists another language! Any suggestion that the native language of the country you visit or live in would be unsafe, is infact ignorant and if all signs should only be one language then naturally it should be changed to just Cymraeg… you can all learn what they mean… just like when you travel to another country! You wouldn’t ask the French or Germans to change their signs to English! How about Ireland? What language is on road signs in Ireland? The system of directional signs is based upon, and is… Read more »

Rhufawn Jones
Rhufawn Jones
2 years ago

Total bull manure, as attested to by multiple studies. See, for example: “Analyses of the effects of bilingual signs on road safety in Scotland – final report” (N Kinnear, S Helman, S Buttress, L Smith, E Delmonte, L Lloyd and B Sexton) And also Jamson, S., Tate, F. and Jamson, A.H. (2005) Evaluating the effects of bilingual traffic signs on driver performance and safety. Ergonomics, 48 (15). pp. 1734-1748. The journalist is a trainee, namely a fresh faced youth named Timothy Sigworth. This is his first article for the Telegraph. Obviously went to a sh*t university, or a wee bit… Read more »

Last edited 2 years ago by Rhufawn Jones
Antony R
Antony R
2 years ago

So the problem is the National Land and Property Gazetteer being incomplete? Obvious solution here.

Rhian Davies
Rhian Davies
2 years ago

Ah but it’s not just our road signs which are a semiotic sign of how thick English translations of Cymreig names are, and what an awkward twinning we see paraded in front of us daily. There is another awkward twinning going on here too. On the one hand we’ve got the Welsh-speakers in Wales who, in my experience, have a perfectly understandable superiority complex towards many English people. Then, tragically, conversely, we have the English-speaking Welsh – so many of whom – have an inferiority complex towards the English! The after-math of the evils of industrialisation ay! All linguistic logic… Read more »

Owain Morgan
Owain Morgan
2 years ago

Torygraph states untruths 🙄 How is this news 🤔

Karl
Karl
2 years ago

Imagine if the tory graph ever employed journalists, not just fools with hate agendas. They might want to take a look at Westminster, the true risk to lives. But no, just distraction with hate against us again.

Daniel
Daniel
2 years ago

If you’re stupid enough to crash your car because of confusion over a bilingual sign in a bilingual country then it’s Darwinism in action and there’s one less idiot in the gene pool.

Jokes aside though, I think if there was any truth to this idiotic and xenophobic reporting from the toilet paper news junket, the telegraph. Then it says more about the intelligence of the English readers of said paper, than anything else.

Truth
Truth
2 years ago

Rubbish, better stop teaching French and German in schools and change all the European road signs to suit the English. Once again trying to rid us Welsh from the face of the earth. It’s all to do with second house owners.

Truth
Truth
2 years ago

Thinking about it yeh, apparently thousands of French, German and Spanish people die on uk roads every year because they don’t understand a slow down, arafwch nawr sign. Anti Welsh and attack on a minority again. The article writer just may be tried in court for spreading racial hatred.

Jonny boy
Jonny boy
2 years ago

Does anyone in England have sat nav. They usually get this sort of technology years before us valley heads apparently. Baaaaaa.

Andrew Hutchinson
Andrew Hutchinson
2 years ago

Is this theory of theirs based on any factual evidence or just their opinion? Unfortunately ‘opinion’ seems to carry more clout than evidence, nowadays. With technology giving us such apps as ‘what three words’ and th availability of good old fashioned postcodes, I doubt there’s much in th way of evidence to back this lame theory up. If th Torygraph were really concerned about Welsh lives, maybe they could do a feature on ambulance waiting times, here in Wales. Apparently 3 to 5 hours is pretty much th normal waiting time for an ambulance now (that’s before th huge wait… Read more »

John
2 years ago

Lordy they must be thick,heh

John jones
John jones
2 years ago

What a load of nonsense. They don’t say anything about some parts of London that have English and other foreign languages on signposts. They wouldn’t dare. Because they would be called Racist. But it’s cool to come down on the Welsh language. John. Jones

Karen S.
Karen S.
2 years ago

Never heard such tosh. I am English, living in Wales and have learnt enough to know what they mean. They dont convert signs in other countries so why should Wales. This sort of reporting stirs up trouble.

The Prince of Cardiff
The Prince of Cardiff
2 years ago

Quite right! All the bluddy road signs all over the world are bluddy foreign. Bluddy dangerous!

Colin
Colin
7 months ago

Wales, a very small country with very little GDP decides to spend a fortune trying to resurrect an ancient language that only has any use in said tiny country. Is it any wonder Wales is a mess?

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