Letter to The Editor

Peter puts forward the view that it is not necessarily sensible to artificially prolong the life of the Welsh language!

Dear Ray,

May I be permitted to respond to Marion Clarke's letter regarding the Welsh language?

I'm not totally convinced that we need mourn the loss of any or every single 'niche' language. In this day and age, peoples, cultures and eventually languages , spread, integrate, ebb and flow. That is just how it is.

A further truism in this area of discussion is that no language has a God given right to exist forever. The demise of once dominant written and oral languages in the recent past, Ancient Greek, Latin, Sandscript etc would appear to confirm this, as would the other lost languages from the thousands of years of human existence before this.

Also I'm not convinced that artificially prolonging the life of a language that is naturally dying away is necessarily useful to anyone except perhaps academics, and that is maybe the area where such languages should finally repose.

For good or bad, English is becoming the world language. Through the advent of the computer age, domininated by English speaking technology and companies, 'P.C.s and laptops for all" has added great momentum to spread of English. Further, the mandated requirement that English is the operating language of Aviation and Air Travel has further pushed this spread. I'm sure there are many other areas where similar trends are under way.

Like the seasons of the year and the ebb and flow of the tide, some things are beyond our control...this I fear is just another.

Peter Bodle