Most of us would have come across anti welsh language folk in our time, especially online where people often make a comment and run away before they are proven wrong.
This week there has been an unusually high volume of anti welsh posts due to what has been reported in the news and some papers. I clicked on a few of these profiles and found nearly all wasn't even welsh.
This gave me an idea…
I had some spare time on my hands so I decided to do some of my own unscientific research.
I used my own programming skills to make a few scripts to scan twitter and a few other websites and visited a number of Facebook pages looking for debates on the welsh language.
I then visited the profiles of all of these people. If their location wasn’t clear I done a bit of scanning to determine the locations.
For other people who I couldn’t determine the locations for I had to bend some rules to get their ip addresses and some times home addresses.
After I logged the numbers I deleted all the data I had on these people so no names or addresses are traceable.
What I found shocked me a little…
Of 1608 comments logged from 809 unique people..
442 -53% were from English people living in England
297- 36% English living in Wales
54 -8.6% were welsh people
9-1.1% Scottish
4- 0.49% northern Irish
2- 0.24% united states
7- 0.75 australia
Please note that the percentages may be a little off as my maths is as bad as my English.
What this tells us is 88% of negative comments aimed at the welsh language are from English people.
I long suspected that most were from non-welsh folk but that number shocked me.
I done a bit more digging and found 91% of the positive comments were from people born in Wales.
This isn’t scientific at all and shouldn’t be taken to seriously but for me, it confirms what I know and what nearly all polls have told me.
The Vast majority of welsh people are proud of their language if they speak it or not. It belongs to all of us and we should protect it.
The opinions of the people that matter is what counts.
Can you do similar research for anti Scottish independence comments online?
ReplyDeleteHi Mate, I fear that would be a far bigger project but i will see what i can do.
DeleteDiolch am dy waith Ardderchog
ReplyDeleteMildly surprised. In my experience English people are either indifferent or somewhat curious. It's typically non Welsh speaking Welsh people who are actively negative. Face to face I've heard more Welsh speakers be negative about the language than English people.
ReplyDeleteOut of the 91% of positive comments from people born in Wales. Do you know how many had Welsh parents? Also did you ask people
ReplyDeletewhich nationality they were?
"The Vast majority of welsh people are proud of their language if they speak it or not. ..."
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's just the right time that those proud Welsh people would at least try to learn a bit of a language. Only with speaking and using the language you will be able to shut up the negatives no matter what region they come from and not the other way. If nation who's language is Welsh (I use word "Cymraeg" almost all the time because this is the proper name of the language) doesn't speak it, it can't opose the negatives. Media quarells and "fights" will not help, believe me, neither will demonstrations of all kinds on and off the streets. The nation should speak the language proudly not even thinking or asking themselves if the language is functional or useful to be used/spoken. I've read too many wonderrings about that ... When such questions arise, it shows me the nation is not too willing to truely speak and use the language. There should be the urge to speak/use Cymraeg without any questions at all!
This is not scientific claim from me either and this is the comment of someone who's not Welsh and doesn't live in Wales however I follow the happenings and try to make people aware of need and urge to speak their language.
Greetings from supporter learner and speaker of your beautiful language from Slovenia!
Tatjana Prelog
ymchwil da . good research
ReplyDelete