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Welsh announcements
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telstarbox
Established Member
Predictive text disaster?
Recorded annos should be in English and Welsh on stations - the order can change depending on where you are. Are you talking about recorded or manual annos?
On trains, selected station names are displayed in Welsh/English (like Cryw/Crewe) but all Doris annos are in English only.
On trains, selected station names are displayed in Welsh/English (like Cryw/Crewe) but all Doris annos are in English only.
I grew up in Newport; bilingual announcements have been standard for quite a long time, despite the proportion of Welsh speakers in the local population being in the single digits percent. (It's higher now amongst the population since elements of Welsh in education have, I understand, become mandatory).
TGVDUDE
Member
The only people I know to speak welsh regularly around here (Bridgend) are the teachers themselves! West of Swansea is more speakers can be commonly found however.
merlodlliw
Established Member
Well dont worry,Gobowen made up for it for a few years as a station, what trains have you in mind, several tocs serve Wales
ChiefPlanner
Established Member
Figures released this week show the Welsh language continues to decline ....(but around 500,000) - thought this thread was about some exciting new spend on the railways.
Cardiff Central certainly (WE), Swansea (WE) and Newport (EW).
Apparently the order was swapped at Newport because platform alterations were taking too long to be realised by pax.
On-train annos are in English only, with the displays showing bilingual station names for a select few stations - my favourite being Cryw/Crewe, excepting stations which have a Welsh name but no corresponding English name (Ty Croes for example)
Interestingly, the Whitchurch in Shropshire is translated as Eglwys Wen, presumably because that is the translation for Whitchurch Cardiff.
One other QI thing I've noticed - the Welsh word for "cancelled" - dileu - is pronounced "delay." Confused?
Apparently the order was swapped at Newport because platform alterations were taking too long to be realised by pax.
On-train annos are in English only, with the displays showing bilingual station names for a select few stations - my favourite being Cryw/Crewe, excepting stations which have a Welsh name but no corresponding English name (Ty Croes for example)
Interestingly, the Whitchurch in Shropshire is translated as Eglwys Wen, presumably because that is the translation for Whitchurch Cardiff.
One other QI thing I've noticed - the Welsh word for "cancelled" - dileu - is pronounced "delay." Confused?
PHILIPE
Veteran Member
Sorry to have to correct you, but Whitchurch (Cardiff) is Eglwys Newydd (New Church)
Gwenllian2001
Member
Since only the island platform is in normal use at Newport, it would be difficult anyone about changes. Incidentally, the word is not pronounced as 'delay' unless you happen to be a Londoner or possibly Australian.
Only the island platform in normal use? Eh? Last few times I was at Newport I've arrived on 1 and left from 4....
61653 HTAFC
Veteran Member
A few years back I changed at Shrewsbury every couple of weeks (Me studying in Ormskirk, my girlfriend in Aberystwyth- so those were fun weekends!) and was surprised to hear announcements in Welsh first, then English despite being East of the border. Don't know if the situation is the same now though.
merlodlliw
Established Member
Welsh has a lot of Mutations, not always meaning the same as English.
They now only play English announcements at Shrewsbury.
I'm a supporter of the encouragement of minority languages, but have to agree with other posters that the proportion of speakers of the language in the local area should be considered when choosing the order announcements are played in. For example, why is Welsh played first in Cardiff when only 11.1% of the population can speak Welsh? (Source: BBC). On the same front, the North West of Wales around Gwynedd would clearly benefit from having Welsh announcements first.
Gwenllian2001
Member
That seems a fair question on first sight but don't forget that people using the station at Cardiff will be from all parts of Wales and beyond.
merlodlliw
Established Member
This applies to the Counties of Gwynydd & Anglesey, where most Welsh is spoken in North Wales, least Welsh is spoken in Flintshire & Wrexham as you would expect from Border Counties
PHILIPE
Veteran Member
There are no mutations involved here. Originally there was originally a chapel there which later closed when a new church was built, the chapel being called "Yr Eglwys Wen". There is now a Primary school on the site which takes this original name. So when the new church was built, it became known as "Yr Eglwys Newydd" (The new church). Note the full title of "Yr etc.,". Yr (The) often precedes place names but is not always used in practice in conversation among Welsh speakers.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Virtually every eastbound train uses Platforms 3 0r 4 alternately. For much of the time there are trains 5 minutes apart and what used to happen is that when using the same platform trains were cheked on approach if the preceding train was marginally adrift. Platform 1 is used much less and only if pathing makes difficult to use 2. It may be used also for trains that reverse there, i.e,. turning back there in lieu of Cardiff if late running or STP arrangements/Engineering work.
It won't equal 50% of passengers though and as I alluded to before, how many of those cannot speak English?
Surely bi-lingual announcements are appropriate only when there is reasonable expectation that passengers who cannot understand English might be using the station in significant numbers?
For example, announcements in French at St Pancras International would be sensible.
PHILIPE
Veteran Member
It is a legal requirement in Wales for all public bodies to adopt a bi-lingual policy. There are moves to force private companies to do likewise but there is massive opposition to this - cost purposes.
merlodlliw
Established Member
PHILIPE
Veteran Member
In the case of Coed Llandegla cant answer this one so suspect somebody has slipped up.
Croeso i Goedpoeth would be correct as a mutation (c to g) takes place after "i". We have seen "Eglwys Wen" on the thread, "wen" being a mutation of "gwyn" (white) following a singular female noun (Welsh has genders) i.e eglwys. "Wen" is an anomaly as one would normally drop the "g".
Waiting at Cardiff Central once and hearing a train to Penarth announced it struck me that you can spell Penarth 4 different ways due to various mutations :-
(1) Penarth - Just Penarth, i.e. answer to queston
(2) Ym Mhenarth - in Penarth
(3) i Benarth -To Penarth
(4) a Phenarth- and Penarth
When Coryton was announced there was no mutation as Coryton is an English name with ni Welsh equivalent.
Croeso i Goedpoeth would be correct as a mutation (c to g) takes place after "i". We have seen "Eglwys Wen" on the thread, "wen" being a mutation of "gwyn" (white) following a singular female noun (Welsh has genders) i.e eglwys. "Wen" is an anomaly as one would normally drop the "g".
Waiting at Cardiff Central once and hearing a train to Penarth announced it struck me that you can spell Penarth 4 different ways due to various mutations :-
(1) Penarth - Just Penarth, i.e. answer to queston
(2) Ym Mhenarth - in Penarth
(3) i Benarth -To Penarth
(4) a Phenarth- and Penarth
When Coryton was announced there was no mutation as Coryton is an English name with ni Welsh equivalent.
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Everything about this post is wrong.
Gwenllian2001
Member
For some reason it did not appear as written. It should have read:
'Since only the island platform is in normal use at Newport, it would not be difficult to quickly inform anyone about any changes.'
The second sentence is correct and makes perfect sense.
PHILIPE
Veteran Member
Your correction is still incorrect about platform use at Newport. Please refer to earlier posts today re platform usage which explains this.
tbtc
Veteran Member
This comes at a time when there are probably more people speaking Polish in the UK than there are speaking Welsh:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-say-English-mother-tongue.html#axzz2JmfFIy41
This surprised me, given the amount of resources being pumped into teaching kids Welsh at school.
Obviously "language" can be a very subjective thing - "being educated in something at school" may be the same as "being able to hold a basic conversation in it if necessary" but not the same as "speaks it fluently as a first choice".
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-say-English-mother-tongue.html#axzz2JmfFIy41
This surprised me, given the amount of resources being pumped into teaching kids Welsh at school.
Obviously "language" can be a very subjective thing - "being educated in something at school" may be the same as "being able to hold a basic conversation in it if necessary" but not the same as "speaks it fluently as a first choice".
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