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Doctoral student completes a PhD in Chemistry entirely in Welsh

cardiff.ac.uk

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Re: Doctoral student completes a PhD in Chemistry entirely in Welsh

#21

Post by kome »

fdsafdsafds wrote: post #17
kome wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, in this case it's preserving a language that is almost dead, because killed by English internal colonialism/centralism so to say, and preserving a language is also a good endeavor.

In fact, I would go further, and say that Welsh in Cardiff is spoken almost exclusively by an upper middle-class "elite". You can say that publishing in Welsh helps preserve the language, but you can't argue that it's good for making science accessible or useful. Edit: >because killed by English internal colonialism/centralism so to say If we trace the origins of the languages currently spoken in the UK, it's much mo…

indeed i was answering TeeMassive’s comment, and not to the main topic. In this case, the goal of writing a PhD in a (all but) dead language, it's to keep it alive, not to be inclusive.

i really don't know what's the social makeup of Welsh speakers (if any); but i understand it's a very niche thing, and not really useful for inclusivity of science; but again: it's not something i was arguing. i was talking about "real" languages with a base of active speakers.

overall, for sure keeping a language alive is a good endeavor on its own, and that was the PhD's goal.

>> If we trace the origins of the languages currently spoken in the UK, it's much more correct to say that all of the original languages were pushed out by foreign influence from the continent.

ahaha, no. welsh it has been killed "recently" by internal policies, about education etc. not because the Normans influence or whatever.

Re: Doctoral student completes a PhD in Chemistry entirely in Welsh

#22

Post by joe__f »

VK538FY wrote: post #12

I think that it's great and he's doing a service for his language. Nothing stops him from providing an abstract or translating the thesis in other languages.

If someone had told me while I was writing up that I should translate my thesis into another language I think my brain would have exploded

Re: Doctoral student completes a PhD in Chemistry entirely in Welsh

#23

Post by thebruce87m »

carlmr wrote: post #19
petesergeant wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a line in a Bill Bryson book about watching Welsh TV, and noticing they used the english term "dirty weekend", as (allegedly?) the Welsh don't have the concept

What's a dirty weekend?

A couple staying away at a hotel. If they already have kids, the kids are definitely not going.

It’s a semi common term in the UK and would be used casually among friends and close workmates to indicate a short break with just you and your partner.

Re: Doctoral student completes a PhD in Chemistry entirely in Welsh

#24

Post by stevekemp »

fdsafdsafds wrote: post #15
kome wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

let me disagree with that; many argues that modern science started with Galileo. The guy knew Latin. But he decided to write in Italian (and not Latin), because he wanted his results to be accessible to "everybody", and useful. I agree that English has reached the Latin status today, but - in the bigger picture - it's just spoken by a cosmopolitan elite, most of the people don't speak it or they don't speak it well.…

In this case, Welsh is not the local language of Cardiff, nor is it for large areas of Wales (judging by % of Welsh speakers).

It might not be spoken by "everybody", but it is an official language.

It was only recently that there was headline news over parking fines being overturned because the demands were not available in Welsh. The fact that the driver could speak/read English was not an adequate defense:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/10/driver-wins-...

The Welsh nation has decided preserving and encouraging the use of their language is a good thing, and they should be saluted for it. Gaelic, and other local languages have suffered due to disuse and neglect, and Welsh is a post-child for the effectiveness of teaching it in schools and "forcing" it to be supported. Usefully.

Re: Doctoral student completes a PhD in Chemistry entirely in Welsh

#25

Post by fdsafdsafds »

kome wrote: post #21
fdsafdsafds wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, I would go further, and say that Welsh in Cardiff is spoken almost exclusively by an upper middle-class "elite". You can say that publishing in Welsh helps preserve the language, but you can't argue that it's good for making science accessible or useful. Edit: >because killed by English internal colonialism/centralism so to say If we trace the origins of the languages currently spoken in the UK, it's much mo…

indeed i was answering TeeMassive’s comment, and not to the main topic. In this case, the goal of writing a PhD in a (all but) dead language, it's to keep it alive, not to be inclusive. i really don't know what's the social makeup of Welsh speakers (if any); but i understand it's a very niche thing, and not really useful for inclusivity of science; but again: it's not something i was arguing. i was talking about "rea…

>i really don't know what's the social makeup of Welsh speakers

There's a helpful map here:

https://datamap.gov.wales/maps/welsh-language-statistics/

Zooming in on Cardiff shows exactly what I described - Welsh is more common (although still rare) in affluent suburbs, and the central part of town along with the poorer suburban housing developments have the lowest level of Welsh.

Outside Cardiff, the effect is essentially reversed - rural areas with a (very) long farming heritage are among the few places where Welsh continues to be used as a daily language.

I think this scenario is quite easily explained due to the amount of funding given to the Welsh language and the corresponding jobs created centreing on Cardiff, as well as the requirement for members of the Welsh Government to speak Welsh.

Re: Doctoral student completes a PhD in Chemistry entirely in Welsh

#26

Post by fdsafdsafds »

stevekemp wrote: post #24
fdsafdsafds wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, Welsh is not the local language of Cardiff, nor is it for large areas of Wales (judging by % of Welsh speakers).

It might not be spoken by "everybody", but it is an official language. It was only recently that there was headline news over parking fines being overturned because the demands were not available in Welsh. The fact that the driver could speak/read English was not an adequate defense: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/10/driver-wins-... The Welsh nation has decided preserving and encouraging the use of thei…

>Welsh is a post-child for the effectiveness of teaching it in schools and "forcing" it to be supported. Usefully.

You can say it's a good thing that an ancient language and corresponding culture is being saved (although I would also argue that draining Welsh speakers from their familial localities by proving strong financial incentives to move to Cardiff is ultimately doing huge damage to the cultural heartlands of Wales), but I can't agree with this statement. Census data shows that Welsh language usage has decreased slightly over the past 10 years, and Welsh-language schools (funded at extra cost to taxpayers as a parallel school system) do not perform as well academically as mainstream schools. Sure, everyone here has done a Welsh GCSE, but it's largely considered a joke and kids boast about how little they learned.

https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/welsh-medium-school-pupils-...

Re: Doctoral student completes a PhD in Chemistry entirely in Welsh

#27

Post by fdsafdsafds »

kome wrote: post #21
fdsafdsafds wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, I would go further, and say that Welsh in Cardiff is spoken almost exclusively by an upper middle-class "elite". You can say that publishing in Welsh helps preserve the language, but you can't argue that it's good for making science accessible or useful. Edit: >because killed by English internal colonialism/centralism so to say If we trace the origins of the languages currently spoken in the UK, it's much mo…

indeed i was answering TeeMassive’s comment, and not to the main topic. In this case, the goal of writing a PhD in a (all but) dead language, it's to keep it alive, not to be inclusive. i really don't know what's the social makeup of Welsh speakers (if any); but i understand it's a very niche thing, and not really useful for inclusivity of science; but again: it's not something i was arguing. i was talking about "rea…

>ahaha, no. welsh it has been killed "recently" by internal policies, about education etc. not because the Normans influence or whatever.

My point exactly. The onwards march of that awful mongrel language English, trampling all of our original Celtic languages, continues to this day!

Re: Doctoral student completes a PhD in Chemistry entirely in Welsh

#28

Post by OfSanguineFire »

petesergeant wrote: post #10
MichaelRo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting observation, a language that hasn't evolved (due to lack of demand) to include scientific terms. Speaking zero Welsh I wonder if the choice for "density functional theory" was specifically chosen to sound "Welsh" instead of going for Anglicisation. Take Romanian, the word for "cheese" goes all the way back to Dacians, but there was no "density functional theory" until rather recently so that was borrowed…

There's a line in a Bill Bryson book about watching Welsh TV, and noticing they used the english term "dirty weekend", as (allegedly?) the Welsh don't have the concept

Always important to note that Bill Bryson has no actual training in linguistics, he’s a journalist that has just turned his hand to whatever subject would pay. His book about language The Mother Tongue has a factual error or misunderstanding on nearly every single page.

Re: Doctoral student completes a PhD in Chemistry entirely in Welsh

#29

Post by OfSanguineFire »

jmopp wrote: post #9
Bostonian wrote: post #2

No, it's not. If Owain (the PhD who wrote his thesis in Welsh) wanted to be productive and advance his field, he would want his research to have the largest audience possible. Quoting the article: 'In his thesis, ‘Astudiaeth Gyfrifiadurol o Synthesis a Sefydlogrwydd Defnyddiau Mandyllog Anorganig’, Owain used computational science to see how porous materials could be used for green energy processes and sustainable ch…

In order for a language to be used for science, it has to be made that way. For instance, 150 years ago Afrikaans was considered nothing more than corrupted Dutch. But the Afrikaner nationalists - for all their faults - did put a lot of effort into bringing the language to a similar standard as English: establishing universities, ensuring there was scientific and industrial vocabulary, and so on. They often took the…

Nowadays the momentum for the evolution of Afrikaans has passed from South Africa’s white Afrikaners (who have been shifting to English outside the farming community) to the Coloureds (for whom it serves as an important cornerstone of ethnic identity). Already there has been a lot of complaint that standardized descriptions of Afrikaans fail to account for how the Coloureds use the language, and moreover I’m not sure the Coloureds care so much about Afrikaans as a language of technical description and science, they may be content with an English–Afrikaans diglossia in that regard.

Re: Doctoral student completes a PhD in Chemistry entirely in Welsh

#30

Post by Terr_ »

kome wrote: post #13
TeeMassive wrote: post #11

I get it. I'm a native French Canadian Speaker. My maternal tongue is important to me, to us. But when it comes to science, English is the Lingua Franca of STEM. The giant leaps that humanity has achieved over the past 500 years were made because people on the shoulder of giants; who spoke the lingua franca of the time. Back then Latin, now English.

let me disagree with that; many argues that modern science started with Galileo. The guy knew Latin. But he decided to write in Italian (and not Latin), because he wanted his results to be accessible to "everybody", and useful. I agree that English has reached the Latin status today, but - in the bigger picture - it's just spoken by a cosmopolitan elite, most of the people don't speak it or they don't speak it well.…

> I agree that English has reached the Latin status today, but - in the bigger picture - it's just spoken by a cosmopolitan elite, most of the people don't speak it or they don't speak it well.

No way, English is nowhere close to the Galileo-era Latin status.

If that were true, then Americans and British and Australians etc. would be learning it as a second-language just to communicate with one-another, because their native/local usage would have fragmented to badly that each would have its own new name.

Also, there are few hundred million people in the world who speak English but are hardly "the cosmopolitan elite" because they learned it natively without relying on any additional education and/or live in rural areas.

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